Delays and invitation irritation got Thursday’s gathering off to a shaky start.
  • cfgaussian
    8·
    14 days ago

    Europe getting more and more dysfunctional. Feels living through the last years of the Ottoman empire…

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
      10·
      14 days ago

      I find people really underappreciate just how important the US influence was to maintain cohesion in Europe. Americans provided was the glue that smoothed over the cracks between different nations, and let them work as a cohesive whole. Now that the Americans are pulling back, all the old divisions are bubbling to the surface again.

      I get the impression that the original plan was division of labour. The idea was that the US would pull back, and the threat of Russia would be used to maintain cohesion, and to force Europeans into austerity to fund increased military spending. That’s basically what the Americans told the European leadership from what we’ve seen in public speeches from Vance and Hegthes. The US would still be around, but Europe would need to start picking up the slack.

      And this seems to have been a miscalculation where they didn’t appreciate just how much animosity there is between different countries in Europe. All the historical grievances are coming back to the fore, and with dwindling resources, the situation is only going to get worse. Every nation is going to fight to secure its own economy first. I fully expect that the current neolib governments are on their last legs, and the whole EU project will go down the drain along with them.

      • Богданова
        5·
        13 days ago

        Do you recall that diversity chart meme floating around, developed by MIT and implemented in Overwatch? That’s how Liberals try to solve inequality. There is no American. There is no European. There’s <List of additive subgroups> American/European

        Going on a tangent here, but I wrote a much longer text about it, but I’m feeling discouraged, but I think that’s how it’s supposed to be. I’m supposed to feel like shit when I provide constructive input, so that I stop wasting my time on lemmy and join an actual effort somewhere irl. At least if that’s the intention of the space then it’s working wonders.

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
          3·
          13 days ago

          Real life organizing is ultimately what matters. Places like lemmy are great to have discussions, and to deepen your understanding, but it has to be applied in the real world.