"Just watch my hand because I'm cheating!" The older ones surely still remember Master Rodolfó's famous saying. Of course, anyone who really watched his hand had no chance of noticing the fraud.
In life, of course, they lead us astray with many such "clever" solutions. With claims in which they build bunkers of false claims around the tiny kernel of truth. Facts contrary to reality are hidden behind sound definitions.
To make it clear what I mean, here are some examples. Staying with my own profession, let's examine what the independent, objective press is like? None, because there is no such thing. It cannot be independent in the first place, because the journalist also lives on the market, someone pays for his work, on whom the independent depends. In the same way, there is no such thing as an objective journalist, since everyone interprets every phenomenon and event according to their own convictions, let's say, looking through their own lens. How can it be independent and objective when one person thinks of the same fact as half-full and another as half-empty? Therefore, we pay close attention to those who claim to be independent and objective, because they are cheating.
Then there are sonorous names that try to make it seem as if there is nothing complicated about them. Even their name is clear, let's say Translucent. Upon hearing the term transparent, everyone imagines a window pane through which it is clear who is on the other side and what is behind the glass. However, both the milk glass and the thick glass with metal inserts are transparent (as far as it goes), but apart from blurred shapes and moving spots, that side can hardly be identified.
The glass is transparent, isn't it? (There is a better word for this: transparent. But they don't use that, because it would be too transparent.)
Then there are transparent techniques, which are characteristic of certain "government critic" (translated into Hungarian: hates the Christian-conservative government) organs. Here, for example, is the investigation. Undoubtedly, it sometimes happens that the author really investigates the causes, but it is more common (much more common) that under the title of investigation it is only about inciting hatred and creating tension. This is just one example: the "investigator" pretends that his work is being hindered. He sneaks under the gardens and makes suspicious statements (don't see into this oligarch's property, he must have something to hide), while the video he made clearly shows that he can see into it. But this does not bother our man, he assumes that, as in the old joke, they will not believe what they see, but what he claims.
Other: Viktor Orbán is playing catch-up. He dared to have lunch after the funeral of the Holy Father! With his wife! Scallops, which are very expensive! In a luxury restaurant! But when it turns out that the luxury is a very average restaurant, and the scallops only cost a lot here, they are especially cheap near the sea, the objective people are silent about it.
The hypnosis technique is also effective. Whether the statement is true or not, you have to doubt it until your nose bleeds, sooner or later even those who had a firm conviction that it is not true will start to believe it. If they say a thousand times (without real evidence, of course) that Viktor Orbán is stealing, sooner or later they will manage to believe that it is so.
What's more, the Internet organ brings back those "good" 50s. Under the heading KiMitTud, they run a reporting section, calling on their readers to report others even by withholding their names. Not in the legal way (police), just like that, under the grass. Somehow, a sentence from the movie The Witness echoes in my ears: This was a serious anonymous report, typewritten.
Then there's the other magic word: micro-donations. They honorably publish how much has been received from how many people, but because the donations are anonymous, does the dog know if it really is? And if someone dares to do the same to them as they do to others in their profession, that is, to ask them for their personal data, they are outraged and protest. In defense of the "donors", of course.
They state that they do not accept donations from politicians or political parties, while large sums of money come to them from a foreign "fundraising" and distribution platform, which also preserves the anonymity of the donors. With this power, even the support of a political party can reach them, does the dog know which dollar rolled there from where? They could even come from a criminal organization.
Good. It might not be illegal, but surely it's fair? I do not know…
All of this would be uninteresting if they did not continuously and transparently attack the NGO that fully accounted for every single donation received and the consideration for every service provided under the support contract. Several times, because transparently, even after the investigations have been concluded, the same accusations are made again and again.
It would be time for the background of the organization that claims to be transparent to be truly transparent.
(Cover illustration: Liget Workshop )
