Final Word from Tuesday, November 18, 2008



Václav Havel told LN that he sometimes has the feeling the Velvet Revolution was for naught. All at once, he said, it's as if part of the population were pining for a "firm Eastern embrace." His gloom was in reaction to the rise of the Communists into regional councils. He said yesterday, though, that gangster capitalism bothers him even more than the Communists. But isn't one a subset of the other? There are of course still some hardline Communists who, like young MP Kateřina Konečná, pin their hopes on Marx and Engels. But, as Bohumil Pečinka noted in Reflex, the Communist Party is increasingly run by the "byznys" generation. They're young politicians who have discovered the magic of the "commission" and for whom politics is just another form of entrepreneurial activity. These neocoms will be glad to embrace the East, as long as the envelope slipped into their jacket pocket is thick enough.[Czech Republic Lidové noviny Karl Friedrich KCŠM business bribery corruption]

Glossary of difficult words

for naught - to no effect, pointless;

to pine for something - to miss and long for the return of;

regional councils - ČSSD is joining with the Communists to form governments in several regions; 

subset - a part of a larger group of related things; 

hardline - extreme, strict, diehard;

to pin one's hopes on something - to rely heavily on; 

Reflex - sorry, the article is not yet available on the internet; 

neocom - neo-communist (a play on the word "neocon/neoconservative").

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