The elections in The #Netherlands show a deeply embarrassing exit pole with Wilders PVV winning substantially. #fascism is like weed in your garden, it will grow when the garden is not well maintained. Obviously we did not take care of our garden well enough and my liberal friends from the #vvd made a strategic mistake when they opened the door to Wilders and his brownshirts.
WJJH
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Dutch by birth, European by choice. Investment Banker (retired) cross-border Merger & Acquisitions in the Chemical, Pharmaceutical, Oil & Gas industries. #Running #chess #books for occasional civil rants on #geopolitics see my #blog
https://wjjh.blog/
Ivan Turgenev 👇
"I agree with no one's opinions, I have some of my own."
The header picture is from Gregory Colbert his 2005 Ashes and Snow exhibition at the Nomadic Museum in NYC - https://gregorycolbert.com/
Although in #war its morally permissible to attack specific targets, even at the incidental risk to life and property, it’s immoral to attack life and property of the civilian population.
With the systematic scorched earth tactics, the de-housing strategy in #Gaza and the collective punishment of Palestinians the state of #Israel has sacrificed much of their own moral case against the #Hamas and is contributing substantial to its own moral collapse.
#icc
One of the interesting graphs of Brian Klaas shows the annually global military spending of roughly $2.1 trillion. The United States, with its war economy spends over $800 billion annually, to facilitate American hegemony, accounts for about 38 percent of that total amount. In fact, the US spends much more than 183 out of the world’s 193 other countries combined.
Leaving me with the conclusion, the world has bigger problems than to fascilitate and stimulate regional conflicts & war’s.
Delighted to have received Toby Ord’s “The Principe, a guide to the existential Risk and the Future of Humanity.”
The Israeli/Palestine conflict, this festering malignant wound in the Holy Land, reminds of what Albert Camus wrote in 1956 about that “infernal dialectic,” when he described the conflict between France and Algeria👇
The event in Israel are distressing, but solution to this conflict can only be based on negotiating and implementing the two-state solution and establishing an independent State of Palestine.
The Sjamir, Sharon and Netanayu Governments have only intensified the problems. Yitzhak Rabin was Israel best last hope, but sadly he was assassinated.
As long as Palestinians are forced to live as third rate citizen in the largest open prison in the world this type of violence will continue.
#VDL #SOTEU2023 The next enlargement with the West Balkan, Ukraine and Moldova is not a catalyst for progress, but a catalyst for increased corruption, freedom of the press- and independence of the judiciary issues, which have been allowed to grow and are like weed in the EU garden.
The EU does not require enlargement, but consolidation and institutional reform. The EU with more than 30 members, cannot work without institutional reform and this will likely lead to a break-up of the Union.
#ZEN time, my yearly August #Detox from social media has come sadly to an end.
My first check with reality seems to confirm that in our disharmonious world not much has changed.
It is #ZEN time, my yearly August #Detox five-six weeks away from social media and all the daily nonsense of the different echo chambers. Nature, books, music, art, sailing and chess are calling and are in this disharmonious world my ideal recipe for harmony.
In the words of Rumi "Life is a balance of holding and letting go"
Until we meet again...
A grand morning it was and it’s back to the usual morning walks now that the first breaths of spring have been coming our way,.. birds are chattering and even some pigeons preparing their nest and I am looking forward for the golden #daffodils to arrive… as Wordsworth spring to mind telling us he was wondering lonely as the clouds.