Europe Elections: More War And Degrowth

Despite a 'right rally' the toxic project continues

Jun 11, 2024

∙ Paid

Gains for 'far right' not reflected in overall leadership of EU
Atlanticist NATO war machine remains in power under Ursula
The European election changes everything - and nothing
French president Macron calls snap election to stem flow of votes to Le Pen
Greens fared worst yet continue to dominate policy behind the scenes
Whoever you vote for you end up with meanies
Psychology and politics drive people to cheer their own destruction
Envy and ideology makes appeal to the greater good so toxic
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Russians were told that the most successful peasants or kulaks (meaning tight fisted) were hoarding and profiting from grain. The Bolsheviks shot them and took the grain - and then exported it to finance their revolution. Tens of millions starved.

(2,400 word or 12 minutes of your company.)

Jul 11, 2024

Despite the excitement over Europe' election results, the same people remain in charge.

The silly-named Super Grand Coalition still runs the show in Brussels, straddled by Ursula Von Der Leyen, who is likely to be appointed to a second term as president (indirectly elected by members of the European Parliament).

There are no pan-European political parties, just blocs of blocs — think Lego — cobbling together dozens of European parties from the conservative European People's Party, the Socialists & Democrats and Reclaim Europe "liberals."

One reason for the lack of pan-European parties is there is no "demos" or sense of continental belonging.

Perhaps it never tried to create one, perhaps it failed to overcome the attachment to regional culture and nation states, or perhaps the European project never had a unique selling point.

That is why the European project is increasingly a war machine: against Russia rather than pro-anything.

You're not supposed to have this discussion, of course. You must be pro-Europe even if you can't put it into words.

This was obvious during the miserable Brexit debate a decade ago, Britain's referendum to "leave" the EU. It descended into a debate about immigration because no-one knew what else to talk about.

Few journalists or politicians had much of a clue what "Europe" was or how it worked.

The result was ignorant panic: my niece honestly believed that if Britain left the EU she would be banned from marrying her German fiancé Max.

You see the same blind terror on issues like climate change and coronavirus (of which the most common variant is a cold).

So stop hoping that one election changed anything; and dig in for the long haul.

Green meanies

The aim is not to be negative but realist. Look at the policies: the Greens got less votes than any of the main political groupings and yet their policies dominate all others.

Out of 720 seats, the EPP got 189, S&D 135 mandates, liberals 80, moderate right-wingers 72, the right wing Identity and Democracy faction 58, and the Greens 52. Another 98 deputies are independent.

The Greens are fierce pro-war members of Germany's ruling coalition. It's not surprising that one of the first casualties was Germany's energy supply with the bombing of Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipeline.

In line with Green policies Europe is cutting food and energy production, resulting in loss of industry and growth. The media gives a platform to its allies, the extinctionists (anti-speciesist, who think humans are worth no more than animals) and depopulationists (the Earth would do better without humans).

Is there a power behind the scenes? Is there an economic imperative to war? The systematic progress to war, the crossing of Russian red lines, suggests so (see below).

On a psychological plane, on the political, rulers know how to trigger the people and herd them in the direction they want — evidence-free, because it is not based in reality but in perception, and the management of it.

Getting people to cheer for their own destruction is the most obvious case: drafting those who had little in common except working the earth, and turning them into mortal enemies; scaring children who should be daydreaming in the sunshine into neurotics, cowering as the day is long from the extinction of the planet; or getting millions to chant "hope and change," without specifics. Obama's Nuremberg ~~Rally~~ Jell-O: "Yes, we can... Yes, we can... Yes, we can..."

Best intentions

Most people approach politics, as they know it, with good intentions. There are strands of ideology, however, that manipulate envy. Economists have shown that schadenfreude is real. In experiments many people would happily accept a pay cut if it meant that their rival suffered an even greater penalty.

Some human traits do not support the advancement of society. This is why an appeal to the greater good is so dangerous.

What is presented as a benefit to the collective may simply be penalising the few. We have many examples in which cohorts, often the most productive, were declared "the enemy of the people" — from the self-sufficient peasants during the Bolshevik revolution to those of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.

Progressivism — progress and justice — is their stalking horse. Redistribution exists mainly for the acquisition of power by the utopian and virtue-signalling few on behalf of an even smaller group of power brokers.

Russians were told, for example, that the most successful peasants or kulaks (meaning tight fisted) were hoarding and profiting from grain. The Bolsheviks shot them and took the grain — and then exported it to finance their revolution. Tens of millions starved, from the Ukraine to the Volga.

See Ukraine's Suffering Highlights Pulitzer Lies - The New York Times helped to cover up a genocide; now famine looms once more (May 17, 2022)

The excuse or pretext is irrelevant if it simply fuels blood lust, controlled and directed for the profit of a minority.

In this article we are going to look at why and how European policy seems to come back to war and degrowth.

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