There never was an American empire. It’s all American propaganda that Americans are being told all their lives. Americans that travel will know most other countries have it better than them.
Buddy, I don’t think you know what an empire means. Empire doesn’t mean “the citizenry have resources,” it means everybody kowtows to our political interests. You wanna know how fuckin big the American empire is? When covid hit, half of Europe still hadn’t fully recovered from OUR housing market crash in 2008. Not just half the world, half of the economic bloc that we treat as “equals.” You can’t bridge “The US isn’t an empire because their people don’t have healthcare” and “Why does every country turn a blind eye when the US does X.”
Non paywall link so we can actually read the entire article?
You may check about the “Late Bronze Age Collapse” if you want a hope ;
And or remember it was as hard to imagine the USSR collapse from a 1988 point of view.
First, because a nation with a nuclear arsenal ia not going to be allowed to collapse.
Second, don’t think the US as a country, think of it as a corporation, because that is essentially what it is. Corporations don’t collapse, they get bought up by the highest bidder, their assets liquidated, their workers let go without compensation.
Not allowed by who to collapse? Corporations only exist because the nation state says they do, and the nation state only exists because the people collectively acknowledge that it does.
Billionaire class seems, isolated for decades in their bubbles, seem to have convinced themselves that their power and wealth exist independent of little things like governments and peasants, and yeah that may seem true because they currently have total control over the state.
But if they really actually do end up causing the nation-state to collapse (which they seem to be trying to do) they’ll find out pretty quickly how wrong they are.
Hopefully something better will rise in it’s place but I kind of find a little solace knowing the billionaires and their minions aren’t going to live to see it.
I think they all know how this kind of thing ends, they just all think they’re clever enough to grab what they can and get out with their loot right before it’s too late.
First, because a nation with a nuclear arsenal ia not going to be allowed to collapse.
I mean, the USSR pulled it off.
It’s not hard to imagine, and I think it’s time for that. I say this as an American citizen. This country does not deserve to be the dominant empire. I really don’t know who does though.
I think we, humans globally, should try for no dominant empire. I think if we all get together and think really hard, we can come up with a better system than “whichever group has the most guns and money gets to do whatever they want and take whatever they want, whenever”. It just never ends well. Or middles well. Or begins well! It’s a bad system for most of the people, most of the time, inside and outside of the dominant empire du jour.
Getting rid of the bullshit “veto” power of some countries in the United Nations would be a start.
I think we should start a world government from scratch. A global, grassroots, democratic fellowship of people, operated locally and cooperating globally. All persons are considered members, and they can assert their membership by joining a local group or starting their own. We recognize the other power structures in the world; the governments and the corporations and the religions. We may even belong to some of them, this fellowship is not exclusive.
Unfortunately I haven’t figured out how to define membership, or verify the integrity of votes or member identity, or implement a functional judiciary, so this is more of a long-term project. But I think long-term, humans need to figure out how to settle our differences without killing each other, and I don’t trust the existing power structures to willingly give up their authority. It has to be bottom up, and every one has to have a voice.
I think for decades the US empire was seen as the lesser of 2-3 evils, the others being the USSR/Russia and China.
Now the US has gone the way of Russia, so China is the next logical answer, with Iran coming out of the current conflict as a major world power in it’s own right.
What we’re seeing is the logical conclusion of decades of having a sense of supremacy in the USA. Dipshits in this country bought into our own hype, thought we were invincible, and are still in denial that its all crashing down, and that its their fault.
Now the US has gone the way of Russia,
America today is only somewhat more evil than it was, say, 20 or 16 years ago. The “lesser of X evils” thing has always been bunk.
I meant moreso the way if Russia in that its a pariah state
south america
True, but even at its pre-Trump worst America never tried to starve Cuba to death. You could say that Trump is willing to be more brutal in doing the things America has always done.
“America never tried to starve Cuba to death”
Uh what? Did we just forget about all the shit the US was doing to Cuba in the 60s and 70s trying to destabilize Castro’s socialist government?
The sanctions, embargo, and blockades?
Admittedly I’m not well-informed on the early years of the Cuba thing (except that the Bay of Pigs was a thing), only the pre-Trump status quo, so I guess if you could point me to something that goes into more detail that’d be nice. That aside what I’m trying to say is that while the American embargo has been impoverishing Cuba, for the most part Cubans could get the basic necessities of life. Trying to cut off fuel is a new low.
The UN, as in, the sum of all nations and people in the world.
Hard to imagine? I’ve been living it real time for 25 years. Its just speeding up.
yeah this millenium. ugh. took like a decade or so for me to realize we were past the point of no return.
My whole arse life has been a decline aloneside the diminishing returns as the boomer fools gobble it all up and resent us. It is not hard to imagine I wish I was never born. Abortions for all.
If you’re miserable you should leave. Australia welcomes Americans and the standard of living is much better, even Canada, UK, get out while you still can. I don’t know how Americans endure it while their passport is still semi powerful
no you can’t lol, go check immigration.
Just hop on a plane and say g’day if anyone makes eye contact.
Don’t know abt Aus but Americans can’t just resettle in Canada. They need to immigrate like every other poor world sod if they want to stay here and work / get benefits permanently.
It’s not like Australia doesn’t have its own problems with cost of living, being essentially still a colony of the US Empire, etc. It’s a global empire that has global effects, and just moving doesn’t solve anything.
God why the fuck are you cunts downvoting me I was just trying to help. Sometimes as an individual you need to focus on making sure that you’re okay before trying to fix the world’s problems.
Your being downvoted (by me at least) because I don’t want more of america exporting its sick culture and bad attitudes to Australia. It’s bad enough that every channel is chock-a-block with US crime dramas, and locally-made movies need to have an american lead to be considered for development. I want less american accents in my life, not more. Americans should stay in the shithole mess they created and work on fixing it, thank you very much.
Yeah I agree Americans are generally pretty awful but sometimes they’re just ordinary reasonable people like you and me that want to live a productive normal life.
It’s like imagining living without your parents.
You fear they day they die, you know it will happen, and then they do, and it is over.
Because:
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Mutual defence pacts, world bank lenders, and trade organizations are not empires, the USA has been giving away territory for many decades.
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A shallow understanding of history is that the USA has only just begun to decline and could take more than 50 years of steadily worsening to see any uprisings or collapse.
Are you critiquing 2 as a shallow understanding of history, or saying that even a shallow understanding is all that’s necessary to be convinced? Because I agree with the former.
US debt is going to be an immediate and pressing problem in a few years at most. Countries are already pulling out of US bonds. The petrodollar is unsustainable without security guarantees in the Middle East, where Iran has already chased us out. Without the world loaning us money, the empire will collapse overnight.
Mutual defence pacts, world bank lenders, and trade organizations are not empires, the USA has been giving away territory for many decades.
Until they overthrow inconvenient regimes on the other side of the world for sport, then they become empires.
What makes an empire is using military to take over and hold large territories like China, Nazi Germany, or the USSR have done.
Like how the USA got Texas?
Before and during the year 1845? Yeah, like that.
Taking territory and giving it to vassals does not, in fact, make one less of an empire. Britain had the East India Company running India yet it’d be ridiculous to say that India wasn’t part of the British Empire before the Raj. Also you get three guesses for why how America managed to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Oh wow we’re pulling out the late 18th century trivia, now?
Hows that Vassal state of Cuba working out?
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It isn’t hard. Its unwanted by those who don’t.
