I think they know better than to start starving massive groups of people within the imperial core. They are just fine with the government running huge deficits to pay for people to eat, provided the people are saddled with the responsibility of the debt. They're not stupid.
I think they know better than to start starving massive groups of people within the imperial core.
Do you think they'll have the power to stop it much longer?
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Do you think they’ll have the power to stop it much longer?
I don't really understand what you mean, or your conception of power. What exactly do you think it is that is out of their hands that would lead to mass starvation?
They are the beneficiaries of the current system, but fundamentally it's not them but Capitalism that has the wheel. And Capitalism will happily drive us off a cliff chasing the line.
Case in point, climate change looms over us and nothing substantial is getting done to prepare us, let alone stop it. There will be famines, this much is a given.
I disagree that the owners of media conglomerates, politicians and right-wing think tanks are not at the wheel
Their decision making is still constrained by the meta-game of capital. Conservatives may be "at the wheel", but they can no more make a decision that breaks from the profit lust than their liberal counterparts could. Even if would save their own hold on power, even to keep their own grandchildren from starving in the next Dustbowl.
It's why they're so darn furious. They've gotten everything they purport to want and the results, well, it's proof negative of everything they believe.
Elites know there’s no revolt happening any time soon.
We're seeing the kind of street action that hasn't happened since the Civil Rights Era. We're seeing a reversal in unionization trends after 40 years of declines. We're seeing internal revolts in both major political parties, as well as bolder third party movements cropping up with sizable constituencies.
A lot of this shit is still plagued by grift. A lot of it faces intense hostility from mass media. But show up at any political rally in the country and you'll see people in the crowd with a mix of fear and anticipation, waiting for shit to pop off. I remember a Dan Crenshaw even from a few years back during which the question "What should we do in the event of another Civil War?" came up entirely unironically. And the Uvalde shooting has legitimized a new round of hatred for the police.
This pressure isn't entirely new. But the agencies traditionally charged with keeping the lid on have been worn down, both in terms of competency and in raw numbers. Revolts are already happening. Elites are already losing control. The rot is deep and we all know it.
The title of this post seems to underestimate the degree to which the ownership class has total domination of the psyches in the imperial core.
Elites know there's no revolt happening any time soon. Jon Stewart is an idealist.
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I think they know better than to start starving massive groups of people within the imperial core. They are just fine with the government running huge deficits to pay for people to eat, provided the people are saddled with the responsibility of the debt. They're not stupid.
Do you think they'll have the power to stop it much longer?
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I don't really understand what you mean, or your conception of power. What exactly do you think it is that is out of their hands that would lead to mass starvation?
They are the beneficiaries of the current system, but fundamentally it's not them but Capitalism that has the wheel. And Capitalism will happily drive us off a cliff chasing the line.
Case in point, climate change looms over us and nothing substantial is getting done to prepare us, let alone stop it. There will be famines, this much is a given.
I disagree that the owners of media conglomerates, politicians and right-wing think tanks are not at the wheel.
I agree climate change will lead to famine and nothing is being done to prevent it, but it won't do so for the imperial core for many decades.
Their decision making is still constrained by the meta-game of capital. Conservatives may be "at the wheel", but they can no more make a decision that breaks from the profit lust than their liberal counterparts could. Even if would save their own hold on power, even to keep their own grandchildren from starving in the next Dustbowl.
It's why they're so darn furious. They've gotten everything they purport to want and the results, well, it's proof negative of everything they believe.
if that was the case then Victorian Britain would have established socialism almost immediately
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well Victorian britain had forced labor camps people chose to go to in order to avoid starving to death so it was pretty bad
Victorian Britain didn't have 200 million AR-15s.
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Every city that’s ever existed has been at most 3 days away from mass revolts at any given time
We're seeing the kind of street action that hasn't happened since the Civil Rights Era. We're seeing a reversal in unionization trends after 40 years of declines. We're seeing internal revolts in both major political parties, as well as bolder third party movements cropping up with sizable constituencies.
A lot of this shit is still plagued by grift. A lot of it faces intense hostility from mass media. But show up at any political rally in the country and you'll see people in the crowd with a mix of fear and anticipation, waiting for shit to pop off. I remember a Dan Crenshaw even from a few years back during which the question "What should we do in the event of another Civil War?" came up entirely unironically. And the Uvalde shooting has legitimized a new round of hatred for the police.
This pressure isn't entirely new. But the agencies traditionally charged with keeping the lid on have been worn down, both in terms of competency and in raw numbers. Revolts are already happening. Elites are already losing control. The rot is deep and we all know it.
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