It’s interesting to live through the death of a modern empire. Given how much access there is to history it really surprises me that no lesson is learned and no graceful transition is opted for.
Instead they follow the same route as all the empires of old, increasing violence and desperation practically guaranteeing hatred and reprisal when they are crippled and broken.
Of course all the elite will be dead by then so I suppose material analysis wins again as the correct lens to analyse history through.
“The rich experience of history teaches that up to now not a single class has voluntarily made way for another class. There is no such precedent in world history. The Communists have learned this lesson of history. Communists would welcome the voluntary departure of the bourgeoisie. But such a turn of affairs is improbable; that is what experience teaches. That is why the Communists want to be prepared for the worst and call upon the working class to be vigilant, to be prepared for battle.” - Stalin
The proles of the usa are not and have never been in charge. While I don’t advocate complete disengagement from ‘representative’ politics it is important to understand it as a distracting machine to give legitimacy to the bourgeois rulers.
If you want to change things your power base must be significant and, critically, it must exist outside the machinery of state.
being the only dinosaur left unscarred from ww2 meant none of these family-of-sociopaths were ever forced to recognize we’re kind of in this mess together. needing to completely rebuild your infrastructure from 0 kind forces a bit of empathy into everyone i think.
with how purposefully fractured the US is (long long history of this, many towns across the country are de facto company towns for the local real estate baron), this will only happen if the country has another Great Depression era. which is very much a possibility given the US’s ever growing sovereign-debt crisis and a completely gutted internal manufacturing capacity/capability.
if/when the US finally defaults and USD crumbles as world reserve currency (which is already happening, countries are just trying to gtfo as sustainably as they can without crashing their own house of cards)…shit goes from bad to worse real fucking quick.
transition to what, exactly? i think people might have vastly different opinions about this, so it’s not easy to just go to a new thing
Instead they follow the same route as all the empires of old, increasing violence and desperation practically guaranteeing hatred and reprisal when they are crippled and broken.
When you are about to die yourself, do you just let it happen or do you struggle and try to fight against it?
Fighting back against fascism is great, but fighting for a slightly more benevolent form of fascism won’t get you anywhere. You really think the Dems will abolish ice if they get Trump out if office?
The only problem Dems see with ICE is their lack of training. If they ever get back in control, they’d increase ICE funding under the guise of getting them better trained.
Ok, fair enough. I don’t know what the future will look like any better than anyone else. But imo fighting fascists is always better than just letting it happen.
I don’t think personification of nation states is a useful model when reasoning about how they behave.
Examples of transitions would be building up the independence and economies of previously oppressed states claimed in dominion, in order to build an economic bloc that can be relied on. Meanwhile winding back spending on military and force projection.
Nobody would ever do this, I just wish people could learn how to avoid the same mistakes as every previous empire.
At least life will almost certainly improve for south Americans.
It’s interesting to live through the death of a modern empire. Given how much access there is to history it really surprises me that no lesson is learned and no graceful transition is opted for.
Instead they follow the same route as all the empires of old, increasing violence and desperation practically guaranteeing hatred and reprisal when they are crippled and broken.
Of course all the elite will be dead by then so I suppose material analysis wins again as the correct lens to analyse history through.
“The rich experience of history teaches that up to now not a single class has voluntarily made way for another class. There is no such precedent in world history. The Communists have learned this lesson of history. Communists would welcome the voluntary departure of the bourgeoisie. But such a turn of affairs is improbable; that is what experience teaches. That is why the Communists want to be prepared for the worst and call upon the working class to be vigilant, to be prepared for battle.” - Stalin
Said it better than me haha, no original thoughts in the world.
Where do we opt for that when voting?
;D
The proles of the usa are not and have never been in charge. While I don’t advocate complete disengagement from ‘representative’ politics it is important to understand it as a distracting machine to give legitimacy to the bourgeois rulers.
If you want to change things your power base must be significant and, critically, it must exist outside the machinery of state.
being the only dinosaur left unscarred from ww2 meant none of these family-of-sociopaths were ever forced to recognize we’re kind of in this mess together. needing to completely rebuild your infrastructure from 0 kind forces a bit of empathy into everyone i think.
with how purposefully fractured the US is (long long history of this, many towns across the country are de facto company towns for the local real estate baron), this will only happen if the country has another Great Depression era. which is very much a possibility given the US’s ever growing sovereign-debt crisis and a completely gutted internal manufacturing capacity/capability.
if/when the US finally defaults and USD crumbles as world reserve currency (which is already happening, countries are just trying to gtfo as sustainably as they can without crashing their own house of cards)…shit goes from bad to worse real fucking quick.
Nah this is US exceptionalism still. The circumstances of the usa are no more or less unique than any previous empire and the same forces rule.
transition to what, exactly? i think people might have vastly different opinions about this, so it’s not easy to just go to a new thing
When you are about to die yourself, do you just let it happen or do you struggle and try to fight against it?
Fighting back against fascism is great, but fighting for a slightly more benevolent form of fascism won’t get you anywhere. You really think the Dems will abolish ice if they get Trump out if office?
They had a couple opportunities to already, and didn’t.
It didn’t start with Trump, does not likely end with Trump, did not end with Dems.
The only problem Dems see with ICE is their lack of training. If they ever get back in control, they’d increase ICE funding under the guise of getting them better trained.
i never said i support the democrats. in fact i don’t. sorry if it came across that way.
Ok, fair enough. I don’t know what the future will look like any better than anyone else. But imo fighting fascists is always better than just letting it happen.
This absolutely. No matter how hopeless it is, if you do not even try, they will win.
I don’t think personification of nation states is a useful model when reasoning about how they behave.
Examples of transitions would be building up the independence and economies of previously oppressed states claimed in dominion, in order to build an economic bloc that can be relied on. Meanwhile winding back spending on military and force projection.
Nobody would ever do this, I just wish people could learn how to avoid the same mistakes as every previous empire.
At least life will almost certainly improve for south Americans.