Tomorrow there will be a demonstration in downtown Prague. We got a little flyer in our mailbox.
If you're thinking that this looks like some hyped-up, jingoistic crap— you’re right! Flip the flyer over and it's from PRO. The back of the flyer sets out the 20 points of this organization’s program. It's really a remarkable list.
PRO
Law, Respect, Expertise
The 20 Program Points of PRO
- Like in France's case of EdF, we'll buy a minority share of [the largest provider of energy in the Czech Republic], leave the European Energy Exchange and fix the price of electricity for consumers at around 3 CZK per kWh
- Keep coal burning power plants in service and build more nuclear power plants
- Leave the Carbon Emission Voucher system and refuse to accept any similar voucher system offered by the EU
- Refuse the Green Deal and come up with our own program for the protection of the environment which will be in agreement with economic growth
- Create specific taxes for selected sectors (banks, cell phone operators, etc)
- We will not raise the tax burden on Czech citizens
- We will provide work with higher benefits, so our country will not continue to be an economic colony of the west and the incomes of our employees will gradually approach the incomes of Western Europe
- Stop the purchase of the F 35
- Codify marriage as a bond between one woman and one man
- Permanently reject the Euro and provide the Czech Crown and cash payments protection under the law
- Exit the DSA contract with the USA (alternately, we won't use it to invite a single soldier from another country. End nonsensically expensive purchases of army tech
- We'll veto Ukraine’s entrance to NATO
- We'll end the providing of so-called temporary protection for Ukrainian citizens on the basis of collective European politics, because the condition of their being no possibility of their safe return to their country was not met. Residence in the Czech Republic will be allowed only on the basis of standard asylum protocols as defined by our legal code
- We immediately and permanently refuse required solidarity in regard to distributing migrants in the EU and we will not accept any form of required quota
- We will join forces with Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and other partners and either return the EU to the EHS platform or leave it together and form a Central European free-trade zone cooperating with the EU and BRICS
- We'll stop any form of censorship and secure full freedom to express opinions in public discourse
- We'll investigate crimes committed during the COVID period, those at the Czech level and even the EU level and bring punishable- legal responsibility to the individuals which engaged in these crimes
- We'll request a full refund of all payments for gene therapy from corporations Pfizer and Moderna which was falsely presented by these corporations as vaccine
- In international politics we will bring a political policy of all azimuths — that is, to maintain friendly relations with the vast majority of states belonging to the UN
- We will make basic reforms to education that will stop broad inclusion and categorically forbid any gender or politically oriented indoctrination of our children
Sound familiar? It'll be nauseating to see how many poor souls this brings out on a Saturday afternoon. Sadly, no rain forecast— or tornadoes.
In case you’re bewildered by the points made by this political party, I’ll take a moment to read a bit between the lines of my translation of the flyer:
- An appeal to the economically fragile folks who felt the hit of higher energy prices this winter. We'll leave the tyranny of the EU and strike out on our own, finding fuel from who knows where (cough, Russia, cough)
- Because the future is in polluting all we can, while we can-- and nuclear is just the thing to make all our neighbors feel secure. Change is hard! Time to reopen those coal mines! Quality jobs!
- Carbon limits are an unnecessary burden imposed on us by evil, shadowy, western influences
- Just like that Green Deal, right? There's surely no economic opportunities to be had for Czech manufacturers of solar panels, photovoltaic cells, wind turbines … Coal, dammit. Coal is prosperity! Fossils are the future!
- A banking tax? A cell-phone operator tax? Yes, we know how to target the real and imagined evils behind our audience's fears and feeling that they're oppressed and taken advantage of by economic bullies
- But we won’t raise your taxes! We love you! Trust us! Populism tastes great!
- We'll do this thing that is already happening without our expert help
- Best not to modernize our outdated Air Force with the best fighter jet currently being produced in the West. Surely there are other countries providing modern jets who could sell some to us— or better yet, they could just park their planes at our airports like in 1968
- How am I not surprised to see the old hairy chestnut of this intolerant codifying of marriage as a strictly heterosexual bond. The far-right sings the same songs the world over. It’s not like homosexual couples have full rights in the Czech Republic anyway— but, best make sure we get rid of the few rights they do have … Fear of the other, do we have your vote?
- Somebody upset about currency? Is converting CZK to Euros too much to bear? Have we made travel to the Czech Republic too convenient for our fellow EU members by making the acceptance of two currencies part of doing business? Is our own currency more stable than a collective currency? Hmm, we sure wouldn’t want to go full Euro and see a surge in foreign investment like the Slovaks did in the 90s
- Kick out those NATO forces. After all, somebody might want to invade us
- Vetoing Ukraine's admission to NATO will make our dear leader so happy with us
- Surely we can just sent all half-a-million or so Ukrainian refugees back to their homes. It's not as if there's a war going on anywhere. Better yet, let's keep them out by having them slog their way through our unfathomable bureaucratic morass like the rest of the world's detritus
- How can we be cowardly, isolationist greed-heads if we have to share the burden and care about other people— especially dark, scary ones!
- Join with Slovakia? Don’t look up to point 10— they got the Euro y’know. Oh, their recent political shift to the right. Okay. Hungary? Ah yes, their little dictatorial monster— certainly not our ambition, trust us! Austria? Oh yeah, famous for not going in for military aid to Ukraine. Also famous for protesting the Czechs building nuclear reactors uncomfortably close to their border. Um, don’t look back at point 2. They do have the Euro, so again, ignore earlier point 10. Surely we'll convince everybody to dump the Euro, just like they'll gladly dump EU membership. But we'll still be buddies with the EU, okay? It wouldn’t be like Brexit or anything. We all know what a disaster that was. And we toss in a nod to BRICS, we do know which side the fascist bread is buttered on, don’t we? Smoochies, Vlad!
- No censorship? Ha! for some reason Czech law is preventing us from denying the Holocaust and engaging in overt hate-speech to get a proper bloodbath going. We have important lies to spread! Yeah, that pesky Czech hate-speech law …
- Hmm, nice and vague— yet still highly conspiratorial. We all know crimes were committed, surely.
- Gene therapy? We're glad our potential voters are too stupid to realize how stupid that sounded. I guess we're okay with the gene therapy from Astra-Zeneca. We pretend to not understand what a vaccine is and we're counting on you not to learn about it at this point. Alternately, we’re just as dumb and ignorant as you. So please, trust us!
- We'd like to take another opportunity to remind you that there's also East on the compass. You remember the east don't you? No, no— not the source of 20 years of brutal oppression and deprivation. Don't remember that!
- And finally we'd like to remind you that we're the party of old ideas, our appeal is in our shared fear of change. Modern gender stuff is hard to relate to and even harder to understand— so let's keep our teachers from freely talking about gendery things with their students (don't look back up at point 16!) Oh, and while we're here, let's not teach
your, our children about politics because if they learn about politics they'd see us coming …