Even before election, Trump is roaring. Screams of taking over the Panama Canal, Canada and Greenland. Promises of tariffs on, essentially, everyone. Lots of domestic threats about immigrants and going after Democratic politicians. At the same time his proxies, like Musk, muse on slashing Social Security and Medicare.
Europe’s in particularly tentative position: threats of tariffs and forcing Europe to spend more of its money on defense, by which Trump means “buying more US weapons.”
Western Europe has been an American satrapy since WWII. The Americans invaded and never left, and have had the Euros under the economic thumb the entire time. When necessary they have overthrown governments and they have every politician of note under surveillance.
Eastern Europe fell under the thumb after the collapse of the USSR and were, mostly, happy to do so.
For a long time this was a pretty good deal. Europe was a “garden”. GDP per capita might have officially been lower, but life was better than in the US. Europeans lived longer, were healthier and had all the social welfare that Americans didn’t have.
In most cases they had better food, too.
As for Eastern Europe, the EU massively subsidized it post Warsaw Pact and countries like Poland, often aggressively in disagreement with Brussels, couldn’t survive without the EU’s subsidies.
The EU wasn’t some lovely place devoid of conflict, however. In particular Germany used the Euro to de-industrialize most of the other European nations. The Euro was cheaper than the German mark would have been and almost everyone else’s currencies were more expensive that their pre-Euro currencies. Italy, in particular, which had been an industrial powerhouse, took it on the chin.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, China rose. America sent China its industry and a lot of its tech. This is an old tale, so let’s just say it was a combination American elite greed and Chinese ability to plan long term and take advantage of that greed. At the same time, Europe was falling behind technologically: the fast movers in science and tech were the Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese, Americans and, later, the Chinese, who now lead in about 80% of fields.
Europe wasn’t even in the technological game: they had legacy tech, mostly, with a few exceptions. This was especially true of Germany, with big advantages in steel, automobiles and industrial chemicals.
German industry was, as a rule, pretty heavy and it used a lot of energy. It got that energy, increasingly, from Russia. Cheap.
Then came twin blows: the Russian energy was no longer available cheap (though the Euros still buy plenty thru cut-outs like India) and China caught up and even surpassed Germany, especially in automobiles.
And so, as just on example (auto jobs are also being slashed):
As European industry (German industry) collapses, it either goes away entirely, or in many cases moves to America, where energy costs are lower.
America is cannibalizing Europe and Trump seeks to cannibalize the rest of America’s allies. The tariffs and threats are an attempt to move as much industry and as many jobs back to America as possible.
Meanwhile Europe has serious internal divisions. The right is rising, fast, in multiple nations. Though not as dramatic, so is the left. (The real left.) The center-right and center-left parties are in disarray. Eastern Europe with exceptions like Hungary, is rabidly anti-Russia, but Western Europe, and especially Germany, objectively needs Russia if it wants to retain its industry.
Poland now has a significantly larger army than Germany and better equipped. Poles… Poles do not like Germans or Germany. Hate is not too small a word. They take German and French money, but they hate Germany. Russia isn’t a threat to Germany. But if I were a German politicians or general I’d been looking at Poland with fear and wanting to re-arm.
My best guess is that the European, EU project is not long for the world. Multiple rising parties are anti-EU. The Euro has been bad for most European countries, and has been run to benefit Germany. Freedom of movement has led to intakes of immigrants which have lead to massive anti-immigrant backlashes. These backlashes are often cloaked in racism, but the bottom line is that Europe is in decline and people already there don’t want to share if it looks like sharing is bad for them.
Now Trump is pushing policies which are clearly anti-European and unlike Biden who was mostly sub-voce about it (except when opposing Nord Stream) Trump is in the Euros face.
If the EU wants to survive, it’s going to have to change into a real, non-vassal government. More like, the project will shatter. Next week we’ll talk more about this, in particular what they can and should do.
The great European garden is full of weeds and looks likely near its end. Can it be saved, or can any individual countries save their bit of the garden?
Clonal Antibody
Slightly off topic, but still relevant. I came across this news item yesterday, but have seen no other references to it in the MSM (nor would I expect it) I wonder if three items are a signal to Russia.
1. Russian ship Ursa Mayor being sunk by torpedoes in the Meditteranean
2. Azerbaijani airliner being shot down
and now
3. https://www.india.com/news/did-israel-explode-a-small-nuclear-bomb-in-syria-spike-in-radiation-report-says-7490316/
A reference for the first two items
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/12/ursa-major-was-sunk.html
The hand of Israel/US is likely behind each of these.
KT Chong
Yanis Varoufakis (Greek economist and former finance minister) sent his New Year greeting upon the eve of European disintegration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30CH-Ouzad0
Oakchair
-The productive economy in recession since 2022, check.
-Rest of the economy in and out of negative growth, check.
-Economic Stagnation since 2007, check.
-Germen government loses no confidence vote, check.
-France unable to form a government, check.
-Elections canceled in Romania, check.
-French borrowing costs rise to Greece levels, check.
-Political will and more importantly currency independence to maintain government spending gone, check.
-Rising rates of disability, chronic illness, and general illness, check.
On the other hand over in the collapsing anytime failed state of Russia
-Increased economic growth since 2022
-The non-black-market economy has now over taken Japan to become the 4th largest in the world.
-Living standards rising since 2022
-Government has public support that western nations couldn’t even dream of.
The EU went into 2022, believing they’d easily engineer the presets for a collapsed state. They salivated at the peace and prosperity looting and pillaging the collapsed state would bring. Applaud them for their tremendous success!
TM
The political class across Europe is packed with compradors who are itching for a chance to get access to the American money funnel. Even if we had a competent, professional elite they would be unable to unite and govern as a bloc whilst having to constantly fight rearguard actions at every level of politics (and likely the permanent state apparatus), not to mention how many core competencies have already been outsourced to American firms. We will be like a larger re enactment of Greece post-2009, unable to build the infrastructure and capability needed to get out of the trap we see coming, and thus acceding to anything.
Feral Finster
Europeans like being slaves, and tell themselves how much better they have it as relatively pampered house slaves, so unlike the field hands further South.
For those who continue to quibble, the United States committed an act of war when it destroyed Nordstream, and the european response was to pretend that nobody knew what happened.
When the evidence came out that the United States had, in fact done what it promised to Germany, scholz scurried off to Washington to coordinate the resposne with his American Master.
For that matter, we can see the role europe played in the sham Minsk Accord and Minsk 2, which Hollande and Merkel both admitted was a sham from the outset intended to buy Ukraine time so it could restart the war.
When you get a political class european to admit the obvious, they wuickly change the topic, lest wrongthink ensue. Pathetic.
Feral Finster
BTW, I know the Polish mentality well – I am not Polish, but I have some Polish education and I speak Polish on a daily basis.
Polish hatred towards Germany is overstated. Poles crave American approval and hate Russia. They mostly make excuses for German crimes, but at the same time, are jealous of German influence and money.
Want to tork off a Pole? Want to send a Gosia or Stasiek into a spitting mad Donald Duck meltdown?
Remind your Pole that, whatever other bad things the Soviets did or may have done, the only reason that there still are Poles alive in Poland today is because of the Red Army.
Ian Welsh
Huh. One of my best friends lived in Poland for years, said the German hate is real. Doesn’t mean he’s right, of course.
Feral Finster
“The political class across Europe is packed with compradors who are itching for a chance to get access to the American money funnel.”
True, but it’s not just the money. Those readers familiar with the “Looney Tunes” canon may recall that little yappy dog that follows Spike the Bulldog around, singing Spike’s praises nonstop and getting slapped around by Spike from time to time.
Europoliticians are like that little yappy dog.
Feral Finster
Ian: I have lived in Poland as well. I recall, for instance, a showing of “The Pianist” in which Poles insisted to me that this was propaganda, that the Soviets committed all the atrocities and besides, “Germany Is A Part Of Europe!”
This allows Poles to perform two of their favorite activities – reciting slogans and kissing up.
rkka
Finster,
I do that. I also remind them that the Germans alone had their army in the West cut to 8 pieces, 4 surrounded, 2 already capitulated, by 14 Sep ‘39, 3 days before the Red Army moved an inch.
That shuts ‘em up.
Jorge
“Clonal Antibody”: the India report could also have been caused by Israel blowing up nuclear material in the weapons cache, not knowing that there was any such material in the cache.
bruce wilder
One way to understand the problems of the EU is as the political consequences of political and economic centralization of authority and policy discretion put alongside the empowerment of transnational capital and business. In other words, a liberal, and lately neoliberal, political program to disable populism and socialism by undermining any possibility of sovereignty rearing its head in a parliament or a central bank or a law court.
The EU was assembled with the same fear and contempt for national democracy as the architects of the North German Confederation in the 19th century, just better informed about the possibilities of an independent judiciary and a central bank. People speak of the democratic deficit in EU institutions, but with little interest in exploring practical reforms or even in recognizing the critical levers. Judicial review was imported into EU law despite the absence of any treaty basis. A currency and a central bank were created without any fiscal capacity to fund a sovereign Euro debt on which to found a stable banking system.
The (neo)liberal reformers will do their best, I expect, to focus aspirations for democratic governance on purely performative ceremonies such European elections, where there is no real possibility of mass organization of public opinion from below and instead the careerism of a trans-national class of politicians able to rise above dependence on the favor of voters hold absolute sway.
As a practical matter, popular organization is limited to the scale of Catalonia, England, Hungary, Greece, Latvia, Macedonia, Lombardy and so on, but all the levers of sovereign power have been taken away as from small children and lodged safely out of reach in more centralized institutions well-insulated from anything as crass as national interest or informed public opinion. Debtor countries in particular are disabled from using the ballot against transnational capital. But, any strategic use of political mass solidarity “against the rule of law” is frowned upon and punishable.
Duncan Kinder
Russia is part of Europe.
Embrace and Extend.
mago
I lived in Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, from 88 to 92, pre EU, and life seemed simpler then in many ways, but it was always a mixed bag.
In southern rural Spain, they grew toxic Monsanto laced crops in plastic greenhouses for Northern European consumption.
I lived off foraged greens, olives, almonds and homemade hearth baked bread among other things in Spain.
In Northern Europe there was a diverse range of organic vegetables, baked goods and grains year round. (Responding to Ian’s remark about European food being better for the most part.)
I was anti EU as were the people on the street then. It looked like impending cultural and political suicide.
Unions were still a force in Spain, with frequent noisy huelgas or strikes. The basque separatist movement, ETA, was bombing mail trains and blowing up parking garages. Stuff like that. Still, daily life was fairly tranquilo in my neighborhood.
I often tried to engage old timers in conversation about the civil war and the Franco years without success, although one aged almond grower spat on the ground and told me that at least under Franco you could sell eggs at the market and nobody cared. Now the goddamn lawyers run everything.
Anyway, I have no idea what the people on the street are thinking and doing these days in the maddening maelstrom struck down from above, but I’m guessing there’s a whole lot of numbing going on with dopamine dosing on the rise.
Glad I chose to return home rather than go full expat when I had the choice. But glad I lived in Europe when I did. Seems like the golden years in retrospect.
Revelo
USA is not benign when it feels threatened, and right now it feels very threatened by rise of China.
Right approach for USA to cope with China is partner with Russia, instead of trying to subjugate Russia, then publicly discuss ad nauseum possibility that China might try to regain the outer Manchuria region that Russia stole via unequal treaty from China during the century of humiliation. Mention the preceding in every diplomatic meeting with Russia or China and especially at meetings with both Russian and Chinese diplomats present. Anglo Saxons have an amazing ability to stir up ancient hatreds, so USA and its British assistant should be able to get China and Russia fighting eventually. After that, get Russia to ally with united Korea and Japan and guarantee their energy, food and raw material needs, and now China is surrounded on all sides.
Above plan depends on keeping Europe (ex Russia and its vassals) subjugated to USA, since otherwise China can use divide and conquer affair USA. So expect USA to react savagely to any attempt by Europe to regain independence. By savage, I mean like naval blockade of Britain savage, if that country gets the idea it is anything beyond a USA controlled attack dog. Threat to make Greenland a USA possession will be made real if Denmark raises any squeaks. Expect Spain, France and Germany to be dismembered like Yugoslavia if they raise squeaks. Etc.
Russia will be happy to assist with keeping Europe subjugated to USA,, provided USA leaves Russia alone within area approximately corresponding to former USSR.
BC Nurse Prof
Ian, what do you think are the chances that Trump will “annex” Canada?
Forecasting Intelligence
Agree.
So, what do you do as a European? Leave? Where is safe? Somewhere within Europe or outside?
And what about the rising tide of Muslims as an internal demographic within Europe and the likely mass migrations into Europe from Middle East and North Africa in the decades to come.
Ian Welsh
BCPN,
less than 10%. No Canadian politician wants it, it would require war. It would destroy America’s alliance system entirely. Even if he wants to leave NATO, America wouldn’t have an ally worth shit left after that.
rkka
Revelo,
The fly in your ointment is that Russians know, to the marrow of their bones, that the US will turn on them next once they have put down PRC with Russian assistance.
Just like they did in 1945.
The US has hated Russia since the 1880s.
The US despised Aleksandr III.
The US despised Nicholas II. In 1900, Alfred Thayer Mahan, the US seapower guru, proposed alliance between the US, the British Empire, the German Empire, and the Japanese Empire, to contain Nicky II’s Russian Empire until it collapsed.
The Russian gvt know the US gvt hate them, on a bipartisan basis. They’ll not fall for your cunning plan.
Mark Level
Overall a great & timely post, & great commentary by multiple sources–
I’ll quibble a bit and add to others’ takes:
1. “When necessary they have overthrown governments and they have every politician of note under surveillance.” Agreed on surveillance (& blackmail, going back to way before Epstein as a Mossad cut-out spread the game to U$), as to “When necessary”, in their eyes ANY minor deviation from the Hegemon’s orders meant a Soros-sponsored “Color Revolution” or assassination. This started early, under the Dulles brothers. They failed in killing de Gaulle, succeeded with Sweden’s Olof Palme in 1986. And now the Swedes grovel along as a NATO member!! Let’s not forget the false flags to keep the Reds from winning election in Italy post-war, Operation Gladio not confined to Italy but also seen in Germany, France, etc.
2. Agree with TM 100%. Finster obviously knows Poland, and yes, they hate both the Germans but even more the Russians!! And when they lie that only the dirty Deutsche slaughtered all the Jews, ’39-45, only the smarter ones even know they are lying. Their “revolution” against Communism was purely far-right & reactionary, controlled by the Church (same Church that helped Nazis get to Argentina, Canada, etc. post-War) under the fig-leaf of “working men” like Lech Walesa’s “Solidarity.” Solidarity with Western Empire and Catholic bigotry.
3. Czechoslovakia is a more interesting case, where the seemingly authentic Lefty Vaclav Havel came to power. A cool guy lefty dissident who danced to “Plastic People of the Universe” and read lots of theory once installed in power instantly bent the knee to Neoliberal economics & slavery for the majority (as Nelson Mandela later did in South Africa) & threw away all the cachet he’d ever seemingly had. When I was watching this capitulation at the time, I realized Europe & the US were fvcked, PK Dick’s “Black Iron Prison” was congealing, & 3 plus decades later it’s QED, but especially (as you say) for EUrope. And yes, these people are exactly the “Yappy dog” that Finster points at.
4. I appreciate Bruce W’s deep dive into antecedents of the Capitulation to the dumb, ahistorical, greedy American mooks. I think Josep Borell’s rant about “the Jungle and the Garden” tells you all you need to know about the feudal slave mindset of the Euro-puppets! Sure we’re slaves, but we’ll always have White supremacy, it was Europe that looted the yellow, brown & black people’s lands for 5+ centuries, that’s the little bit of solace that they nurture in their shrunken, cold little hearts. (UK is of course the worst in this respect, having fallen from the greatest heights.) I guess seeing the looted plunder (the Elgin marbles, etc.) of civilizations far greater than their own in their museums is some consolation.
5. Yes also to Duncan, but Russia lives in “the best of all possible worlds” & is Asia as well as Europe. (In my biased estimation, the better half of that equation is Asia.) That is why they are hated so much, & have been by the Anglophone world since the early 19th century, if not (as some point out) sooner. This metastasized as the wacko Alexander MacKinder’s bizarre fantasy of the need to control the “Heartland” of the “World Island” in Eurasia, submitted to the Royal Geographical Society in 1904. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History — My favorite paragraph from the wiki summary is this one– “The Heartland lays at the centre of the World Island, stretching from the Volga to the Yangtze and from the Arctic to the Himalayas. Mackinder’s Heartland was the area then ruled by the Russian Empire and after that by the Soviet Union, minus the Kamchatka Peninsula region, which is located in the easternmost part of Russia, near the Aleutian Islands and the Kuril Islands.” This was to the Anglo-American Uber-Elites the same kind of summum bonum fetish Power object as “The Spear of Destiny” was to some of the occultists around Hitler. Thus the Russophobia CANNOT be dropped even one iota, & even as the Ukraine proxy war is lost they keep throwing ordnance & bodies (not just Ukrainian ones, either, plenty of Western mercenaries also) into the wood-chipper.
6. Sorry to have missed the Euro glory years experience that Mago got. I only spent 5 weeks, summer of ’04 in Spain. A gourgeous place, great (stolen) art from the Dutch and others’, and for the most part they sincerely hated fascism (which most still remembered) and even patriarchy. I recall that when a husband murdered his wife while I was there, there was a national dialogue about violence against women & I just thought, wow, over one death, this place is considerably different than USA (where scores of deaths aren’t even a tragedy, just a statistic).
7. I’ll agree with Rkka’s correction of Revelo’s mostly useful comment. The Chinese and the Russians share a long history of abuse by the US and their leadership think long term, not in “quarters” or “til the next election results.” The old American Revolutionary slogan “We’ll either hang together or hang separately applies, in Spades. Mao’s China never would have survived without Russia, and now that China is the bigger sibling I think their continued comm/unity is guaranteed.
The world (much less the “Eurasian heartland”) ain’t ‘Murica’s play-toy anymore, a majority of its citizens likely know that, but the Empire doesn’t. It may be interesting to see which public in EUrope revolts first and tries to install a Unity government to save their own economy and “culture” such as it is. The Greeks have been fucked pretty badly, the Irish and the Spanish seem savvy, even the Italians. As Ian said, there is opposition from both the Right and the “real” Left (as opposed to HilBots, Brat Girls & “resistance Lib” types). The Empire is setting fires everywhere across the world (including hitting 4 Russian or blame-Russia targets in just the last week, killing and injuring many). They will keep setting fires like their Israeli Homicidal Maniac proxies do (hi, “Forecasting”), and as the wimpy Brits only aspire to. It won’t succeed, but the body count will be very high.
Curt Kastens
It seems to me that the only reason that the US would want to annex Canada would be to fullfill some kind of feel good publicity stunt for the MAGA crowd. If that would require waging war against Canadians and that war would distract Americans from waging war against Venezuelans or Iranians or North Koreans than I am all for it.
It would be a much more just result that 40 million Canadians die under a hail of American bombs than even one Venezuelan, or Iranian or Korean. It is true that not every Canadian would deserve such a fate. But as a collective entity it would be well deserved if it were erased from the map.
Of course the USA as a collective entity deserves to be erased from the map even more than Canada. If the Canadians could defend themselves well under such circumstances, which I highly doubt, perhaps the United States could then be weakened enough that Mexican Cartels could replace the Anglo Cartels currently in charge and reredraw the map of the United States.
Revelo
>The USA has hated
Who is this USA you are talking about? The USA elite hate loss of their power (flipside of “the USA elite love possession of their existing power”) and will make deals with anyone to preserve that power. Their ancestors worked with Hitler until he upset their plans by attacking west instead of east, the current USA elite would be happy to deal with Russia if that allows them to preserve their power. The only reason they have not been dealing dealing with Russia is that the less intelligent children of the elite who run the State Department and CIA were given a free hand while the smarter children handled Wall Street. The more intelligent Wall Streeters will soon regain control of USA foreign policy.
As for the rest of the USA, the non elite, they love and hate whomever they are told to love and hate. by the elite. USA plebians have no capacity whatsoever to think for themselves where geopolitics is concerned.
>Mao’s China never would have survived without Russia, and now that China is the bigger sibling I think their continued comm/unity is guaranteed.
Under Putin and Xi that is true, and it would have been true under Stalin and Mao. But as sure as night follows day, Russia at least will eventually become corrupt again and USA will, if it wants, find compradors in Russia willing to take a hostile attitude towards China (and friendly towards Korea and Japan and USA) in exchange for some Italian suits for themselves and some French perfumes for their lady loves.
elkern
I’m surprised that anybody here takes Trump’s blather about annexing (or whatever) Canada, Greenland, etc, seriously. Crap like that is just part of Trump’s negotiation habits: say some outrageous BS to make it look like you’re being generous when you take only 60% of the pie.
Looking forward to Ian’s prescription for Europe next week.
Forecasting Intelligence
Hi Mark Level,
I’m no Israeli bull, think the country is doomed long term.
But it’s strike or get killed so they are doing the right thing.
Remember I’m a Greerist and have no real dog in the ME fight. Other than that should Israel get wiped out Europe would be next for a jihadi invasion.
rkka
Revelo,
The experience of Gorbachev will echo down the future history of Russia for a century. The central organizing principle of Russian politics is “There will never be another Gorbachev, or another Yeltsin.” Your confidence that the US elite, with their mastery of the Dark Arts of Bernays & Goebbels, being able to hornswoggle the US population, is well founded.
Russians will be a challenge, as long as they recall the experience of Gorbachev.
Mark Level
Hey Forecasting– I recall (& I know others do too) a thread a couple months back, when you shared your admiration & support for what Israel did “in the 80s & 90s”– I saw some of what they were complicit in in Central America when I was there Sept. ’83–March ’84 & it wasn’t too wonderful.
I specifically brought up the genocide of 200,000 Guatemalans (recognized by both the U.N. & Guatemala, including the Church, among others) & asked if that was something you liked? No response from you, even when others chimed in to ask . . .
I could’ve also bought up their support for Apartheid in S. Africa and other brutal & even genocidal hijincks they were involved in, elsewhere in Africa, recently somebody reminded me they were involved in supporting the Turks in NOT getting called out for the Armenian genocide (which was the precursor, favorably cited by Hitler since “nobody remembers or speaks about it” for the Holocaust) . . . well, point made.
I’m glad to see some (half-sincere? I dunno) distancing on your part from that particular Sacred Cow. Funny that you didn’t say a word on here (that I saw) about them supporting the al-Qaeda/Isis head-choppers who ran the Assad gov’t. out of Syria, & are now reportedly killing Christians, Alawites, etc. in large #s. Oh and let’s not forget the US’s sacred cow, the Kurds, who will be next but more by Erdogan than them. Still, if you recognize they also have the right to self defense, that would be a positive.
The Israelis are on stolen land, as everyone knows, so in fact under the Nuremberg Convention they have NO right to “self (sic) defense” under international law, but I guess all your Intelligence is unfamiliar with the N.C.?
Revelo– yes, I was referring mainly to the US Elites/ Governing power (the pragmatic FDR excepted) but of course as you say their stooges will eat up whatever minute of hate for this week’s Goldstein the MSM and government peddles for the most part, as you yourself acknowledge. You could certainly be correct about the amount of base corruption in Russian politics and an eventual change, I do not claim to have the depth of knowledge of Russian society to comment on this meaningfully. For now, China & Russia both know who the enemy is, clearly.
Feral Finster
“But as sure as night follows day, Russia at least will eventually become corrupt again and USA will, if it wants, find compradors in Russia willing to take a hostile attitude towards China (and friendly towards Korea and Japan and USA) in exchange for some Italian suits for themselves and some French perfumes for their lady loves.”
The irony is that Putin and his circle would love to be able to play this role, as long as they were treated as partners and not as vassals.
This is why Russia has been so reluctant to escalate, even as the West ignores red line after Russian red line. They don’t want to destroy the West – they want to join it. They don’t want to admit to themselves that the West hates them and fears them, that their attempts and moderation are seen as contemptible weakness, that, no matter how many novels and symphonies they write, the West cares only for power and domination, that they never will be admitted to The Club.
mago
Russia has never been invited to the western country club much as they’ve begged for admission over the ages and brought themselves down in their attempts.
Glad to see some blow back against FI’s genocide support and his (her?) claim that without mass murder the jihadists would be cutting throats in Brussels if left unchecked.
Also a Greerist. An archdruid peak oil fanatic who went full batshit a while back? That’s your man?
I wasn’t going to comment because it seemed there would be no furtherance in countering demented thinking.
However, since ML and FF made some weak tea remarks in that direction, I decided to pull the trigger without opening up both barrels.
This thread’s pretty much dead on a Sunday night anyway, so might as well draw the curtains, turn up the heat and ride it out through the end of the year into January’s cold slog.
Cheers brothers and sisters.
hauntologism
Trump is the best thing to happen to Europe since the wall came down.
The only people who don’t understand this are self-hating Europeans and self-hating American and Canadian liberals and progressives.
Hopefully the Europeans will wake up, hang their globalist rulers, deport all non-European immigrants, and go back to ruling themselves in their own interest.
bruce wilder
“. . . and go back to ruling themselves in their own interest . . .”
I am just going to reiterate what I wrote earlier in this thread.
I don’t think anyone hates themselves, or at least moral ambivalence about the collective “self” (commonality of community however conceived) is not a key factor). Nor is lack consciousness (being collectively “asleep”), though drowning in propaganda might contribute to that problem.
The thing is, neoliberalism has led to the construction of political institutions that disable mass democratic politics. There are simply no levers there for an awakened People to pull. The neoliberal rhetoric of the EU — free movement of people, goods and especially capital under common laws and rules — has justified building an institutional framework where there is nothing left for the People of any coherent community in Europe to do. No way for the People of, say, Catalonia, to act on their own behalf. And, like the Borg, the EU/NATO continues to expand to absorb Romania, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine with predictable effects on the integrity of democratic institutions. The disease has infected the whole of the EU. France, Italy and Germany are struggling to keep what remains of national democratic institutions alive.
Immigration is one issue where the lack of democratic control is highlighted, but not imho the most important. The inability of states to control capital flows is more subtle because less commonly understood, but it is critical because it takes away the power of democracies to control their own economies. The argument of neoliberals, of course, is that the economy is automatic and properly “private” — an argument that serves as a means to achieve this disabling of democratic politics.
It is highly unfortunate that more serious thought has not been given thus far to reforming the EU/NATO because centralization and standardization has had definite benefits for the smaller polities. Hungary, Slovenia, Czechia, the Netherlands maybe — these are right-sized polities for representative democracy in Europe imho. But, the prosperity of such small states is only possible when the threat of war and non-cooperation at scale is removed by limited centralization of authority.
I will offer an example of a reform seldom considered: allow states to use value-added taxes applied to intra-Europe imports as tariffs and apply those funds to financing sovereign debt. Countries like Italy and France could manage both their public debt and their balance of trade, escaping the debt trap imposed by the Euro. If Greece had had such an option, it would not have had to suffer fire sales of public assets or wage suppression. Europe is trapped by not being able to imagine such options or discuss them under neoliberal ideological hegemony.
Jessica
“China might try to regain the outer Manchuria region that Russia stole via unequal treaty from China during the century of humiliation.”
Neither China nor Russia had much claim on that region, with its extremely low population density. China was able to claim it in the late 1600s because Qing China then was far stronger than Russia (which was only decades past its own time of troubles). Russia was able to claim it in the 1860s because Russia had become much stronger and Qing China much weaker. Just a conflict between a pair of expanding empires.
It is important for outsiders to be aware of China’s Century of Humiliation (from First Opium War until founding of the People’s Republic), but it is also important, especially for Chinese, to be aware of the Century of Expansion that preceded it. From roughly the mid-1600s until nearly the end of the 1700s, China expanded to its West. About half of China’s land mass (but far less of its population) was conquered during this time. There are many parallels between this expansion and the expansion of the US westward from the original Atlantic Coast colonies and the Russian expansion east through Siberia. (“China Marches West” by Peter Perdue)
That Qing China focused on expansion west and its final solution to the Mongol Problem (Dzungarian genocide) and ignored the unprecedented strength of outsiders reaching its coast is one of the main reasons for the Century of Humiliation. A big lesson there for more than just China too.
different clue
@Mark Level,
Didn’t J. Edgar Hoover do the blackmail thing inside the US for decades before there was any Epstein?
different clue
More than ever , I think Curt Kastens is just a self-amusing troll fishing for reactions.
joey_n
Even now there are still people who buy into the façade that the European nations are free and independent and have the choice to make without (the threat of) being sanctioned by the USA. What could we possibly be missing?
Case in point, on the day this was published, Medvedev posted that he wanted to “ignore [the imperial master that is] the US”, “punish [US vassals in] Europe” and “forgive [any weaker nations in Latin America and Asia that caved in to Anglo-American diktat]”.
1. Medvedev’s proposal flies in the face of the quoted text as well as the USA’s biolabs in Ukraine and role in Kirillov’s death.
2. Other than Hungary, Serbia and Slovakia, which European nations can legitimately fall under the third camp (the weak nations that caved in)?
Sorry for posting this three weeks late, but the idea to “ignore the US” after its pivotal role in the conflict in Ukraine (and with clear intentions to disrupt what relations Europe had with Russia before 2014) had me questioning Medvedev’s mentality, and the dearth of questioning voices on Telegram gave me PTSD for days (maybe that’s my own fault – I don’t know), mellowed somewhat by this.