Politics is personal. Let me illustrate, yet again.
My wife was living in a small village in Bohemia as a kid. She had to take the bus to go to school in the closest town. One day, the cool guy from the school, a few grades older, confronted her on the bus with a question: “Sparta or Slavia?”
She was petrified. She was in love with the guy so she had to give the right answer but she had no idea as she had no interest in soccer whatsoever. She picked Slavia, which happened to be the right answer. The boy looked at her and said: “OK.”
She was elated and considers that decision one of the luckiest of her life.
Taking sides is one of the first thing we learn as children. Much before we learn and understand the complexity of moral decisions. Taking sides is an essential part of defining our identities. Your social life also depends on it.
I was a bit younger when I spent a few weeks in two Summers in a small village bordering Slovakia. The border was the Ipoly river, a slow moving 10-30 meters wide tributary to the Danube. Our job, as children, was to take the geese to the fields after harvest to graze on the fallen grain.
On the other side of the river, there was a village and naturally, ‘our’ guys were at a slingshot war with the ones on the other side. One day, as we were sitting on the tree-branches looking for targets, an adult come to the river on the other side of the border, genuinely distressed. “Why are you doing this?” - he asked – “We may be on the other side of the border, but we are Hungarians just like you. We are not the enemy; we want to be part of you.”
I still remember the shame we all felt. It raised the identity question onto a whole new level, and even as children, we all understood. They were not just the people from the next village, the other side of the creek or an international border; they spoke our language, they shared our history, they were part of us, yet hopelessly separated.
Our identity is a big deal, because no matter how deeply it is rooted in facts and reality, it is still a mainly emotional stance.
After I wrote my post about my little sister (the mass murderer) she didn’t talk to me for half a year. Just like the friends I mentioned in Corruption corrupts, the merits of what I said did not matter at all; just her perception that it was an attack on her person.
We are trying to avoid politics in our conversations, but she still is an inexhaustible source of leftist – what could be an acceptable word…. – let’s say ‘manifestations’ that I cannot help but sharing.
In our last conversation, we were mostly talking about my wife’s and her husband’s health, but in the end she asked a more general ‘how are you’ question.
I told her about my general concerns about the state of the Canadian economy, the real estate crush here and in the US, carefully avoiding subjects that are openly political.
In the minds of the left, economic fluctuations, real estate bubbles, exchange rate volatility and the likes are acts of nature. They are safe subjects.
Things that are not caused by politics, but things that politicians should save us from. Things that we are powerless to handle on our own.
When I reciprocated asking how things are in Hungary, she said: “Orbán is hosting Trump and Putin so that they can divide Ukraine between each other so that Trump can get the Nobel peace prize.”
I cannot remember the exact words she used, but the way she was saying it was dripping of venom. Like the good liberal she is, she passionately hates all three. Maybe Viktor the most, as he is the one closest.
I told her that I cannot take the Nobel peace prize seriously since Obama got it just for being elected as the first Black president of the US.
“I thought he got it for getting Bin Laden” she said. No, I said, that happened two years later. “Well, I am pretty sure, but anyway, I liked Obama more than Trump”, she said, then we ended the conversation.
I was speechless. Not for the fact that she was wrong, but for the twisted morality that the mistake implies.
Barak Obama approved the operation and was watching it live from the White House. He approved the infiltration of a sovereign country with a clandestine military force to assassinate one of America’s enemies. He broke international law and all legal norms.
I wrote a post about it expressing my disgust:
https://zorkthehun.substack.com/p/obamas-heroism-osamas-martyrdom
It’s not only that my committed liberal sister didn’t find anything wrong with that; she even considered it worthy for the Nobel Peace Prize! Assuming that peace means victory for your side at any cost and by any means. Also assuming that this is the globally accepted norm.
I don’t want to over-analyze the mistake, but it is the perfect example of the leftist mindset. The virtuous side against evil where the professed good and righteous intentions not only excuse but justify everything.
This was part of the points I was trying to make in My little sister, the mass murderer. She didn’t get it, still doesn’t and probably never will.
Her comment on the Budapest meeting was just another example.
As I am writing this, the meeting plans have been already cancelled, but what matters in this context is the inevitable evolution of the leftist narrative. The 1984 style rewriting of history in real time. The old narrative of ‘the heroic Ukrainians vs the incompetent loser Russians’ is still around, but it is slowly morphing into ‘the two evil dictators divi up the land of the helpless Ukrainians’ narrative.
The cognitive dissonance is a transitional phase between the narratives. Timelines are just as irrelevant as that of the Obama Nobel prize and the Bin laden assassination. Those who control the past, control the future.
The only thing that matters is who’s side you are on: Sparta or Slavia?
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References
The Chekist (1992) - IMDb
I keep recommending this movie. The quality is poor, but it is a must to see if you want to understand what drives the left. Victory for the idea at any cost.
The Chekist - Movie [Eng Subs]
Childhood is when you learn the importance of tribe, and sports teaches this all the way thru to World Cup, Olympics etc. Communities competing for whatever prize. This is the civilized world.
Barbarians live within their tribe and compete for dominance over another weaker tribe. The Western melting pot which is North America has forgotten this due to the propagandized BS of multiculturalism. Soft times, soft men.
It's time for the West to tribe up and remigrate the barbarians before we have to do the assimilating.
Hello, I’d like to recommend a few authors, resources to you and maybe to your sister although she sounds hopeless.
Watch the film The Money Masters (1996), look it up on odysse.
Listen to Richard Werner. While I fully distrust Tucker C (he’s a CO) his interview with Richard is a good start, then the one with Catherine Austin Fitts is also good.
For a bigger picture Whitney Webb’s book is great: One nation under blackmail (although it should read one world under blackmail).
The work of Anneke Lucas is also very enlightening.