Final Word from Monday, May 26, 2008
At some point, corruption or abuse of power by politicians or other people of influence can become so significant that it amounts to betrayal of their nation or treason. It's a fair question to ask whether some of the key decisions being made by the Topolánek government fall into this category. When Green Chair Martin Bursík was asked by a protester on Czech TV yesterday who is paying him to take a radar position that goes against the wishes of 70% of Czechs, he said it's sad that she has to stoop to such an argument. This is the way the Communists denigrated dissidents, he said. His angry response failed to allay the fears of many people that the Czech government is not acting in the best interest of its people. In the U.S., Barack Obama's patriotism came under attack merely because he failed to wear a flag pin in the lapel of his jacket. It was nonsense and he knew it, but he started wearing one more often.[Czech Republic Television United States of American president John Stormer Cold War communism]
Glossary of difficult words
None dare call it treason - the title of a 1964 book by John Stormer, in which he argued that the U.S. was losing the Cold War because it had been infiltrated by Communist subversives;
treason - the crime of betraying one's country;
to stoop - to lower one's moral standards so far as to do something unacceptable;
to denigrate - to criticize unfairly, disparage;
to allay - to diminish or put at rest;
lapel - the part of each side of a coat or jacket below the collar that is folded back.