Thanks for your reply, Janice. Yes, Daniel Pipes is a long-time pundit on Western-Mid-Eastern relations. Self-repetition is an occupational hazard. However, early responses to the attacks have borne out his prediction. Still, I think my prediction that takes into account the threat posed to the UMPS by the FN is more accurate. There will be apparent change as the anti-nationalist establishment attempts to capitalize on nationalist feeling to fend off the FN.
Thanks for putting the interrelationships between finance and self-determination front and center. I doubt if Hungary's loan agreements with the IMF specified that accepting cash implied surrender of control over Hungary's borders and demographic and cultural self-determination, but the Hungarians were naive not to understand that was implied, as the other eastern EU countries were naive not to anticipate the scope of outside power they were accepting.
You seem to be advocating rule by benevolent elites as the only alternative to tribal slaughter, until such time as the people are sufficiently informed to rule through democratic institutions. That only works as long as the benevolent elites are actually delivering enough of what the people want to be satisfied with the arrangement. It is still working in the Far East, but it is starting to fray in the West. Prolonging economic growth by demographic engineering is not what the Western peoples want, though the elites might reasonably ask, OK, what's YOUR strategy for prolonging economic growth?
Old left and old right mythologies crumble as events show their irrelevance. Vive la polyèdre! Bill
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