Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
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Nobody here has commented on the unrest in Europe. I would say it seems moderate to severe, at least in France, Albania and perhaps Italy. What are the causes, what are the consequences? Where is all this heading?
I would say the causes are neoliberalism, inequality and the Trump-led damage to the global economy from unnecessary wars of choice: hot wars, tariff wars and the ideological wars against science, the environment and human health. I predict the consequences of not changing this system will be a slide to economic, societal and civilizational collapse, in Europe and beyond. Of course the USA is even worse than the EU for neoliberalism and inequality. But to see Europe in such a mess is very alarming.
Media report the mere symptoms of neoliberalism and the wars on everything but go no further. There’s never any real analysis of the ideological and systemic issues driving all this. Active academia and public intellectuals, what are they doing? Maybe their best but they are underfunded, under-reported and often completely ignored. The public? The comfortable and relatively socially powerful (the upper 50% really and especially the upper 1%) don’t get it. The poor and the youth, who are all facing a disastrous and hopeless future, do get it. But currently they appear to have no power and no path for constructive action. Can they find a path? Is there even a feasible path left or have all hopes been systematically (and systemically) foreclosed?