There's a woman living near here, who grew up in DDR, and she is the perfect example of how the cleft between Ostalgie for everyone haing a job, childcare, medical care/medicines, housing and so on - and having all media be controlled, restricted, not having freedom of speech or expression, fear of being reported, and so on.
She is quite open about it too, recognising the dichotomy, but more crucially also recognising how the current EU-regime (most obviously in Germany) more and more takes after all the bad sides of the DDR, while not having any of the good ones.
For a Swede of my generation, and older ones too, this hits home as we very much share that mental divide, even though the situation here never came close to that in DDR, oppression-wise.
And a frighteningly high percentage seem to feel that if the oppressive society and the total state is the price for the Folkhem (Volksheim, I think it's in German?), then they're willing to pay it. While also being pro-homo, pro-climate cult, pro-migration and so on. Which does not compute since the idea of the Folkhem is based in 1920s nationalism, and is very much a blood & soil-thing.
The thing neoliberalism, all its other ills aside, got completely wrong was and is that it did away with the idea of the Other or the Enemy being a necessary component of keeping any kind of group functioning as such. And that Enemy cannot be an abstraction: it must be something or someone real, tangible and visible. If not for Fukuyama, the globalists of the late 1980s/early 1990s and such, the West might havve - quite logically - have picked Islam as the Enemy to rally together against.
That's all it would have taken, to make neoliberalism actually work: a real, outside and credible Enemy that's [not-us]. Wouldn't have meant war (we got those anyway) or anything like that; just something to compare, contrast and define oneself to, that's the Other.
Now instead, this process is happening between Europe and Russia, and Europe and the USA, while the hordes of islam are supposedly part of "us". Very very stupid, in my book.
So, here's a thought about the last three paragraphs:
'9/11' and the 'GWoT' were trying to do create an 'other' in the mould you suggest?
I think in part this was the case, albeit with the following (big) caveat: 'Western Civ' as we all grew up in is something that came about in the wake of WW2, with certain antecedents (think the late British Empire) of having been present earlier than that.
The US system is a tad different from the comparatively less opaque British ruling class (which is a term I'm using consciously here) as it is both more inviting of social mobility on the outside (think all the e.g. foreign-born billionaires, such as Mr. Musk) but 'old money' rules from the rear--and, unlike their British peers, these 'old money' interests in the US aren't as coherent as a group, hence the tug of war in public: it's a behind-the-scenes struggle.
There appears but one thing that these powers-that-be agree on: their open contempt and disgust for the likes of you and me.
And this brings us to ponder the question: 'why Islam', which, as you correctly point out, is a seemingly very stupid proposition.
Yet, there, too, is a different point-of-view: Islam has many advantages if you're a megalomaniacal gazillionaire--just look at the 60 or so Islamic countries (all of them shitholes, to paraphrase Mr. Trump here), and you'll understand that 'Islam' is excellent for authoritarians of all stripes: Moslems are subjects, their mental and legal culture never worked out the sovereignty and sanctity of the individual, hence it's perfect for tyranny.
This stance, above all, is very much unlike, say, the rabble in the West that refused to bow to the Covid Mania, insisting, as it were, to render unto caesar that which is caesar's (taxes, however grudgingly paid) while insisting on making sovereign decisions about one's body, mind, and soul.
To me, this 'splains', rather comprehensively, why Islam is the favoured future of the West.
Following that logic, then the struggle in the US would on probability be between those with strong loyalties and ties with Israel, and those without/in opposition to US-Israeli relations.
In other words, the eternal war between arabs and jews has managed to drag the US into it as the prize of their tug-of-war.
As to the future (if any), Russia--also compromised, perhaps a tad less so relative to the US--is irrelevant; the 'wild card' here would be the Chinese, isn't it?
It's hard to put China and "wild card" together for me; a blank Mah-Jong tile perhaps?
EU-rope and Russia benefitted greatly from the budding trade, up until the Obama regime started wrecking it ought of the usual US paranoia about not being no. 1. (And don't get me started on Americans thinking they are the best at everything...)
The Ukraine war could have been provoked in no small part to ruin that.
With Russia, EU-rope doesn't need US oil, and it wouldn't take us that long to not be dependent on US services (the trade imbalance is about even if goods/services is compared, which Trump's team conveniently "forgot") or goods too.
We have Africa on our doorstep, the most abundant continent there is, and one with old ties - good and bad - to many European nations.
Yet, the EU leadership persists in fighting to remain a US outpost instead of actually trying to become an independent state in its own right. (While I oppose the EU as it is, I do not want to see it as a colonial satrapy for America either.)
As I pointed out to an American at Eugyppius' recently:
We don't need the US for anything; they need us for lots of things.
There's a woman living near here, who grew up in DDR, and she is the perfect example of how the cleft between Ostalgie for everyone haing a job, childcare, medical care/medicines, housing and so on - and having all media be controlled, restricted, not having freedom of speech or expression, fear of being reported, and so on.
She is quite open about it too, recognising the dichotomy, but more crucially also recognising how the current EU-regime (most obviously in Germany) more and more takes after all the bad sides of the DDR, while not having any of the good ones.
For a Swede of my generation, and older ones too, this hits home as we very much share that mental divide, even though the situation here never came close to that in DDR, oppression-wise.
And a frighteningly high percentage seem to feel that if the oppressive society and the total state is the price for the Folkhem (Volksheim, I think it's in German?), then they're willing to pay it. While also being pro-homo, pro-climate cult, pro-migration and so on. Which does not compute since the idea of the Folkhem is based in 1920s nationalism, and is very much a blood & soil-thing.
The thing neoliberalism, all its other ills aside, got completely wrong was and is that it did away with the idea of the Other or the Enemy being a necessary component of keeping any kind of group functioning as such. And that Enemy cannot be an abstraction: it must be something or someone real, tangible and visible. If not for Fukuyama, the globalists of the late 1980s/early 1990s and such, the West might havve - quite logically - have picked Islam as the Enemy to rally together against.
That's all it would have taken, to make neoliberalism actually work: a real, outside and credible Enemy that's [not-us]. Wouldn't have meant war (we got those anyway) or anything like that; just something to compare, contrast and define oneself to, that's the Other.
Now instead, this process is happening between Europe and Russia, and Europe and the USA, while the hordes of islam are supposedly part of "us". Very very stupid, in my book.
So, here's a thought about the last three paragraphs:
'9/11' and the 'GWoT' were trying to do create an 'other' in the mould you suggest?
I think in part this was the case, albeit with the following (big) caveat: 'Western Civ' as we all grew up in is something that came about in the wake of WW2, with certain antecedents (think the late British Empire) of having been present earlier than that.
The US system is a tad different from the comparatively less opaque British ruling class (which is a term I'm using consciously here) as it is both more inviting of social mobility on the outside (think all the e.g. foreign-born billionaires, such as Mr. Musk) but 'old money' rules from the rear--and, unlike their British peers, these 'old money' interests in the US aren't as coherent as a group, hence the tug of war in public: it's a behind-the-scenes struggle.
There appears but one thing that these powers-that-be agree on: their open contempt and disgust for the likes of you and me.
And this brings us to ponder the question: 'why Islam', which, as you correctly point out, is a seemingly very stupid proposition.
Yet, there, too, is a different point-of-view: Islam has many advantages if you're a megalomaniacal gazillionaire--just look at the 60 or so Islamic countries (all of them shitholes, to paraphrase Mr. Trump here), and you'll understand that 'Islam' is excellent for authoritarians of all stripes: Moslems are subjects, their mental and legal culture never worked out the sovereignty and sanctity of the individual, hence it's perfect for tyranny.
This stance, above all, is very much unlike, say, the rabble in the West that refused to bow to the Covid Mania, insisting, as it were, to render unto caesar that which is caesar's (taxes, however grudgingly paid) while insisting on making sovereign decisions about one's body, mind, and soul.
To me, this 'splains', rather comprehensively, why Islam is the favoured future of the West.
Following that logic, then the struggle in the US would on probability be between those with strong loyalties and ties with Israel, and those without/in opposition to US-Israeli relations.
In other words, the eternal war between arabs and jews has managed to drag the US into it as the prize of their tug-of-war.
Which spells global war and disaster.
I find it hard to argue with that assessment.
As to the future (if any), Russia--also compromised, perhaps a tad less so relative to the US--is irrelevant; the 'wild card' here would be the Chinese, isn't it?
It's hard to put China and "wild card" together for me; a blank Mah-Jong tile perhaps?
EU-rope and Russia benefitted greatly from the budding trade, up until the Obama regime started wrecking it ought of the usual US paranoia about not being no. 1. (And don't get me started on Americans thinking they are the best at everything...)
The Ukraine war could have been provoked in no small part to ruin that.
With Russia, EU-rope doesn't need US oil, and it wouldn't take us that long to not be dependent on US services (the trade imbalance is about even if goods/services is compared, which Trump's team conveniently "forgot") or goods too.
We have Africa on our doorstep, the most abundant continent there is, and one with old ties - good and bad - to many European nations.
Yet, the EU leadership persists in fighting to remain a US outpost instead of actually trying to become an independent state in its own right. (While I oppose the EU as it is, I do not want to see it as a colonial satrapy for America either.)
As I pointed out to an American at Eugyppius' recently:
We don't need the US for anything; they need us for lots of things.
I agree with all you wrote, and I'll merely wish to clarify what I mean by 'wild card' in the Chinese context:
Yes, China plays 67D chess here, no doubt about it, but it might as well be that Beijing feels itself with no viable alternatives to act rashly.
This is what I mean by 'wild card'.
Neoliberalism is oppression, no freedom of speech, no democracy, and less and less social security. It is what we have now.