One hundred years after World War I, are we heading back to the abyss?
opendemocracy.net
opendemocracy.net
1- The gains of globalization have not been equality distributed, we see this in rural France & England, along with the mid-west USA. Among the biggest losers of globalization have been the rural areas of advanced economies, rural areas are not as dynamic as cities and thus need more government support to keep pace.
2- The world's boundaries are still messed up. There is very little territorial dispute among advanced economies, but the developing world is dealing with a crisis caused by the poorly drawn maps of imperial governments (and the allies) post WWII. The Partition of India and Mandate on Palestine are the two biggest examples, but Africa struggles mightily with this as well. In the past 20 years 4 new countries have been born, we still have a way to go before reaching equilibrium.
Climate change is the kindle that has arguably already started the next major global conflict. It's only going to exacerbate the aforementioned points.
The time after the Berlin wall fell is one of neo liberalism, privatizations, destruction of civil and social rights etc. And my thesis is, that this is not just by accident but due to a lack of competition in the systemic field.
The autocratic systems that called themselves socialist turned out to be so elitist and corrupt in their core that people are so afraid of going anywhere near it they will go full circle and come back on the other side.
In the US even centrist social democrats are labled socialists, people we Europeans would call a moderate conservative..
It could be their greatest strength.
There are so many things wrong with this comment, but I think the most egregious is assuming the Imperial governments had any plans going into country creation other than getting natural resources and weakening their foes.
How does one cut through all the noise or can you even?
The political tone feels similar to the preamble to Afghanistan because it's not even been 20 years, and most of the actors are still in comparable position. Time moves very slowly, and we're still watching the slow play-out of a "new cold war" primarily acted out through economic interference and proxies.
The current state has definitely gotten normalized. Think back to the responses vs. Rodney King. But then think back further to Kent State, and the fact that much of the nation thought the national guard was _justified_ to kill innocent students. There's some sort of a sine-wave there, and I think it has to do with personal exposure to Real Suffering and Loss, and the lack thereof in recent memory has innured public perception to the cost of our action, and as such we're willing to fight eternal wars, bluster about destroying our enemies, and engineer the economy past realistic growth.
At the end of the Vietnam war, not even 50 years ago, a communication was sent by the final CIA officials evacuating Saigon. "It has been a long fight and we have lost. . . . Those who fail to learn from history are forced to repeat it. Let us hope that we will not have another Vietnam experience and that we have learned our lesson. Saigon signing off."
Cutting through the noise: The world won't end, history shows we're quite good at brinksmanship, but this is not an optimistic statement. We have not learned our lesson. I doubt we ever will.
It seems that better education might be a start. But it takes at least a generation to have an effect. Just as we didn't get to the point we are at overnight.
In places where the bully leaders aren't voted in, then something is very wrong with the system that lets them get into power without any kind of checks. But if everyone were on average better educated, there might be some kind of checks that could be created.
> What do they all have in common? They have too much power and
> display autocratic tendencies when exercising it.You don't need a super power to start a war, post ww1 germany was pretty weak and still managed to kick-start ww2.
"Whether you are a genius scientist in the United States, a peace-loving poet in Brazil, or a great philosopher in Iran, the truth is that your fate is, to some degree, in the hands of a man who, in a more rational world, would not even be allowed to care for a pet. Whatever we tell ourselves about the elite who control politics nationally, regionally, and globally, there is one embarrassing fact we need to face: we have surrendered our destiny, and the well-being of the planet, to a bunch of bullies. This should be disturbing for everyone."
Trump just became the first US president to set foot in North Korea. He called for an end to US war games in South Korea. He's significantly improved relations with Russia as well. For a bunch of "bullies" they're actually doing a pretty good job securing peace through diplomacy.