Staying Happy in Times of Crackdowns on Civil Society
Explaining what goes on in the world isn't easy because of external factors, but it is very much necessary (if not a rarity)
The United States seems increasingly scary (details in our Daily Links and IRC). There are obviously political persecutions, a war on media, a war on dissenting views (yes, views alone), censorship of 'opposition' politicians and so much other worrying stuff/things. That's not to say that other countries are doing a lot better, but the US exercises a lot of power over other countries and it used to say that Soviet influence was a threat to the world's population ("Communism"). In some ways, today's White House has already fully emulated the Kremlin.
We've meanwhile learned that Microsoft (US) continues to bribe politicians in Europe. It basically 'hired' our last Prime Minister. It does similar things in the EU [1, 2]. That's problematic for so many reasons. Rich corporations and people seem to be buying (hence taking control of) governments.
Optimism in this sort of "new reality" or "new normal" seems like something for the irrational person - one who has hope in increasingly hopeless times, where oligarchs build themselves bunkers because they too realise and tacitly acknowledge bad times are ahead (they prepare for that earlier then the rest; they can afford to buy islands and/or build bunkers with armed mercenaries).
I'm a generally happy person who used to envision global warming as the main danger, set aside nuclear weapons and mass extinction events (an outcome which is inevitable; it happened many times before).
In the EU, the priority right now seems to be keeping people under control by all means possible. Some of the methods adopted resemble Red China's, but we use different terminology/terms (than those used to describe what CPC or CCP is doing).
As a life-long activist/journalist I remain happy and not particularly worried because my role is to do what's right and explain what's happening. If things go rogue, I'll show how they go rogue. That's my role in society. At least I do my share. Do you?
We have plenty to show in the coming years, based on direct experience and interactions. What we did to the EPO we can do to other institutions as well. █