European Union lawmakers on Thursday declared that Hungary has become “a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy” under the leadership of its nationalist government, and that its undermining of the bloc’s democratic values had taken Hungary out of the community of democracies.
In a resolution that passed 433-to-123 with 28 abstentions, the parliamentarians raised concerns about Hungary’s constitutional and electoral systems, judicial independence, possible corruption, public procurement irregularities, LGBTQ+ rights, as well as media, academic and religious freedoms.
Meanwhile, there are these interesting observations about democracy and what radical right autocrat billionaires want:
Today, a handful of billionaires fund far-right, anti-Islamic, anti-immigrant, and/or ultra-nationalist political figures, movements, and alternative media personalities. Their aim is to push mainstream politics further to the right, as mainstream politicians fear losing voters to the new extreme parties. But how can elites get working people to support policies that are against their own interests? The answer is to divert them from the real causes of their misery—austerity, privatization, economic deregulation, and disinvestment, i.e., the very policies supported by billionaires—and, instead, play on their anger over immigrants and Islam.
In the US, concerns have been raised about President Trump’s affiliations with far-right hate groups and the political support he receives from those groups. Robert Mercer is a billionaire hedge fund manager and CEO of Renaissance Technologies. A Trump donor, Mercer worked with Trump’s short-lived strategist, Steve Bannon, to make Breitbart News a platform for the so-called alternative right, or “alt-right.”Using Facebook, Cambridge Analytica also worked with employees of Palantir, a data-mapping company set up with CIA money and owned by a billionaire tech entrepreneur, the PayPal co-founder, Peter Thiel. Thiel has openly stated that democracy is incompatible with capitalism. Thiel was a big investor in Facebook and Reddit, the latter being a message board that worked “meme magic” to help boost Trump’s profile on social media.Fascism and capitalism have an incestuous history. Capitalists want “strongmen” politicians who aren’t afraid to use violence to crush unions and make economies more appealing to international investors. US Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler (Ret.) testified that in 1933, following the Wall Street Crash of ’29, leaders of banking and industry plotted to install a fascist regime in the US rather than allow the New Deal social investment program.We don’t have fascism yet, but who knows where a heavily-funded, international far-right might end up?
Radical right billionaire Peter Thiel wrote this in 2009:
The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.
In the face of these realities, one would despair if one limited one’s horizon to the world of politics. I do not despair because I no longer believe that politics encompasses all possible futures of our world. In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms — from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called “social democracy.”
Those pesky libertarians. They want to completely do away with politics and government. As we all know, that would free up a lot of power. That power would not simply disappear. Where would it flow? Certainly not to regular people. Power would flow to ruthless, arrogant billionaire capitalist autocrats like Thiel and the elites who run the Republican Party and its Christian nationalism political movement. Those infallible people know what is best for us, even if it kills us.
Sounds to me like Thiel is, more or less, another totalitarian (or at least authoritarian), fundamentalist catastrophe just itching to get the power needed to fix what ails all of us, especially our civil liberties.
Q: Is it time to tax the hell out of billionaires, including ones who preserve their vast wealth in the form of tax exempt or privileged charities or foundations that last forever?[1]
Is it time to get rid of all tax breaks for all charities and to eliminate non-profit status in tax law, i.e., what does the cost-benefit analysis look like (I suspect the costs far outweigh the benefits)?
Footnote:
1. For example, the authoritarian, radical right Koch brothers foundation injects a lot of mischief into American politics. It will continue to do so for generations to come. American taxpayers heavily subsidize the very organization that wants to reduce them to serfs. Wikipedia comments:
The brothers have made significant financial contributions to both libertarian and conservative think tanks and, despite being ideologically libertarian,[6][7] they have donated primarily to Republican Party candidates running for office.[8] According to writer Eric Black, this funding doesn't stem from "a change of heart, but one of tactics" since libertarianism "was costly and could be bad for the family business long term.[8] David Koch who has described himself as a social liberal, had stated in 2012 that" I think the Republican Party has a great chance of being successful and that’s why I support it [...] The Libertarian Party is a great concept. I love the ideals, but it got too far off the deep end, and so I dropped out".[8] A network of like-minded donors organized by the Kochs pledged to spend $889 million from 2009–2016 and its infrastructure has been said by Politico to rival "that of the Republican National Committee."[9] They actively fund and support organizations that contribute significantly to Republican candidates, and in particular that lobby against efforts to expand government's role in health care and climate change mitigation[10] or promote climate change denial.[11][12][13][14][15] By 2010, they had donated more than $100 million to dozens of free-market and advocacy organizations.
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