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Trump Fades in Biden/Zelensky Shine

June 22, 2022 by Helenfogarassy Leave a Comment

As America heads into its 4th of July Independence holiday 2022, Biden heads to Europe for a G-7 meeting about Western woes. Back home in the US, Trump rallies the thinning MAGA crowd against the avalanche of 1/6 Cmtee findings that he orchestrated a coup against the US as if he was producing a reality show. Biden, meanwhile gets trounced at home for every global woe his foes ascribe to incompetence or age. They don’t recognize the broader context in which Biden operates and Zelensky knows only too well.

America’s in turmoil over the ugliness unleashed by Donald Trump but on a larger scale he’s as much a passing fad as the Apprentice reality show he rode to fame. That is the perspective of a Hungarian-American writer who retains the longer-range view formed by an early start to life in Europe.

Internationalist writer Fogarassy found that her view of the world as one big place was out of step with her American peers. “Why do you care?” was the response when she aired distress over refugees, orphans or immigrants. Friends understood when she explained but a visceral empathy was obviouly missing. The aim of her writing was to convey the feeling.

Light of a Destiny Dark bridges a big gap between Americans and their European close cousins. The novel is based on a memoir written by the author’s mother shortly after the family arrived in the US following the failed 1956 Hungarian revolution against Soviet Communism. While the book describes life in Hungary during the Second World followed by the 40-year Iron Curtain horror, recent events have given the experience a new relevance

The Russian invasion of Ukraine proved that the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union was far from a closed chapter in European history. The brutality of Russia in Ukraine in defiance of international laws instituted after the sSecond World War also put Europe on the alert.

Eastern European countries near Russia with their fledgling democracies and European Union memberships rightfully feared they could be next in line for a Russian incursion on their territories. That prospect hung over all of Europe as they united to aid Ukraine under the blanket of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, which was once threatened by Trump and then revitalized by Biden to solidify democracies the world over.

This happened in the waning stages of the global Covid pandemic with its disjointed management at all levels from national to regional. Mitigation measures often became politicized. National hot button issues ignited. Global supply chains jammed and the threat of Russia unleashing nuclera weapons snapped links in the chain to near collapse.

Sanctions were the only democratic tool that Western democracies could use against renegade Russia’s barbarity. While much of the world still just flirting with democracy did not join in, the unifying efforts of American Biden combined wth the charismatic heroism of its leader, Ukraine became the lynchpin for western democratic freedom.

In a parallel that foreshadows the future for the global world, the battle for democracy is taking place simultaneously in Ukraine and the US. In both, the battle is fought with both arms and ideas, but with a dispropotionate mixture of both.

Ukraine fights with all its physical might for an ideal of democracy the US was on the verge of losing under Trump. Ukraine reminded the US of how ardently it had fought for its own right to democracy a mere 250 years before. The parallel also rings a warning bell about brain-spam in the digital age for however long it lasts.

The digital age is likely to go down in history as an unregulated wasteland where trash piled up faster than it could be cleared. It was a US phenomenon that spread globally like the Covid virus. The largest patches of debris consisted of conspiracies and calls for violence. They were exploited by opportunists like Trump, who aimed to distrupt and destroy rather than repair and rebuild.

The flavor of the Trump era time is presented in America Votes Obama to Biden Past Trump: a kaleidoscopic view of the Trump phenomenon. Written by a Hungarian-American born into Communist Hungary, Fogarassy would never see Russian Putin as a neutral observer of America’s success. This collection of essays looks at 21st century America as a marriage of convenience between Putin and Trump. In her view, Putin wanted America and Trump was happy to comply.

Ultimatelt, the book celebrates the triumph of American democracy in a global world. From Fogarassy’s perspective, the world is a benevolent place full of enormous clallenges that intersect ever more starkly as rich and poor counties interact.

Representative essay titles include Privilege Dies Hard, The White House Born Loser, Moscow Towers Over Trump and Defusing the MAGA Mob-sters.

Written over a 12-year spread, the essays become ever more relevant as the 1/6 Committee lays out the near-coup scenario even as America’s conservatives turn ever more rabid. The book concludes that under Trump in league with Putin, American democracy had a workout that showed the way to more secure buttressing with legislation.

Filed Under: internationalism Tagged With: democracy, trump

Ukraine Defines Democracy

June 22, 2022 by Helenfogarassy Leave a Comment

Democreacy is rule by the people but who in the global digical world knows who the people are or what they want? Russia’s unwarranted and unlawful aggressin against Ukraine has taken a big step toward defining democracy in a global world.

Societies around the world have galloped toward development since the Second World War introduced the alternative of annihilation with the nuclear bomb. The United Nations and its multitude of bodies and agencies has played a major role in bettering life in now near-200 countries. This vast network takes on a human face in the novel entitled The Midas Maze. The plot centers on the pitfalls inherent in the juncture of people, governments and bureaucracies.

Bureaucracy had its heyday in the Soviet period behind the Iron Curtain that shrouded Eastern and Centrall Europe from all contact with democracy. In that system, red tape and its use for terror were the ways to elevate the ego by oppressing those pushed lower down in the henhouse pecking order. The Light of a Destiny Dark is a novel based on a memoir that brings to life the grim bleakness of life under that system.

The mayhem of global red tape is captured in Mission Improbable: the world community on a UN compound in Somalia. The memoir is a tribute to communicating across cultures where success or failure depends on any person’a indivual personality. The book shows that Integrity and good will tanscend cultural differences.

Russia’s current leader Vladimiir Putin was a beneficiary of the Soviet red tape form of government. Since the 1989 collapse of the Iron Curtain and the ensuing collapse of the Soviet economy, he has schemed to bring back the order expected to spring him into even greater heights An opening came with Donald Trump, an opportunist of the world leading US democracy. A writer’s view of this union is presented in America Votes Obama to Biden Past Trump. The premis is that America was not itself under the double assault of an American huckster and a former Soviet intelligence agent. Yet when America survived & was coming out of its coma, Putin turned to his second choice, the former satellite that had turned decidedly democratic since shedding its Soviet yoke.

The world’s people have rallied to Ukraine’s support as it has fought off the brutal assault. On behalf of Ukraine’s resolve to preserve its fledgling democracy, world leaders put heads together and even pulled the United Natins out of mothblls to help figure out how to cut through red tape without sparking a third world war. What’s missing from the effort is a full-throated cheer for efforts by the people of the United States.

The land of freedom, opportunity and free speech is mired in a complexity that has left them exhausted. After layers of information ranging from facts to alternative facts, after Trump, Covid and now the threrat of a third world, the people of America need clarity in the ruckus.

The Ukraine crisis makes one contrast very clear. Evil and good are opposites. Good gains momentum by spreading word of its works. Evil exhausts itself & allies by the work need to erect and maintain walls to keep out the good.

Please spread the word about helenfogarassy.com, a website dedicated to promoting good through the written word, especially through cmmunication between America and the rest of the world. The task is daunting. We are in development. An army of tech support advisors are needed to be hired. Contribute comments and donations, preferably both. Your interest will be acknowlrdged here.

We thank you. We and democracy thank the people of Ukraaine. Their valor is far from in vain.

Filed Under: communication, Criminal Justice, helenfogarassy.com, internationalism Tagged With: democracy, Europe, Putin, Ukraine, US, Zelensky

Trump As a Blip in Democracy

June 22, 2022 by Helenfogarassy Leave a Comment

Donald Trump was an opportunist who took advantagee of America, the land of opportunity. In line with that frame of mind, he cozied with the world’s dictators while shunning democratic leaders, all in the name of America. Then afterr four years of Trump and a pandemic he politicezd, America said no more of this fake president.

History will prove the veracity of the seeming fact that Russia had a heavy hand in getting Trump elected to the US presidency in 2016. Enough evidence existed, however, that the 2020 election was the most secure ever. Trump’s own Cyber security expert made that statement before being fired. Nevertheless, voting security was beefed up for 2020. Trump lost.

Unable to admit defeat, Trump worked his base well into 2022 as the Covic pandemic was tamed even as Russia’s Putin launched an assault on Ukraine for no other reason than he wanted to own it. Ukraine’s defiance against being oppressed invigorated democracy throughout the world and brought into relief the difference between democracy and tyranny. Never oppressed but founded by forebears who fled from oppressors, today’s Americans have little experience with the rage engedered by being rendered powerless. Refugees now forced from homes in Ukraine will live with that knowledge for all their lives.

Hungarian-American writer Fogarassy has lived all her life with that early esperience of having to flee with her family from Soviet communism. She carried memories of that time through relocations and 20 years of independant work with the United Nations. That life experience is reflected in her published works.

America Votes Obama to Biden Past Trump is a collection of articles on the Trump presidency from the Hungarian-American perspective. She is a savvy New Yorker who worked for the Trump Organization during its infancy.

The Light of a Destiny Dark is a novel based on a memoir about Hungary during WWII and under Soviet Communism.

The Midas Maze is a novel about the vast international network that promotes development all across the world. Bureaucracy is an occupational hazard in that work.

Mission Improbable: The world community on a UN compound in Somalia is an account of internationals from, around the world interacting together.

d the unavoidable bureaucracy needed to carry out that work.

Mission Improbable: The World Community on a UN Compound in Somalia is a record of interactions between people of all cultures interacting on an enclosed compound. Human natured down to basics.

Filed Under: communication, Criminal Justice, helenfogarassy.com, internationalism Tagged With: democracy, globalism, trump, trumpism

Our Valentine World

February 14, 2022 by Helenfogarassy Leave a Comment

Quote: My funny valentine, sweet comic valentine. You make me smile with my heart…you’re my favorite work of art. (show tune from Rodgers & Hart musical Babes in Arms, 1937).

In the news: What’s Going on in this Graph? Global Optimism (The Learning Network study, 2.03.2022, published in The New York Times, 2.10.2022).

In context: On the global stage, bad news drowned good on Valentine’s Day 2022. War was on the brink as Russia menaced Ukraine and staged a game of chicken with democracy. Western Europe showed schisms while reinforcing ties with a US still suffering PTSD from a near coup orchestrated by its former so-called leader. China’s Olympics were floundering, Covid was enraging waves of anti-establishment fanatics and the public seemed exhausted only it wasn’t.

The study conducted by the Learning Network surveyed more than 21,000 people in 21 countries in all regions of the world. The responses were talled in two groups, one of respondents in the 15-24 age range and the other of those 50 years and older.. Surprise. Young people found in the struggles of their elders the seeds of how to go forward for a better world.

Okay, so the world has many prblems and each of its near-200 countries has its own particular variation of fundamentally the same problems. But the magic element of love, the inexplicable secret essence that is the source of the utmost agony and agony in humans is curiosity. “Fools rush in” for the chance to pursue the self-knowledge that the other draws out in us to explore.

“Getting to know you” is the magnet that draws us to venture beyond our comfort zone, past the secure borders that hem us in. That is the courage we have given our young people to dare if we just find the courage to get out of their way. For a better future, we have only to be the fallback cusion for our kids when they need help. help in venturing forward.

.

Filed Under: internationalism Tagged With: globalism, optimism, valentine's day

Clear the Decks for Olympic Truce

January 28, 2022 by Helenfogarassy Leave a Comment

Winter Olympics start February 4 in Beijing. World at odds, on edge over #Russia @ #Ukdraine border. US diplos boycotting Olympics because of human rights violations by China. UN, meanwhile, calls for Olympic Truce during period of games to promote peace through sport. Indeed, UN has whole department dedicated to promoting peace and development through sport. During Somalia intervention in mid 1990’s, warring clan fighters put down guns to watch World Cup on communal TVs donated by Cisco.

Plenty of excitement in world without resort to destructive wars. Fight it out on skating rink, bring honor to your country, all near-200 countries of the world. Not in the Games this year? Get inspired, look up your country’s Olympic Committee & sharpen up skate blades. We can all help each other. Olympic flame lights the way.

Read about Somalia and sport in Mission Improbable: the world community on a UN compound in Somalia. Read about the vast UN global network in the novel entitled The Midas Maze. Read about fate we are avoiding now in Light of a Destiny Dark, a true-life novel about Hungary through World War II followed by near-40 years of Soviet domination. And finally, read about the joys of global democracy in America Votes Obama to Biden Past Trump: a kaleidoscopic view of the Trump phenomenon, out just now on major on-line book sites.

The world is resplendent with plenty of diversity to keep all enthralled. Differences inevitable. Fight them out in sport, not bloody conflict. Bon chance, y’all. Meet you in Beijing.

Filed Under: internationalism

Hop To With Biden, Uncle Sam

January 23, 2022 by Helenfogarassy Leave a Comment

Quote: You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing once they have tried everything else (attrib to Winston Churchill, 1940’s)

In the news: Russia and China’s plans for a new world order (Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, 1.22.22)

In context: In a global age of rolling pandemics and climate catastrophes, a world war would seem farthest from any leader’s mind. Yet the header of Bachman’s article in the Financial Times sums up the situation:

“For Moscow and Beijing, the Ukraine crisis is part of a struggle to reduce American power and make the world safe for autocrats.”

Two-thirds of Americans might agree with that assessment if they had time to think about the larger world. But America is stuck in its own relatively smaller concerns of racial equity and resistance to public health mandates. However important, those issues would pale in comparison if the Putin plan for America under Trump had succeeded. Two newly published books by Helen Fogarassy demonstrate the point.

America Votes Obama to Biden Past Trump: a kaleidoscopic view of the Trump phenomenon is a collection of the author’s articles on America in the first two decades of the 21st century. An Amazon reviewer said it was a very thoughtful assessment of a presidency gone awry.
Vivid and unyielding, it is rich with perspectives held by this immigrant cum-citizen offering a fresh approach. No holds barred and edgy, you are in for an enlightening ride through this unfortunate era in our history.

Fogarassy’s novel Light of a Destiny Dark has just been reissued. It is based on a memoir written by her mother shortly after the family escaped Soviet Hungary and landed in Northwest Indiana of the United States. The novel goes beyond the horrors of the Second World War and follows the country through ten years of pillage by the Soviets until the noble but futile revolution before the Iron Curtain finally imploded more than 30 years later. An Amazon reviewer said the book was a good find and very timely. It is noteworthy that Russia’s Vladimir Putin is of the view that the fall of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy to befall humankind in the 20th century.

Americans want to venture a guess on how minorities fare in Russia or China? Easy to check on Google News.

Time to hop to, America. Join forces with other democracies however imperfect. They don’t need barbed wire to keep citizens penned in and away from truths.

Filed Under: internationalism Tagged With: China, democracy, russia, US

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