I just feel like America’s history as a settler nation made it much more ripe for this kind of insane neoliberal society to be tenable than even modern Europe. Not that I don’t think they will be mostly successful doing this to Europe, but I feel like it is such a big contradiction for peoples that still have a much stronger connection to their history and cultural identities, as bastardized as they’ve become in recent times; add on to the fact that much of Europe is build on a pride that they are at least not as terrible as America. Making sure the growing rage can successfully form a revolutionary movement is one thing, but for the most part Americans don’t even have rage at all towards the absolute shitshow that is their daily life. I’m not saying Europe will suddenly be where it was at pre-World War but it can still create massive problems for the US empire. I mean look at the relative resistance to NATO that we see in Hungary and Austria, two of the most fascistic European countries. Can the US really keep ~800 million people pacified across the ocean the same way they do at home? I just think that it could pose a massive problem.

The US can’t address its issues without creating further contradictions. I think the biggest success they’ve had is definitely sucking Europe dry, but that’s just kicking the can down the road really. Domestically, conditions continue to decline at an accelerating rate. There is no plan to address this. That’s a major contradiction right there. When the next major crisis happens, who are they gonna steal from? I feel like if they had to turn to other countries in the imperial core for wealth extraction, doesn’t that say a lot about the long-term viability of their economy? How will Europe function as they decline from relative prosperity into a hellhole similar to modern America? Will people take it lying down? People in the global south have also definitely taken notice of the Ukraine war and how weak America actually is at defending its interests militarily. Can the US prevent the decolonization of West Africa and the Middle East forever? Will bigger holes start to form in South America or other parts of the world?

The US has definitely taken notice of the seeds of its destruction i.e. de-dollarization and growing Chinese and Eurasian hegemony and taken some measures to address this. However, the contradictions of neoliberalism and financialization have not changed. There is nothing they can do to change them. The death of the U.S. is a process that will take some time and there will be ebbs and flows. Unfortunately, even 100 years is a relatively short period of time in terms of human development, so we could go our whole lifetime without seeing America destroyed even if we can see its inevitability. Also, economic indicators are essentially religious divinations designed to prop up the system, so unless it’s coming from a Marxist or at least some non-mainstream source they really can’t be taken at face value.

It also would require giving labor a lot more power which is a major contradiction with neoliberalism

When I was 10 years old other kids in my class talked about dropping nukes on the Middle East to just get rid of them. Absolute hellscape

Just look at the usage of the word over time. It really came into usage as a weapon against Yugoslavia. It’s social use is heavily anti-communist.

Yeah for sure, but having the lived experience is really validating. Otherwise it can feel a little too abstract sometimes

Yeah feel pretty much the same way

I’m glad I at least got to live through 9/11 so I don’t have to combat bourgeois media trying to tell me it was something its not. I always try and tell people who are too young to know or remember that it was a bunch of bullshit lol

Turns out the process of fascism isn’t some mystifying thing like we are taught in schools about Nazi Germany, its literally the lives we’ve lead in the west. The call was coming from inside the house!

Also speaks to the power of class conflict as the supreme driver of social constructs. Trying to explain it away as “people bad” only goes so far. I know people don’t really want to hurt others like this. Its entirely the system created by the bourgeoisie. At least we know we have the tools in Marxism!

It’s honestly pure fucking racism. China is clearly just acting in an underhanded way and manipulating people by LOOKING like they are doing the right thing by bringing people out of poverty but really they are just waiting for their moment to assume imperial power. Those sneaky orientals-- I mean revisionists!

China is obviously a complicated entity. There are a lot of important questions to be asked about how they operate and how that fits into ideas of socialism and communism. But 1. this is their socialist project and not ours and 2. you definitely don’t have the right to project centuries old racist tropes on them.

Comrade Xi, pls

Everybody except the absolute richest 10% experience at minimum financial stress because neoliberalism has made everything require debt, which is inherently destabilizing and arguably traumatizing. Below that, you have people putting off medical care, severe mental health epidemics (everyone I know is on adderall, anti-depressants, or both), etc. all the way down to the worst squalor you will see anywhere in the world. It’s pretty fucking insane and illustrates how the Emperor is truly wearing no clothes.

If you aren’t from the US, I can guarantee poverty here is much much worse than you think

Becoming a Marxist shows you that Gandhi was a villain that is propped up by the west in the name of non-violence

It pops up when contradictions sharpen and people start turning to socialism and communism, we are seeing it pop up again because of the continuing 2008 fallout and especially recently the pandemic. They want to turn people down blind alleys instead of gain true class consciousness

You can make a lot of money with the grift too, that’s why you see so many people in the media pivot.

They are telling on themselves so hard here, confirming that they were sending poorly trained soldiers to Bakhmut just to fucking die. Fucking monsters

It is very disturbing how Reddit-like that response is

It was primarily an Islamophobic movement in the post-Gulf War and 9/11 era.

That’s what it seems like to me. It was very much the same “white dude pseudo-intellectuals pretend they know everything about the world but only push reactionary ideology” as the Peterson, Rogan, etc. bullshit.