I hope this belongs here, since it’s not a news article.
I live in Europe and I’ve mostly been the guy people listened to when they admitted to not feeling well informed on international conflict situations like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and US/NATO’s more secretive and subversive conflicts/coups and backroom deals with autoritarian regimes around the world, all in the name of democracy and freedom.
Can’t help it, I’m curious, I like reading books and I think connecting the dots is rewarding for my ADHD. The NATO connections to post WWII-nazis, GLADIO and other stay-behind groups, the CIA ties - it was all thrilling and interesting, but unfortunately part of our reality. During the Wikileaks days even the people most critical of my assessments came and admitted that they were wrong and that they now understood they had been duped. And now, they said, “we know better”. They all went back to reading the very news that consistently lied to them.
There still was a semi-reliable left/left-centrist press in Europe that you could point the few normies allergic to “not verified by authority” reporting to, mostly written by a few journalists who didn’t bend as much to pressure of falling in line with drumming for the democracy exporting business.
What happened? Of course the big media companies always always bent to the will of the warmongering establishment but there were always some sane voices doing somewhat decent investigative journalism targetting the common narratives, even if just to be able to deflect criticism by pointing to their work. How did they get rid of almost every sane voice? Did the mostly senior editors just die off/retire?
Today I am surrounded by people telling me obvious lies with a blind conviction of almost religious zealotry that can often be debunked with 2 minutes of research in spite of the downfall of major SEO and “24/7 breaking news repitition” infested search engines.
I always knew that most people wouldn’t spend the time on research to get an understanding of how this world functions and that Western democracy and liberty are basically strawmen that can be weaponized against anyone who stands in the way of Western interests. But I also always knew that I could rely on some people being receptive of well sourced information. My convincing of some people of course didn’t put a dent anywhere but you at least felt like it was still possible to reach people and breakt through the programming.
Even the people calling themselves antifascists are now ignoring the obvious neo Nazi-ties of Ukrainian Banderites while chanting OUN slogans. People are openly calling for censorship of the Internet in the name of “safety” and if you equate “fact checks” by the very people opposed to investigative journalism with the obvious risks of centralized Ministries of Truth being erected in front of our eyes, they vehemently disagree and demand that “freezepeach” must come to an end.
I’ve never been this worried about the world I’m living in. The US and Western elites are hellbent on provoking a war with every nation that’s no longer willing to bend to their unipolar world order, with Europeans taking the brute of it, whether it be economically or, should the war escalate, even on future frontlines.
Is there any serious opposition left? How do you cope with the reality we’re headed for? I’ve never been an optimist but I managed to keep my pessimism in check, until now.
I’ve basically written the west off at this point, and my hope is that it just continues becoming more irrelevant while the rest of humanity marches on. The west is a small portion of humanity, and ultimately it is responsible for creating its own downfall. I think we’re looking at a reverse moment of when USSR collapsed and US led capitalist order became the dominant ideology in the world. Today, it is US led world order that’s collapsing, and the new order that’s forming will be led by Communists in China.
Communism and socialism will come to be seen as the path forward for humanity while liberal capitalism will finally become a discredited ideology. While what’s coming to people living in western countries is unfortunate, that has to be balanced against the improvement of lives of countless billions who will finally be able to shake off western hegemony. As communists we must take an internationalist perspective and consider current events in their global context.
I think the biggest danger today is that the west will do something unhinged such as starting a nuclear war. The next few years will be pivotal, but if we make it through them then there is much to look forward to in the future.
Sucks to be here, but ultimately, yeah. Kind of feels like the only option for the west to adopt socialism right now is for us to “devolve” into a kind of semi-feudal capitalism as the west’s global influence decreases and the rest of the world moves on without us.
I just can’t see a revolution working in places that are so used to having the crumbs of imperialism given to them, and anti-communist indoctrination from birth. Circumstances are likely to change going forward, but right now, I can’t really see much potential here.
Exactly, it’s going to take many years for any serious movement to surface in the west. Currently, there’s no labour organization, no political education, and no leadership to speak of. Meanwhile, the material conditions are deteriorating at an accelerating pace.
People in the West are being radicalized. In the US more and more leftists are familiarizing themselves with theory and socialist history. I’ve been surprised watching how mainstream conversations are changing in regards to labor and imperialism. While Western chauvanism is a major obstacle needed to overcome, I do think it’s possible given enough time. Call me naive.
The question is whether that growing force develops fast enough to keep up with the forces of reactionary thought. It’s not entirely hopeless that there won’t be a solid socialist movement. But it’s likely going to have to go through some really really difficult and nasty lessons as it grows.
It’s going to be really funny when the world stage itself accepts China as the new dominant power and more and more nations starts turning and disavowing the western lies about them. Meanwhile libs in the US will continue to screech about it while their own fascist police forced run them over with antipersonnel vehicles.
Maybe in a few decades or even a few years, there’s going to be a sequel to “The Triumph of Evil” that is called “The Triumph of Good”.
Well in the UK the pseudo-left media (I.E. the guardian, the independent etc) we’re all very-pro war during the initial phase of the invasion. We had to get saddam, get osama, and get justice done. Whenever the establishment needed broad popular support, every media conglomerate would answer the call.
Right now what you’re seeing is the slow-decrepit death of the neo-liberal imperialism. They bang their head against china and russia since that’s all they know, they’re very wealth, influence and power is at stake here, but they’ll never seriously fight head on. There was never a serious opposition to the establishment, maybe the manufactured opposition such as the conservatives vs the liberals. But there was never a media outlet which actually challenged the state critically. This is the reason why so many media conglomerates are pooling their collective voice into 1 thing, win in ukraine, win against russia/china, and win against the “radicals”.
Ease your mind by just thinking of this, you finally see how western liberal democracies work, you’re no longer in a stable period under neo-liberalism, a crisis of bloated magnitude is present within the western world order . The elites are scared of everything right now, foreign bourgeoisie and proletariat countries working their way to ditch western imperialism, rising worker’s consciousness, and the implosion of capitalism is literally around the corner.
Things are bad, they’re going to be worse. People will take the bait and chew the propaganda, but its a tired, rustic trick. No matter how much lies, pandering, myths, or delusions, people are realising their security and safety and now being eroded. You cannot change reality to your wishes, that’s how I cope with this. As much was the western elites wish they’re god, they cannot keep using this same trick, not when the reality you’re presenting is the exact opposite of actual reality. Think the propaganda disillusionment as a bubble, no matter how much shit you pile in there, it will burst. And people will see what capitalism really is.
I can finally for the first time in my life, see the end of capitalism/imperialism, for me there’s no more net, they’ve eroded it with their greed, and are stuck in a quagmire. Who knows? Maybe the first revolution since the cold war might happen in the west? Its a big possibility. But keep your hopes up, things are changing, just hope these changes will lead to a bright future.
The culture wars are extremely useful to distract people into meaningless nonsense that will change nothing.
I avoid using that term. It has nothing really to do with ‘culture’, it’s just hateful people getting mad.
Is there any serious opposition left?
Yeah.
There might not be any internally in your country, but if you’re in Western Europe your nation almost certainly participates in inperialism, and there will be serious opposition in the countries it’s imperializing.
We’re winning. It might be hard to see it from within the imperial core as it descends into fascism, but I promise you: we’re winming.
Mostly weed and the rare few leftist friends
Not only have the indoctrination techniques become more sophisticated, but their pervasiveness is hard to resist for even normally sceptical people. Your average “lizard people are controlling us” conspiracy theorist will still believe everything they’re told about China. It’s all been scientifically honed to be as maximally effective as possible. They have it down to a fine art. Even intelligent, well-meaning liberals will believe previously credible outlets like the Guardian, ( who’ve published this today for example).
It’s become difficult to not sound like you’re a conspiracy nutter, rather than them, because they have the mainstream news on their side. Asking them to confront the possibility that there’s a massive real conspiracy going on is asking a lot, we have to admit.
One way to cope is to just accept the worst. We are probably heading towards a nuclear war. The US will not accept a world where they are not the supremacists they believe themselves to be.
The only marginal success I’ve had in that area is to explicitly outline the difference between “conspiracy” and “conspiracy theories” and spend more time educating people on what makes conspiracy theories lack weight and evidence than I do on actually educating them about the socialist side of things. The only real way to do it is to basically give people a crash course in critical thinking and media literacy, both of which take a lot of time. That’s the biggest hurdle. It takes no effort to believe this nonsense, and a ton of effort to educate people out of it. It’s a massive uphill battle.
