We live on a planet in need of our attention. According to the 2025 Doomsday Clock, we are 89 seconds to midnight. Citizens around the world are aware of this ticking clock. Citizens in locations where climate change is already most destructive, envision an egalitarian way of existing.
In the US, many citizens know that fascism and oligarchs, totalitarianism and authoritarians, the need to pursue power and control, results in human suffering. American citizens in pursuit of democracy along with those confronting the immediate human-made effects of climate change envision an egalitarian way of existence.
And yet, humanity is being misdirected, and deliberately so, by the greedy as they pursue control and power.
Vicktor Orba'n's Hungary, writes journalist Anne Applebaum, is a wealthy man, but his citizens exist at the bottom of the system intended to benefit him and his cohorts. Citizens of Hungary, while struggling to survive the destruction of democracy, are witnessing the closing of hospitals and schools. The professionals, such as doctors, are leaving the country. Citizens, writes Applebaum, perceive their country to be "the most corrupt in the EU three years in a row". While "productivity is close to the lowest in the region", Orba'n, in the meantime, has no interest in building "Hungarian prosperity".
Nonetheless, there's something about Hungary that entices some Americans. They find something good about Hungary. Orba'n's use of rhetoric entices, Applebaum writes, "the people" into believing he is on their side. I can hear him wink while asking "the people", didn't I destroy democracy? What is it that really entices some Americans to find something good in the government of Hungary?
Applebaum suspects that the US's future is Hungary. A destroyed democracy. Poverty and unfreedom all around, but, nonetheless, a democracy that has been criminalized.
If that's the case, we needn't worry about the Doomsday Clock!
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