Don't worry, things can and will get much, much, much worse. Most Americans have a roof over their heads, plenty of corn syrup to fill their bellies and enough treats to keep themselves occupied. The US is definitely declining, but an outright collapse is still very far away.
They're going to keep using culture war bullshit as the president release for as long as possible. People who angry about trans athletes or critical race theory or judeo-bolchevism are not going too inconvenience their rulers.
The US produces gargantuan amounts of food. It's a massive net exporter. The idea that it would be unable to feed its army is ridiculous. It's the most agriculturally productive state in human history.
The US can grow water intensive crops in the middle of the driest and hottest desert on earth. It has access to incredible amounts of fresh water, far more land than its population needs to be supported, and the most advanced agricultural technology.
Just saying "environmental collapse" doesn't predict anything about the US's ability to grow food and what you're suggesting would need to be like a 50-75% drop in production. A mistake being made by some people in this thread is the idea that everything in the US is broken. But the US can economically dominant the world for a reason: it is a gargantuan economic and industrial powerhouse with a huge variety and quantity of natural resources and a massive population. None of that is going away. Hegemony will fade because it's a political disaster and China has all those same advantages with far better management, but the US isn't going to disappear any time soon.
If it were just as simple as growing food in a desert it would be fine, but the circumstances that allow us to do that are fragile and will be impacted by a lot of shit failing, not just one or two things that can be fixed by technology. The US can grow things in the desert now because it has the rest of the country's fertile resources to do so. It doesn't matter what technology the US has. It isn't just a matter of replacing bees with drones or installing irrigation. The soil will be dead. The water will become anaerobic. The types of plants we can grow will dwindle, and resulting monoculture will cause even more problems. It will be insanely expensive to do. Keep in mind that this is a country that relies on capitalism to survive, the only reason it can keep going is because there are resources that are easy to exploit. What's going to happen to businesses that can't get their cheap corn syrup anymore? While this is going on people will be starving, and more pandemics will be occurring, meaning the workforce needed to power this huge endeavor will be strained to its breaking point.
I think that the climate crisis has been so diluted by the media that people don't realize just how bad an ecological collapse is. I haven't even listed all the details because there would be too much for me to go through and I suck and writing. Either way, look at the Permian great dying and ask yourself if we can survive that as a species, let alone a country.
The way the US handled COVID-19 should give you an idea of how unprepared they are.
When things collapse they collapse slowly, then all at once. The major problem for the U.S. hegemonically is that almost all of our manufacturing input (including the MIC) comes from Chinese manufacturing. If that is disrupted we will immediately come into a late-Soviet economic crisis of 'lots of money with nothing to buy'. Almost all of our bolts, nuts, and industrial hardware comes from China, and there are no stockpiles of this stuff as it is all supply-chain managed to be immediate input-output to reduce costs. Good luck keeping your machines running if you don't have the hardware to keep up the maintenance.
If we don't fuck up our relationship with China, this whole thing can go on for decades before eventual ecological collapse, but if the blob actually decides to commit to an active conflict with China our goose will be cooked incredibly quickly, within a decade, because we do not have the labor inputs to replace that Chinese manufacturing power, and it is because there are zero engineers in the upper echelons of the corporate or political spheres (because we specifically enculturate them to be apolitically ambient right-wing) that this is even approaching a real possibility.
The major problem for the U.S. hegemonically is that almost all of our manufacturing input (including the MIC) comes from Chinese manufacturing... Almost all of our bolts, nuts, and industrial hardware comes from China.
I'm discussing this in a parallel chain right now, but this is overstating things a lot. The US makes a lot of industrial equipment domestically, from nuts and bolts to advanced engines. I tour these metal doohickey plants all the time - places pumping out everything from doorknobs and hammers to jet engine casings and extremely high precision valve systems. I live in a city that's thought of as a former industrial powerhouse, but the reality is it's still one of the premier manufacturing cities in the country - there's just far fewer workers involved. Much more light industry than heavy industry has been outsourced. It's especially overstated for MIC, which does almost all of its manufacturing, top to bottom, domestically. That's part of the reason for its political invulnerability - there's fifty factories pumping out parts for aircraft carriers and bombers in your district, Congressman.
Now, the US absolutely is dependent on China's manufacturing, and that need is most severe in some specific industries and supply chains. If that were cut off today, it would be a disaster economically, but not in our ability to build machines. It would be in our ability to provide clothes, toys, entertainment products, computers, etc - consumer goods. We'd keep pumping out fighter jets and cars and drilling equipment no problem (except for advanced smartboards! oops!). Under smart management (not happening) the US would be mandating onshoring light industry through enormous state investment.
Another thing we don’t really produce or stockpile is the necessary components for our electrical grid. In the last few years there have been several weather events that if they had gone very slightly differently would’ve meant large parts of the country without electricity for months.
Is America an industrial powerhouse? The impression I get is that America has deindustrialized and outsourced everything and is now heavily dependent on international supply chains.
Only China has a larger industrial capacity than the US. The difference varies year by year, but on average the US is making somewhere around 2/3 to 3/4 of what China does in dollar value. The US is not the global heart of industry that it once was, but it still produces huge amounts of raw materials, processed materials, and advanced technology. Same sort of ratio holds for all net exports, where the US is only second to China (but they are exporting very different stuff).
Good breakdown of what the US is producing, exporting, and importing: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/usa/
We as Marxists should not delude ourselves into thinking the US has nothing happening economically. Most people are just excluded from it.
I would be absolutely shocked if there are scraps of semi modern civilization left at the end of this century due to the impending horrors of climate change. We’re well into the sixth mass extinction, a few hundred years left for anything we can currently recognize is overly optimistic.
There will be droughts some places and floodings some others. The imperial core will repel refugees from those places. There is no shared human destiny in some climate apocalypse
I don't think the "US will collapse any day now" in the way anti China propaganda uses the term collapse. But the US is in the midst of its collapse. Decline is a better word to grasp the pace that this is occuring at but i think collapse is the appropriate word for what is happening.
It was the unipolar hegemon, and now it's still the biggest power overall, but there are other players. And African nations etc. have a choice of who to affiliate with; the US-led West isn't the only option.
The NSA stuff is crazy how much power it grants them.
The amount of information they can get on any chosen victim within seconds, they can know everything about you. And then they can use that to ruin your life.
This is leftist cope pretty much.
Some people say China will collapse imminently.
USA is strong in many ways.
Idk a lot of it is living here and looking around going “This can’t possibly continue like this indefinitely, right?”
Don't worry, things can and will get much, much, much worse. Most Americans have a roof over their heads, plenty of corn syrup to fill their bellies and enough treats to keep themselves occupied. The US is definitely declining, but an outright collapse is still very far away.
Mate, look at countries with way worse conditions than the US, like Haiti, yet shit has been continuing indefinitely
I do keep thinking about cost of living, there has to be some pressure release right? Some relief?
They're going to keep using culture war bullshit as the president release for as long as possible. People who angry about trans athletes or critical race theory or judeo-bolchevism are not going too inconvenience their rulers.
USA is in hyper late stage capitalism. It is anything, but strong
Is your movement recruiting and training over 60,000 fighting men per year? https://recruiting.army.mil/pao/facts_figures/
Does your movement control the international monetary system?
Does your movement tap the internet backbone?
I mean, a strong army is one thing, but they keep losing wars for one. Also like... you gotta feed that army.
The US produces gargantuan amounts of food. It's a massive net exporter. The idea that it would be unable to feed its army is ridiculous. It's the most agriculturally productive state in human history.
We are going through an environmental collapse. Food is not going to be easy very soon
The US can grow water intensive crops in the middle of the driest and hottest desert on earth. It has access to incredible amounts of fresh water, far more land than its population needs to be supported, and the most advanced agricultural technology.
Just saying "environmental collapse" doesn't predict anything about the US's ability to grow food and what you're suggesting would need to be like a 50-75% drop in production. A mistake being made by some people in this thread is the idea that everything in the US is broken. But the US can economically dominant the world for a reason: it is a gargantuan economic and industrial powerhouse with a huge variety and quantity of natural resources and a massive population. None of that is going away. Hegemony will fade because it's a political disaster and China has all those same advantages with far better management, but the US isn't going to disappear any time soon.
If it were just as simple as growing food in a desert it would be fine, but the circumstances that allow us to do that are fragile and will be impacted by a lot of shit failing, not just one or two things that can be fixed by technology. The US can grow things in the desert now because it has the rest of the country's fertile resources to do so. It doesn't matter what technology the US has. It isn't just a matter of replacing bees with drones or installing irrigation. The soil will be dead. The water will become anaerobic. The types of plants we can grow will dwindle, and resulting monoculture will cause even more problems. It will be insanely expensive to do. Keep in mind that this is a country that relies on capitalism to survive, the only reason it can keep going is because there are resources that are easy to exploit. What's going to happen to businesses that can't get their cheap corn syrup anymore? While this is going on people will be starving, and more pandemics will be occurring, meaning the workforce needed to power this huge endeavor will be strained to its breaking point.
I think that the climate crisis has been so diluted by the media that people don't realize just how bad an ecological collapse is. I haven't even listed all the details because there would be too much for me to go through and I suck and writing. Either way, look at the Permian great dying and ask yourself if we can survive that as a species, let alone a country.
The way the US handled COVID-19 should give you an idea of how unprepared they are.
Removed by mod
When things collapse they collapse slowly, then all at once. The major problem for the U.S. hegemonically is that almost all of our manufacturing input (including the MIC) comes from Chinese manufacturing. If that is disrupted we will immediately come into a late-Soviet economic crisis of 'lots of money with nothing to buy'. Almost all of our bolts, nuts, and industrial hardware comes from China, and there are no stockpiles of this stuff as it is all supply-chain managed to be immediate input-output to reduce costs. Good luck keeping your machines running if you don't have the hardware to keep up the maintenance.
If we don't fuck up our relationship with China, this whole thing can go on for decades before eventual ecological collapse, but if the blob actually decides to commit to an active conflict with China our goose will be cooked incredibly quickly, within a decade, because we do not have the labor inputs to replace that Chinese manufacturing power, and it is because there are zero engineers in the upper echelons of the corporate or political spheres (because we specifically enculturate them to be apolitically ambient right-wing) that this is even approaching a real possibility.
treadonme gets it
I'm discussing this in a parallel chain right now, but this is overstating things a lot. The US makes a lot of industrial equipment domestically, from nuts and bolts to advanced engines. I tour these metal doohickey plants all the time - places pumping out everything from doorknobs and hammers to jet engine casings and extremely high precision valve systems. I live in a city that's thought of as a former industrial powerhouse, but the reality is it's still one of the premier manufacturing cities in the country - there's just far fewer workers involved. Much more light industry than heavy industry has been outsourced. It's especially overstated for MIC, which does almost all of its manufacturing, top to bottom, domestically. That's part of the reason for its political invulnerability - there's fifty factories pumping out parts for aircraft carriers and bombers in your district, Congressman.
Now, the US absolutely is dependent on China's manufacturing, and that need is most severe in some specific industries and supply chains. If that were cut off today, it would be a disaster economically, but not in our ability to build machines. It would be in our ability to provide clothes, toys, entertainment products, computers, etc - consumer goods. We'd keep pumping out fighter jets and cars and drilling equipment no problem (except for advanced smartboards! oops!). Under smart management (not happening) the US would be mandating onshoring light industry through enormous state investment.
Another thing we don’t really produce or stockpile is the necessary components for our electrical grid. In the last few years there have been several weather events that if they had gone very slightly differently would’ve meant large parts of the country without electricity for months.
Is America an industrial powerhouse? The impression I get is that America has deindustrialized and outsourced everything and is now heavily dependent on international supply chains.
Only China has a larger industrial capacity than the US. The difference varies year by year, but on average the US is making somewhere around 2/3 to 3/4 of what China does in dollar value. The US is not the global heart of industry that it once was, but it still produces huge amounts of raw materials, processed materials, and advanced technology. Same sort of ratio holds for all net exports, where the US is only second to China (but they are exporting very different stuff).
Good breakdown of what the US is producing, exporting, and importing: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/usa/
We as Marxists should not delude ourselves into thinking the US has nothing happening economically. Most people are just excluded from it.
Your comment wounds like a history channel documentary from the 90s
Not saying u r right or wrong. Just like, you gave me nostalgia. Thanks man!
LOL fuck off spook
My movement? What are you talking about? What movement are you talking about?
it's rhetorical, I believe. Like "insert movement here."
It's actually in disco neofeudialism and will therefore last a few hundred years more before Brasil becomes a hegemonic power, read theory
I would be absolutely shocked if there are scraps of semi modern civilization left at the end of this century due to the impending horrors of climate change. We’re well into the sixth mass extinction, a few hundred years left for anything we can currently recognize is overly optimistic.
There will be droughts some places and floodings some others. The imperial core will repel refugees from those places. There is no shared human destiny in some climate apocalypse
I do agree that some form of eco-fascism as a xenophobic response to worsening quality of life is likely unavoidable.
I don't think the "US will collapse any day now" in the way anti China propaganda uses the term collapse. But the US is in the midst of its collapse. Decline is a better word to grasp the pace that this is occuring at but i think collapse is the appropriate word for what is happening.
That's fair.
It was the unipolar hegemon, and now it's still the biggest power overall, but there are other players. And African nations etc. have a choice of who to affiliate with; the US-led West isn't the only option.
Yeah, its the still biggest and the most dangerous power.
The NSA stuff is crazy how much power it grants them.
The amount of information they can get on any chosen victim within seconds, they can know everything about you. And then they can use that to ruin your life.
What are you then? Who told you to come post here?
You posted a question in askchapo, where comrades invite answers to their questions.... I am sorry if my answer made you upset.
He is so mad img
We don't always require an invitation to come in; that's a common misconception about us.