there first has to be a severe decline in their power
that's what i'm saying, i think there will be. internationally, the rest of the world is developing and american influence is waning. domestically, quality of life in america is deteriorating. as soon as renewable energy becomes cheaper than fossil fuel, there goes the petrodollar, america can no longer write infinite IOUs. i have no idea what will happen when climate change starts to hit hard, but until then a lot of trends are pointing towards a decline in american power.
also, if you're anything like me, you might have a bias toward seeing the bad in people, and covid isolation can make that shit worse. i think the world is full of good people living quiet lives, loving their family members, caring for their children. there are reactionaries and abusers too, and i admit i tend to pay more attention to them because of my shitty amygdala or whatever, and sometimes my blood fucking boils at the shit i read and see and hear, but i think a lot of the good in the world is hidden from me. i'm not seeing it online, or in the news, because it's in people's everyday lives.
:this: is the materialist analysis needed to fight off the doomer mindset
The problem I see is that while it foretells good news for the rest of the world (whom I orient my analysis of "is this good or bad?" towards), I fail to see how this can result in better conditions for the American working class.
It seems like the result is going to be the imperialist machine turning inwards and going to increasingly extreme lengths to exploit the American proletariat to make up for falling rates of profit accelerating as the imperialism of other nations becomes less effective. Fascism seems to be the inevitable reaction to a failing labor aristocracy.
I have yet to see a materialist explanation of how the American propaganda machine is defeated at home. Sure, the material conditions will get worse in the US and lead many to check out socialist ideas, but given:
virtually all American media being largely consolidated in the hands of capitalists
social media being completely astroturfed to push revisionism, reactionary thought, & liberal hope/cope
our education system rapidly deteriorating as public schools are hollowed out in favor of private schools
the population at large carrying decades of prior indoctrination against anything deemed socialist
how do we even get to a point where a mass socialist movement in the US is even imaginable, let alone plausible? It's nice to know the United States' grip on the rest of the world is weakening, but we ourselves will have to suffer the consequences of a removed labor aristocracy running out of imperial fuel.
What can be done to prevent widespread suffering of our proletarians without prolonging the suffering of the victims of our imperialism? Do we as socialists in the imperial core have to accept that we must watch our conditions collapse entirely before we can even hope to build power?
that's what i'm saying, i think there will be. internationally, the rest of the world is developing and american influence is waning. domestically, quality of life in america is deteriorating. as soon as renewable energy becomes cheaper than fossil fuel, there goes the petrodollar, america can no longer write infinite IOUs. i have no idea what will happen when climate change starts to hit hard, but until then a lot of trends are pointing towards a decline in american power.
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also, if you're anything like me, you might have a bias toward seeing the bad in people, and covid isolation can make that shit worse. i think the world is full of good people living quiet lives, loving their family members, caring for their children. there are reactionaries and abusers too, and i admit i tend to pay more attention to them because of my shitty amygdala or whatever, and sometimes my blood fucking boils at the shit i read and see and hear, but i think a lot of the good in the world is hidden from me. i'm not seeing it online, or in the news, because it's in people's everyday lives.
:this: is the materialist analysis needed to fight off the doomer mindset
The problem I see is that while it foretells good news for the rest of the world (whom I orient my analysis of "is this good or bad?" towards), I fail to see how this can result in better conditions for the American working class.
It seems like the result is going to be the imperialist machine turning inwards and going to increasingly extreme lengths to exploit the American proletariat to make up for falling rates of profit accelerating as the imperialism of other nations becomes less effective. Fascism seems to be the inevitable reaction to a failing labor aristocracy.
I have yet to see a materialist explanation of how the American propaganda machine is defeated at home. Sure, the material conditions will get worse in the US and lead many to check out socialist ideas, but given:
how do we even get to a point where a mass socialist movement in the US is even imaginable, let alone plausible? It's nice to know the United States' grip on the rest of the world is weakening, but we ourselves will have to suffer the consequences of a removed labor aristocracy running out of imperial fuel.
What can be done to prevent widespread suffering of our proletarians without prolonging the suffering of the victims of our imperialism? Do we as socialists in the imperial core have to accept that we must watch our conditions collapse entirely before we can even hope to build power?
Is there any theory on this?