Dissent in 2.0, the internet versus Václav Klaus

This post is a tag team operation organized by Andrew Fitzgerald of Current_News. I found funny pictures on behalf of Current_Comedy.

The Czech President, Václav Klaus, has been doing his best to hold up the EU’s Lisbon Treaty for a while now, but today he finally ratified it. He’s famously skeptical of the EU, but plenty of people put plenty of pressure on him. Lisbon aims to further unify the EU – giving Europe a President and a “foreign representative” for example. Václav Klaus, notably, is not Václav Havel – the only other post-Soviet Czech President who confusingly also happens to have the first name “Václav.” Havel, a rock star on the diplomatic circuit, is much more liberal – Klaus is considered much more conservative. -AF

The current state of the internet, makes finding subcultures easy. Quick Facebook searches, yield groups of dissenters. Flickr finds photos of objectors. Then Google Translate roughly deciphers the Czech.

Flickr user donatien snapped this anti-Václav Klaus graffiti. It's translated as "all suffer Klaus-trophobia." Ideozlocin.cz is an affiliate of contemporary anarchists CrimethInc Ex-Workers' Collective



Another photographer tmkelly, caught this sitcker produced by nemluvizame.cz or "Doesn't speak for me."

This anti-Klaus rhetoric is reminiscent of domestic anti-Bush sentiment. The phrase "not my president" is being used by dissenters on Facebook. Václav Klaus is not my president! has nearly 1,700 members (it's rival group has only 1,200 members.)

These are some photoshopp'd images I found on anti-Václav Klaus Facebook groups.





"Balbinova Provisional National Library: V. Klaus philosophy, Václav Klaus Writings, V. Klaus travel, V. Klaus law and state, V. Klaus dissident, V. Klaus
ecology, other unattractive literature." I think this implies that his bookshelf is empty, and that the leader might be intellectually vapid.

To further convey that Klaus is a "blbec" (is an idiot/jerk) someone presented this picture:



"Klaus signed the Treaty of Lisbon."  The joke implies the president's signature is too daft to know where to affix his signature.

Klaus isn't sold on Global Warming, as inferred by this satirical photograph:

Others comment on the president's devout Catholicism, and the hypocrisy of his egotism.



"Nation wearing: father son holy spirit"

Organizers of a protest cast Klaus as a Black Sheep.

A few months ago I discovered the Spanish Prime Minister's Goth Daughter international meme. Today I didn't find a meme, I just found humorous dissent against the president of the Czech Republic.