In article >, 
says...
>There is a movement to require English to be the official language in both
>state and federal  level.

I received an e-mail from P. Agostini quoting a report posted to another
list about this very point. Some Republicans are apparently trying to
push such a bill through Congress at this time which is being fiercely
resisted by Democrats. It seems pretty serious and could bode ill for
the USA if such a sensitive issue isn't handled with a bit more finesse
than currently seems the case.
(I'm assuming P. Agostini has mailed the report to the list even though
I don't yet see it on my news server.)

--
George Szaszvari, DCPS Chess Club, 42 Alleyn Park, London SE21 7AA, UK
Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy * ARM Club * C=64..ICPUG * NW London CC

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On Sun, 11 Aug 1996, Burian wrote:
> I still feel there can only be one official language for a country in
> order for it be unified.
 So you don't think that eg. Switzerland is unified?
> English has always been the language of the
> USA--so by my thinking, it wins.
 But then it never had an official language before...

- --
 Zoli , keeper of <http://www.hix.com/hungarian-faq/>;
*SELLERS BEWARE: I will never buy anything from companies associated
*with inappropriate online advertising (unsolicited commercial email,
*excessive multiposting etc), and discourage others from doing so too!


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An interesting opinion about the Hungarian economy was published
in the Demokrata, a Hungarian periodical. It was written by Mr.
Janos Latorczai, an expert of the KDNP, an oppostion party in
Hungary. I put here same excerpts from his article titled as
"The Inventors of the 'Unhealthy Growth".

It can be viewd as an addition to my discussion with Gyuri Antony.
(Sorry guys, it's in Hungarian).
                                                         Sz. Zoli

 ----------------------------------------------------------------
Az "egeszsegtelen novekedes" fogalmanak feltalaloi
LATORCZAI JANOS
[Demokrata (31)]

Az MSZP es az SZDSZ mukodesenek felideje a magyar gazdasag tukreben

A kormany eddigi gazdasagpolitikaja
lenyegeben azt szuggeralta, hogy nehany milliardon mulik a magyar
gazdasag jovoje. Ezt a katasztrofalis megitelesi kepesseget jol
szemlelteti a gazdasag realfolyamatainak ertekelese. Ahogy Rabar
professzor egy interjuban nagyon talaloan megfogalmazta: "Eloszor
tagadtak, kesobb reszlegesen elismertek, majd egeszsegtelennek(?!)
nyilvanitottak, vegul (rogton a Bokros-csomag bevezetese utan)
kisajatitottak a gazdasag minden reszeben akkor meg jelen volt
novekedest. Feltalaltak az egeszsegtelen novekedes fogalmat, ami egy
nyitott piacgazdasagban ertelmezhetetlen".

Paradox a helyzet, a jelenlegi koltsegvetesi szemlelet szerint
ugyanis minel nagyobb a stagnalas, annal sikeresebb a gazdasag-
politika. A stagnalas tehat tudatos cselekves eredmenye.

A stabilizacio mindenek
felettisegenek hangoztatasa ugyan meg ma is a kormanypropaganda
meghatarozo eleme, a gazdasag tobb pontjan azonban mar erezheto a
hajlandosag az esszerutlen restrikcio enyhitesere is. Egyre
nyilvanvalobb, hogy nem lehet tovabb fojtott es pango allapotban
tartani a novekedesnek indult gazdasagot.

A 3,5 milliard dollar
tartalekba helyezett reszenek sorsa az egesz jovendo
gazdasagpolitika kulcsa. Ennek felhasznalasara valoszinuleg az 1997-
es koltsegvetesben kerul sor, tekintettel a tarsadalmi feszultsegekre,
azaz itt es ekkor kap teret majd a politika.

Okay, here's my opinion of the "English Only" Bill.  It means that English
is the official langauge of the USA, not that it be the only one ever
spoken!

I'm for it--and I'm not narrow-minded (I don't think).  For a country to
be represented in more than one language divides the country (as in
Canada).  The majority of people who came here originally had very little
relation, in blood or culture, to Great Britain (just look at the names in
any American phonebook).  Yet they all learned English because it was
simply the language of the country.  (My own relatives came from Hungary
and Lithuania.)

I happen to live in the Southwest, and yes, there are a lot of Hispanics
here, and you can hear Spanish all the time.  Which is fine with me.  But
I still feel there can only be one official language for a country in
order for it be unified.  English has always been the language of the
USA--so by my thinking, it wins.

Burian

Gyuri Antony wrote (emphasis by me):

> And, unlike most other ethnicities, after a long history of pogroms
       ------ ---- ----- -----------
> culminating in the Holocaust, Jews can be excused for being twitchy
> about references to Jewishness where the context does not require that.

Should we take this now as a 'historical justification' of
an asymmetric view of the history?

(By assymmetry I mean that according to this view the Jewish
ethnicity acquires a different, 'asymmetric' position among
all the ethnic, religious, etc.  minorities in a country/in
the world/etc.)
                                                   Sz. Zoli

Some people like to compare Martin Heidegger and George Lukacs
on the basis that both of them related to some totaliarian
regime during their carriers as philosophers.

We could discover a nice piece of sophistry in this comparison.

Heidegger accepted an approximately 1-year-long presidency of
a German university after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.
After 1 year he had an irreconcilable conflict with the Nazis
who were pushing their agenda in the German universities. So
Heidegger resigned.

George Lukacs had a different story. He was a member of the
communist Kun government (the 'Directorium') at 1919 in Hungary.
He himself executed soldiers of the Hungarian Red Army as a
commissar sent by the Communist Party. Later he survived in
Russia as a political immigrant, which was not an easy task
during the flourishing totalitaritan regime established by
Dzugashvili. (He himself explained this later to his disciples.)

At 1946-47 he had a famous public conversation with Istvan Bibo,
who accused the communists in Hungary by undermining democracy
and establishing the dictatorship of the Communist Party. Lukacs
dismissed the charges of Bibo saying that the 'dictatorship of
the proletariat' was not yet on the schedule of his party. He
simply lied. In the next year, in 1948 Rakosi established his
dictatorship.

In 1956 Lukacs accepted the call of the revolutionary Prime
Minister Imre Nagy, and joined his government. Just to deny
him and the revolution a couple of days later. Of course, he
survived one more time (unlike Imre Nagy). Shortly before his
death it was his great pleasure and satisfaction to join again
to the Communist Party, led by Janos Kadar this time.

Heidegger's philosophy is not a political philosophy. He
created the basis for the modern philosophical thinking by
introducing existentialism, a radical ontology of the 20th
Century. Lukacs never claimed to be more, than a Marxist
philosopher. And he was not. His writings were 'the extended
arms' of his Party. He was proud to be biased in favor of 'The
Party'. And that was his whole life.

Now, how can we match this 2 thinkers? One with a 1-year-long
involvement in 1933 in the burocracy of a first-stage (still
unknown at the time) political regime. And the other with a
whole lifetime involvement in different kind of oppressing
political systems of the (already well-known at the time)
communists.

This matching has always been an amazing kind of sophistry
for me.
                                                     Sz. Zoli

Morgoth > wrote:

>Was there not a Moravia and a Greater Moravia. Last I heard both were in
>the Balkans, but not sure where.

Several more or less plausible hypotheses concerning the existence of
two 9th century Moravian realms  have been proposed. These "two
Moravian" theses are anchored on one or more of the following records:


(1)testimony of the Geographus Bavarus,

(2)several sources indicating that prior to 871 Rastislav and
Sventopolk ruled over separate realms, and

(3)the writings of Constantine Porphyrogenitus

However, when it comes to the exact location of these two Moravian
principalities, or to whom rulers they belonged, opinions differ.Thus,
according to the Bavarian Geographer's testimony, around 817 or 843,
there was a smaller Moravia, with 11 castle or counties [Marharii
habeant XI civitates], in the neighborhood of Bohemia, and a a larger
one, with 30 castles [Merehani habeant XXX civitates], facing,
probably, the moth of the Drava river. Puposki-Nagy, a scholar of
Bratislava, suggested that the land of the Merehani is the megale
Moravia described by Constantine Porphyrogenitus' book "De
Administrando imperio." The smaller Moravia, almost the same with
present-day Moravia,  was at a later date conquered by Sventopolk,
whose center of power was in the southern Moravia.

Senga Toru, a Japanese student in Bratislava, also accepted that
Constantine's DAI indicate that Sventopolk's Moravia was near the
Drava-Danube confluence. Not like Puposki-Nagy, Senga Toru considered
that Rastislav's realm was in the modern Moravia.

Imre Boba thought that prior to the 871 events Rastislav and
Sventopolk ruled over separate principalities, both in southern
Pannonia and Moesia. Moreover, he suggested that Porphyrogenitus
himself had knowledge of two Moravias: one was the older or former
Moravia, the "megale" Moravia of Sventopolk; there was also a Moravia
of Constantine's own time, located somewhere south of the river Sava,
and ruled by some "archons of Moravia" with whom the Byzantine court
was exchanging letters.

Bowlus briefly reviewed Martin Eggers' "two Moravia" thesis, which
puts both 9th century realms far to the southeast of modern Moravia:
Sventopolk's principality was originally south of Sava, in modern
Bosnia, but Rastislav was east of the Danube, centered on urbs
Morisena (modern Romanian Cenad).

Regards,

Liviu Iordache

On Aug 11,  4:39pm, Zoltan Szekely wrote:
> Subject: Hungarian economy
> An interesting opinion about the Hungarian economy was published
> in the Demokrata, a Hungarian periodical. It was written by Mr.
> Janos Latorczai, an expert of the KDNP, an oppostion party in
>                  --------------------- ?
> Hungary. I put here same excerpts from his article titled as
> "The Inventors of the 'Unhealthy Growth".
>
> It can be viewd as an addition to my discussion with Gyuri Antony.
> (Sorry guys, it's in Hungarian).
>                                                          Sz. Zoli
>
>  ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Az "egeszsegtelen novekedes" fogalmanak feltalaloi
> LATORCZAI JANOS
> [Demokrata (31)]
> ----------------------------
    This has nothing to do with economics, it is party propaganda.
    Pure and simple.
                     Amos

ESB wrote:
> But that wasn't enough. There had to
> be a man who was willing to try to reform the whole rotten structure. And
> came Gorbachev. The system, however, was such that it couldn't be
> "reformed." Once you opened the flood gates you were in trouble.
Especially if you allow your Military Hawks to murder free
all along the country...

Have you ever heard of the Tbilisi Massacre? It was made by
General Rodionoff (Defence Minister now) and his undereducated,
bestialistic military hordes. They even used chemical weapons
(poisonoing battle gases) against the civil inhabitants. And
Gorbachev did not do anything about telling the truth in this
(that's about 'Glasnosty' and the other lies). On the contrary,
he made a perfect cover-up to the killers, and he did not even
dare to touch the responsibility of Rodionoff, and his ilks.

Just look at the consequences of all these now, under Lebedj.

                                                      Sz. Zoli

Amos:
> >  ----------------------------------------------------------------
> > Az "egeszsegtelen novekedes" fogalmanak feltalaloi
> > LATORCZAI JANOS
> > [Demokrata (31)]
> > ----------------------------
>     This has nothing to do with economics, it is party propaganda.
>     Pure and simple.
>                      Amos

It can not be party propaganda. There is not even a party
mentioned here... :-)
                                                 Sz. Zoli

Kedves Zoltan!

At 16:50 11/08/96 -0400, Zoltan Szekely wrote:

>Gyuri Antony wrote (emphasis by me):
>
>> And, unlike most other ethnicities, after a long history of pogroms
>       ------ ---- ----- -----------
>> culminating in the Holocaust, Jews can be excused for being twitchy
>> about references to Jewishness where the context does not require that.
>
>Should we take this now as a 'historical justification' of
>an asymmetric view of the history?
>
>(By assymmetry I mean that according to this view the Jewish
>ethnicity acquires a different, 'asymmetric' position among
>all the ethnic, religious, etc.  minorities in a country/in
>the world/etc.)
>                                                   Sz. Zoli

George Antony made this comment first, but I have been thinking this for
quite a while. I do not believe that anything merits an *asymmetrical*
analysis of history and don't believe that most Jews ask for favorable or
special treatment of their history. However, it can explain a certain
sensitivity of Jews - and of non-Jews who are sympathetic to Jewish concerns
- that, in fact, many of the ridiculous charges which have been leveled
against Jews in the past centuries have been used as *pretexts* to
persecute, torture, conduct pogroms, etc. etc. No other minority group
anywhere - I would venture to say - has endured such almost continuous
persecution over the centuries as the Jews have. (This despite the fact that
there have been individual groups who have been persecuted from time to time
- heretics, for example, as well as Jews, during the Spanish Inquisition).

I would ascribe this to two phenomena - one is the fact that the Jews have
historically been blamed for the death of Christ, which seemed to many
people to justify persecution, and the other factor is that the Jews have
been dispersed from their homeland for almost two thousand years, and yet
have managed to retain their cultural and religious identity. Furthermore,
they valued learning, hard work, thrift, and enterprise, and thus became
resented by the majority populations in many of the areas in which they
settled. As my mother told me years ago, the Jews valued learning, because
if you were kicked out of one country and had to flee to another one,
learning was the one thing that could not be taken from you.

This is one reason that Hungary has been so admirable in the past, from my
point of view - the fact of comparative toleration for many different
ethnicities, including Jews, who found shelter within her borders. And
Hungary has benefitted greatly from the contributions made by members of
these ethnic groups to her culture - it has been pointed out by many people
- sometimes with the intent to denigrate the Hungarians - that many of her
most famous citizens are of Jewish, Slavic, German, Romanian, Croat,
Serbian, etc. etc. origin. But, I think this fact is a credit to the people
of Hungary and of the foresight of King Saint Stephen, who apparently laid
the groundwork for this custom. It distresses me now to hear *some*
Hungarians spreading slanderous lies about the Jewish people.

I believe somebody said (NPA?) a while ago on this List, that nobody would
question it if *blood libel* charges were made against the Mayas. And, he
went on, no one is saying that *all* such charges against Jews are true, why
isn't it possible that *some* of these charges are true?

Firstly, the custom of the Mayas in shedding their own blood as part of
their religious rituals is well known. They also practised human sacrifice,
but it appears that this was on a much smaller scale than that of the Aztec
Indians. Remember, however, that such beliefs were part of a cosmological
world view that held that the world as they knew it would end if they did
not sacrifice to the gods. The difference is, as George Antony says, that in
the case of the Jews, the charges (were *any* of them ever substantiated?)
were used to persecute innocent Jews and Jews as a people.

Also I am only aware of  two instances of something like actual vampirism -
one is that German serial killer on which the story of *M* (portrayed by
Peter Lorre in the famous 1930 German movie) was based and the other is the
case of Bathory Erzse'bet grofno"; I am sure that she was not Jewish, was
the German serial killer? The difference is, however, that, even if there
were some psychotics who happened to be Jewish, that would not mean that
draining people's blood, drinking their blood, etc. was a widespread Jewish
custom.Yet such charges have often been used to persecute Jews.

Food for thought, I think,

Yours sincerely,

Johanne
Johanne L. Tournier
e-mail - 

At 04:50 PM 8/11/96 -0400, Sz. Zoli wrote:

>Should we take this now as a 'historical justification' of
>an asymmetric view of the history?
>
>(By assymmetry I mean that according to this view the Jewish
>ethnicity acquires a different, 'asymmetric' position among
>all the ethnic, religious, etc.  minorities in a country/in
>the world/etc.)

Could you please elaborate on what asymmetric in this case means.

Gabor D. Farkas

In article >, Joe Szalai
> writes:

>I think the Americans are scared silly by all the Spanish speakers in the
>South Western States.  I may be wrong on this, but I once read that
English
>is growing everywhere in the world except in the American South West.
>There, Spanish is growing faster than English.

Joe, this is a little anachronistic. The Southwest had considerable
numbers of Spanish-speaking residents centuries before English-speaking
whites began settling the area. I don't have any solid figures at hand,
but I would guess the percentage of Hispanics in the total population of
Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and southern California as a whole is, indeed,
growing. But that doesn't necessarily mean that those folks can't speak
English. And I would guess that the fastest rate of growth in speakers of
any language in the Southwest (rate of growth, not growth in the total
number of speakers, mind you) might well be Navaho. Saying Americans are
"scared silly" by all the Spanish speakers in the Southwest is a wild
overstatement. There is concern -- and considerable political turmoil --
over the process of acculturating the newest Latino immigrants. But it's
not any different in degree than debates earlier in this century over how
to assimilate immigrants from southern and eastern Europe.

I don't think the drive to make English the official language of the
United States is going to make much of a practical difference in people's
lives even if it is successfully legislated on a national level. The U.S.
has always been cheerfully, anarchically polyglot, even in many rural
areas. What's changed is the recent multicultural emphasis on attempting
to use the political process to dictate winners and losers among those
languages in active use here (In this regard, the English-only supporters
and the Chicano activists who openly gloat about the day when they will
retake "Aztlan" through sheer weight of demographic numbers are singing
out of the same hymnal). Most Americans ignore such divisiveness. Already
in eastern North Carolina, grocery stores in rural farming counties have
signs out by the road that say "Se vende produjos mejicanos" and public
school systems have begun placing bilingual signs throughout their schools
and training their teachers to speak Spanish. All of this without turmoil
or uproar or government interference or resistance from English speakers.
You need to come spend a little time in the Great Satan, buddy. You might
be in for a big surprise.
Sam Stowe

"Amiguito, amiguito
soy yo de diablos juradores..."
-- Cervantes