By UME
For more than ten years, some hateful media campaigns have been running.
Who are the actors? What methods do they use?
An analysis by our Hungary correspondent Elmar Forster
Casus belli: Orban wins the 2010 election
Only four months after Prime Minister Orban came to power (on 29.5.2010), the Austro-Hungarian standard journalist Paul Lendvai alluded to the National Socialist abuse of the “Deutschlandliede” (1841) with an ambiguous article (“Orbán über alles“, 8.10.2010).
Lendvai spoke of Hungary’s “unstoppable move towards an authoritarian order that removes the constitutional limits of power built in 1989–1990.” The same newspaper had already predicted a failure of Orban’s economic policy under “Good Greek, Evil Hungarian” (24.7.2010) – and should ultimately be completely wrong.
The Austrian “Weekend” magazine even headlined a kind of end-time fight in 2016 (on the occasion of a football match): “Good against evil“. The heads of the Austrian Chancellor Kern and the Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán were mounted. During the refugee crisis in 2015, fake news was deliberately disseminated: for example, the lie image of Bicske. (The US channel fox-news has decouvred this).
The Method: Internationally Orchestrated Demonization
The disinformation on the Corona Emergency Law (2020) was triggered by the Hungarian opposition with a Putin comparison: “This is called a dictatorship.” (Tímea Szabó, “Dialogue”) Then Hungarian MEP Cseh Katalin flanked:
“The unlimitedness of the Enabling Act (!) is anti-democratic.”” Then the Western media followed: “The Corona emergency package removes the last obstacles to absolute power.” (ARD)
Most recently, international NGOs followed up: “Under the guise of the coronavirus, Orbán took absolute power.” (K. Roth, Director of Human-Rights-Watch) (all quotes in Magyar nemzet)
The fact is: HRW is supported by Soros.
In the end, the whole production was a pipe dream, because “Orbán had (only) done a favor with it” (Ivo Mijnssen, NZZ – Europastudio) Because the jointly proclaimed “hate object Orbán” manifested nothing else than “the failed attempt to invent a dictatorship“. (Philosophia perennis) (The Austro-Hungarian lawyer Dr. Eva-Maria Barki has refuted the untenable accusations.)
The discrediting campaigns are repeated at will…: Again, the Standard is involved: “Student protests in Budapest against ‘Cultural Revolution from the right‘“. (3.9.2020) – Or: “Austrian Authors’ Collectives Slander Hungary: The ‘Goldmensch Scandal ́” (see my analysis on AUT)
US regime change in Hungary ?
The accusations are reduced to an Orwellian framing: dismantling the rule of law and democracy. – But are these only part of a “mega-manipulation” in the context of so-called “regime changes”, in the form of asymmetric warfare against inappropriate, because sovereign nation states?
A US pamphlet on civil resistance (“From dictatorship to democracy“, written by the founder of the »Albert Einstein Institution«, A. Sharp, 1928 – 2018) dates back to 1993. As early as February 2000, Serbian opposition activists (as part of the ‘Otpor’ resistance movement) were trained in Budapest to overthrow the autocrat Milosevic (on 5 October 2003).
Everything was financed by the US NGO ‘Freedom House‘ (FH). It publishes an annual democracy watchlist that discredits the insubordinate nation states of Hungary and Poland: “FH study: Hungary and Poland leave the group of democracies“. (Courier)
The fact is: FH is financed by the Soros Foundation Open Society (furthermore by Google, Facebook and the arms company BAE).
Austrian “Der Standard” pursues East racist demonization
The anti-Hungarian campaign, recently launched by standard journalist Gregor Mayer (Residence Budapest), makes use of precisely these usual enemy images.
“Dozens of Student_innen of the prestigious (!) Budapest Theatre University has barricaded itself in the building (!) … They demand the restoration of the autonomy that the government of law (!) populist (!) Orbán taken away (!) has.” (DerStandard)
The text is full of Eastern racist prejudices and stylistic resentments about political backwardness, as well as oriental potentates:
“The driving force is the President of the Board of Trustees Vidnyánszky. He accumulates influential offices … at. He is Orbán’s chief theatre commissioner (!), comes from the Hungarian minority (!) in Carpathian Ukraine (!) . His autocratic (!) Habitus shaped his studies in the then Soviet (!) Kiev… His hatred (!) was directed against the established scene.”” (ibid.)
One thing is always concealed: that of course Western cultural institutions are also occupied by politics. Shortly before handing over to the (Green) Lunacek, the Austrian Minister of Culture Edtstadler (ÖVP) quickly appointed three new chairmen of the Board of Trustees. According to the opposition, however, there would have been “no substantive justification” for this. (ThePress) – An open, albeit taboo, secret in Austria is the federalist party book-school system: Because here “the party-political college of the state school council decides on (the) individual (directors) applicants.” (Profile)
In the Standard report, the means of demonization is used: Vidnyánszky becomes a “mystical(!) –nationalist (!) Weltbild“. He is said to be driven by an “obsession” (! a psychopathological obsession!) because, in his opinion, “Hungarian theatre is ‘contaminated‘ by a left-left spirituality (! The origin of the quote is not proven !) .
The means of denigration is illustrated in a kind of pirate and coup jargon: From the “hijacking (!) of the Theater-Uni” is there the speech, or other “autocratic (!) Measures aimed at elimination (!) critical culture.” (ibid.) Unsustainable accusations are repeated like a prayer wheel: for example, that “the media are largely centralized and homogenized.”
In reality, however, such accusations are projections of the conditions in the Western media sector: “This is how the (socialist) municipality of Vienna invests money to bribe the media.” (Andreas Unterberger, former editor-in-chief of DiePresse and WienerZeitung) – Meanwhile, 45% of those surveyed consider the term “lying press” to be justified. (Profile) For Germany, a study on the welcome culture press is available: “The media made themselves the mouthpiece of the political elite and ignored the concerns of the population.” (Cicero)
Nationalist resentments are served: “Many of the best (!) Teachers resigned, among them … Viktor Bodó, who regularly stages in Austria (!).” – However, it is also implemented that the best cultural workers can only ever be left-liberal.
Soros’ Austrian refugee lobbyist steps into the ring
The second campaign uses a perfidious meta-[1]level: by imputing a Hungarian media campaign against a “Soros lobbyist“; again by means of patriotic propaganda: “Hungary’s campaign against Austrians” (ORF, 11.9.2020)
The method: Any criticism of the migration agenda is accused of being close to the government and restricting freedom of expression
“The pro-government Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet began the internationally renowned (!) Experts and heads of the European Stability Initiative (ESI) as ‘lobbyists’ of the Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros “to” “unmask”.
The fact is that the ESI is funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF). It lobbies against Hungary and for the refugee agenda.
Although Knaus describes this Hungarian “media campaign as ‘very intimidating'” (ORF), the most prominent Orban critic (the profile, standard and dpa journalist), G. Mayer, still lives in his adopted home of Budapest. – Here, for example, the left-liberal writer György Konrád (in January 2018) had let himself be carried away by a kind of death threat – against a democratically elected prime minister: “Orban should voluntarily disappear somewhere, he does not want to end up like Ceausescu.” (hvg)
The accusation of ingratitude made against Orban (“Soros and his OSF – from which Orban himself once received money as a young opposition politician” – ORF) subtly calls for a kind of godfather’s vow of silence.
The fact is that Soros’ OSF supports the “network of investigative journalists”. Any non-left-wing Soros-skeptical research, however, is always denounced as incitement: That “Knaus and his think tank ESI … a new communication offensive against Hungary“. – But it was Knaus himself who (in a Twitter conversation with the controversial ORF journalist Wolf) self-indulgently announced this campaign (with a threatening reference to his new refugee agenda book (“What borders do we need?“): “Some in Hungary are unhappy about our work? Why? Hm…”
The food envy reflex is also activated:
“Hungary, which has been relatively little affected by the pandemic, has been awarded 5.6 billion euros. … Italy received only 2.3 billion.” (ORF) – “‘But it was a perfect deal for Orban.'” (ESI in ORF)
US doctrine “Operations other than war”
The fact is the existence of a US doctrine (“Training and Doctrine Command Pamphlet 525–5” – 1994). The method: Targeted destabilization of states, for the purpose of US-affine “regime changes“. The instrument: “Operations other than War“, among other things through so-called “Democracy Promotion” (“National Endowment for Democracy“). This resulted in the script for all “color revolutions“, for the “Arab Spring“. – The example of the Ukrainian Euro-Maidan (November 2013 – February 2014) illustrates the escalation levels described: turmoil (Maidan), crisis (Slavyansk) and conflict (Crimea). (Mega-manipulation, see above)
All these terms would thus be an Orwellian conditioning of language and reality into the opposite: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”” Here: War is democracy.
US Special Representative Goodfriend from Syria to Budapest
The foreign policy career of US envoy A. Goodfriend is striking. The studied communications specialist (e.g. for so-called “conflict prevention strategies“) was consul general at the US Embassy in Syria, Damascus (from August 2009 to February 2012) during the “Arab Spring” (from December 2010) – in 2011 the “Arabellion” jumped over to Syria…
He then served as envoy to the Hungarian US Embassy in Budapest (August 2013 – February 2015). In the summer of 2013, Hungary ended relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In October 2014, the Obama administration imposed an entry ban on Hungarian government officials (Proclamation 7750). Reasons for this were not given. The information is said to have been leaked via “a news agency and Hungarian press releases“. In the crosshairs of the plot: The President of the Hungarian Tax and Customs Authority, Ildikó Vida. Then the German-speaking PesterLloyd (without concrete evidence) accused several people close to the government (including Fidesz MP J. Lázár, Orban’s head of cabinet at the time). In a Facebook video, the US Embassy made the most serious accusations against “authoritarian (!) Leaders stealing from the pockets of the state (!) … These are all examples of … organized crime.” (12.12.2014) – In February 2015, Goodfriend was withdrawn to the USA for “family reasons“.
A bad suspicion made the rounds: investigations of the Hungarian tax authority against US companies should be thwarted.
Czech Nečas government is brought down – Balkan states in the crosshairs
The Czech Nečas government (13 July 2010 – 17 June 2013) was also overthrown with similar allegations of corruption. Mass demonstrations also mobilized against former Czech Prime Minister Babis, “This is the largest demonstration since the ‘Velvet Revolution’ of 1989.” (Prager Zeitung) – In the 2021 elections, Babis narrowly lost to a bloc opposition. A similar left-right radical Hungarian block opposition wants to oust the Orban government from office on 3.4.2022. (here is a report)
The same scenario played out in August 2020 against the Bulgarian government, which “sees the demonstrators as a mafia-oligarchic ring.” (DW) Also in July 2020 against the Serbian government: “Critics see this as the beginning of an uprising against the rule of President Vučić.” (DW)
Does this continue the doctrine of the English geostrategist Mackinder (1904)? Namely the “domination of the world island of Eurasia” by an Anglo-Saxon power. (see also: Mega-Manipulation). The reorganization of the Balkans is far from fixed
Corrupt socialist governments greeted with goodwill
What is striking is that civil protests are only commented on favorably by Western media if they are directed against conservative-national governments: During mass protests against the “corrupt” Romanian socialist government (summer 2019), the ORF Eastern Europe correspondent E. Gelegs avoided mentioning the term “socialist government” for days.
When it came in 2006 following the lying and vulgar speech of the then Socialist Prime Minister Gyurcsany (“We lied in the morning and in the evening… And in the meantime, we haven’t done anything for four years anyway. Nothing.”) On the most violent police riots against peaceful demonstrators since 1956, the Western press silenced…
“The truth is so obscured at this time, and the lie so general, that one cannot know the truth if one does not love it.” (Pascal)