Charlie Stross23h ago

Holy shit.

Hungary’s New Leader Reveals Viktor Orbán Was Paying CPAC

Magyar noted that his government will be investigating Orbán’s expenditures, and will no longer finance CPAC or other right-wing institutions abroad.

https://newrepublic.com/post/209035/hungary-prime-minister-victor-orban-paying-cpac

Hungary’s New Leader Reveals Viktor Orbán Was Paying CPAC

Péter Magyar called the payments a “crime” and said his government would stop the funds.

The New Republic
Show threadmilitant_dilettante
@cstross a person, whose Telegram channel I'm reading since 2022, has this take: every known (far-)right politician contemporary to us is a scam, a fraud, a con artist, a grifter, and a thief. This heuristic more or less holds, with almost no exceptions.
8:35amMoshidon
Show threadCharlie Stross11h ago
@militant_dilettante I suspect there used to be some who weren't, who genuinely thought they were doing the right thing for their nation … and they got shoved out of the way or trampled by the mob. And then there's Liz Truss, who *believes* every scam, fraud, and grift they feed her and earnestly regurgitates them without understanding what it's really about (she's the comic relief on the lecture circuit).
Show threadmilitant_dilettante11h ago
@cstross oh, yes, there might be some types of "true believers", and there might be some incredibly gullible persons. I think, we have both locally, within the so called "Z-movement" for example, and in other places.
Liz-Who-Didn't-Outlive-A-Head-Of-Salad?
Show threadFrank Bennett 🇯🇵10h ago
@cstross @militant_dilettante If Liz wanted to remedy her public image, she could (pay whatever gatekeeping fee they charge and) join Reform, and then attend a public event with a Comic Relief nose-pincher.
Show threadmilitant_dilettante10h ago

@fgbjr @cstross Would the Reform take her, though? Taking into account that her campaign slogans/punchlines would be something along the lines of "I WILL CUT YOU, SALAD!!"

I might be using an incorrect grocery term for a leafy vegetable, a refrigerated specimen of which had outlasted Truss in her shooting-star-like career as a Prime Minister of the UK. English is obviously not my first language.

Show threadCharlie Stross10h ago
@militant_dilettante @fgbjr It was a head of lettuce—which is indisputably a salad leaf. (Watery and tasteless at that.)
Show threadCharlie Stross10h ago
@fgbjr @militant_dilettante Or she could flee to Dubai or Argentina and publish a tell-all autobiography explaining how she was recruited by the KGB in the upper fifth at Roundhay Grammar School in Leeds and groomed to destabilize the UK by her controller, one V. Putin. At which point … she wouldn't be *popular*, exactly, but her reputation for ineptitude and stupidity would instantly flip upside-down.
Show threadmilitant_dilettante10h ago

@cstross @fgbjr A good strategy, although there is one wrinkle in this storyline (do not tell Liz about it!). V.V.Putin was totally devoted to Germany, and Germanosphere. I doubt he knows even the basic conversational English.

On the other hand, all this East Germany, BRD business of the balding little man could have been one big ruse, and he might be secretly very language-proficient, and a huge UK-nerd (or a general British Isles nerd).

Show threadMarcus Marcius Marcellus9h ago
@militant_dilettante @cstross @fgbjr I don't know how devoted Putin is to all things German. But having watched the broadcast of his speech, many years ago, to the Bundestag, I can confirm that his German is very good.
Show threadJdeBP10h ago

@fgbjr

#ReformUKLtd won't touch #LizTruss with a barge pole.

#NigelFarage has already gone out of his way to avoid being photographed with her at events that they have both attended.

And this despite Truss having money to pay. She has a well-financed social media operation and is touring the U.S.A. claiming that she will spearhead an English version of MAGA.

Reform U.K. Ltd has nonetheless clearly drawn the line at letting her in.

@cstross @militant_dilettante

Show threadmilitant_dilettante10h ago
@JdeBP @fgbjr @cstross Well, to chase the awkward and not very smart joke into its swampy shallow grave: does that mean that the "Reform U.K.K.K. Ltd." is firmly on the side of lettuce and other leafy greens?
Show threadFazal Majid9h ago
@JdeBP @fgbjr @cstross @militant_dilettante that’s a very low bar for sanity
Show threadMarcus Marcius Marcellus9h ago
@cstross @militant_dilettante When AfD was formed, it was not a nazi party. Its founders were ordoliberal* economists whose idea was to withdraw Germany from the eurozone to alleviate the Greek debt crisis. (As a € state, Greece could no longer kill debt by devaluing the drachma. AfD figured German withdrawal would effectively devalue the euro.)
1/n
Show threadMarcus Marcius Marcellus9h ago

@cstross @militant_dilettante These were pretty right-wing guys, but more from the business than from the blood & soil faction. They weren't nazis, and they were true believers.

They were all (including the founder) purged in about 10 seconds by the nazis and expelled from the party. One of the leaders of the (now) homophobic, economic-populist, xenophobic AfD is a lesbian ex-investment banker who lives in Switzerland with her Sri Lankan partner.
2/n

Show threadMarcus Marcius Marcellus9h ago
@cstross @militant_dilettante * Ordoliberals are not like liberals in the UK sense, let alone the American. They are spiritual heirs to the British ministers who refused to stop food exports from Ireland during the Famine because that would have violated the sacred laws of The Market.
3/3
Show threadmilitant_dilettante7h ago
@marcas @cstross Thank you, that was informative and interesting.
"Ordoliberals" sounds peculiar and funny in my language, because of all this staff that happened between the thing that later became my country, and the Golden Horde, the Ulus of Jochi, which in my language is pronounced as "orda".
Show threadJames Holden8h ago
@militant_dilettante @cstross I keep coming back to lack of empathy on this subject. People without empathy are born grifters. Elon Musk is clearly stated that he views empathy as a weakness. The thing that actually saves us, is that doing anything with the power they’ve managed to gain, governing, negotiating, requires an understanding of what the other parties involved want. And if you haven’t got empathy, you will never get that, and cannot execute your plans.
Show threadmilitant_dilettante7h ago
@jamesholden - PSHHH! Let's not give those psychopaths ideas on weaponizing empathy agains us!
Show threadJames Holden7h ago
@militant_dilettante They won’t, they don’t understand what it is.
Show threadmilitant_dilettante7h ago
@jamesholden - but what if **moves eyebrows to denote the significance of following words** - WHAT IF AN AI EXPLAINS EMPATHY TO THEM?
Show threadDaniel4h ago
@militant_dilettante @cstross I wonder more often recently: shouldn’t ‚traitor‘ also be on that list? And some corresponding prosecution, ideally?
Show threadThomas =:-)3h ago
@militant_dilettante @cstross I think the word here is axiomatic…