In the Land of Europe, Where the Shadows Lie...

 

"...In the land of Europe, where the shadows lie,

One Union to rule them all, One Central Bank to find them

One Currency to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."

(2018) 

Stasis. Homeo. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

So. Elections are coming up. It’s funny in a way - no. Comic - the way things seem to work, the way we work. Two issues sort of dominate the present moment (2018) in Europe: the first is of course the way the EU functions, its effects in context; the other is the changing ecosphere - climate change, environmental pollution of different kinds, and its causes. In both there are groups that don’t really… care much, not really, about the subjects in a deep way, what they imply and how and why. Either yes or no, quantum, gestalt. Do you see an old woman or a young one in the picture? (The famous one…)

In these two issues there’s something of a contrast: those who deny the predictable, predicted, displayed and ongoing disastrous effects of one, tend to deny the other. Neither, at its base, is actually particularly complicated to understand - though articulations in both are very, very complicated and ongoing emergence very complex.

In one, the EU, well....monetary without fiscal unions have always - always- led to failure. Think Argentina. Even with fiscal union – for heavens sake, regarding Italians, simply look at Italy, what happened to places like Naples after the nation was created – there are always - always - regional winners, productively, and losers - and lasting consequences (that’s where complex emergence steps into a determinate role, maybe even all the way down to genetic expression.) In the other issure you can look at extreme cases either in our planet’s past or away, to Venus on one extreme, to Mars on another. Or go outside in a sealed plastic, black garb versus strolling about nude. Well, you can wear a hat (yes, everyone over 35 recalls the tune, and Kim slowly unveiling.)  Imagine or feel how your body struggles in one way or another. Still, many if not most people deny both implications - preferring belonging, the group they belong to, their beleifs, the way of interacting with the world, above all else.

That belonging can be tricky and is easily manipulated. Elitism for all those ‘we’re smarter, we’re anterior (neural pathways)… they’re so dumb, see, even brain imaging says so.’ Sigh. Even Nazis used those transperent tricks, making small groups feel special: more money, more position, part of the cool strata of social hierarchy.

   

.....That’s usually tied to and enforced by created historical institutions like law, of course. ‘You have to follow the law. It’s the law.' So Brexit, as an example, GB and the EU have to follow the law - even if it hurts both the British and Europeans.

  What law? In Germany, time ago, the law allowed the killing of those ‘dumber’ things, the less-than-people, brave-new-world categorizations: jews, roms, communists, ecc. Yet when the EU and other States forgave Germanys debt - they threw away the law, agreed to help and that allowed it, Germany (west)as a nation, to grow - so people there prospered. Yet as soon as that nation had the opportunity to return the kindness it instead led the charge to destroy the founding nation of Europe, really, culturally (Greece), causing literally death and unneccesary suffering to millions. Kalispera, my dear. 

   If there would be any sign of change in that right direction, maybe one could reasonably hope. Instead, ‘the markets will teach Italians how to vote’, to quote a German politician. Sigh. Privatization of everything on the way. (Gee.... those have a successful history. Privatizations or maintaining private ownership of inflexible demand markets. Think US healthcare, US university system, social mobility or in Italy the highways... recalling a certain bridge that used to be over Genoa...)

(Below, note the difference between myth and data. Despite Italy's suicidal central bank policies - it refused to monetize the national dept, that is it refused to buy Italian government bonds on the open market through the 80's - at the end of the 80's Italy's GDP per-capita - including the very depressed south - was HIGHER - than Germany's. Since pegging currency ranges in the late 90's - first you see a small decline for Italy and others while Germany moves a little up. Then since the introduction of the Euro - blitzkrieg.)

On the other side, (in the other pressing issue as it were,) ‘you wake up in the morning and the sun is still there, summer is still usually warmer than winter, winter is still usually colder than summer and the planet has gone through all this before. We didn’t cause it.’ Or the other side, Greta and company, that say ‘save the planet! Just do it! Let’s have a carbon tax! It’s all your-you old people's, Donald Trump people's fault!’ What? 

   First ask yourself, (not Greta): Have you taken a plane ride over the last year? Do you eat beef often, or drive a car every day? Do you have more than 2 biological children? Will you live without that, now? Or ever? Will you accept a shift to local production and more useful international trade, responsibility to others, strengthening community and equitable distribution, public transport and longer lasting durable goods or goods generally? Nah. Let’s just do it. A carbon tax. Go electric. Solar. Wind. Edible bugs. (Where does the electricity come from? And the lithium in the batteries? Greta's smile? Who cares. We're young and so very cool.) 

 

It’s relevant because, well, it’s become clear that using climate change as a way to further concentrate represented resources, money and power, is a clear objective. And much as Europe was proposed as a very useful federation of Europe but instead turned out to be simply another way of making conquest riskless through undemocratic institutionalization, climate change is quickly becoming an excuse for big business and resource grabbing.

You could, I dunno, stop giving petrol and plastics-related or polluting companies like Monsanto tax breaks; change new construction codes; tax the few wealthy of the world – the ones that flew to Davos in private jets – to fund research and implementation - instead of driving to Rome and riding on a stationary cycle in protest - even though the later might have a noble expressive intent. Actually not even tax the wealthy: simply forgive debts, those debts now held by very few. The elimination on interest payments would change the world immediately, with practically few if any negative effects after the first rough seasons of adjustment. 

You could stop poking useless holes in mountains for more roads or tracks or even making high-speed trains at all; foster fuel-efficient ships and prevent the new mega-containers, high polluting ones from sailing. You could increase education and public transport; tax private transport; implement a veto on plastic packaging, ecc. Nah. Let’s do the carbon tax and privatize. Give the born wealthy even more control. And forget what history has repeatedly demonstrated. (Actually, almost every frikkin civilization does this sort of thing near its end. The difference this time: it's global not regional so if we don't change somehow from history the decline will be as well.)

 

We tell ourselves stories, forgetting that it’s unlikely stories really exist. 'For everything to remain the same, everything must change,' or fit somehow in those stories. Until the storytellers disappear.