In article > you write:
>Not having read the post in question I have no opinion on it.  However,
>in his previous postings Paul Gelencser has consistently shown a lack of
>factual knowledge and much racist paranoia.

For someone who did not read Paul's post, that's some "no opinion"!
BTW, when Paul showed a lack of factual knowledge he readily admitted it
and asked for info.  So that's not the same thing as pretending to know
something without knowing.  As to his post that prompted Batkay's ire,
Paul only stated what most Hungarians know even if they don't admit it
publically.  Your response on the other hand is just another of your
kneejerk politically correct pronouncements you've been noted for.
I wonder what you would say if you actually had to confront a few of
those Gypsies Paul was referring to by having them your close neighbors
instead of being in safe distance from them.  Until you haven't don't
castigate the ones who have or know ones who had.

The sad fact is that even those Romas who manage to break out of that
lifestyle and make it run away from them as far as they can instead of
trying to change them from within.

Joe
(another racist, no doubt, so I hope I am also on your "kill file")

Some nerve those "world finance officials" have!

>From the VOA report:

>INTRO:  THE STRONG SHOWING IN THE SLOVAK ELECTIONS OF THE
>NATIONALIST VLADIMIR MECIAR HAS SURPRISED WORLD FINANCE OFFICIALS
>ATTENDING THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
>AND WORLD BANK IN MADRID, SPAIN.  V-O-A'S BARRY WOOD HAS MORE
>FROM MADRID.
>
>TEXT:  NEWS THAT MR. MECIAR'S PARTY HAD DONE FAR BETTER THAN
>EXPECTED SURPRISED BANKERS AND AID OFFICIALS INVOLVED IN THE
>TRANSFORMATION PROCESS IN POST-COMMUNIST EUROPE.  SEVERAL
>OFFICIALS SAID PRIVATELY THAT THE LIKELIHOOD THAT FOR A THIRD
>TIME MR. MECIAR WOULD LEAD THE SLOVAK GOVERNMENT IS A SETBACK FOR
>THE COUNTRY AND FOR REFORM.  MR. MECIAR HAS BEEN A VIGOROUS
>OPPONENT OF THE PRIVATIZATION OF STATE ENTERPRISES THAT AID
>EXPERTS REGARD AS ESSENTIAL FOR BUILDING A MARKET ECONOMY.

Are these the same officials who thought of nothing about propping up
the various communists regimes before '89 -- among them Hungary to the
tune of 20+ billion dollars?  Had they been so cautious with those
regimes as they are know with the post-communist ones, communism
would have collapsed long time ago.  Instead, the newly free countries
now have to struggle to meet those loan payments the hypocrite
international bankers so foolishly wasted on prolonging the life of
command economies.  Where was their prudence then?

Joe Pannon

>> Hungary should consider adopting the Stupid Tax, which a lot of western
  nations

>>the more you are willing to pay.  Of course this tax is more commonly known i
>>the US as the Lottery and in Europe as Lotto....marc


>The only problem with the "Stupid Tax" is that poor people spend more than
> middle class
>or wealthy people, and thus it really is a tax on the poor.

So??  What is your point?  The reason poor people tend to be poor is because
they are stupid.  So it is only logical that by taxing the stupid you are
taxing the poor...marc

On Sun, 2 Oct 1994 19:21:46 EDT Sipos Gyorgy said:
>
>Sorry if I over reacted.  I guess that to me the discussion did
>have a lot to do with Hungary because when I grew up there the
>government did all it could to indoctronate us with similar beliefs.
>But that's in the past now, so - bocsa'natot ke'rek to~led.
>
>Bara't?

--Please, sir, you have nothing to be sorry about.  I should never have
entered the discussion.  It was insensitive of me to raise the
argument on this list, given the Hungarian experience of the last fifty
years.  I know better, but I did not act better.  Let me repeat, I am
not a socialist and certainly not a communist.  I am simply a cantakerous
old bastard who is enamored by the sound of his own voice.

Minden jo't O"no"knek

Charles

>> Forgive my lack of historical knowledge, I was
>>educated in american public schools....marc

> I was also educated in american public schools, but I managed to learn about
> the American revolution, Civil War, Depression, Great Society, WWI, WWII,
>Greek literature,Roman Empire rise and fall, Marco Polo's adventures, Russian
>Revolution.  Were you absent that day?

Hmm... They never taught me all those things in my school, however they did
teach me how to wear a condom.....marc

> Do you realize how ridiculous you are by faulting somebody not recalling
> an obscure name like Zelei?  Haven't you met anybody who had a hard time
> remembering names or phone numbers? Besides, the story was important,
> not the name and I've got that right, haven't I?
With several books and a regular radio show to his credit, Zelei is not an
obscure name in Hungary. Besides, my main objection was to the very
diffuseness of the claim that stemmed from your not giving a specific name.

> Well, I was afraid that might be the key to your smear of me.  For I
> rememeber those "Pannon" articles quite vividly from Nemzetor as I've
> been a long time subscriber to the paper.  Those articles painted an
> insider's portrait of the Kadar regime's ruling elite.  A few years ago
> the paper revealed the identity of the "Pannon" pseudonym, upon his
> death.  As you can expect, I don't recall the REAL name then revealed,
> but he was also an insider, I think high in the military or police
> establishment.
So it was a case of one name, two persons. Was the Pannon who also wrote to
Reform magazine you or him? Anyway no "smear" was intended.  It is best this
gets cleared up, since I was not alone on the net to believe you were him.

> I let you figure out the moral of this story, Andras, without testing
> your pride any further.
The moral is that sometimes even a name is insufficient for full
identification. How much less could a vague description "alcoholic hack
journalist" serve?

> That may be so, but in the first weeks of my stay there (second half of
> August) [the constitution] was quite often covered in the media (besides the
> EuroWoodstock).  I am surprised how you don't remember this.  I guess
> it's time to bring this up on the Hungarian language HIX FORUM as well.
I was there in September, so it must've been old news by then.

> SZDSZ as a popular party?  That's an interesting proposition.
"Popular party" was my attempt to translate "ne1ppa1rt" (as I made quite
clear by giving the original in parentheses). At any rate they got the
second largest share of the vote, which does indicate a certain amount of
popularity.

> Well, there still are those who doubt the guilt of the Rosenbergs and
> Alger Hiss as well.  I wouldn't be surprised if Sudoplatov's doubters
> come from the same circles.  I haven't seen any more serious refutations
> than ones that can be easily attributed to not remembering distant events
> in minor details.  Oh, but I forgot that Andras has a dim view of people
> not having perfect recall.
Both Physics Today and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists carried
rather detailed refutations, pointing to major inconsistencies in
Sudoplatov's story and facts known from other sources. I'm sure both are
available in Boeing's library -- if not, I can get xerox copies of these
obscure rags from IBM's library...

> Why are they so worried?  After all who ever would buy the station would
> need experts to run it and where would they come from if not from the
> same crowd that works now for the state?  Or are we seeing the indirect
> acknowledgment on their part that a private owner could not afford the
> kind of overstaffing that exists now at MTV and thus many of them would
> not find a job there after privatization?
A private owner would no doubt put in better equipment and reduce the number
of jobs (true in basically every state-run company that gets privatized) and
no doubt many inside TV/Radio are afraid for their jobs. You can phrase it
in terms of a private owner not being able to afford the overstaffing, or
the state owner not being able to afford capital equipment, the net result
is the same: there will be modernization and concomitant layoffs. The
parties are worried that if they advocate doing this they will lose favor
with the journalists protecting their existing situation, much as British
governments, both Tory and Labour, are afraid of the trade unions.

> Your brother is right.  Insider deals tend to be sweetheart deals more
> than when an outsider comes in.  However, that outsider could still be a
> Hungarian, no?  Or at least a joint venture ...
But where is this outsider Hungarian getting the capital? There isn't that
much of private capital around to begin with, and outsiders will have a hard
time convincing a venture capitalist that they actually have the expertise
to run the business.

Kornai Andra1s

>Paul's response to my earlier posting re:Gypsies is beneath contempt.  If
>his attitudes are a sample of what so-called "religious" people believe,
>I am ashamed to be counted among their number.

>Be'la


Why?

Glossing over poor behavior is not a sign of religious virtue.  As I've
said before, even Jesus showed anger when he threw the money changers
out of the temple.  He even got violent, and turned over a few tables,
because he was reacting to behavior.  Nothing wrong there, I think.

Not all Gypsies are criminals, but the anachdotal evidence makes me a
bit suspicious (I cannot claim to know of any valid statistics, so I
do not quote any).

Paul "beneath contempt" Gelencser

>Stealing is based upon social circumstances sometimes, but let's be sure
>that we don't start confusing that with genetic criminality ideas that would
>send me to the death camps along with those Gypsies who do steal.

>Rebecca Tracy
>OSU Slavic & East European Studies
>e-mail 

The Gypsies encountered in the news story, who were shown as 'typical'
Gypsies, didn't steal due to social circumstances, they chose that
lifestyle.  Sure there are Gypsies who live as typical Europeans, hold
jobs, and pay rent, but many do not (I do not know of any statistics on
how many).  Those who live as law obiding  members of society should be
treated as such.

>descent it is interesting to, again, note the degree of anti-Roma feeling
>out there.

Anti-somebody feeling is not automatically discrimination - it depends on
the group behavior of the somebodies, and there is such as thing as
group attitudes and behavior.  We call is culture.

Paul

Hi there.

I'm doing a little research on behalf of an associate, who is of
Hungarian descent but has no net access.

He is apparently at least partially derived from a group of Germanic
settlers in the Transylvanian region.  According to him, local people
refer to these settlers as "Saxons" although whether they actually
belonged to the Saxon culture is not 100% certain.

At any, he is trying to do a little research on his origins, and has
very little idea where to start.  Specifically, he was wondering if
anyone knew anything of Germanic settlers moving to Hungary in the
Middle ages.  Any books that one could be pointed to would be most
helpful.

Thanks very much,

Andrew Willshire

Does anyone know anything about Hungary's view about rumania's neutrality
and later entrance into world war I on the side of the axis powers?  I
know they couldn't have been thrilled. Does any one know if there was an
effort,on the part of Hungary, to get Rumania to stay neutral or to join
the central powers?  I am writing a paper on this and would appreciate
any information or suggestions on resources ( especially primary sources)


                                                     Thanks,

                                                     Laura

First to Andrew Willshire who wanted to know about saxon's and swabians
in the Transylvanian part of Hungary.  I remember reading something about
this in a fairly recent book called Balkan Ghosts.  I think the German
Protestants were asked to move there by the governing power of the time
(Hapsburgs?).  They seemed to do well and thrived in the enviroment.  There
is some mention of preferential treatment during the second world war and
large numbers of these germanic people fleeing after the war.  Any way
the book doesn't go into great detail but it may be of interest to your
friend.  If nothing else you may be able to find some resources in the
bibliography if the book has one.  Good luck.

Next, this whole conversation about the wealth tax is a little long winded
don't you think? I really enjoy reading the discussions on gypsies and
other topics but I am tired of deleting dozens of messages about the so
called wealth tax.

On Mon, 3 Oct 1994  wrote:

> First to Andrew Willshire who wanted to know about saxon's and swabians
> in the Transylvanian part of Hungary.  I remember reading something about
> this in a fairly recent book called Balkan Ghosts.  I think the German
> Protestants were asked to move there by the governing power of the time
> (Hapsburgs?).  They seemed to do well and thrived in the enviroment.  There
> is some mention of preferential treatment during the second world war and
> large numbers of these germanic people fleeing after the war.  Any way
> the book doesn't go into great detail but it may be of interest to your
> friend.  If nothing else you may be able to find some resources in the
> bibliography if the book has one.  Good luck.
>
The Transylvanian Saxons (Siebenbuerger Sachsen) were settled in southern
and eastern Transylvania at the invitation of the Hungarian court during
the second and third century of our millenium. They hail from the
Rhineland area, but were labeled Saxons in the Hungarian royal patents
that granted them rights and territory in their new homeland. Their grant
was based on their loyalty to the Hungarian crown: ad retinendam coronam.
Kronstand (Brasso, Brasov), one of their several cultural centers, bears
this symbolically in its name. - There is, based in Cleveland, Ohio, a
fraternal insurance company, the Alliance of Transylvanian Saxons, who
have published some popular materials on their history. Otherwise, better
histories of Hungary and Romania will yield some information, as will the
relatively few items directly focused on Transylvania in the various card
catalogs. I'm afraid one must know German (or at least Hungarian or
Romanian) to do serious research on the Saxons.

The Saxons were without question a major cultural factor in the
development of whatever urban culture there was in Transylvania. They
retained their connections with Germany, but were fierce local patriots;
they embraced Lutheranism during the reformation. World War II decimated
them; in the aftermath, most who could do so left Transylvania.

Hungary's svabok - Swabians, Donauschwaben - are often confused with the
Saxons, but there is no connection. These were in fact settled by the
Habsburgs in formerly Turkish-occupied areas of southern Hungary;
applicants for immigration had basically to be German speaking Roman
Catholics to get their "forty acres and a mule." Their role in the
reconstruction of these areas was very positive; after WW II, many were
driven from what was now Yugoslavia, though there are still perhaps a
couple hundred thousand who identify themselves as such in Hungary. This
group, never as unified as the Saxons, showed a stronger tendency to
assimilate to Magyardom; the Saxons retained their group identity to the
bitter end, under Ceausescu, who sold them out of bondage to the hightst
bidder, so to speak. Hitler's Germany exploited both German elements, to
their ultimate tragedy.

L. J. Elteto

I am currently a doctoral student in New York, but I visited (and fell
for) Budapest last summer. I'll be putting my academics on hold to
relocate there in January, and I'm looking for opportunities for
employment in my field, which could, I think, be useful to Hungary. I'm
seeking opportunities that build on my background in instructional
design, development, and evaluation. Any potential position should focus
on either: 1) design and production of training, distance learning, or
higher education courses; 2) change management; and 3) organizational
development. I also have a background in research methods. I'm open to any
bright ideas. Please e-mail me at . Thanks.

Paul Roehrig

Kornai wrote again:

> With several books and a regular radio show to his credit, Zelei is not an
> obscure name in Hungary. Besides, my main objection was to the very
> diffuseness of the claim that stemmed from your not giving a specific name.

Well, I haven't read his books and I doubt any of my college educated
friends or relatives in Hungary have.  But I'll ask them just to make
sure.  My description couldn't be so obscure if you were able to find
out his identity, after all.  I described his position at the Radio, the
incident, where it happened, and the publicity it received.  That's
pretty good, I think, and hardly qualifies for diffuseness.

> So it was a case of one name, two persons. Was the Pannon who also wrote to
> Reform magazine you or him? Anyway no "smear" was intended.  It is best this
> gets cleared up, since I was not alone on the net to believe you were him.

No, I never wrote the Reform magazin or any other paper published in
Hungary.  At least not since '89.  But -- in a way -- I am flabbergasted
by this misidentification (in a positive way!) and I hope those writings
attributed to me were good.  I know at least the Nemzetor series was
good, especially the one about Janos Berecz and his wife.  Now, after
this, I hope that you and your friends on the net also thought that I was
the proud owner of the "Pannon Iskolak Oktatasi Kft" and the "Pannon GSM"
brand mobil phones in Hungary. ;-)  (Oh boy, how popular I made that
name!)  Come to think of it, this may explain why everybody suddenly
turned smiling after seeing my passport there.  There should be some
money to be made from this and if anybody has a good idea I might be
willing to agree to a commission for it.
>
> The moral is that sometimes even a name is insufficient for full
> identification.

Good!

> How much less could a vague description "alcoholic hack
> journalist" serve?

This is not so good!

> > SZDSZ as a popular party?  That's an interesting proposition.
> "Popular party" was my attempt to translate "ne1ppa1rt" (as I made quite
> clear by giving the original in parentheses). At any rate they got the
> second largest share of the vote, which does indicate a certain amount of
> popularity.

Well, that may also be a protest vote against MDF.  After all, the people
HAD TO VOTE on some party, no?

> Both Physics Today and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists carried
> rather detailed refutations, pointing to major inconsistencies in
> Sudoplatov's story and facts known from other sources. I'm sure both are
> available in Boeing's library -- if not, I can get xerox copies of these
> obscure rags from IBM's library...

Well, I only read about that stuff in the popular magazines, such as Time,
Newsweek and since that time my reduced interest in the whole issue does not
warrant any more effort.  There are books also about the innocence of
Rosenbergs and Hiss and I am not surprised about these new refutations,
either.  I am more swayed by the fact that Opy and some of his fellow
scientists were under suspicion by the FBI after the war though they may
not have had enough proof to convict them in a court of law.  A lot of
espionage cases are like that.

> parties are worried that if they advocate doing this they will lose favor
> with the journalists protecting their existing situation, much as British
> governments, both Tory and Labour, are afraid of the trade unions.

Not the Iron Lady though!

> But where is this outsider Hungarian getting the capital? There isn't that
> much of private capital around to begin with, and outsiders will have a hard
> time convincing a venture capitalist that they actually have the expertise
> to run the business.

Then maybe they should wait a little till there are more than a handful
of Hungarian millionaires.  I don't think the owners have to know about
the broadcasting business.  What did GE understand about it when it
bought NBC?  They just need to hire people who are broadcast experts and
let them run it.  What the owner is interested in is the bottom line.
Some, like Soros, excepted, of course.

Joe Pannon