The State of States Revisited

           

Some people in my circles may have scanned the post called State of States dated January 7, 2018. People are in a reflective mood early in January as a New Year is getting under way and I certainly was, thinking about the human condition, at that time. Bernie McCann and I even had an interesting debate about it.

In State of States I described the EU as a Conglomerate State defined as a group of isolated states with functioning democratic institutions cooperating to resist the incursion of Corporate and Dictator states.

It appears now that the term functioning democratic institutions may soon not apply to some EU member states. Hungary, under the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, is moving to becoming a Political Dictator State within the EU.

Political dictator states are described as having pseudo democratic institutions managed by an elite cabal controlling the military and police and through them the citizens for the benefit of the cabal.

           Can a Political dictator state exist within an association of democratic states? Other EU states tending in the same direction include Poland, Czech Republic, Austria and some supporters in Germany. It seems the democratic members of the EU are unable to deal with nondemocratic members that suck EU money to enrich cronies and may eventually destroy the EU experiment.

Change is happening, it could be that Brexit will save the UK from falling into the tyranny of a dissolving EU and the re-emergence of hostile nation states. Putin must be smiling!!

China is morphing from a Political Dictator State to a Military State or perhaps an undefined state ruled by a single all-powerful President for life. Xi Jinping has been proclaimed President for life with personal control of the state security apparatus including police, army, courts and jails. We haven’t seen such concentrated power in an important, powerful country since the days of Emperors, Caliphs, Kings and Popes. President Trump may aspire to achieving such power but hopefully the US Constitution will withstand his assault on American democracy.

My source for the comments on Hungary and the EU are an article published in the Washington Post and carried in the Toronto Star written by Griff Witte and Michael Birnbaum. There have been many other stories communicating the same information as well.