In stark contrast to the Obama administration, as well as key Republican politicians, and governments in western Europe, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet has expressed absolutely no concern in public about the authoritarian, illiberal and xenophobic politics of Hungary’s Orbán regime. In fact, since 2010, the Embassy of Hungary in Ottawa has placed a special emphasis on cultivating a […]
Inside the Boom-Box–The Technical Data on RCA Viktor’s 2015 Sound System How does Hungary’s ruling political Party, FIDESZ, use the language of political deception to get what it wants? How does Viktor Orbán’s government manipulate public opinion in Canada and around the world? How does it use the language of love and harmony, to generate applause, as it destroys the […]
Why is Canada a key test-market for RCA Viktor? Perceived acoustic compatibility is not the only reason why RCA Viktor chose Canada as the place to roll-out its sound-system. There are important historical factors behind RCA Viktor’s secret attachment to Canada. This 3rd section in a series on the language of political deception used by the Orbán regime in Canada […]
Before turning to the description of RCA Viktor’s Canadian sound system, a system in which Hungary’s diplomats in Canada play a commanding but not exclusive role, I want to make some general observations about the standards diplomatic representatives are expected to uphold in those countries that belong to the Transatlantic community (TAC). This is necessary in order to gauge whether […]
On Friday, a tight group of prominent Fidesz personalities, government advisers, intellectuals and policymakers met in an even tighter courtyard in Budapest to hear Prim Minister Viktor Orbán give a speech that represented a 180 degrees rhetorical turn from his last “State of the Nation” speech in February. He spoke of the dawn of an era of apolitical prosperity: the […]
![Poster advertising RCA Victor radios in 1937. John Vassos papers, 1920-[198-], Archives of American Art.](http://hungarianfreepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/rca-victor-records-poster-225x145.jpg)
We go abroad to wonder – at the towering beauty of the mountains, at the crashing power of the waves on the high seas, at the winding flow of a majestic river, at the vastness of the oceans, at the miracle of the stars above: but we often walk past ourselves, without wondering The Confessions of Saint Augustine Introduction How […]
Friends of Hungary, the organization that claims to be non-partisan, has been given its marching orders by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The authoritarian Hungarian leader’s speech on Saturday, at a conference organized by the Friends of Hungary Foundation, was at least as inflammatory as that which he gave last summer in Transylvania on the value of illiberalism, and which made […]
Ever since the governing Fidesz party’s defeat in the Tapolca by-election to the far-right, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been shamelessly scrambling to appease and win back the support of those who voted for Jobbik. A few days ago, I wrote about the Orbán’s government overtly xenophobic “national consultation,” where a series of loaded questions suggest that immigration and terrorism […]
Based on the results of the recent Tapolca by-election (although no longer concentrating directly on this vote), one can argue that this is yet another sign that Fidesz has lost its political buoyancy. And it’s possible that the party, in this current form and in this construction, won’t ever be able to get it back. If it searches for different avenues, […]
Political scientist László Lengyel gave an excellent interview this weekend to Hungary’s left-centre Népszava daily. The chat, with Népszava’s Tamás Bihari, began with a comparison to Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book and to the king of the jungle, Shere Khan. Mr. Lengyel had previously referred to Viktor Orbán as a tiger, and as the merciless king of the jungle. “Between 2010 […]
