I'm 70 years old. I've lived the majority of my life in blissful ignorance of how precarious the freedoms and securities I've enjoyed truly are.
But the last 20 years, especially the last 10, have revealed the truth. There are emotions and lies and avarice and cruelties in abundance, horrific plans and cowardly denials at work. It's complicated, yes. But at the moment I see the resolution of Ukraine / Russia as the key that will set the stage for the future, a future that will likely last much longer than what's left of my lifetime.
As the approaching tsunami reaches its crest, we will either have the start of a golden age, or - more likely - the darkest of dark ages. As a Canadian, simplistically I think of it symbolically as Carney vs Trump - we can fill in the roster of heroes and villains behind those two names.
It isn't just Ukraine vs Russia, after all. But that's where the decisive battle is.
Yes! I feel the same here in Sweden! (euro-canada? ;)
Its do or die now, the choice are getting more and more clear.
The strange thing is that we still wait around and treat Trump and Putin as some kind of real leaders? They are not, anymore. They are small, small people. Now its time for us others to grow and act, togheter, and create the world that we want, not the one that we fear! <3
I must agree with your assessment. Since Russia’s invasion of Crimea I’ve been in support of the US and NATO backing Ukraine more aggressively. This half-measure support we’ve seen has only emboldened Putin and resulted in so many more deaths.
The more 'aggressive backing' ought not to exclude directly engaging in battle-- after all, fighting a just and righteous war against malevolent invaders is the whole point of having armies and military might. The borders that are being defended transcend any one country -- they are those of the liberal democratic world order that peace-loving nations have signed on to belong and to defend. If a war has to be fought, then let it be for upholding this.
But, the right place to look to feel some hope is here: NoKings.org list of partners. Its LOOOONG! Here is where the new future is organized, openly, cooperatively. And not only for protests - they are organizing for mutual aid now, and food banks. Thats the beginning of getting the real moral authority by doing that will be needeed to push the democrats out of their hole, get rid of big campaing money, and start make grand bargains for the WHOLE people again!
This past weekend we had a get together for Labor Day. There were a lot of opinions yet all agreed that WWIII has definitely began . You can look at it in many different ways such as the Vietnam War was the start of Americans distrusting our government. Or some say Regan was the start , it always leads to the Republicans we had quest that still believe Trump is the best president ever and RFK is saving the world worst yet t are doctors by trade it stifles me it really does. You will never change their minds they want a dictatorship believing they will be find because they are uber rich. The only thought that I change in my beliefs is that it’s no longer about fighting it to me it’s about surviving it planning to the best of my abilities to focus on my family and to find ways to survive.
Being a Swede is being... well 50% American west can-do, "a human can do, learn, build and be ANYTHING (theoretically, not practiaclly, but for different cultural reasons!)"- but with 50% underdog perspective, from experience or intake of much complex culture alongside the american more superficial - and a balancing humility since we are so small we CANT have much hubris. We MUST be more right than most. Always balancing. And always LEARNING from others - but modifying for our own purposes.
And i have a respectful, intellectual question about that. Did any of you cite and compare with any other history, idea history, culture, philosophy reference than American?
Ive been hanging around here since january to check out what the heck was happening -., and the loop seems TOTALLY closed. The US it TOTALLY wrapped up in itself.
It SEEMS effectively like you think that there in ALL of human history (except maybe the fall of Rome) has happened ANYTHING that would be of use for you to consider now, in this situation. Plato described this situation, oligarchy takeover, and Aristotle have solid advice for it, usable now... And you dont know, and dont look.
Is it american exceptionalism, or is it just the same big power idiocy (one-eyedness!) as Russia, or both?
I personally always try to compare to idea history, "who have done this? How did it work? What can we learn?" Just like when I have been as an entrepreneur on the internet. USING the internet I helped building - all info is THERE! Its just plain silly competing about who knows best without it, the only reasonable is to be the best to find and use the correct info. Toghether. Thats the way I see it.
I am Canadian, and your question should probably be answered or addressed by an American, but I can share a Canadian’s perspective. Our country is similar to yours in our outlook: the two 50% perspectives are the same. I think that while our education system teaches world history from elementary school upward, the American school system seems very focused on American history. I find Americans know a great deal about their own history, about each President, and they love their Constitution. It may be a case of American exceptionalism, pride in their accomplishments, that keeps them blind to the incredible histories of other countries, or it may just be an education system that is myopic. But this is a complaint many Canadians have about Americans - they seem to have a knowledge deficit about other countries/histories. It is a shame, because right now, it could really help them.
Americans know next to nothing about Canada and Canada is next door. Safe to say they know even less about other countries. Americans themselves say all they see on their news is American news. It’s been said since Trump II that isolationism is part of the plan. In many ways, they’re already isolated.
Yes! Its at least half way to the sad situation in Russia, all voluntarily.
leavingmaga.org says that the MOST important step is getting ONE other info source in than Fox News.
If there is ANYTHING i regret about helping to create the web, its that we pioneers didnt make a "licence EULA" for it that you had to accept before begin using it - ALWAYS have MORE than one news input, or you'll patently go sectlike crazy.
The old national debate can be descibed as narrow, in sweden it was called "the corridor of opinion" - but at least ALL DIRECTIONS of perspectives were represented without being totally skewed to the right, always the direction of worldly power. Because they always have the means of buying publicity of different kinds. So it never became a sect (well, libertarians thought that of course, and are very pleased now, when THEIR power aligning sect are in charge.
Which Plato tells us is what will always happens, until it flips taoistically into dictatorship when the people is fed up with freedom on paper only. <- this is the real use case for progressiveness, the insight that all freedom must be properly funded and made investments in to persist in the future too! And when underfunded, it will always degrade into no real freedom at all. Or... maybe not even progressivism. Recyclism, maybe. Refurbishism. Keeping by updating and upgradig the old structures. Maintainism?
Thanks for the reply, Sylvia! :) It made me happy - i have actually sensed those similarities too, and I REALLY think we should cooperate, Scandinavia and Canada - we northerner outskirters know stuff about the need to keep together to survive the winters. We *cant* believe in just ANY unsustainable bullshit... like. ;) Its gotta WORK to take us through the darkness.
And also being small and quite sparse makes us a bit like the US was in the beginning, in the Old West days. I think a mental rebirth may be needed, finding those pioneering roots, when you actually HAD to include EVERY human being in some way, or he was BOUND to end up "up to no good." Only human.
I think the sexual revolution/green wave/flower power was one. Going more genuine and growing down roots. And another one is needed now.
And ALSO following roots even further back to Europe... knowing more about how societies with kings actually WORKED. MAGA is very much like a weird and absurd peasants rebellion, actually. The kind that our founding king Gustav Wasa learned to both suppress brutally with machavellian means, albeit with much trouble since our rebels had plenty of woods and mountains to hide in, and were of an Scandinavian free men all-purpose, cooperating and relatively unhierarcically self-organizing quality <3... (our "highlanders") - and that made him realise that IF the peasants in the provinces were so bad off they resorted to THAT risktaking, they actually MUST be given somewhat better conditions, or he'd never go safe. Also Maciavelli style, actually.
And this insight has been kept in Swedish adminstration tradition ever since - when something goes wrong, you very seldom get an apology in words or a civil servants head on a stake - but you are at least expected to see an FUNCTIONAL apology in the form of strucural change to avoid THAT profoundly unpleasant shit from ever happening again. :P Nobody wants that, actually.
And we actually find that more satisfactory. (Which chinese business contacts have had a hard time understanding... "We can inform you that the responsible for this error has been punished harsly! - =:O Eeeeh... ok.. but that was not what we meant... more like this - have you changed *anything* in the (info)structure to prevent this human error from keeping on happening anyway? Like putting a freaking NOTE in the exact right place, or something...?" ;)
Hm... Maybe you and we have little of the same feeling about Old Europe too, sometimes more than just a little full of itself and all its Proud History... and needing to see "a little less conversation, a little more action, please...?" ;)
Yes actually - "Show us you are able to learn the right lesson and change, and we will forgive you. Even people in power are allowed mistakes, or they cant be human! :O - but they MUST learn from them."
I feel there is much to take from that when figuring out what the US must learn now, to get past the current stuckness.
Brilliant reply! I have a question I live in Bucks County Pennsylvania and there are hundreds of Swedish that have come to Allentown by ways of the catholic community. Our daughter has been volunteering English lessons we are not part of the churches.
We are Quakers originally when I was born in 1955 the faith was based on activism along with SPICES. As children we learn to follow S-SIMPLICITY P-PEACE I- INTEGRITY C-COMMUNITY E- EQUITY S- STEWARDSHIP also they hammered in you buy what you need and not what you want as we were getting older we were taught “ PAY ATTENTION “ Today sadly the Quaker Foundation has changed drastically because Christians have taken over many of the friends meeting houses. In my day it was acceptable to have Jewish Quakers, Mormon Quakers even folks that did not believe in God our door was open . Why I tell you about this is because they teach survival through their history the ways have not changed since the Revolutionary War my own family was a part of the Underground Railroad since the civil war that was still operating till the late 1970s. Americans love to hate which is how this mess started. Most Americans do not have a clue what’s coming upon them it’s because they don’t pay attention until it hits them. I wish you and your family the best of luck in the coming future live for today perhaps that’s why it’s called the present.
I checked out Allentown, and it seems to be a part of New Sweden, our colony over there, long ago... :) From what I have heard, Swedes were the LEAST horrible of all colonists ;) We always tried to keep as human as possible to the locals, and cooperate with everyone and everything.. which also led us to quit it among the first too. We are not overstubborn.
So, there are hundreds of NEW swedish coming over? Interesting. Well, yes, we are not really satisfied where we are heading, and we WILL have to rise up and throw out neoliberalism. We as everyone. Its been corrupt since the nineties, and left in place anyway, corrupting. A modern society CANT be run on so little tax revenue and so high inequality.
Sure they are not Ukrainian? Allentown seem to be recieving those, and it fits better with needing English education.. almost all Swedes know English by now.
Im thinking... we have always had a life line for education, parallelle to normal education and work. Folk highschools and folk universities. Teaching like university, but outside of the real, prestigeous university world.
I think you would SO need that! We had internatonal programmes where you learned about the world, and went to some of the countries togehter too. One variant was the global south program, focusing on Africa. Much relation has been build that way. And its SO eye-opening to see how a completely OTHER society works. It might have certain kick-ass features, even though much pooerer than your own, and we can never be certain that we dont have to use such tricks ourselves one day. I at least feel safer having SEEN how a simpler society can work too, and not necessarily be worse than this. <3 Prepared for any scenario.
A couple of reads i recommend:
- Yoval Noah Harari, Sapiens and Nexus - that israeli guy has gotten exactly how IT and social media has reshaped the world. He says a lot of things like it WILL be like this or that, but really, he is just trying to warn. If we dont DO anything, we are heading in that direction, and we ... dont want that, so.... just better start moving! ;)
- https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/nisa/character/nisa/ - a woman from Botswana, living as the earliest humans all up until now - not very different from us, actually. <3 But living in the moost stable way humanity ever invented. We still have hunter-gatherer genes and have to make the best of that- I seem to be hunting and gathering knowledge, and human contact like with you now, every day. <3 :)
- The Spirit Level (about inequality.) This is what everything since 2001 has been managing to sidetrack constantly. Here it is described what has now happened, just because it wasnt heeded. Just because Bush, cheney and rumsfeldt rather took the opportunity masterfully handed them by bin Ladin - to drag the attention from the protests and riots in genua, seattle and gothenburg about neoliberalism wrecking the world. The last big antiglobalism protests. Then it was buried and forgotten as hegemony. And here we are now, and it has turned all the world inside out and absurd, putting the biggest liar on top. Just as I felt would be the mechanisms end point 30 years ago, and KNEW it would be 15 years ago - and still NOBODY managed mustered the courage to stop it. :O. So, I am about as radicalcized as MAGA right now - I will NOT shut up anymore. That swamp must be drained on both sides, big money OUT of politics eventually, and a more open system more like the swedish, but also with elements from Estonian, South korean, and Taiwan digital democracy systems. a
We cant have a closed supposedly left wing party when debate has been blown wide open and scattered, so the media cant keep it clean and collect needs and cook together policy suggestions filling those needs to give directions to it anymore. It has actually never WANTED them, apparently. :P
(we still have folk highschools, but the sweden democrats, our nationalist assholes, defunded 25% of them. recently. They will no doubt continue down that track, because they see them as socialism breeding grounds. :P Many disillusioned Swedish youth have found their life force and purpose again in those places... :/ So, They Shall Have It! >:( )
I would wish for those unemployed teachers to set up web educations, and give online lectures in english, for ALL of the world, including the US, so you can learn too! We cant do this alone anymore, we need to be the fucking worlds teachers, or the world will uneducate us too long run. :P
And set up a fucking way to smuggle it into Russia too.
Garry. I don’t think you can isolate these variables so simply. The revolutionary process must play out, mostly in Europe at first, for these societies to change their orientation towards a more robust defense of their interests. The dominant governing paradigms right now tend to lean towards fragmentation into narrow interest groups across the west. The Trumpist movement only partly resolved this in the US so far; Europe has yet to have its moment but it is coming, and maybe sooner than later. Until this happens we might as well say “If my Grandmother had wheels she would be a bicycle”. The current system in the West is by definition incapable of defending its collective interests.
Addendum: the switch from Chamberlain was in many ways revolutionary at the time. Churchill was considered anachronistic right until the moment he was considered prescient. Let’s not wait so long this time.
WW2 became inevitable, once the Axis openly violated and refused the global, rules-based order. It happened long before their armies, air and naval forces crossed borders, sunk merchants, and bombed allied cities.
Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, the Japanese fascists, they all stated their intentions openly, basically plain sight.
Now, Putin, Xi, the Mullah Regime, Kim, do the same. They may not yet cross western borders yet, if we ignore the funding of 5th Columns, but they are speaking about it. Last time the world did not pay enough attention.
Once again, many are willing to look away, or are willing to align themselves to the enemies of our rules-based order.
Ukraine 2022 was not the beginning. It started with Georgia, Chechnya, Syria, and Ukraine 2014 in Europe. In the Indo-Pacific, the Peoples Republic of China has ever since the 1950s subjugated other peoples, and even participated with a „volunteer force“ in the Korean War. Iran since the Iranian fascists took over, has stated its goal is to destroy Israel.
Ukraine 2022 is not the start, but just as Czechoslovakia 1938, it is a real chance for the Western world to put an end to aggression before dozens of millions perish.
The battlefield of the 21st Century isn't just in the physical realm. It extends to the virtual realm, where disinformation and propaganda are the most effective weapons. A lie can kill more people than any conventional weapon, save for nuclear arms.
Authoritarians are exporting lies, and they're fueling discord and conflict in western democracies. The chief export is right-wing populism. It worked in the UK with Brexit, it's working in the United States, it's made major inroads in France and Germany, and we're now even seeing people marching in the streets against immigration in Japan.
Make common ground with the .russian people? Excellent idea, but how would that be accomplished? Putin controls all the media in that country. I wouldn’t bother writing letters to Pravda.
:) Come on, we're homo sapiens. We outsmarted the lions when we were driven out of our forests and into the plains. By cooperating, and learning. We can figure that out!
To begin with, we can get to KNOW Russians. What drives them. How they move. Their strengths and their weaknesses. What kind of chess piece ARE they on the global table like? What can we expect of them to handle, and what not?
Using that we can help them building a better future FOR them, because I see NO way they can be expected to do it themselves. WE are the hopeful ones - they are currently not. So they have NO visions. We can have. Sure, its hard to make hopeless people change, but i have heard reports that they actually WERE hopeful for a small while while democratic! at least people in s:t petersburg. And I know how trauma is treated- you must help traumatized people to a a BETTER experience than they currently have, before they are able to believe that anything like that is possible. Before they can dare to hope for anything again.
Actually, figuring out this from how they MOVE, not what they say, is an art called "kremlology" ;) since that was the only way anyone could figure out ANYTHING
There are always those, in every country. <3 Denyz Davydov in Ukraine. The genuine, clear sighted public voices. Who can tell you how it IS living in that country. Providing constant qualitiative scientific samples, that you can cross with the quantitative data you gan get elsewhere to get a living dynamic image of what is actually going on. And visions of how that will probably evolve. Just like you would get if you lived there yourself. <3
After that... there are ways. Always. ;)
Just to get SOME info in - we can all volunteer to call a russian! Early in the war somebody made this excellent gateway. I think its time to spread and use it?
... in my life, ive been best served by this approach:
.Dont talk about them, talk TO them.
Treat them like you assume them to be the responsible constructive adults you need them to be.
And they mostly ARE, to your surprise.
Suggest to build something togehter, and youll see what they are really made of. And HOW to cooperate with them.
Trust them - but remember to verify silently now and then, and react quick at the first signs that something is off. All relations must be worked on, always.
This is really just game theory. Proven to work best by science.
Why cant we begin with offering to BUILD peace with the Russian people?, by relations and mutual interest, and common ground? And all our joint experience that needs to come to SOME good use if its not going to rust?
There throw all they can at the wall and see's what sticks, because the international order is skewed at the moment from your friend on the extreme right, you know the righties.
... China’s advance is matching America’s retreat.
Are you sure?
China is basically taoist. If they ACT they know there will be a reaction.
I dont think they will act much.
And the feeling I have as a Swede is this: If there IS a vaccum needing to be filled- then its time to fill it with a cooperating network of peers, small and large, who actually all cooperate as well as possible instead of trying to compete each other out right of their livelihood.
I know, what you mention is the old game - what has needed to be expected up until now - but now we cant have it anymore, even if we need to handle it for yet some time in parallell. The long journey back to Kalahari, is basically over. We have the tech and the knowledge needed to live in the way we want, if we only get together and organize for it.
The only "problem" with the less fierce capitalism that we Swedes have, is that its as not as quick to return profits as the American, since we like to invest long term in both people and country. (which is exactly why we dont have MAGA!... yet. )
Isnt it obvious that there needs to be some kind of antitrust agency on the global level - so that already developed countries who dont invest sustainably in their people, and their workers conditions, and lets them work 60 hour weeks with only subsistence money - cant compete out countries that actually want to keep people SAFE?
Which is a requirement for them daring to be full world citizen and care about anybody else too. And did you know that the kind of constant wondering where the next paycheck is going to come from effectively draws 10-20 IQ points from you when problem solving? - basically the same as a night without sleep, constantly! or to have adhd.
We simply cant afford people to get that stupid and inflexible. Thats the whole point with having the tax levels that us nordic countries have! We CANT be that one-eyed and stupid. We cant afford it, were too small. We are now about 4x as efficient as the US, and we need that to be able to compete.
Not bad, but we're tired too. And are starting to feel hopeless. Please, cant we do this the reasonable way - slow down from the idiotic tempo that was originally intended to kill off the Soviet Union, which it thankfully did - but it had really needed to go as soon as that deed was done, and the world has listed to the capitalist side ever since, since we dont have energy and time to take care of any common stuff, like the sense of the common, or the common sense! :O
Let our souls and purposes catch up with us again.
Let go of the fear to burn out.
Root ourselves, and connect with ourselves and each others again!
HELP each others to develop, with local ownership, and not try to suck out the steep growth from the developing countries just because our own has ended since long.
Let voluntarily go of the sense and the remainting power of us being the "aristocrats" and rentiers of the world - a surefire and time honored way to get hated! - and replace it with a world wher we all cooperate as peers and good global citicens, and where mutual aid and cooperation actually WORKS!
We need to distribute the enormous profits from the AI revolution soon anyways as global basic income, or the world will be so top heavy it falls over, and the jobs will vanish in an unprecitable and possibly really quick way. Sam Altman and the UN are already discussing this! and it must happen. Capitalism as we know it cant continue, now, we must dial it down as something fun to do on the top of the safety. And we WILL always want to, because its more fun to do something on our own than not! :D We swedes know that. This must become the age of playful cooperation. The global otter age. <3
So, lets reclaime the vision of us all meeting in the middle as peers, eventually, and rejoice! :D THIS is what we paid all that aid to african schools for. This has to be the goal.
Thats my vision as a Swede, and has always been. We cant let fears let us hang on to the world of relentless economic war (competition of the fierce kind). Its time. We need rest, and each others, just like in kalahari. <3
I agree that the time has come for a more forceful response to Putin's aggression in Ukraine. So far, with only material help from the West, Ukraine has done an amazing job of holding Putin's forces to a virtual standstill, but it is clear that on its own it cannot drive out the invaders and restore its boundaries as defined (and guaranteed!) in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. The most practical source of more help to achieve that goal would be the joint armies of the European "Coalition of the Willing" -- brought together by a leader, perhaps President Alexander Stubb of Finland, who clearly understands what is at stake. To be clear, I am not talking about a war to defeat Russia or to bring about regime change there, but the limited goal of restoring the integrity of Ukraine. Of course it would be helpful if the US could be persuaded to join with the Coalition, but that seems unlikely given Trump's chronic subservience to Putin. But that could change if Ukraine and the Coalition were seen to be winning. Trump, like all bullies, is happy to join in a risk-free win -- as we observed in the bombing of Iran.
I see it the same way and indeed wrote about this exact topic around the last mid term elections. By my reckoning, WW3 started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 11 years ago and their simultaneous political warfare on the West (boosting Trump for example).
Unlike WW2, this is a hybrid war, not total war. It is disguised as a limited, regional war within the former Soviet sphere, but it is fundamentally challenging the liberal-led world order.
however this again implies there is no coexistence possible
there is always the vicious circle that both "opposing sides" firmly believe they must get stronger than the "other" as an existential issue. The "other" look at the development and they rightly feel they need to get stronger as well..
until that time one side "takes the initiative" and in doing that justifies the others actions which leads to all of "normal people losing" ...followed by a period of relative peace until the elders die of old age and horrors are forgotten so that the new generations get a modernized re-run.. with new "special effects"
is there a way out of this circle beyond the SF scenarios of external threats which would finally draw the division line around the whole planet instead of drawing them internally ad nauseum?
This isn’t World War III—it’s something more nuanced: a realignment of global spheres of influence, allies, and ultimately, a recalibration of the balance of power. History shows us that power dynamics are rarely static, and what we’re witnessing now is a shift, not an outright global conflict. But covert operations to shape influence and control.
I'm 70 years old. I've lived the majority of my life in blissful ignorance of how precarious the freedoms and securities I've enjoyed truly are.
But the last 20 years, especially the last 10, have revealed the truth. There are emotions and lies and avarice and cruelties in abundance, horrific plans and cowardly denials at work. It's complicated, yes. But at the moment I see the resolution of Ukraine / Russia as the key that will set the stage for the future, a future that will likely last much longer than what's left of my lifetime.
As the approaching tsunami reaches its crest, we will either have the start of a golden age, or - more likely - the darkest of dark ages. As a Canadian, simplistically I think of it symbolically as Carney vs Trump - we can fill in the roster of heroes and villains behind those two names.
It isn't just Ukraine vs Russia, after all. But that's where the decisive battle is.
Yes! I feel the same here in Sweden! (euro-canada? ;)
Its do or die now, the choice are getting more and more clear.
The strange thing is that we still wait around and treat Trump and Putin as some kind of real leaders? They are not, anymore. They are small, small people. Now its time for us others to grow and act, togheter, and create the world that we want, not the one that we fear! <3
.... because almost noone actually WANTS the other one. :P Lets collect all the coutries of the UN and check, shall we? ;)
I must agree with your assessment. Since Russia’s invasion of Crimea I’ve been in support of the US and NATO backing Ukraine more aggressively. This half-measure support we’ve seen has only emboldened Putin and resulted in so many more deaths.
The more 'aggressive backing' ought not to exclude directly engaging in battle-- after all, fighting a just and righteous war against malevolent invaders is the whole point of having armies and military might. The borders that are being defended transcend any one country -- they are those of the liberal democratic world order that peace-loving nations have signed on to belong and to defend. If a war has to be fought, then let it be for upholding this.
Churchill is reputed to have said,
“Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”
I fear that we shall have to wait a while before the US exhausts all other possibilities.
Haha! :D He was a dryly funny man. <3
Yes, I have that same feeling. ;D
But, the right place to look to feel some hope is here: NoKings.org list of partners. Its LOOOONG! Here is where the new future is organized, openly, cooperatively. And not only for protests - they are organizing for mutual aid now, and food banks. Thats the beginning of getting the real moral authority by doing that will be needeed to push the democrats out of their hole, get rid of big campaing money, and start make grand bargains for the WHOLE people again!
This past weekend we had a get together for Labor Day. There were a lot of opinions yet all agreed that WWIII has definitely began . You can look at it in many different ways such as the Vietnam War was the start of Americans distrusting our government. Or some say Regan was the start , it always leads to the Republicans we had quest that still believe Trump is the best president ever and RFK is saving the world worst yet t are doctors by trade it stifles me it really does. You will never change their minds they want a dictatorship believing they will be find because they are uber rich. The only thought that I change in my beliefs is that it’s no longer about fighting it to me it’s about surviving it planning to the best of my abilities to focus on my family and to find ways to survive.
Yes. Thank you for the glimpse! :)
... Im a Swede.
Being a Swede is being... well 50% American west can-do, "a human can do, learn, build and be ANYTHING (theoretically, not practiaclly, but for different cultural reasons!)"- but with 50% underdog perspective, from experience or intake of much complex culture alongside the american more superficial - and a balancing humility since we are so small we CANT have much hubris. We MUST be more right than most. Always balancing. And always LEARNING from others - but modifying for our own purposes.
And i have a respectful, intellectual question about that. Did any of you cite and compare with any other history, idea history, culture, philosophy reference than American?
Ive been hanging around here since january to check out what the heck was happening -., and the loop seems TOTALLY closed. The US it TOTALLY wrapped up in itself.
It SEEMS effectively like you think that there in ALL of human history (except maybe the fall of Rome) has happened ANYTHING that would be of use for you to consider now, in this situation. Plato described this situation, oligarchy takeover, and Aristotle have solid advice for it, usable now... And you dont know, and dont look.
Is it american exceptionalism, or is it just the same big power idiocy (one-eyedness!) as Russia, or both?
I personally always try to compare to idea history, "who have done this? How did it work? What can we learn?" Just like when I have been as an entrepreneur on the internet. USING the internet I helped building - all info is THERE! Its just plain silly competing about who knows best without it, the only reasonable is to be the best to find and use the correct info. Toghether. Thats the way I see it.
So, i wonder if i can have your view about this?
I am Canadian, and your question should probably be answered or addressed by an American, but I can share a Canadian’s perspective. Our country is similar to yours in our outlook: the two 50% perspectives are the same. I think that while our education system teaches world history from elementary school upward, the American school system seems very focused on American history. I find Americans know a great deal about their own history, about each President, and they love their Constitution. It may be a case of American exceptionalism, pride in their accomplishments, that keeps them blind to the incredible histories of other countries, or it may just be an education system that is myopic. But this is a complaint many Canadians have about Americans - they seem to have a knowledge deficit about other countries/histories. It is a shame, because right now, it could really help them.
Americans know next to nothing about Canada and Canada is next door. Safe to say they know even less about other countries. Americans themselves say all they see on their news is American news. It’s been said since Trump II that isolationism is part of the plan. In many ways, they’re already isolated.
Yes! Its at least half way to the sad situation in Russia, all voluntarily.
leavingmaga.org says that the MOST important step is getting ONE other info source in than Fox News.
If there is ANYTHING i regret about helping to create the web, its that we pioneers didnt make a "licence EULA" for it that you had to accept before begin using it - ALWAYS have MORE than one news input, or you'll patently go sectlike crazy.
The old national debate can be descibed as narrow, in sweden it was called "the corridor of opinion" - but at least ALL DIRECTIONS of perspectives were represented without being totally skewed to the right, always the direction of worldly power. Because they always have the means of buying publicity of different kinds. So it never became a sect (well, libertarians thought that of course, and are very pleased now, when THEIR power aligning sect are in charge.
Which Plato tells us is what will always happens, until it flips taoistically into dictatorship when the people is fed up with freedom on paper only. <- this is the real use case for progressiveness, the insight that all freedom must be properly funded and made investments in to persist in the future too! And when underfunded, it will always degrade into no real freedom at all. Or... maybe not even progressivism. Recyclism, maybe. Refurbishism. Keeping by updating and upgradig the old structures. Maintainism?
Thanks for the reply, Sylvia! :) It made me happy - i have actually sensed those similarities too, and I REALLY think we should cooperate, Scandinavia and Canada - we northerner outskirters know stuff about the need to keep together to survive the winters. We *cant* believe in just ANY unsustainable bullshit... like. ;) Its gotta WORK to take us through the darkness.
And also being small and quite sparse makes us a bit like the US was in the beginning, in the Old West days. I think a mental rebirth may be needed, finding those pioneering roots, when you actually HAD to include EVERY human being in some way, or he was BOUND to end up "up to no good." Only human.
I think the sexual revolution/green wave/flower power was one. Going more genuine and growing down roots. And another one is needed now.
And ALSO following roots even further back to Europe... knowing more about how societies with kings actually WORKED. MAGA is very much like a weird and absurd peasants rebellion, actually. The kind that our founding king Gustav Wasa learned to both suppress brutally with machavellian means, albeit with much trouble since our rebels had plenty of woods and mountains to hide in, and were of an Scandinavian free men all-purpose, cooperating and relatively unhierarcically self-organizing quality <3... (our "highlanders") - and that made him realise that IF the peasants in the provinces were so bad off they resorted to THAT risktaking, they actually MUST be given somewhat better conditions, or he'd never go safe. Also Maciavelli style, actually.
And this insight has been kept in Swedish adminstration tradition ever since - when something goes wrong, you very seldom get an apology in words or a civil servants head on a stake - but you are at least expected to see an FUNCTIONAL apology in the form of strucural change to avoid THAT profoundly unpleasant shit from ever happening again. :P Nobody wants that, actually.
And we actually find that more satisfactory. (Which chinese business contacts have had a hard time understanding... "We can inform you that the responsible for this error has been punished harsly! - =:O Eeeeh... ok.. but that was not what we meant... more like this - have you changed *anything* in the (info)structure to prevent this human error from keeping on happening anyway? Like putting a freaking NOTE in the exact right place, or something...?" ;)
Hm... Maybe you and we have little of the same feeling about Old Europe too, sometimes more than just a little full of itself and all its Proud History... and needing to see "a little less conversation, a little more action, please...?" ;)
Yes actually - "Show us you are able to learn the right lesson and change, and we will forgive you. Even people in power are allowed mistakes, or they cant be human! :O - but they MUST learn from them."
I feel there is much to take from that when figuring out what the US must learn now, to get past the current stuckness.
Brilliant reply! I have a question I live in Bucks County Pennsylvania and there are hundreds of Swedish that have come to Allentown by ways of the catholic community. Our daughter has been volunteering English lessons we are not part of the churches.
We are Quakers originally when I was born in 1955 the faith was based on activism along with SPICES. As children we learn to follow S-SIMPLICITY P-PEACE I- INTEGRITY C-COMMUNITY E- EQUITY S- STEWARDSHIP also they hammered in you buy what you need and not what you want as we were getting older we were taught “ PAY ATTENTION “ Today sadly the Quaker Foundation has changed drastically because Christians have taken over many of the friends meeting houses. In my day it was acceptable to have Jewish Quakers, Mormon Quakers even folks that did not believe in God our door was open . Why I tell you about this is because they teach survival through their history the ways have not changed since the Revolutionary War my own family was a part of the Underground Railroad since the civil war that was still operating till the late 1970s. Americans love to hate which is how this mess started. Most Americans do not have a clue what’s coming upon them it’s because they don’t pay attention until it hits them. I wish you and your family the best of luck in the coming future live for today perhaps that’s why it’s called the present.
:) Thank you.
I checked out Allentown, and it seems to be a part of New Sweden, our colony over there, long ago... :) From what I have heard, Swedes were the LEAST horrible of all colonists ;) We always tried to keep as human as possible to the locals, and cooperate with everyone and everything.. which also led us to quit it among the first too. We are not overstubborn.
So, there are hundreds of NEW swedish coming over? Interesting. Well, yes, we are not really satisfied where we are heading, and we WILL have to rise up and throw out neoliberalism. We as everyone. Its been corrupt since the nineties, and left in place anyway, corrupting. A modern society CANT be run on so little tax revenue and so high inequality.
Sure they are not Ukrainian? Allentown seem to be recieving those, and it fits better with needing English education.. almost all Swedes know English by now.
And.. their colors are blue and yellow, too. ;)
Im thinking... we have always had a life line for education, parallelle to normal education and work. Folk highschools and folk universities. Teaching like university, but outside of the real, prestigeous university world.
I think you would SO need that! We had internatonal programmes where you learned about the world, and went to some of the countries togehter too. One variant was the global south program, focusing on Africa. Much relation has been build that way. And its SO eye-opening to see how a completely OTHER society works. It might have certain kick-ass features, even though much pooerer than your own, and we can never be certain that we dont have to use such tricks ourselves one day. I at least feel safer having SEEN how a simpler society can work too, and not necessarily be worse than this. <3 Prepared for any scenario.
A couple of reads i recommend:
- Yoval Noah Harari, Sapiens and Nexus - that israeli guy has gotten exactly how IT and social media has reshaped the world. He says a lot of things like it WILL be like this or that, but really, he is just trying to warn. If we dont DO anything, we are heading in that direction, and we ... dont want that, so.... just better start moving! ;)
- https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/nisa/character/nisa/ - a woman from Botswana, living as the earliest humans all up until now - not very different from us, actually. <3 But living in the moost stable way humanity ever invented. We still have hunter-gatherer genes and have to make the best of that- I seem to be hunting and gathering knowledge, and human contact like with you now, every day. <3 :)
- The Spirit Level (about inequality.) This is what everything since 2001 has been managing to sidetrack constantly. Here it is described what has now happened, just because it wasnt heeded. Just because Bush, cheney and rumsfeldt rather took the opportunity masterfully handed them by bin Ladin - to drag the attention from the protests and riots in genua, seattle and gothenburg about neoliberalism wrecking the world. The last big antiglobalism protests. Then it was buried and forgotten as hegemony. And here we are now, and it has turned all the world inside out and absurd, putting the biggest liar on top. Just as I felt would be the mechanisms end point 30 years ago, and KNEW it would be 15 years ago - and still NOBODY managed mustered the courage to stop it. :O. So, I am about as radicalcized as MAGA right now - I will NOT shut up anymore. That swamp must be drained on both sides, big money OUT of politics eventually, and a more open system more like the swedish, but also with elements from Estonian, South korean, and Taiwan digital democracy systems. a
We cant have a closed supposedly left wing party when debate has been blown wide open and scattered, so the media cant keep it clean and collect needs and cook together policy suggestions filling those needs to give directions to it anymore. It has actually never WANTED them, apparently. :P
(we still have folk highschools, but the sweden democrats, our nationalist assholes, defunded 25% of them. recently. They will no doubt continue down that track, because they see them as socialism breeding grounds. :P Many disillusioned Swedish youth have found their life force and purpose again in those places... :/ So, They Shall Have It! >:( )
I would wish for those unemployed teachers to set up web educations, and give online lectures in english, for ALL of the world, including the US, so you can learn too! We cant do this alone anymore, we need to be the fucking worlds teachers, or the world will uneducate us too long run. :P
And set up a fucking way to smuggle it into Russia too.
And believe me you are one of the few that understands humanity hard work and love of culture.
Garry. I don’t think you can isolate these variables so simply. The revolutionary process must play out, mostly in Europe at first, for these societies to change their orientation towards a more robust defense of their interests. The dominant governing paradigms right now tend to lean towards fragmentation into narrow interest groups across the west. The Trumpist movement only partly resolved this in the US so far; Europe has yet to have its moment but it is coming, and maybe sooner than later. Until this happens we might as well say “If my Grandmother had wheels she would be a bicycle”. The current system in the West is by definition incapable of defending its collective interests.
Addendum: the switch from Chamberlain was in many ways revolutionary at the time. Churchill was considered anachronistic right until the moment he was considered prescient. Let’s not wait so long this time.
WW2 became inevitable, once the Axis openly violated and refused the global, rules-based order. It happened long before their armies, air and naval forces crossed borders, sunk merchants, and bombed allied cities.
Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, the Japanese fascists, they all stated their intentions openly, basically plain sight.
Now, Putin, Xi, the Mullah Regime, Kim, do the same. They may not yet cross western borders yet, if we ignore the funding of 5th Columns, but they are speaking about it. Last time the world did not pay enough attention.
Once again, many are willing to look away, or are willing to align themselves to the enemies of our rules-based order.
Ukraine 2022 was not the beginning. It started with Georgia, Chechnya, Syria, and Ukraine 2014 in Europe. In the Indo-Pacific, the Peoples Republic of China has ever since the 1950s subjugated other peoples, and even participated with a „volunteer force“ in the Korean War. Iran since the Iranian fascists took over, has stated its goal is to destroy Israel.
Ukraine 2022 is not the start, but just as Czechoslovakia 1938, it is a real chance for the Western world to put an end to aggression before dozens of millions perish.
World War 3 started 11 years ago and no one noticed.
It started with Prigozhin's Internet Research Agency.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/14/europe/russia-yevgeny-prigozhin-internet-research-agency-intl
The battlefield of the 21st Century isn't just in the physical realm. It extends to the virtual realm, where disinformation and propaganda are the most effective weapons. A lie can kill more people than any conventional weapon, save for nuclear arms.
Authoritarians are exporting lies, and they're fueling discord and conflict in western democracies. The chief export is right-wing populism. It worked in the UK with Brexit, it's working in the United States, it's made major inroads in France and Germany, and we're now even seeing people marching in the streets against immigration in Japan.
Make common ground with the .russian people? Excellent idea, but how would that be accomplished? Putin controls all the media in that country. I wouldn’t bother writing letters to Pravda.
:) Come on, we're homo sapiens. We outsmarted the lions when we were driven out of our forests and into the plains. By cooperating, and learning. We can figure that out!
To begin with, we can get to KNOW Russians. What drives them. How they move. Their strengths and their weaknesses. What kind of chess piece ARE they on the global table like? What can we expect of them to handle, and what not?
Using that we can help them building a better future FOR them, because I see NO way they can be expected to do it themselves. WE are the hopeful ones - they are currently not. So they have NO visions. We can have. Sure, its hard to make hopeless people change, but i have heard reports that they actually WERE hopeful for a small while while democratic! at least people in s:t petersburg. And I know how trauma is treated- you must help traumatized people to a a BETTER experience than they currently have, before they are able to believe that anything like that is possible. Before they can dare to hope for anything again.
Actually, figuring out this from how they MOVE, not what they say, is an art called "kremlology" ;) since that was the only way anyone could figure out ANYTHING
I follow these two:
https://www.youtube.com/@elvirabary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn6EzqHuNck
There are always those, in every country. <3 Denyz Davydov in Ukraine. The genuine, clear sighted public voices. Who can tell you how it IS living in that country. Providing constant qualitiative scientific samples, that you can cross with the quantitative data you gan get elsewhere to get a living dynamic image of what is actually going on. And visions of how that will probably evolve. Just like you would get if you lived there yourself. <3
After that... there are ways. Always. ;)
Just to get SOME info in - we can all volunteer to call a russian! Early in the war somebody made this excellent gateway. I think its time to spread and use it?
It WOULD irk Putin, right?
What other reason do you need? :D
https://www.businessinsider.com/squad303-hacking-russian-ukraine-war-texts-putin-2022-3
If they plug that... well find something else! We can be as much fucking hackers as Donald, Steve Bannon (cursed be his name) and Putin himself.
You know...
... in my life, ive been best served by this approach:
.Dont talk about them, talk TO them.
Treat them like you assume them to be the responsible constructive adults you need them to be.
And they mostly ARE, to your surprise.
Suggest to build something togehter, and youll see what they are really made of. And HOW to cooperate with them.
Trust them - but remember to verify silently now and then, and react quick at the first signs that something is off. All relations must be worked on, always.
This is really just game theory. Proven to work best by science.
Why cant we begin with offering to BUILD peace with the Russian people?, by relations and mutual interest, and common ground? And all our joint experience that needs to come to SOME good use if its not going to rust?
It is not WW3. IT IS PSALM 83
There throw all they can at the wall and see's what sticks, because the international order is skewed at the moment from your friend on the extreme right, you know the righties.
... China’s advance is matching America’s retreat.
Are you sure?
China is basically taoist. If they ACT they know there will be a reaction.
I dont think they will act much.
And the feeling I have as a Swede is this: If there IS a vaccum needing to be filled- then its time to fill it with a cooperating network of peers, small and large, who actually all cooperate as well as possible instead of trying to compete each other out right of their livelihood.
I know, what you mention is the old game - what has needed to be expected up until now - but now we cant have it anymore, even if we need to handle it for yet some time in parallell. The long journey back to Kalahari, is basically over. We have the tech and the knowledge needed to live in the way we want, if we only get together and organize for it.
The only "problem" with the less fierce capitalism that we Swedes have, is that its as not as quick to return profits as the American, since we like to invest long term in both people and country. (which is exactly why we dont have MAGA!... yet. )
Isnt it obvious that there needs to be some kind of antitrust agency on the global level - so that already developed countries who dont invest sustainably in their people, and their workers conditions, and lets them work 60 hour weeks with only subsistence money - cant compete out countries that actually want to keep people SAFE?
Which is a requirement for them daring to be full world citizen and care about anybody else too. And did you know that the kind of constant wondering where the next paycheck is going to come from effectively draws 10-20 IQ points from you when problem solving? - basically the same as a night without sleep, constantly! or to have adhd.
We simply cant afford people to get that stupid and inflexible. Thats the whole point with having the tax levels that us nordic countries have! We CANT be that one-eyed and stupid. We cant afford it, were too small. We are now about 4x as efficient as the US, and we need that to be able to compete.
Not bad, but we're tired too. And are starting to feel hopeless. Please, cant we do this the reasonable way - slow down from the idiotic tempo that was originally intended to kill off the Soviet Union, which it thankfully did - but it had really needed to go as soon as that deed was done, and the world has listed to the capitalist side ever since, since we dont have energy and time to take care of any common stuff, like the sense of the common, or the common sense! :O
Let our souls and purposes catch up with us again.
Let go of the fear to burn out.
Root ourselves, and connect with ourselves and each others again!
HELP each others to develop, with local ownership, and not try to suck out the steep growth from the developing countries just because our own has ended since long.
Let voluntarily go of the sense and the remainting power of us being the "aristocrats" and rentiers of the world - a surefire and time honored way to get hated! - and replace it with a world wher we all cooperate as peers and good global citicens, and where mutual aid and cooperation actually WORKS!
We need to distribute the enormous profits from the AI revolution soon anyways as global basic income, or the world will be so top heavy it falls over, and the jobs will vanish in an unprecitable and possibly really quick way. Sam Altman and the UN are already discussing this! and it must happen. Capitalism as we know it cant continue, now, we must dial it down as something fun to do on the top of the safety. And we WILL always want to, because its more fun to do something on our own than not! :D We swedes know that. This must become the age of playful cooperation. The global otter age. <3
So, lets reclaime the vision of us all meeting in the middle as peers, eventually, and rejoice! :D THIS is what we paid all that aid to african schools for. This has to be the goal.
Thats my vision as a Swede, and has always been. We cant let fears let us hang on to the world of relentless economic war (competition of the fierce kind). Its time. We need rest, and each others, just like in kalahari. <3
I agree that the time has come for a more forceful response to Putin's aggression in Ukraine. So far, with only material help from the West, Ukraine has done an amazing job of holding Putin's forces to a virtual standstill, but it is clear that on its own it cannot drive out the invaders and restore its boundaries as defined (and guaranteed!) in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. The most practical source of more help to achieve that goal would be the joint armies of the European "Coalition of the Willing" -- brought together by a leader, perhaps President Alexander Stubb of Finland, who clearly understands what is at stake. To be clear, I am not talking about a war to defeat Russia or to bring about regime change there, but the limited goal of restoring the integrity of Ukraine. Of course it would be helpful if the US could be persuaded to join with the Coalition, but that seems unlikely given Trump's chronic subservience to Putin. But that could change if Ukraine and the Coalition were seen to be winning. Trump, like all bullies, is happy to join in a risk-free win -- as we observed in the bombing of Iran.
Great post.
I see it the same way and indeed wrote about this exact topic around the last mid term elections. By my reckoning, WW3 started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 11 years ago and their simultaneous political warfare on the West (boosting Trump for example).
Unlike WW2, this is a hybrid war, not total war. It is disguised as a limited, regional war within the former Soviet sphere, but it is fundamentally challenging the liberal-led world order.
https://radmod.substack.com/p/clearly-defining-putins-hybrid-wwiii
grim... yet fairly accurate
however this again implies there is no coexistence possible
there is always the vicious circle that both "opposing sides" firmly believe they must get stronger than the "other" as an existential issue. The "other" look at the development and they rightly feel they need to get stronger as well..
until that time one side "takes the initiative" and in doing that justifies the others actions which leads to all of "normal people losing" ...followed by a period of relative peace until the elders die of old age and horrors are forgotten so that the new generations get a modernized re-run.. with new "special effects"
is there a way out of this circle beyond the SF scenarios of external threats which would finally draw the division line around the whole planet instead of drawing them internally ad nauseum?
This isn’t World War III—it’s something more nuanced: a realignment of global spheres of influence, allies, and ultimately, a recalibration of the balance of power. History shows us that power dynamics are rarely static, and what we’re witnessing now is a shift, not an outright global conflict. But covert operations to shape influence and control.