The new media law they’re pushing calls it “transparency” but it forces every outlet with over 50k monthly views to register as political actors. Funny how that only started mattering when a student blog in Plovdiv exposed the highways contract. They want us to believe this is about foreign influence, but the only foreign money they’re afraid of is scrutiny. My professor says to “work within the system.” I say the system already owns the presses. Last night I translated a complaint into German for a woman whose son’s construction visa was denied. She kept saying, “We’re not beggars, just tired.” I thought about her teeth. I thought about mine. I wrote a line in my notebook: A country is not bankrupt when it’s empty but when it stops expecting better.
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