Final Word from Friday, January 8, 2010
The permanent anti-protest barriers at the cabinet headquarters in Prague are a sign that politicians fear a public uprising. Times are tough for everyone, except at the top. The brazenness with which the politicians keep on stealing, with little concern for the mounting tension, is fanning the flames even more. It's perplexing. Surely the politicians and their masters understand that the temperature is rising to the boiling point. Apparently, though, they're counting on the past being an accurate prediction of the future. Almost no Communists were punished after 1989, and the 90's and 00's were a boom time for capitalists without scruples. What the Czech thieves might be overlooking is the possibility that the real backlash will be sparked by discontent in other countries, just as the sparks for the Velvet Revolution and the Czech economic crisis came from abroad. If crooks are being hanged, drawn and quartered in other lands, it will be much easier for passive Czechs to find the courage to do the same on their own town squares.[Czech Republic corruption]
Glossary of difficult words
brazenness - boldness without shame;
to fan the flames - to make a situation worse;
perplexing - puzzling, confusing;
backlash - a strong and adverse reaction by a large number of people, esp. to a social or political development;
hanged - past tense of "hang" in this sense, but "hung" is often used as well;
hanged, drawn and quartered - hanged by the neck, disembowelled and emasculated, beheaded and divided into four parts, as a form of supreme punishment.