The DOOMMM Club is now playing with open cards in Europe

Is this how "Europe" ends?

The Germans, founders and funders of the postwar union, shut their borders to refugees in a bid for political survival by the chancellor who let in a million migrants. And then -- why not? -- they decide to revive the Deutschmark while they're at it.

If this sounds a bit like one of those nefarious designs articulated by The DOOMMM Club over the last few years on Facebook, you are right. But this one doesn't come from The DOOMMM Club, but from the top echelons of Europe's political power.

BY ALASTAIR MACDONALD AND NOAH BARKIN (Reuters, Jan 18 2016) {

That is not the fantasy of diehard Eurosceptics but a real fear articulated at the highest levels in Berlin and Brussels.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, her ratings hit by crimes blamed on asylum seekers at New Year parties in Cologne, and EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker both said as much last week.

Juncker echoed Merkel in warning that the central economic achievements of the common market and the euro are at risk from incoherent, nationalistic reactions to migration and other crises. He renewed warnings that Europe is on its "last chance", even if he still hoped it was not "at the beginning of the end".

Source = End of Europe? Berlin, Brussels' shock tactic on migrants }

Just to make sure, from the beginning our bet with the Muslim immigration in Europe was not on a Muslim takeover of Europe as such, but on the rise of far right anti-EU forces threatening to unravel the project of the United States of Europe aka European integration.

Now the leadership seems to have suddenly woken up. Even more remarkable is the fact that they seem to mean business. Germany has already threatened Algeria/Morocco with suspending development aid in case these two refuse to repatriate back those of their migrants who are considered subject to deportation, while German police was reported to have carried out numerous arrests among North African migrants. Both countries are now scheduled to be soon included in the list of "safe countries of origin". That is, there's going to be no political asylum.

These new developments introduce some uncertainty into our original scenario. If the authorities can deport a large number of migrant offenders and effectively instill fear in and suppress the remaining trouble makers among the migrant population, this may go some way in calming down the anti-immigration backlash. We will have to wait and see.

In one respect, however, The DOOMMM Club still remains one step ahead of the elites. If there is radicalization on the right, it's very likely to be followed by radicalization on the left. In fact, this is one is not just likely to happen, it's probably already happening.

Targeting far right opponents - Propaganda video by Swedish Popular Front


The real question here is whether this polarization can mainstream from the fringes, undermining the center and polarizing European societies the American style.

The day the DOOMMM Club has arrived in Germany

A very good report by Spiegel on Cologne and its aftermath. It touches on many subjects we have discussed on Facebook/Twitter. The rise of far right. The polarization. Here however I am linking only some pearls from the actual events and the part about what came to be known in doomspeak on Facebook as the Z epidemic - the arrival in Germany of American style paranoid political culture fueled by wild conspiracy theories. The events in Cologne seem to have brought the breakdown of trust in institutions in large chunks of the population to the tipping point. We are talking here about continuous degradation of political culture and the destruction of trust fabric that holds the society together. In many respects, this is when dooming starts in serious. You can say that this is the day when the DOOMMM Club made its arrival in Germany official.

I should notice that while the report is mostly focused on the hardening of attitudes on the right side, we should expect this trend to be sooner rather than later to be matched on the left side of the political spectrum. it's almost a law of nature that society evolves in tandem. Society is a wholistic organism and its parts interact with and have impact on each other. It's unreasonable to expect an average person to be able to keep his cool in the face of anger and insults from another person. Political polarization works pretty much the same way.

To put the events in Cologne into a wider context, lets say that The DOOMMM Club continues to monitor the impact of the Middle East on the general crisis of the United States of Europe aka the European integration project. We continue to bet on the events in the Middle East, attacks inside Europe and migration from North Africa/Middle East to fuel the rise of anti-immigration anti-EU far right political forces. At the very least we can expect bitter political polarization to undermine and deadlock Europe's political institutions and processes. In more extreme cases we can even expect electoral triumphs of political forces with explicit anti-EU agendas, putting in danger the entire European project and even the current global order with its orientation on supranational multilateral institutions the style of the UN and its various forums.

By DER SPIEGEL () {

"Upon arrival," it begins, "we were informed of the conditions in and around the station by agitated citizens with crying and shocked children." Many "upset passersby" ran to the arriving police to tell them about fights, thefts and sexual attacks against women.

Regarding the situation on the square in front of the train station: "Women, accompanied or not, had to run a literal 'gauntlet' of heavily intoxicated masses of men of a kind that is impossible to describe." There were fears that "the situation we were confronted with (chaos) could have led to serious injuries or even to deaths."

The report mentions deliberate attempts to provoke the police. One example is of someone who "tore up a residency permit with a smile on his face, saying: 'You can't touch me. I'll just go back tomorrow and get a new one.'"

Another example mentioned in the report was an unidentified man saying: "I'm a Syrian! You have to treat me kindly! Ms. Merkel invited me."

[...]

The Facebook site of public broadcaster ZDF has also become a kind of battlefield. There is talk of the "lying press," conspiracy and state-control. "We are being overwhelmed with hate and anger," says Elmar Theveßen, ZDF's deputy editor-in-chief. "The mistrust that we are being confronted with is worrisome."

On Tuesday, the station issued a public apology for the lack of coverage. "It was a lapse in judgement that the 7 p.m. evening news show didn't at least mention the incident," Theveßen wrote on Facebook. Such an open admission of error by a senior manager at a public station in Germany is rare, but Theveßen's act of repentance did little to calm the doubters.

All established media have been confronted with the same phenomenon. In Germany, there is a stable minority that is convinced that the country's broadcasters, newspapers and magazines are controlled by dark powers and have agreed to suppress bad news about foreigners so as not to endanger the political project of welcoming refugees.

More than 2,000 users have thus far commented on Theveßens post, with most of the missives of a horrifying nature -- a collection of conspiracy theories characteristic of the far-right. One user named Johannes Normann, formerly a regional leader for AfD, wrote: "Does 'our' news have to be first cleared by our trans-Atlantic 'friends'? After all, they 'ordered' the 'Islamic mass-immigration.'"

Those, of course, are just the voices of individuals. Yet according to a survey conducted by Allensbach, 41 percent of Germans believe that critical voices are suppressed when it comes to the refugee issue.

On the right wing of the political spectrum, that belief has become a certainty.

Another part of the truth is this: German society is becoming increasingly divided.

Source = How New Year's Eve in Cologne Has Changed Germany }

Things Fall Apart

The center can not hold; things fall apart. As disillusionment with Western ideals such as democracy, pluralism, human rights and inclusivity grows stronger by the day, we can witness a concomitant strong resurgence in nationalism, authoritarianism and general mistrust among the population. This is not just the case in Europe and America; it's happening worldwide. The initial hopeful promises of the Arab Spring have given way to religious extremism, misery, war and an unprecedented refugee crisis, all with no end in sight. Borders in the Middle East are dissolving at an alarming pace in some places as warlords rapaciously carve out new territory, while in the nation states that have still remained somewhat intact its long serving leaders consolidate their power with an iron fist. Similarly, at the start of this decade many had invested new optimism in Sub-Saharan Africa, as the continent was showing strong economic growth and an emerging middle class that would purportedly be inspired by the revolutions in the Middle East, only to be thrown back to reality five years later when it turned out most decades-long ruling autocrats have remained firmly seated on their thrones, unmoved by elections and even coups, while new conflicts and chaos have erupted all over different countries that had earlier enjoyed long periods of peaceful stability. In Asia things are not looking bright either: China might soon face its first major economic crisis in more than a decade, while Japan is sitting on a demographic time bomb. Finally, the self-proclaimed Bolivarianism of Chavez that inspired and democratically brought to power many like-minded politicians in South America has hit a brick wall in his home country. Consequently, Venezuelans voted Chavez' party out of power and it's not very suprising that Maduro, in line with Che Guevara's principle that the use of armed force is permitted in case every form of peaceful struggle -including the ballot box- has been exhausted, is now probably preparing a coup.

It seems as if the whole planet is currently submerged in a crisis at manifold levels: political, economical, climatological and especially cultural. This is most evident in Western society, until recently the leading example of the world. Presently it's struggling to redefine its own identity in a globalized world where cultural barriers are rendered increasingly diffuse, largely due to the innovations in transportation and digital technology. As a result of such despair some people are driven to reactionary behaviour, either in the form of self-righteous narcissism, public shaming and witch-hunts in the name of political correctness, or by supporting a new type of political leader, one that is not very concerned with democracy, humanist ideals and transnational solidarity. So is all of this simply a temporary quirk that will blow over once the West adjusts to the new vertiginous global reality? Or are we all doomed? According to the ramblings of a controversial early 20th century German philosopher, the West has been in decline for a long time already and there is no turning back. This man, Oswald Spengler, claimed that right before the ultimate civilizational fall, all Western democraties will revert back to authoritarian systems. Furthermore, he concluded that the ideologies of marxism and liberalism will become eclipsed by nationalism and religious conservatism, a process he described as 'ceasarism'. With leaders such as Le Pen, Trump and Putin gaining more popularity, this prediction seems closer to the truth than ever.

November 30, 2015 5:34 pm

We deride chances of Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump at our peril

Gideon Rachman

The rise of political extremists says something disturbing about liberal democracy in the west

I

have a nightmare vision for the year 2017: President Trump, President Le Pen, President Putin.

Like most nightmares, this one probably won’t come true. But the very fact that Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen are running strongly for the American and French presidencies says something disturbing about the health of liberal democracy in the west. In confusing and scary times, voters seem tempted to turn to “strong” nationalistic leaders — western versions of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

In Washington recently, I found most mainstream political analysts dismissing the idea that Mr Trump could win the Republican nomination, let alone the presidency. This struck me as complacent. If Mr Trump were a normal candidate he would be regarded as favourite for the nomination. He is ahead in the crucial early states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Outrageous remarks about Mexicans, Muslims, the disabled and women have not dented his popularity.

Many Democrats chortle that if the Republicans are mad enough to nominate Mr Trump, he would certainly be trounced by Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. But even that cannot be assumed. The most recent national poll on a Trump v Clinton contest had Mr Trump winning by five points.

Some of Mr Trump’s statements are so openly racist that they make Ms Le Pen look like a moderate. The leader of the French far right has been carefully softening her image in preparation for a run at the presidency in 2017. Even before the terrorist attacks in Paris, almost all surveys showed her reaching the final round of the election. This month her National Front may make a significant breakthrough by winning regional elections, making it look more like a potential party of government.

The rise of the political extremes is not confined to the US and France. Ultra-nationalist parties are in power in Hungary and Poland, both members of the EU. Nationalist parties are on the rise in Scotland and Catalonia, threatening the survival of the UK and Spain as nation states.

A sense of crisis is growing in Germany with the expected arrival of more than 1m refugees this year, leading to a backlash against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government. With recessions and debt crises in southern Europe, “fringe” parties have moved into government in Greece and Portugal.

So what is going on in western politics? The overarching development is a loss of faith in traditional political elites and a search for radical alternatives. Behind that, it seems to me, there are four broad trends: an increase in economic insecurity, a backlash against immigration, a fear of terrorism and the decline of traditional media.

The overarching development in western politics is a loss of faith in traditional elites

The US has now experienced several decades of declining or stagnant real wages for the majority of Americans. In many European countries, including France, double-digit rates of unemployment have become the norm. The financial crisis of 2008 has resulted in an enduring loss of trust in the competence of elites and the fairness and stability of western economic systems.

Economic insecurity has been supplemented by a sense of social instability, linked to rising immigration. The influx of Hispanics into the US and of Muslims into western Europe has allowed the Trumps and Le Pens to argue that feckless elites have allowed fundamental social changes to take place without consulting ordinary people. Mr Trump has called for the deportation of 11m illegal immigrants from the US and Ms Le Pen once compared Muslims praying in the streets of France to the Nazi occupation.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, who is likely to run against Ms Le Pen in 2017, has joined in the assault on “multiculturalism”. This kind of rhetoric about Muslim immigration and elite betrayal is also now commonplace in Germany.

In the wake of the Paris attacks, fear of terrorism is merging with hostility to immigration. The shockwave from the French capital was felt across the Atlantic — where Mr Trump, along with most of the Republican field, has been quick to claim that admitting refugees would increase the risk of a terrorist attack.

For populists, nationalists and extremists across the western world, a common theme is that the mainstream media are suppressing debate and are controlled by an untrustworthy elite. Republican candidates have learnt that chastising reporters is an easy way to win applause. In France and Germany the argument that the politically correct “lying media” have suppressed debate about immigration is increasingly popular. Meanwhile, the rise of social media has allowed alternative narratives to flourish. Those Americans who want to believe that President Barack Obama is a Muslim find like-minded souls online or in the echo chamber of talk radio. Conspiratorial talk is flourishing on social media in Europe.

The late senator Daniel Moynihan said: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” In the age of social media, that is no longer true. For the likes of Mr Trump, Ms Le Pen and Mr Putin, anything can be labelled “true”. In this climate, against a backdrop of economic, social and physical insecurity, extremism flourishes.

gideon.rachman@ft.com

Source: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e7b61eae-974d-11e5-9228-87e603d47bdc.html#axzz3tg88tqtf