It is neither an easy nor satisfying task to endeavour to understand what is going on in the Western World of today…

If one were a patient awakening in the West from a 30-year coma… one would not be able to find one's bearings; one would not only fail to recognise the world, but also to see any sense in it.

For… how is it that the language used by Western politicians, the mainstream press, and the ubiquitous trend-setters scarcely makes any sense? How is it that most of what they say are brazen lies? How is it that so many Western leaders today are gawky, puerile bunglers who all seem to be churned out of the same factory? Why do they all lack education, a notion of history, and even basic skills? Why do they all lack character? Why are there no more diplomats in the West? Why do we have "Clooney-Tunes" as arbiters of what we may read and learn about our world? How is it that a senile, irascible degenerate is head of a nuclear-weapon state? Why are most European regimes eagerly embracing suicidal policies? And… what about their citizens?

The dazed patient might then become conscious of a pervading odour… something signalling decay – the cloying sweetness of "Western values" laced with the pong of cadaverous neoliberalism. 

London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down...

The West is falling… but there are two Wests… And one is falling faster than the other. (1) The Old West – Europe. (2) The "New West" – the Rest of the West, aka the post-settler territories (fruits of Britain's colonialist legacy, the earliest born ca. 250 years ago): the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and "Israel".

It is the Old West that is crumbling faster… and this is partially due to a sense of their original identity being hollowed out from within.

Old Europe is transitioning to a void. It has all but lost its traditions, its rich varied cultures, its past, its civilisation… and by virtue of the conformity obligations of neoliberalism and the incremental homogenisation process embodied in the EU and NATO, the individual states are ultimately losing the last vestiges of any original, authentic identity. And, to be fully devoid of an identity makes one desperate – often at one's own expense.

To fill the increasingly gaping void… the neoliberal mission provided the Western masses with a "persona-oriented convenience store" offering a range of guileful, self-serving narratives and new packaged identities that include such items as: Step-by-step guides to superstardom, tips to liberate oneself from social obligations, carbon footprint heroism, the basics of radical feminism, vegan virtuosity, templates for body modification, a broad selection of genders, etc. And by robbing them of independent thought, these new identity products have rendered these bewildered consumers more subservient to the narrative authorities.

This may be part of the reason why European states have subjugated themselves to become the vassals of the Empire and have long given up any thought to their own national security interests. 

Subjugation tends to breed delusional compensation mechanisms… Having virtually agreed to the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines and the dismantling of its industry (yet remaining under the delusion of its military prowess), Germany participated with its masters in a strategy to blow up the Crimean Bridge. Then we have France: in the delirium of its past (inglorious) glory as "la Grande Nation", le petit Napoléon Macron has agreed to allow Ukrainians to strike targets within the Russian Federation using French weapons and is still considering sending French soldiers to fight in Ukraine. Finland and the Baltic chihuahuas have shown their readiness to take on their great neighbour. Ukraine, whose entire population is being sacrificed to the Hegemon, continues to carry out bombing raids on Russian territory and even contemplates striking its nuclear early warning radar systems.

Meanwhile, and despite all the proffered fabricated narratives, the majority of European citizens are in a psychological state of severe depression… The signs and symptoms are abundant: fear, hopelessness, lethargy, social withdrawal, less productivity, a loss of creativity, an overriding sense of doom and gloom. Certainly, there exists a minority of courageous dissidents who dare to think and speak out independently, but they are persecuted and increasingly subjected to witch hunts. Old Europe is now, as a whole, self-harming and suicidal. It no longer sees a raison d'être for itself. It no longer sees a "Daseinsberechtigung"…

The post-settler states of the West, however, are still imbued with a strong sense of identity. This is especially apparent in the United States and in "Israel". Though their populations have little to no connection to the historical roots, civilisation, and culture of their European forefathers, they remain instilled to this day with a fanatic sense of "divine right" to the lands their colonialist ancestors brutally invaded. The United States, in particular, feels endowed with a divine mission to redeem humanity by proselytising its "values" and its way of life to the entire planet. Despite the West's neoliberal agenda to destroy societies and culture everywhere – even within their own territories – the sense of god-given pre-eminence in the post-settlers still abounds and will certainly prevail as long as they exist. They are "the chosen ones". And thus these states have preserved their original identities, however deranged they may be.

It is thus not a surprise that the Hegemon and its outpost "Israel" are conducting reckless escalations… without any Plan B… without a minimum of strategic thinking. Because they are convinced they are inculpable, untouchable, invincible… And – so far – they are unstoppable.

One can therefore see the decline of the West as a two-pronged pathology: one part manic, one part depressive… with both negating Reality… submerged in a state of total irrationality.

The Western powers have reached their terminus. This is the last stop on their long plundering ride and the culmination of their system, the last phase of their neoliberal capitalism.

They have nothing else to live for.

If the rest of us survive their crash, we will try to build a new world… and if we want to endure and live together in harmony: then it will have to be without their system…

And hopefully, we shall begin it with the question: "What is it that we are living for?"

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*  Selected lines from "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot (1922)

The Waste Land – consisting of a dissonant medley of fragmented voices, languages, narrators, locations, times, lines from various poets – can be seen as "a heap of broken images" from ages past that merge into a prophetic vision of the unravelling of the modern Western World that had already commenced in the early 20th century. And yet this poem of despair ends on the word "shantih" – a blessing of spiritual peace – chanted three times, a murmur of hope for a better world.