I have something unpleasant to do today

A man knows that someday
there's always the end of the highway.
He knows what's before him,
he won't run away.
Because away is never far enough
and freedom's just a bluff ...

- Lowen and Navarro, Seven Bridges Home

I have something important to do today.  I expect it will be unpleasant, but hope for the best.  I reach down into the depths of my soul and find Dan Rather whispering "Courage". Okay, then.

The past is a deep weight on the present.  John Prebble looks at the later day transnational fascists (sorry, sorry: socialists) in Europe and their utter failure to address basic social cohesion needs:

Transnational progressivism focuses on groups rather than individuals, which means that the individual who doesn’t toe the line of the group is an outcast. Isn’t this just the infamous 1950s conformism all over again?

...

Demanding that immigrants not assimilate has not worked well for either women or gays in immigrant communities. Enough said.

I Want A New Left repeatedly makes powerful arguments (from an honorable leftist position) that the modern State has failed society.  RTWT, which is a latter day j'accuse against the too-comfortable left: those who have like the ancient Bourbon monarchs, learned nothing and forgotten nothing.  The past weighs still on the present.

And it goes on like this forever
so don't ever feel alone.
The same old road that brought you here
crosses seven bridges home.

I posted on this topic a long, long time ago.  The Seven Bridges have led the European Elites back to where they started, nearly a century ago:

The system worked well at the beginning: the French still look back wistfully at the Trente Glorieuses, the years of rapid economic expansion through the 1970s. It's not surprising that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the European Elites could foresee a time when a united Europe would eclipse the vulgar Americans. Populations were content to allow the elites to control their destiny, since incomes and living standards had been rising so fast, for so long.

That's been pretty much over for twenty years.

...

And now the wheels are starting to come off the EU bus. The PIIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) are in serious economic trouble, because the Euro is designed for the stronger economies of northern Europe. Interest rates and the resulting exchange rates are optimized for the industrial economies of Germany, Benelux, and to a lesser extent, France. This has depressed growth (and consequently increased government deficits) in the PIIGS region. They have, unsurprisingly, demanded subsidies from the wealthier northern states. As long as the northern economies were performing - and especially while a real estate bubble in Tuscany, Andalucia, the Algarve, and Greece drove huge amounts of cash south - the elites could keep this crack papered over.

That's done now, and it's hard to see it coming back. The subsidies required to defer a financial collapse and default are the better part of a Trillion dollars, just for Greece. Guess who pays?

You simply cannot look at this situation without a voice in the back of your head whispering die deutsche volk. Nationalism horrifies the elites, but nationalism feeds on an external enemy (or irritation), and the German people have every right to be steamed right now. One of the two key differences between Transnational Progressivism and Fascism is creaking.

And it's going to get worse.

Past is prologue, in Europe as it well may be for me today.  I hope not, for them and for me.  But he knows what's before him; he won't run away.  That weight must be borne .

I'm taking today off, because I'll be distracted in a way that I haven't been at work for, well, ever.  I usually queue up posts the night before, as this is being typed.  Not sure if there will be more posts today or not.

Now life's sometimes a battle.
You just try to get what you're after:
a world full of stories you won't live to tell.
But going on is all we know,
like rivers always flow.
It seems the Years go by so fast
while the Days go by so slow.

You know which way you're going by which side of the road you're on. Hope I'm on the right side.  Europe, too. 

Alas, confidence is not high.  Oh well, could be worse.  Maybe Peter is right.