The emperor is naked.

Damn Treaty of Kiel!!

Agreed, it’s a crap title.

One big stumbling block is the relationship with Turkey. Is the EU ready to defend Greece and Cyprus the way everyone is talking about defending the Baltics and other Eastern flank countries from Russia?

If not, Greece and Cyprus will just keep going down the existing path of cooperation with Israel, the UAE, and the USA, hoping to counterbalance Erdogan’s aggression. This is a serious weak spot in any kind of European move for strategic independence.

Turkish adventurism is a ticking time bomb in the security architecture of Europe and nobody wants to talk or do anything about it except France.

Well, take care. In the meantime, listen to the 20 lessons on tyranny.

And maybe binge watch this guy, I think he’s onto something.

I’m not denying fear, violence, or victimhood. And I’m not equating oppressors with the oppressed. I should push back on the idea that naming cultural patterns equals blaming victims, or that only people inside the worst possible historical analogy are allowed to analyze trajectories.

I’m talking about how societies slide, not about who deserves what. Those are different conversations. I’ve been on the receiving end of state violence. I’ve marched, been gassed, watched movements radicalize too fast and burn themselves out. That’s exactly why I’m saying this: jumping straight to existential framing and armed horizons doesn’t protect anyone it only narrows the future until only catastrophe is left.

You don’t need to already be in a Holocaust to talk about escalation dynamics. In fact, if you wait until everything is unspeakable, analysis is already useless. Yes, fear is justified and preparation is understandable and necessary. But when fear becomes immune to critique, it stops being a warning signal and starts being a steering wheel.

My point hasn’t changed: there is still space, Real Political Space, for non-violent (not peaceful!) resistance, that can be powerfully disruptive. Once that space collapses, it doesn’t reopen because people were right about how bad things felt. I’m arguing against that collapse, not minimizing what’s at stake.

The reasons you outlined are why you are in trouble. As in, if they weren’t the case you would be in trouble. It’s a bit of a circular tautology. But they are not things that doom you. They are the shape of the whole you’re in. And it’s on you guys to find a way out. There’s no way around that. And no, the world is not coming to save you: there is no cavalry.

I don’t think you guys are doomed. I think the opposite, that the American people are a sleeping giant that can shake the world. And no, I don’t think you need to jump straight to shooting reach other.

You missed my point.

On the one hand yes you are behind on some kinds of labour organizing.

On the other hand, it’s not that simple.

a) you have a very long history of minority organizing. Black Americans, Chicanos, indigenous people, and other minorities have survived for generations. It sounds like a leftie cliché, but you guys should really take leadership from them.

b) you don’t have the baggage that comes with entrenched left wing politics. There is a thing like too much left wing politicking. In Greece for example, land of spectacular antifa riots, the left is absolutely paralyzed and completely fragmented. Too much history, too many reasons to blame this or that left faction for what they did 10,20,30, sometimes 60 or more years ago. You have a chance to build on a green field.

c) one thing you Americans actually have going for you is that you guys actually believe in democracy. You’re true believers. It’s a thing we in the rest of the world have always kind of being weirded out by you that you want to be electing judges and sherrifs and school boards etc. And you actually have this libertarian steak in you that’s kind of interesting when it comes to resistance. You have so much democratic institutional hardware just lying around.

d) you actually are close to some of the powerful economic structures, institutions, and pop culture centres in the planet. Anything you do will and already does reverberate globally in ways that others don’t.

So, while you do have very big challenges you also have very big opportunities. And friends man, you have friends. I know we give you guys shit all the time, but trust me, when Americans rise up and stand up we all feel a bit taller. I’m telling you this as someone who listened to RATM on the way to weekly marches getting gassed by the police, thinking we were trying to be as cool as the WTO protests in Seattle.

Arguably it bought Europe a half a year.

Not American, so feel free to stop reading.

It’s ridiculous to me how you yanks go from zero to a hundred like this. Either normality or civil war. Like there is no in between? You have an authoritarianism problem. So resist authoritarianism. What makes you think that the only way to resist is shooting people? Resistance is a spectrum, and you have barely started using democratic means to fight back (you just started electing democratic socialists), much less active procedural and institutional warfare (is Bernie demanding a vote for every procedural point requiring a vote? Are the Dems actually using any rat fucking tactic to make the state ungovernable? Are your local and state governments really resisting beyond making angry noises?). You have barely tried non violent resistance (not the same as peaceful!) but you’re such a violent culture that you jump straight to military solutions. Wtf. Those come at the very end, if everything else has failed. Has it? Nowhere near. So this talk about civil war, is that really useful?

If the media does not specifically ask every conservative spokesperson that goes in front of a mike whether they consider this message to be incompatible with CPC policies, then I don’t know what the media is for frankly. The CPC made a statement here. Hold them to it.

Cancel the Von Der Leyen deal.

Don’t even need the excuses. “We reserve the right to refuse service” is enough.

Elect conservatives get stupid policies.

Stoxos is literally a bunch of Nazis.

Not confusing anything. In between Lausanne and the decolonization of Cyprus, there is zero tension between Greece and Turkey. Once decolonization from the British started, the rest was a deteriorating cascade, and yes, the history is basically as you describe it. But at the time of NATO accession (1952), the countries had enjoyed 30 years of basically the best calm they’ve ever had.

Remember folks: non violent resistance doesn’t have to peaceful. Case in point.

Excellent :D

Don’t pretend this is the opinion of the average Canadian.

Nobody said that. Don’t get defensive here, buddy. The point is exactly that our elite is pretending to be virtuous, while balls deep in the situation. Pitfalls of liberal nationalism and all that.