To understand where we got to, we have to understand how we got here. Accompanying opinion makers and issuing opinions based on mere ideological-tribal identification is not enough to comprehensively understand what is at stake.
At the beginning of a crisis, it is normal to be influenced by our ideological and tribalist biases. We follow what we believe in and trust the sources and authorities that confirm our view of how the world works.
As a matter of intellectual laziness, we analyze reality based on bipolar reductionist models. We know that the majority of conflicts do not arise out of nowhere, that they are the culmination of unresolved problems or misunderstandings that progressively deteriorate a relationship, between people, institutions or countries, and for no apparent reason to the outsider, it explodes, the unexpected happens to the astonishment of the majority.
No one expects that the majority of people follows in detail the geopolitical disputes and the telltale signs of imminent crisis.
But a war is not a natural tragedy, most wars could be avoided through timely dialogue and if the truth prevails.
The truth is a casualty of war before war is declared because lying is the best way to gain public support. In the era of hybrid and preventive warfare (euphemism for aggressive warfare), deceit is critical to engender necessary illusions, to justify the unjustifiable. The truth and those who defend it are prime targets to be crushed. All people who are genuinely opposed to war must, above all, seek the truth, even when this requires the sacrifice of leaving the ideological-political and political-cultural comfort zone.
Truth is not guaranteed because we trust the messenger and/or the source. Cultivating constructive skepticism and critical thinking to debunk fallacious narratives is the way forward.
The point to remember is that the more serious a situation, problem or crisis is, the less room for maneuver we have and if we allow ourselves to be influenced by perception manipulation maneuvers designed to manufacture consent, we are controlled by those who apparently need to resort to lies to conquer our support, probably they don`t have our best interests at heart.
The more serious the situation, the more concern we must have with the accuracy of the information we consume.
The war in Ukraine and the potential war in Taiwan result from a latent conflict between the unipolar western imperialist bloc led by the USA and on the other side we have a multipolar order in which the BRICS are an important bloc, but countries like India, Russia and of course China are themselves, independent powerful nations. China represents the most serious threat to the unipolar order and is therefore seen by Americans as the archenemy.
Global governance for global dominance under the aegis of the US deep state.
Economic neocolonialism, financial enslavement, intelligence and communication services supremacy and military hegemony are the key factors for a successful Pax Universalis.
Globalism, World Government, Great Reset, the 2023 WEF meeting is unveiling who are the real globalists. Globalism is an “inclusive” project controlled by the Anglo-American imperium with the support of satellite states, including the EU.
An EU made up of sovereign European states would pose a threat to the Anglo-American project of global domination. That is why we see total submission by the EU authorities and officials.
Without political agency, the exercise of citizenship is hollow. Representative democracy can under specific circumstances be more negative than some autocratic regimes.
The point to recall is that effective democracy has to be participatory democracy serving a participatory political economy.
Representative democracy relegates political participation to the act of voting, the citizenry democratically chooses those who will govern the country for a certain period of time and they will be judged in the next electoral cycle.
Meanwhile, political decisions are taken that go against the electoral program (increasingly common and without political consequences) and in the event of war, as is currently the case, it is even more serious because there is a group of non-elect people, for example, at the EU Commission and NATO making political decisions that can have dire consequences and the average citizenry apparently can't do anything – actually I believe we can, but it has to be in the streets, in an organized way and with clear objectives, spontaneous protests have a short fuse and are usually inconsequential.
The generalized feeling of helplessness and uncertainty, caused by atomization, alienation and social isolation, leads us to exclude ourselves from political participation.
Political agency means the right to choose which societal paradigm we want to live in and the duty to make it a reality.
Defending a political ideology as a model for managing a society is also a way of giving meaning to life, society is our shared multi-generational home and the quality of life for future generations depends on the conscious political choices we make throughout our lives.
Exercising the duty of being politically involved is to prevent others from doing it for us.
Society is a dynamic system where individual, group, institutional, organizational and governmental interests must be balanced so that the distribution of wealth is fair and power is monitored to avoid its control by a few who, over time, will use it to favor the group/class to which they belong to the detriment of the rest of society.
To protect class interests, they will create a suitable legal system and resort to the public relations machine to produce instruments of mass deception in order to manipulate public perception.
Ideological traps can be found where least expected and very often we happily open the doors of our convent to let them in. Ideological and cultural colonization works like the kind of parasites that have the ability to exploit the host without killing it.
The biosociocultural identity that defines who we are is rooted in the "information" stored subconsciously and the implicit memories in which the choices we make and the decisions we take are influenced by ideas (Ideas Have Consequences by Richard M. Weaver https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo17116688.html) to which we are (in)voluntarily exposed to the point that they become pillars of our identity.
A serious problem doesn't go away because we ignore it, but the illusion that we understand it can have even more catastrophic results because
(“In war, truth is the first casualty.” – Aeschylus) the use of propaganda (weaponizing information process) to help ruling elites wage ideological war against their own countrymen in order to gain support of the many and demonize, defame and ridicule the opponents to neutralize them and even make them targets of hatred.
Europeans' political choices will decide the future of Europe and the world and may even save or condemn humanity to nuclear holocaust.
Europeans have the responsibility to decide in which direction the world will go, and it seems to me that we have not yet assimilated the responsibility that hangs over our heads, like the sword of Damocles.
Is Russia really our sworn enemy or are we being deceived and going to support the wrong side of history? The option of sitting on the fence can be tempting because the flood of propaganda does not help to have clear ideas, rather convincing us to lean towards what seems to me to be the wrong side of history.
Distancing ourselves and searching for consistent information because sitting on the fence is letting others decide for us and the direness of the situation requires us to take a stand.
Adopting a skeptical attitude whenever society is flooded with narratives that demonize, dehumanize and point the finger at scapegoats as unequivocal culprits is the moral choice.
Just because we believe in or trust a fountain doesn't mean the water is drinkable. The usual sources where we look for information and in which we trust may become polluted overtime. In order to know if the water from a fountain is drinkable, we have to analyze it, the same happens with the information, it is not enough to trust the sources, it is necessary to research and confirm the veracity of the information. We have to take into account that the information is for internal use, and if we want to preserve our biosociocultural, neurocognitive, psycho-affective health and prevent chronic intoxications that cause low-quality intellectual output, we need to choose the sources carefully.
The media has the role of informing the public of what is really happening, in a democracy facts are important because the choices we make and the decisions we take should be based on accurate, factual data. How can we defend democracy properly if our environment is a swamp of lies?
In The Emergence of American Political Issues (1977), McCombs and Shaw argue that the most important effect of the mass media is "its ability to mentally order and organize our world for us. In short, the mass media may not be well- successful in telling us what to think, but they are incredibly successful in telling us what to think." [13] Presidential observer Theodore White corroborates this conclusion in The Making of a President (1972):
The power of the press in America is critical. It sets the agenda for public discussion; and this comprehensive political power is not restricted by any law. He determines what people will say and think - an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties and mandarins.[14]
McCombs and Shaw also note that the media's tendency to frame voters' perceptions of political reality constitutes a bias: "To a considerable degree, the art of politics in a democracy is the art of determining which dimensions of the issue are of most interest. . the public or may be deployed to gain public support."[15]
http://www.scottlondon.com/reports/frames.html
For decades, labor rights have been attacked and social support restricted, all based on the rationale of market freedom and competition to increase productivity. Austerity, precariousness, impoverishment, social isolation, destruction of the social fabric and social exclusion.
Free enterprise, individual responsibility, innovative entrepreneurship, meritocracy, private initiative, tax cuts for investors, reduced government control over economic activity for a most efficient economy, minimalist unionism and labor flexibility, government intervention whenever necessary to implement, sustain, and protect free market activities.
Neoliberalism is a coherent political doctrine of political economy for globalization that emphasizes free trade, market deregulation, opening up the economy, privatizing public services, and reducing government spending.
The imposition of neoliberalism was a declaration of war against the middle class and the working class. A war for control of the global economy and financial and military dominance. Neoliberal political economy requires that a society's political and economic institutions to be liberal and capitalist.
Neoliberalism was sold as a panacea to stimulate global economic growth, encourage exports of commodities, attract foreign investment, create special economic zones in different parts of the world, hand control of the economy to the private sector, liberalize the labor market and end with collective contracts, exacerbate individualism and promote consumer society.
The futile culture of superfluous consumption and the identity of facade, style and image rather than substance.
The fictional persona takes on more importance than coherent ideas, critical thinking and political participation.
The diversity of styles and personas seems to result from chance, personal taste, ethnocultural/tribal identity, extravagance or exoticism.
Adopting a persona for public consumption is nothing more than a game of make-believe, fake cosmopolitanism, highly convenient in a society that demands conformism by default and allows toothless rebellion.
Wearing a police outfit does not make me a police officer, but it can have a disturbing effect, The Stanford Prison Experiment https://exhibits.stanford.edu/spe.
Adopting a persona can lead to identifying with it, to the point of taking it as the “true” identity.
Society is an environment planned, regulated and managed by people, institutions, organizations and government bodies that have the role of creating the scenario, writing the play, putting on the show and directing the public's attention.
Citizens, in their daily quest to satisfy their needs and desires, do not pay attention to the intentional manipulation and ideological-political and cultural framing of reality as a way of reinforcing the established hierarchy through the distribution of power, privileges and entitlements in society.
Neoliberal intervention programs include a package of austerity measures that presuppose the precariousness of employment, cuts in social support, privatization of essential services and state companies (water, energy, health, education, post office, banking, insurance, natural resources and minerals, farmland,...) and public-private partnerships involving tax concessions or other operating revenues, liability protection or partial ownership rights over technically public services and properties to private sector for-profit entities.
Advocates of public-private partnerships allude to their obvious advantages while blurring the lines between legitimate public purposes and private activities to securing and/or increasing rent seeking.
“Public-private partnerships also create risks from the perspective of the general public and taxpayers. Private operators' partnership with the government can insulate them from liability to public service users for cutting too many shortcuts, providing substandard service, or even violating people's civil or constitutional rights. At the same time, the private partner may enjoy a position to raise tolls, fees and charges for captive consumers who may be compelled by law or geographical natural monopoly to pay for their services.
Finally, as in any situation where ownership and decision rights are separated, public-private partnerships can create complex principal-agent problems. This can facilitate corrupt dealings, bribes to political cronies, and general rent-seeking activities, weakening the link between private parties making important decisions about a project from which they benefit, and accountability to taxpayers who pay taxes. least part of the bill and who might be left holding the bag in terms of ultimate responsibility for the outcome of the project.”
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/public-private-partnerships.asp
In a January 16, 1991 speech, George H.W. Bush https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/10276
"more than one small country; it is a big idea; a new world order," with "new ways of working with other nations . . . peaceful settlement of disputes, solidarity against aggression, reduced and controlled arsenals and just treatment of all peoples."
George Bush 1991: 'Our Quest for a New World Order' Pax Universalis
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4509283/user-clip-george-bush-1991-our-quest-world-order
Neoliberalism is the political economy component of the neoconservative project for global domination. The so-called globalization corresponds to the process of implementing a new world order Pax Universalis with the US as its leader and the rentier class (plutocrats and oligarchs) as its "legitimate" beneficiaries.
Globalism has always been hidden in plain sight, a project of unipolar imperialist hegemony.
The new rules-based global order was meant to be managed by a set of international institutions and organizations and controlled by the hard core of western oligarchs and plutocrats counting on the cooperation of satellite states and puppet governments.
The current imbroglio is a consequence of the “big idea” of a new economic-financial, geopolitical and military unipolar world order. The Western citizenry must understand that the current situation results from this project of global domination, or they will fail to frame and comprehend the underlying reasons why politicians, national governments and European institutions function as mere instruments of the Pax Americana with the aim of imposing the Pax Universalis.
Not only we do not understand how we got to where we are, but we will allow ourselves to be embroiled by the official propaganda and will align ourselves with the wrong side of history, which can have catastrophic consequences. The neo-fascist wave grows in Europe resorting to xenophobic, nationalist arguments, exploiting anti-globalist, anti-emigration and anti-wokism sentiments, the current pseudo-progressive banners divert our attention from the class war issues.
As soon as the neo-fascist parties and organizations assume political control, they will not shy away from resorting to violence to eliminate political opposition and dissidents of whatever sort. They will enforce neoliberal policies regarding the implementation of the austerity package. The extreme right is not the solution, they are taking advantage of the saturation generated by decades of fake democracy, and fake liberalism which we never opposed properly and now we are paying the price.
European citizens should concentrate on demanding an end to the war, instead of showing unconditional support for the Natucranian government because that is recipe for disaster that can run out-of-control like wildfire.
Honest negotiations with the Russians and the re-establishment of diplomatic relations is the minimum that we should be demanding, I do know that honesty is not a relevant value among European politicians and officials, but things can change.
We delegate the future of Europe to a political class with connections to economic interests, duties of allegiance, conflicts of interest, political cowardice, careerism, irresponsible opportunism and agents serving imperialist interests, so what do we expect as result; a better world?
The time is ripe for systemic change, do we want it to happen through a world war that nobody knows how it will end, or do we want to avoid the war by stop supporting those responsible for the calamitous state of affairs?
We may not realize it, but the war for a better world could and should be fought and won by us, the ordinary citizenry, instead of relying on heroes and saviors to bring about the change that actually never happens.
Research as independently as possible. We have nothing to gain from escalating the war, because the only way to stop Russia from "winning" this war would be a coup d'état, regime change operation or similar. If the CIA with or without the support of other intelligence agencies and cutouts managed to overthrow the current government and install a puppet government (Boris Yeltsin type) the West could control and shred the Russian Federation apart and distribute the natural resource (as spoils of war) evaluated on 75 trillion U.S. dollars 2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/748223/leading-countries-based-on-natural-resource-value/.
In reality an escalation of the war could result in a nuclear holocaust.
“Certainly, it would be a global disaster for humanity; a disaster for the entire world,” Putin said, in an interview for a Russian documentary “The World Order 2018,” adding that “as a citizen of Russia and the head of the Russian state I must ask myself: Why would we want a world without Russia?”
https://www.rt.com/news/420715-putin-world-russia-nuclear/
We, Europeans have the responsibility to make a difference and contaminate the rest of the world controlled by the Anglo-American imperialism with the Big Idea - Negotiate instead of demonize.
The G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, US and EU) must be compelled by their respective citizens to sit at the negotiating table and if the US refuses, then it must be isolated.
If humanity wants to achieve lasting peace, it has to isolate the US and build a new international order. The G7 citizens are co-responsible with their leaders because the G7 countries as a whole have too much influence on global geopolitics for their citizens demarcate themselves as if the matter did not concern them.
Japan, as a US vassal state, is rearming for a future war with China. Do the Japanese agree with this escalation just because they are distracted and deluded like it happens wherever triviality passes for culture and political participation equals following celebrities and influencers.
The depoliticization of society is also a crime against humanity because it leaves psychopathic megalomaniac politicians on the loose, totally unhindered to pursue the most hideous policies.
Maybe it's time for real change! And once again, we will be led like cattle to the slaughterhouse instead of fighting to lead our own destiny. Humanity was not meant to be led by megalomaniac psychopaths, it is our political inertia that gives them the space they need to shape society in ways that insulate them from accountability.
