The political situation in Romania happens to be a little lopsided these days.
The kinda sorta pretend right wing Democrat Party - which held the government for the better part of a decade, supported by a very active and very competent President sent to power by my liberals - imploded with the end of that President's final term, and will likely not figure notably if at all in future ballots. The out-and-out socialist Social-Democrat Party absorbed the leftovers of a meanwhile intellectually bankrupt and morally abject National Liberal Party, forming some sort of shambling abomination. The various populists, demagogues, visionaries and assorted nutters don't essentially represent anyone or count for anything. So basically it's the socialists playing alone these days.
I'd very much prefer to not see a European country with two thousand years' worth of history transformed into a third world shithole devoid of any sort of future like the United States. It can't escape my notice - as it can't escape any thinking human being's notice - that the fate of any and all socialist societies is the socialist failed state, which is to say exactly the third world shithole the United States is.
Consequently I've picked the leftovers of the recently disbanded New Right party, which for a decade or so spent its time more or less trying (but mostly speaking about trying) to continue the tradition of Romania's Iron Guard, which was an out of control antisemitic fascist horror during World War 2. This, needless to say, is a risky proposition. The main problems are, quite obviously, the definition of the nation, the rapport to history and the solution bias. Let's indulge, one at a time.
As far as I'm concerned, a nation is mostly a cultural construct. This definition does not reduce nationality to a simple declaratory exercise (which is to say that five random teenagers in a basement somewhere can't become a new nation just on their say so, and is further to say that one person doesn't join an existing nation by simple statement), but it is still less stringent than the genetic approach. As such I can accept that someone can't be Romanian on the grounds of not speaking the language, perhapsi, but I can't accept that someone can't be Romanian on the grounds of not having the right DNA. This, obviously, is in direct contradiction to the ideas of the long deceased wartime party these folks more or less identify with. Perhaps naively I nevertheless imagine that the geneticist approach being no longer fashionable (scientifically or logically sound it never was) it won't pose so very much of a problem.
The rapport to history is a little more thorny an issue. I am firmly persuaded, for my own needs, that most of the ills Romania endured during World War Two and since are the direct and unavoidable result of the failure of the peons to defend their elites. This failure - always inexcusable, always shameful, always painful for at least three generations - is perhaps typified in the dishonorable assasination of Romania's Prime Minister, Ion Gheorghe Duca. This act must be recognised for what it was and then let go on the river of time. Trying to justify the unjustifiable or excuse the inexcusable simply results in having to carry a dead body a longer distance, and frankly it's not even clear whatever's left alive has any hopes of making it on itself, let alone dragging any corpses along.
For the record, and if anyone cares, my personal opinion of the Zelea Codreanu character is not particularly high. All I see is an ambitious kid trying his darndest to parlay mediocre abilities and even less understanding into some sort of importance and political weight. This, notably, is not so different from his very own assesment of himself,
Eu nu mă pot bate cu d-ta. N-am nici geniul, nici vârsta, nici condeiul şi nici situaţia d-tale.
Not the first guy coming short of the demands of his time, not the last either. Anyone's free to pick his own role models, and as long as one understands that his pick isn't necessarily relevant for anyone else I fail to see any sort of problem.
Finally, as to the issue of methods, the so called "solution bias". I can not and will not - not now, not ever - favour or even accept any system, construct or assemblage which proposes that the problems of the individual are to be resolved by recourse to the group rather than by the individual himself. Thus, my bias is strictly individualist. The alternative is, of course, and unavoidably, and necessarily, socialism. I won't have that, and if the skies have to fall for this reason the skies shall fall for this reason.
All these lofty theoretical considerations aside, the situation in the field is much more subdued, as situations in the field usually are. A bunch of kids who fundamentally mean well and can't dent a gallon of vodka in a dozen man formation have more or less noticed that socialism doesn't work and are looking for alternatives. I am thinking that perhaps an alternative could be built, one that is actually respectful of people and nature, and completely disinterested in the ellucubrations of "progressivism" or whatever they call their poison these days. We shall see.
Meanwhile, I've sprung for a new headquarters in Timisoara, which is a nice two level, six room space that hopefully will be outgrown within the year, perhaps within the season :
The shellshocked reaction of the recipients tells a very sad story. Apparently in a half million strong town there wasn't yet found a businessman with the modicum of strategic understanding to notice that the political situation is untenable and that alternatives must be built. If this doesn't speak of a conquered nation toiling in abject slavery I don't know what exactly would.
Arise, ye middle class from your slumber, arise ye prisoners of the iPad.
———- This perhaps has to be here not least of all to prevent socialistoid aberrations like the Vergonha, which literally destroyed the social nationality of the French for the purely internationalist goal of building an easier to manage state. [↩]