Re photo_caption: "...Prime Minister Andrej Babis of the Czech Republic was elected in part for his vow to fight graft, but he has been trailed by questions of impropriety..."
As a U.S. citizen, with an equally sociopathic / corrupt 'fearless' leader STILL not removed...I understand empathize with the Czech Republic!
Sadly, the only time my country's grafter, in chief is brave...seems to be when someone else carries / is exposed to the potential risk!
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People are taking to the streets across the world to protest unfair conditions, wealth inequality, possible wars, scandals, and the like. It's heartening to think of it - Hong Kong, The Yellow Vests in France, climate activists, our teachers protesting for better public schools. I hope these pressures from the bottom up only continue to grow.
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Babis is not alone to blame. Recent Czech governments - under this and the previous president - have attracted attention by their xenophobic, corrupt, anti-democratic and destructive behaviour, culminating in Czechia being one of only 3 significant countries (the others being, surprise, surprise, Hungary and Poland) which last week torpedoed the EU's goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050.
Just for that, most Europeans strongly feel that the EU must drastically cut its financial contribution to them in the forthcoming budget.
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Wait a minute! You think the wealthy are there in order to increase their wealth? Can't be, right? Look at the USA. Do you think Donald Trump (and his family) are making more money since he was elected? What??? He has done what? His family claims to be more successful? He uses his hotel in DC to make certain those outsiders stay there if they want to meet in some way with him. Are we the leaders of this type of individual wealth realization today? I though Putin was. Now, I know I am wrong. Well, I guess not much will happen unless we get over 6.1 million (200,000 equals 1.9% of their population times the 323 million we have here) to protest in DC tomorrow.
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Billionaire self-dealing politicians who co-opt their justice systems are the new normal.
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Much more needs to be said about Babis: his history as an agent of the communist secret police, code-named Bureš, and the resultant network of contacts, a la Putin, which remain useful to him to this day.
Scion of a well-placed communist official, educated at a Swiss lycée, he was raised with privileges unimaginable to the general population. Again, a powerful network with the children of similarly placed people from Russia and elsewhere.
His companies are notorious for secretly spraying fields at night with forbidden chemicals which decimate bee and small animal populations.
He owns two national newspapers, and several radio stations.
Through them, he mutes criticism and hammers out simple messages designed to convince the rural public that without his leadership, important social benefits will disappear. These are, of course, lies, but ones that resonate with people whose sense of security was shaken by the “velvet” revolution of 1989, and by earlier politicians whose corruption now seems laughable in scale when compared to that of Babiš.
As the actor and director Zdeněk Sverak said at the rally yesterday, Babiš should recognize that we are not employees, but citizens.
Most of all, he, like his less intelligent but more powerful counterpart in the US, should be in jail and let the rest of us get on with building a free and equitable society.
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@Patricia Goodson
Thanks for the information.
Greed is universal. A human trait regardless of color, race, sex, religion,.... Wealth and power that fuel and or fueled by greed need to be restrained for the common good. That one person can own several mansions while others are homeless, and eat their fill to their heart's content while others starve are high crimes. The PM should be in the dock his wealth held in a Trust that insures that the wealth is managed with for common good.
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A lot of that goin' around.
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Running a government is not like running a business. The roll of government should be the pursuit of of creating a relative happiness for all its citizens, not to enrich those who can do so at the expense of those who cannot. That is the job of leaders of nations. Laws should be enacted and vigorously complied with that all leaders and high government officials in government must put their assets in a blind trust until they leave office.
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Even with the minimal reporting here on this Czech Republic scandal, Americans can learn something from it. If good citizens were to insist that our pols "bring decency and commitment to the public service", as one protester is quoted as desiring, then our politics would change dramatically. Instead of pursuing such aims, we fight about which side--liberal or conservative--will steamroll the other on particular issues or in particular elections.
The accusation that "Mr Babis was acting for his own enrichment" is one that any billionaire purporting to serve the public interest, like "The Great Divider" Trump, can be accused of. Why should we assume that desires that drive rich people when they're private citizens change when they become elected officials? Either we protect norms of separation of the public from the private, or we don't elect rich people to office.
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In the Czech Republic, 200,000 people demonstrate against a leader with history of corruption and who has used his high office for personal benefit. Meanwhile in the US, faced with a leader who has been even more corrupt throughout his adult life and continues to be so in office, citizens either blindly support him or go to social media (including this comment section) to complain.
Maybe we achieve what we are willing to acknowledge and truly sacrifice for.
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You would have to get about 7 million people organized and where will we meet up? We live in a very large nation.
We easily have hundreds of thousands protesting but they are all over the country. Having a few thousand people spread out that amounts to hundreds of thousands unfortunately doesn’t have an impact on news or politicians.
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