I was shocked to learn that Consul András Doncsev of the far-right Hungarian Government was present at San Francisco City Hall’s August 20th event. The photo of the one-time speech-writer of authoritarian PM Viktor Orbán was taken at City Hall and triumphantly distributed at the San Francisco Honorary Consulate’s Facebook site.
Mr. Doncsev represents a government which promotes racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic ideas and his presence is an insult to Hungarian Americans. Please join me in protesting his presence.
Email your protest to MayorLondonBreed@sfgov.org and to mayorspressoffice@sfgov.org
You may also telephone: (415) 554-6141 or fax: (415) 554-6160
If you are a San Francisco resident, please also contact your Supervisor.
Here is my letter to Mayor Breed.
Mayor Breed with Kamala Harris
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Dear Mayor London Breed,
It was a nice gesture that you invited Americans of Hungarian origin on August 20 to celebrate Hungary’s National Day. In your Proclamation you acknowledged Americans with Hungarian roots who contributed to the development of the great city of San Francisco.
But at the same time, it was disturbing to see that Mr. András Doncsev, a diplomat of the far-right, racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic Hungarian Government was also present. Mr. Doncsev, as an official representative of the Orbán Government used your event for a photo op, posing with Ms. Eva Voisin Honorary Consul and your Proclamation.
Mr. Doncsev represents a government which recently enacted the most homophobic law on the European continent. Homosexuality in Hungary now is connected to pedophilia. Eleni Kounalakis, California’s Lieutenant Governor wrote. “My time as US Ambassador to Hungary was a four-year window into some of the darkest corners of anti-Semitism.”
Rep Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) issued a statement: “Prime Minister Orbán represents so many things that are antithetical to core American values. He has overseen a rollback of democracy in his country, used anti-Semitic and xenophobic tropes in his political messaging, and cozied up to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. He has also suppressed independent media and academic freedom in an effort to consolidate his increasingly autocratic rule. It troubles us to see the President of our country, which has historically supported the protection and promotion of democracy and human rights worldwide, meeting with a man who so regularly disregards these values.”
The list is long.
Dear Mayor, Mr. Doncsev’s presence was a disgrace. It was an insult not just to Americans of Hungarian origin in the Bay Area, but to every American.
György Lázár
An excellent and exemplary initiative Mr. Lázár. Hungarian community leaders of conscience should follow your example under similar circumstances in every state, city, town and village in America. where representatives of the abusive Orbán government attempt to cozy up to the people’s representatives in high office. You are carrying the torch first lit in Canada, by the Canadian Hungarian Democratic Charter
As Mr. Lázár’s post acknowledges, the list of the Orbán government’s transgressions against justice, equal rights under the law and ecologically sustainable communal well being is very long indeed. None have been abused more than Hungary’s working men and women through a series of calculated policy measures that will require generations to heal. As the spokesperson of the Hungary’s Trade Union Confederation recently declared, “The government is busy eliminating all of the rights Hungary’s workers have achieved during the past 200 years”.
None has summarized more succinctly the magnitude of the damage inflicted upon generations of Hungarians by the neo-fascist Orbán regime than the Hungarian philosopher of religion, György Gábor, a former member of Hungary’s Academy of Sciences:
“What is the worst, most destructive impact of this last performance? It’s not the theft of just about everything they could lay their hands on. We’ve seen that before. With time everything is replaceable.. . It’s not the sellout of the country to foreign interests, or the carte blanche given to the secret services of Russia. We’ve come back from such betrayals… The greatest, most harmful impact of this last performance is on the minds of our citizens. That cannot be repaired easily, its impact is longue durée… The scar will require generations to heal… The new numerus clausus no longer targets the Jews alone but anyone and everyone who thinks… It has left us saddled with collaborators, enablers for whom everything is for sale, even our souls are treated as commodities.”
We can engage in a discussion about the origin of the virus that infected Hungary (I happen to think that it didn’t come from the East, but was released by a “laboratory” in cyber-captalism’s global American headquarters). What we cannot debate anymore is the necessity to halt its further spread, until it engulfs us all.
Yes Gollner, cancel all those who fail to submit to the Neo-Marxist ideological tyranny that now dominates the Western World!
Not long ago you were telling me how you would gang up together with your students in order to cancel someone with my views, through abusive means.
I recommend you read the resignation letter of Peter Boghossian from his position as a professor, who suffered persecution, intimidation, abuse, bullying at the hands of the establishment, students, fellow faculty members.
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/my-university-sacrificed-ideas-for
All because he failed to observe the rules of the ideological tyranny that people like you promote and strive to impose. When I read that resignation letter, the first thing that popped into my mind was your description of how you would deal with any student that would dare to think like me.
As for the rest of your rant, as is traditional among academics these days, it is devoid of any factual basis.
On the environment, Hungary’s emissions are currently about 1/3 less than they were in 1990. Canada’s emissions are 20% above. You keep bringing that up, even though it is beyond ridiculous to do so.
Hungary’s workers? In 2010, after 8 years of neo-Marxist rule, labor participation was about 50% and the unemployment rate was about 12%. Today, labor participation rate is 64%, and the unemployment rate is under 4%. So people have the opportunity to work and sustain themselves. And also wages doubled since 2010. Fertility rates rose from 1.23 in 2010 to about 1.55 currently, mostly because there is now support for families, in addition to more opportunities to earn a living. In the past few years, there has been a net influx of Hungarians back to Hungary, for the first time since the 1990’s, because clearly your description of the state of living in Hunngary must be accurate! Lastly, the percentage of people at risk of poverty declined from 30% in 2010 to 18% as of 2020. So these are the facts that one can easily source on-line from reputable sources, that in no way fit in with your baseless rants! Facts really don’t matter anymore to your ideological movement do they?
Gyurikám, you know extremely well that the Orbán government is not a “government which promotes racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic ideas”. But you are a liar, and a homeland traitor. Therefore, as the Latin seas, “Penis Equi caballi in ano tuo”.
Yours sincerely,
Andr-s
The Hungarian government never promoted racism. The Hungarian government’s aim is to preserve Hungarian culture. It Is time for leftist media to use logic.
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This has so much to do with not only how things go in Hungary, but towards the effort to protect human rights, human dignity in the rest of Europe and across the world.
Ah, I see the gates of Animal Farm have been opened. No doubt, Bazooka Joe will also arrive shortly, huffing and puffing, while trying to defend the indefensible with his horror stories about the invasion of the Marxist body-snatchers who have run amok throughout the halls of academia in the US and Canada and are burrowed deep into the foundations of this underpass. Let the good times roll.
Yes, I know, you would much rather prefer to see all those who disagree with you be kept behind a gate, locked up, like animals. I don’t remember the last time you offered any commentary rooted in verifiable facts, so of course, locking up dissenters would appeal to you, since you cannot invoke facts to stand your ground and defend your point of view in any conversation. And yes, you are indeed a great example of the trend of Marxist trends running amok throughout the halls of academia. The fact that Peter Boghossian was subjected to baseless accusations, was spit on, had feces put in front of his office, and yet he was the one reprimanded, he was silenced, told not to ever approach certain subjects, should really come as no surprise, given the comments you made here in the past in regards to how you would deal with me if I was your student and I would dare to voice views that you do not find ideologically agreable. What happened to him is an ugly, ugly portrait of the state of academia today. And yes, you are part of that portrait!
This is ugly stuff- I moved from SF to Budapest and can tell you it’s incredible, especially when you compare it to the shit hole that is now SF. It been all down hill for the last 80 years and continues to get worse.
“But at the same time, it was disturbing to see that Mr. András Doncsev, a diplomat of the far-right, racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic Hungarian Government was also present.”
I should point out that within the context of 1980’s or even 1990’s Western politics, Orban’s positions would mostly be seen as a moderate centrist rule. It is therefore not so much that Orban and his government are far-anything. It is the case that the Western political spectrum has moved so far to the far-left and descended into Racial Marxism that most Western politicians from just three decades ago would today be labeled as “far-right” based on their policies and positions. And this letter is a testament to the intolerant, ideological tyranny that this move to the far left comes with. Typical Marxist ideological, tyrannical mindset. No other position is to be tolerated, everyone must submit, comply or be canceled! This is the poison of the Western World that is set to kill it off!
And once again please stop assuming that you can speak for other Hungarians or Americans for that matter:
“Dear Mayor, Mr. Doncsev’s presence was a disgrace. It was an insult not just to Americans of Hungarian origin in the Bay Area, but to every American.”
Did anyone deputize you to speak in the name of entire communities or societies? Please do tell!
@ Joe
“Yes Gollner, cancel all those who fail to submit to the Neo-Marxist ideological tyranny that now dominates the Western World!… Not long ago you were telling me how you would gang up together with your students in order to cancel someone with my views, through abusive means.”
Come, come my little Bazooka, you must have gotten something under your skin shoveling the BS down at the troll farm to be so riled up down here. Simmer down, Joseph, please. Get a hold of yourself. The problem with your little outburst is, that your claims are as far from the truth as your troll farm in Felcsút is from Jerusalem.
Neo Marxists constitute as tiny a minority of the ruling elite, of academia, and the general public in the West as ever and they are as inept at stopping Fascists from spreading their BS down the throats of their victims today as they were during the first half of the 20th century. I can tell Bazooka Joe, because I am NOT a neo-Marxist (sorry to disappoint you). I happen to work with a universal, non-ideological compass as I explore the policy universe of countries such as the one that employs you to scatter the waste from its bull pen and make believe that it is whipped cream.
As for the last part of your sentence, where you are whining once again about being threatened with expulsion from my class for the views you happen to hold…. Bazooka, the halls of higher learning, not to mention the class-rooms, where our hard working students sit to better themselves and learn how to distinguish fact from fiction, illusion from reality, are never going to be hospitable places for trolls like you who come to class with buckets filled to the brim with BS. Wake up, have a glass of bull’s blood, smell the roses then take your bucket and shove off to Alcsút, or Felcsút. Your place is not in the class room but in a bull-pen. Világos?
“the halls of higher learning, not to mention the class-rooms, where our hard-working students sit to better themselves and learn how to distinguish fact from fiction, illusion from reality, are never going to be hospitable places for trolls like you who come to class with buckets filled to the brim with BS.”
Yes, of course, and everything that is not ideologically correct will be deemed “BS” and those expressing those views will be labeled as “trolls”, or “fascists” or “Nazis”, then it is open season as Peter Boghossian found out. Thanks for offering some extra insight into the mindset of the academic ideological zealots who are responsible for the environment that Peter described. It helps to corroborate his version actually!
@ Joe
Bazooka, I know it must be terribly frustrating for you not to be able to receive a passing grade for the BS you are peddling as original research down here. Your insistence on portraying academia as a community of ideological zealots is as accurate as that Qannon fantasy about the Washington pizza parlor where Hillary Clinton and her liberal friends went to fulfill their appetites for pedophilia. Your effort to add some horse manure to the BS will not change our assessment. Your views on what goes on in the world of science and our institutions of higher learning is empirically unsustainable. In plain English, it’s hogwash. You’re a looser Joe. Your whining about it won’t cut mustard in the Academy.
I would not want to receive any grade attending your classes, or any grade. What is the underemployment rate for those with a degree from your department? Is it 70% or 80%? So again, who are the losers? Perhaps you are just too used to calling people “losers”, because that is what you call all your students on their way out of class (silently). After all, piling up tens of thousands of dollars or even hundreds of thousands in debt, or family savings spent, with no future prospects, except for those with relevant connections and a few diversity hires, can’t possibly call those kids exiting your classroom winners. You on the other hand, you are the winner! You are part of the swindle. A lifetime of debt only to be indoctrinated. Wow!!!
And no, there is nothing original about anything I say here. Even Bill Maher, not exactly a Right-Wing zealot, or Qannon or whatever the hell you want to smear people as, if they disagree with you has been pointing out that the institutions of higher brainwashing are turning the place into Neo-Marxist Wokistan. BTW, he recently mentioned the resignation of Peter Boghossian as well. Very damning!
@ Hey Joey
You really are wound up in your fantasy aren’t ya? Why don’t you get out of this underpass, get some fresh air. Loosen up a bit. Get yourself a woman. Start exercising. Do something with yourself. Try yoga.
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