THE BREZHNEV DOCTRINE IS BACK, A LA TRUMP

The doctrine of limited sovereignty after the Prague Spring became the cornerstone of the Soviet Union's foreign policy. Within Moscow's political realm the member states of the Warshaw Pact only received the smallest amount of autonomy, as long as the "socialist" priorities were not endangered.

Now Trump follows the same path, suggesting a conditional,  survival kit for Ukraine: reduced, humiliated, and servile. Mutatis mutandis ,the same goes for other unpleasant aspects of this salesman's dealings with the world. Never has such a vulgar, unprincipled, tasteless person presided over the destiny of what was not long ago the envy of all . 

Former generations saw America as a model, far from perfect, but ruled by the better intentions. Nowadays, one ends up seeing trough the "magic" of a smartphone a grotesque America ruled by amateurs on the payroll of a mean-spirited, awful president. 

Putin will get his prey and his way. Trump will oblige because he is clueless regarding history, taste or anything out of the sphere of self-agrandisement. He is the frog in a La Fontaine tale or the sociopath in a B movie.

Europeans had better stick together and avoid entering stormy weather. Others should follow the Chinese example and not play into the supplicant scenario that Trump likes to impose. Too bad that so many Americans fell for an idol of clay. The Democrats have no Moses in their rank.

Reality will finally bite. It is a multi-headed monster with a flair for hybrid warfare on all fronts: geo-political, economical and cultural. The former Bandung group will come together again, Taiwan will follow the Ukraine model, the EU will have a hard time shedding the image of a mild parish congregation, while the right/Maga forces will roar until they die for lack of oxygen.

In the short term Trump will try to steal Pope Francis'burial. Nothing can stop this Golem until some stroke gets the better of him. Until then, better run for shelter.

LE PAPE FRANCOIS

Après un dernier tour de la place St Pierre, le pape s'en est allé comme il a vécu, avec grace et discrétion.

L'homme n'avait d'autres défauts que de ne pas en avoir. Mème ses humeurs étaient éphémères. Ses qualités demeurent.

Point n'est besoin d'être croyant pour se sentir un peu plus seul peut-être depuis ce 21 Avril 2025.

Ses dernières paroles ont été adressées à "toutes" les victimes du drame dont nous sommes tous les témoins à Gaza. Il a de mème condamné l'antisemitisme croissant dans le monde. Que l'on s'en souvienne. 

BRUSSELS FINALLY IN THE (BAD) NEWS

The accidental city where i.a. Nato and the EU found refuge finally made it in the international media.

The accumulating garbage in the streets breaks records. The prolonged absence of one of the many mayors (Molenbeek) shows again how bankrupt the governance of these little dominions which divide the capital, is.  Too many incompetent principalities create their own corruption. It is all too sordid for words. The urbanism remains in chaos, the new metro line is a costly joke, the homeless become a human dignity scandal. Elementary taste is being taken hostage by the returning façadisme.

Yes there remains an overflow of chocolate and mediocre, or better restaurants. Kanal will be the new contemporary arts centre, but under the current agonizing political structure, it already risks becoming a joke, while existing musems stay partially off limits because of a shortage of guardians...and funds.

While the insecurity is becoming a deadly curse, the causes thereoff remain unanswered: South and North rail stations and their environment, neglect everywhere, homeless scandalously ignored, strikes mutiplying, concrete roadblocks spreading shamelessly...a journey into a nightmare of broken tunnels. There is no money and the banks end up ignoring the pleas. Like Judas Iscariot Brussels might further betray almost anything for thirty pieces of silver. This is Easter after all. 

The Philippe Geluck's Le Chat Museum is still in the make....it should have been stillborn instead ...besides there exists a strip museum.

There are voices in the Engagés, N-VA , Groen and MR that give some ray of hope but short-term minds still prevail. The Parti Socialiste has become just another costly Belgian strikers lobby.

Other capitals are not shy from rolling out the welcome mat for the growing number of disappointed residents and institutions. 

Brussels beware !

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WALL STREET OR TRENCH

The mood worlwide is in a downward mode. Given the multiplicator of political, economic and strategic indicators, the doomsday scenario might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. There remains nevertheless a sort of no-man's land in between fact and consequence.

Certain observers are too quick to ignore the distance which still separates the shaken world order from an apocalypse foretold. The turmoil will certainly continue for a while. Hybrid warfare, trade brinkmanship, social unrest might be on tomorrow's menu.

Nevertheless all the talk about war and fatal scenarios is irresponsible. The Trump factor is taken very seriously, rightly so, but this American president is actually mostly unconsequential in the range of events that he helped to bring about. He doesn't own the chaos. He only appropriates it.

Too many are obsessed with too little. Trump is the sum of all aberrations, a culture vulgarian, decorating the Oval office in hardcore parvenu style. He preoccupies and sickly facinates because he cannot distinguish cause and effect. The same goes for his entourage that lacks any form of historical mediation. The Europeans dispise him (with meagre exceptions), the Russian (there is only one) and the Chinese (same) play the long game, leaving him to his Svengali illusions until he tires.

The economy was never a playground for amateurs.The financial crisis in the early 21st century could be managed by the adults in the room, while politicians were shown the exit. After a while the same will happen and the arsonist who tried to put the world on fire will be shown the exit.

There will always be individuals who mistrust the collective fate and who believe in unilateral warfare and protectionism. They are equally parochial in the realm of the economy and finance as they cannot grasp the complex interconnections of global policy. They distrust central bankers, the liberal forward thinkers and the globalists. Being unsavy, narrowminded, they fall for the noise and ignore the warning whisper. They cannot find Jackson Hole on their smallish roadmap.

The wake-up call will be coming. Dump measures die an infamous death. Trump will be even more often in Mar-a-Lago than now, sulking.  The Republicans will have no other opportunity than to recall the few wise men and women that are currently in the wilderness. The central bankers and the guardians of the collective fate will come to the rescue, again. Jamie Dimon is waiting.....

THE GREAT SPLIT

Western Europe and the USA are no longer on the same page. They live in different time and philosophical zones.

The Trump administration is not a government of the brightest. It is a gathering of the corrupt and the uninformed. Never have so many unprepared climbed so high, so fast. Nothing prepared the West for this Armageddon. "Signalgate" is already a Nixon-like watershed. The involvement with Ukraine and other flashpoints is just another clumsy attempt to poach raw materials and rare earths. 

The EU must face the funeral music and regroup, learn to be autonomous, until the Trump bluff crashes (and it will) . Amateurism never gets a long life span. The almost obscene wanderings of the current American administration are a moral affront for allies. Now, for the first time, they have become disenchanted and turned-off by anything American.

Ukraine became the ultimate recipient of Trump's hystrionics. The previous sophisticated all-involvement muted into a slice of pizza, served on Putin's plate. Gaza, today's Guernica, is an afterthought, reduced to another real estate gamble, a casino nightmare built on corpses.

Trump pokes his inferiority complex ("that" is the crux of the matter) in Europe's heart. His many other transgressions from i.a. Canada to the "Gulf of America", Greenland and Panama are just collateral symptoms of a deranged narcissic mindset.

In the first Trump administration there were some Republican grandees who were able to put a lid on the president's more flagrant aberrations. Now there is nobody. His cabinet looks like a slave chorus, out of some forgettable peplum movie.

Europeans had better put the bilateral relationship with the USA on ice. Trying to flatter the elephant in the Western room--as the UK's P.M. tried--will backfire. Maybe Europe has no other alternative than to "Finlandise" itself, by its own determination, between America and Russia for the duration of this season in hell.

Whatever the nature of the spell Putin holds over Trump may be remains a riddle wrapped in a shroud.

HET VERDRIET VAN BRUSSEL

Na die oude ellendige staatshervorming, heeft ook Brussel "recht" op een volwaardige regering...Niet dat iemand weet wie Rudi Vervoort is of  wat hij voorstelt, maar hij mag mee op een of andere federale handelsmissie. Onder het PS "bewind" kwam alleen de verloedering van Brussel in de versnelling, een soort Charleroi bis.

Na acht maanden zonder regering is er nog steeds niets gebeurt, tenzij men de versnelde teleurgang van de hoofdstad nog wil ondergaan. De financies, milieu, veiligheid en andere normen liggen voor het rapen, net als de afval op de straat.

Na de stad te hebben ontgoochelt met een "good move" initiatief dat alleen maar leidde tot meer cement en brutalisme, werd Elke Van den Brandt op het oorlogspad gestuurd om een regering te proberen op touw zetten. Ze heeft waarschijnlijk een sympathieke kant, maar ze stelt te weinig voor om de heersende waanzin te kunnen overtroeven. De open VLD bewees daarbij nog dat een stervende nog  de limieten van wat aanvaardbaar is kan verleggen.

Ondertussen verstikt Brussel in zijn "mariage de Mademoiselle Beulemans" parodie. Het facadisme is overal ongestraft opnieuw in de aanloop. Panden staan te verkommeren in het centrum. Werken slepen aan. De verschillen binnen de bevolking stapelen zich op en de strijd tussen "lelijk/verkeerd" en "op het ranje nog aanneembaar" is verloren. De laatste komedie rond het beeldhouwwerk van Victor Rousseau dat de plaats moet ruimen voor een groene (!) corridor is de perfecte aanslag op redelijk urbanisme. Deze ingreep wordt een andere stap in de richting van vieze, onverzorgde, hondvriendelijke, bierkan waanzin, waarin Brussel uitblinkt.

Ja, Brussel is ook hoofdstad van Vlaanderen...Niemand staat daar nog bij stil.

TRUMP REPULSION....ALREADY

David Brooks belongs to the old classical Republican school, almost exctinct by now. Mild, he followed in the tradition of the former respected grandees of political conservative thought. In the NYT of 14/03/25 he changed tone, with a scathing column against President Trump. His apocalyptic J'accuse leaves no room for ambiguities. 

It is becoming undeniable that the current "new normal" becomes unpalable. To see Nato's secretary general on his knees, almost like a supplicant, while meeting Trump, was again another embarassing scene to swallow. Everything under the rule of this unhinged ruler becomes bizarre, or better, vulgar. The fear in his circle of sycophantic interlocutors looks pathetic.

The Democrats act like a tribe lost in the wilderness. Unlike what happens in other Western countries, there is no leader of the opposition or better a shadow cabinet, in the USA. Given the panic that rules in the Democrats' ranks, it might be advisable to follow James Carville's  admonition "to lie low", until the party regroups. Senator Shummer's difficult choice to avert government shutdown was the right one, albeit divisive.

There is nothing Trump hates more than to be ignored. Well, so be it. He needs to choke on spite and frustration. European and other leaders who run for a photo shoot in the former impressive Oval office, only find themselves in a room of mirrors, with a decimated press corp, worshipping the President and ignoring the "guest". The West should stop moaning and return to the better old Kennedy days or, closer to us, to the Obama years that hold relatable lessons.

Meanwhile two (until the Midterm elections) or four years will be a nail-biting ordeal. They might give the EU time to return to its great statesmen, Winston Churchill and Charles deGaulle. The two could hardly stand each other, but taken together they had "one" right. It is time to do some housekeeping in the EU, to make room for the ones who deserve it and to show the door to the ones who don't fit. In military terms the ideas of President Macron deserve a closer look, if not yet immediate implementation. Is better to hope that the Trump tribe auto- destruct. One cannot allow the booby-trapped insanity coming out of the White House to rule the waves, with impunity.