Romanians are protesting massively against corruption. Good for you, Romanians! Maybe your example will remind Americans that only a constant opposition and struggle against corruption can keep it at bay. Because the ease with which Americans are welcoming corruption into their society is disgusting.
I hope the people of Romania win.
They just announced they’ll annul the emrgency order tomorrow, so yes, we’re winning this battle, if not yet the war
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Great! This is a very inspiring struggle. I knew you had to be part of it. ☺
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It was so great to see the huge crowds on TV (the international version of pro tv is part of my cable package for some reason).
I just hope that the movement doesn’t die down the second the government gives in, prolonged vigilence is really necessary.
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Back on an actual keyboard. And yep, you both are incredibly right on the need for constant vigilance. Back when I was younger I used to hope we’d do this or that and reach the paradise of good politics, but it really isn’t like that, it really is a constant, glamourless, gloryless, necessary struggle. I’m glad that we seem to have gotten the protest part of it down pat (for those of you who don’t have pro tv as part of your cable package, the emergency order decriminalizing corruption got cancelled today, and they still got 600k people in the streets tonight. 300k in Bucharest, a 1.5mil city. 30k in my 300k town) but there’s so much more shit to be done that isn’t about protests. We need to build feedback mechanisms to our politicians – people still look at you as though you have 2 heads if you suggest calling specific politicians and complaining about the bullshit they’re pulling. We need to stop contributing to corruption the moment it mildly favorizes us. And we need to figure out a way of cooperating with strangers, because until we become capable of dealing with people who aren’t already obligated to us in ways that are favourable to both us and them, the corruption networks will stay necessary because there’s no way a large society can function without some way of guaranteeing cooperation among members of it that aren’t family/close friends, and one important way this cooperation works in my society is good ol’ corruption. Seriously, the Romanian version of the five factor model personality test switches the trust questions from what you’d expect people in general to do to what you’d expect your friends to do, because we all kinda take it as a given that J Rando is going to stab us in the back. Now, I’m quite hopeful, because there have been some amazing changes in our society in these past few years with regard the aforementioned things we need to do – Colectiv was a profound seachange in the tolerance of so-called minor corruption, we’ve also been trying out a lot of ways of cooperation in these past years, and s0mehow we’re beginning to grow past the assholes-who-vote-PSD polarization, too. But…. hell knows the work needs to continue, despite these two twin bitches, hope and despair, and hell knows I need to understand how to change a society better than I do.
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Thank you for this comment, Stille, and thank you for your work! You are absolutely right, the hardest part begins after the protests achieve their goals. This is what Ukrainians discovered in a similar struggle. But it’s great that this is happening. You guys are the hope of the world! I’m super excited about this. The importance of these protests can’t be overstated.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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