Jan Keller: When plan B is missing

Keller Uncensored: Jan Keller writes today that the current governing coalition lacks a Plan B because it considers it a waste of time.

There is a dispute in a critical section of the public about the nature of the current Czech government coalition. While some argue that the Prime Minister and his ministers are living completely outside reality, others believe that this government is deliberately harming the people, trying to destroy the remnants of a sovereign state, and doing what it is told to do by outsiders.

It is quite possible that neither is right. It cannot be ruled out that members of the government and even the Prime Minister know something about the problems of our country. There is also the possibility that they are not really standing in someone else's service and are not obediently doing someone else's bidding. Many people do not admit such a possibility, but that does not mean that it is not worth considering.

What if the reality is that our political elites see very well the economic, social and political havoc they are wreaking, and there are times when they are truly sorry about it all. However, even with the best will, they cannot do things differently. They lack a plan B.

Let's take just a few examples. We are all well aware (and perhaps some ministers are aware) that energy prices for our households are grossly exorbitant, and for many companies are even liquidating. However, the Government cannot imagine that the problem could be solved in any other way than by passing on the cost of the obscene profits of producers and distributors to consumers. For certain reasons, our officials have set a course and are too cautious to dare to change it. In doing so, they really feel sorry for all households, and they also feel very sorry for business failures. Let us not immediately accuse them of inhumanity. Perhaps just a lack of imagination.

Or we have food prices. They are higher here than anywhere in our neighbours, we usually buy them in smaller packages and often in lower quality. But that was certainly not and is not the Government's intention. It must be clear to anyone who has seen the Prime Minister cringe when buying Nutella that he is not doing it on purpose. I am sure that he will write to the supermarket chains before Christmas to say that it would be nice if they sold their goods here in the same quality and quantity as everywhere else. The Christmas card is simply the only way, according to our Government, to intervene in pricing. And that is why the Prime Minister will use this opportunity with all his might.

It is similar with pension reform. Those who claim that the government is indifferent to the elderly and that it has a taste for strangling their incomes (as most of its non-voters do) are wrong. The politicians who are currently running the state just do not see any other way. Harshness towards a generation that has already done its time is the only way for them to show affection and outright exemplary care for generations that have not yet been born and which, in the absence of a pro-family policy by the government, may never be born again.

We could go on and on. Some people find it rather strange that Fial's government team, his advisors, and his mainstream media are trying to authoritatively determine what should and should not be said. But what else is there to do in a situation where truth and love are demonstrably at war with lies and hatred? Should the government ignominiously give up this fight by allowing someone with a different view to speak? After all, such a Plan B would be a betrayal of our highest values, whatever they may be.

The current government has no plan B in principle or in foreign policy issues. We belong unequivocally to the West, so it is completely pointless to speculate about how we might behave if we belonged to no one. Defending national interests is not an alternative plan from this point of view. Our national interest has always been, is, and will always belong to someone. Yet the past, whose interpretation we have changed so many times, teaches us this quite clearly. Those who fail to realise this betray our most vital national interests. What is incomprehensible about that? Even Peter Paul understood it.

We come to the conclusion. Those who believe that our current government is living in a bubble, that it knows nothing about the state of the country it purports to govern, that it has no grasp of reality, are wrong. But neither are those who claim that this government is just a government of puppets obediently serving foreign interests right. We have a genuine Czech government that knows very well that having a plan B would be a waste of power in the situation it has led us into.

casopisargument.cz/JaV