Sunday, January 17, 2016

"Europe’s New Medieval Map: As the European Union unravels, the continent is reverting to divisions that go back centuries."

The decades when we thought of Europe as stable, predictable and dull are over. The continent’s map is becoming medieval again, if not yet in its boundaries then at least in its political attitudes and allegiances. The question today is whether the EU can still hope to permanently replace the multicultural Habsburg Empire, which for centuries sprawled across Central and Eastern Europe and sheltered its various minorities and interests. The answer will depend not only on what Europe itself does but also on what the U.S. chooses to do. Geography is a challenge, not a fate.

1 comment:

Chiu ChunLing said...

"The current administration and its successor must put the security of the Greater Intermarium at the center of its priorities."

Leaving aside the hilarity that we want the current administration energetic about any of its anti-american activities, Europe may be the center of America's foreign policy, but America's foreign policy is secondary to maintaining freedom in America itself.

Any talk of what Obama should do highlights this priority. Obama should be dangling from a lamppost in front of the White House--possibly permanently, as a grim reminder for posterity. All our notions of how to export freedom and justice abroad seem to neglect the crucial step of creating and maintaining them domestically. A corrupt and tyrannical state cannot bring good governance to other people, certainly not by military force or threats.

America's priority must be restoring the rule of law and Constitutional government. It is clear enough that there is no remaining possibility of this being accomplished through the throughly fraudulent electoral system in place. It is also clear enough that the global economic collapse is going to vastly diminish the possibility of continuing to provide more than a fraction of Americans with the means of subsistence. Perhaps this is why so many otherwise apparently clever people take it for granted that America is still prosperous and free and fantasize about what such an America could accomplish in the world if only they were running things.

That America doesn't exist anymore, we threw it away because it was too racist and sexist and bigoted and discriminatory and judgmental. What is left of it is only fragments of the states and even localities, there isn't a shred of America left at the national level.

Until we confront that reality, we cannot accomplish anything to redress it.