• star_wraith [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      It would definitely be a huge improvement for the global south. And yes, oppressed communities in the former USA would probably suffer. I don't know how to synthesize these two statements though, and it feels wrong to try and do utilitarianism to calculate which one is worse, so idk.

      • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        You're assuming the new four Americas wouldn't cooperate to maintain the same military and still oppress the global south.

          • SerLava [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            Solution: don't do it

            The New Confederacy would still have nukes, and there would be nothing to stop the apocalyptic evangelicals from taking over government.

            • Sonnenvogel [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              Exactly, the southern US states alone would still be able to absolutely dominate Latin America and they absolutely would.

                • Sonnenvogel [he/him]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  President AMLO, my government is letting us freeze and starve in the cold, while the politicians go on luxury vacations. Please, my state is yearning for freedom.

                • Sonnenvogel [he/him]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  Well, i really dont know who would win in that scenario but Texas alone has a much bigger economy than Mexico(and probably an even bigger military industry) also i think the amount of sick freaks that would kill and die just to invade another country for nationalistic reasons is probably higher in texas than in mexico (in relative numbers atleast, in absolute numbers its maybe tied idk)

        • star_wraith [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          "Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make"

            • YungTheorist [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              It’s a false dichotomy to assume you either save the global south or save local BIPOC groups and that it’s impossible to do both

                • ferristriangle [he/him]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  Keeping the United States as it currently exists harms minority communities.

                • YungTheorist [he/him]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  I agree. It isn’t impossible to have a communist USA and it is in fact a good outcome

                    • YungTheorist [he/him]
                      ·
                      4 years ago

                      Unfortunately, yes. But we don’t have to have the country disintegrate into a Balkanized region (which would affect minorities the worst) in order to protect the people in the south

              • ElGosso [he/him]
                ·
                4 years ago

                Yes? It's a thought experiment. I thought we were all clear on that.

            • star_wraith [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              Right, I agree with you. But I'm also admitting I'm not sure what's the right way to think through the global implications or what a comprehensive solution looks like. I don't think we can ignore the harm imperialism thrusts on the world, either.

              • YungTheorist [he/him]
                ·
                edit-2
                4 years ago

                No one is ignoring the harm imperialism thrusts upon the world

            • Nounverb [none/use name]
              ·
              4 years ago

              Nah balkanization is good. You seriously think black ppl would just roll over to whites? If anything, fuck a lib who wants to keep this shit together

        • YungTheorist [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I think that we should have solutions that don’t results in hundreds of millions suffering

      • longhorn617 [any]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        A country that is just the American South would institute a mandatory draft literally launch an invasion of Cuba like day 1.

    • CyborgMarx [any, any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Anti-Americanism without wanting to build up actual communities

      Well that's just an impossible directive to follow, so my BIPOC ass is just gonna stick with Anti-Americanism thank you very much

      • SteveHasBunker [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Yes “white leftists” inside the US probably can’t be relied on to win the battle against fascism in a balkanized US. But you say white leftist like people outside of the imperial core across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and India wouldn’t love for the US to wipe itself from the map.

        What about the non-white ones?

  • ShoutyMcSocialism [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I like how right wingers think things like Texas secession is some big fucking own. Yeah sure, go ahead and break up the American empire. I am definitely going to care bro.

    • GnastyGnuts [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Balkanization would be good for the rest of the world, but the individual smaller states it breaks into would be fucking horrifying places to exist in. Chud countries doing their own white terrors and neolib wastelands run by Amazon.

        • GnastyGnuts [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Actually yeah, I'm being overly optimistic about the benefit of the US State collapsing while many of the people here are still largely business and military cultists. They'd probably recreate the same overall military presence but more unstable and potentially more belligerent than what we see now.

      • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Chud countries doing their own white terrors and neolib wastelands run by Amazon.

        And it's frankly unbelievable that shit wouldn't spill over into Latin America at least. All the U.S. military hardware wouldn't just disappear.

        • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          All the U.S. military hardware wouldn’t just disappear.

          A lot of it would quite quickly fall into disrepair due to funding issues and the fact that factories for components are deliberately spread out between states for pork reasons.

          Basically it'll be like how the Russian federation isn't nearly the military power that the USSR was.

          • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
            ·
            4 years ago

            A lot of it would fall into disrepair, but a balkanized U.S. would presumably still involve trade between its constituent parts, and there would be ample opportunities for political leaders to fearmonger. A good chunk would keep chugging or get rebuilt.

            • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              I agree, but going back to the collapse of the USSR, the CIS states still traded heavily with each other, but a lot of stuff fell into disrepair.

              The big difference I can foresee is that there won't be one clear strongest successor nation (like the Russian federation was to the USSR) so all the new countries will hang onto any nukes that they hold.

  • asaharyev [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Heartland

    Someone email this to Nima Shirazi, he'll be furious.

      • asaharyev [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-130-heartland-middle-america-and-us-medias-vaguely-nostalgic-racialized-code-for-white-grievance

    • AtomPunk [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      The Heartland can be wherever you want it to be. It’s not real anyway

  • blastboi123 [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Balkanization would be a disaster for poor people and minorities in this country - half the states would basically just reinstitute slavery

  • BeamBrain [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I think that's more people than wanted to break up the USSR when they held their referendum

  • thelastaxolotl [he/him]
    hexagon
    ·
    4 years ago

    i never really understood why when people do a balkanized USA they normally revive the CSA again, i dont think african americans in the south would like to be with the racist evangelicals and Texas would see them as loosers and go alone also i think Big Virginia would be a thing

  • CrimsonSage [any]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Lol at the Chuds thinking the south could make it on it's own. I dont mean to do the Lib red state shit, but the fact remains that most southern states are net negative tax states, and even ones that are positive like texas have little infrastructure and terrible local governance. Without the thin web that is the federal government these regions would quickly become completely dysfunctional and semi habitable. And this doesnt even get into the South West and rockies which only exist as habitable areas because of federal spending on legacy infrastructure.

    • garbology [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      the South West and rockies

      California would absolutely go to war with inland states over water rights to the Colorado river.

      • CrimsonSage [any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Oh 100% and probably win because they have extant resources that they could import as well as some infrastructure to handle it.

  • Totalscrotalimplosio [he/him,any]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Yes, but only if it's the one that somehow includes NC in the Socialist State of New England or whatever it was called. I will fight every person between me and the border tooth and fucking nail before I end up in the hellhole that would be CSA part II.

    • pissing_badger [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      People usually imagine balkanization as just separating existing states with the same borders, especially with stuff like "the south", but realistically these regions would breakdown even further into smaller sub-regions like tidewater, Appalachia, gulf, etc. I always believed that NC would more likely be grouped up with Virginia and parts of eastern-Kentucky/Tennessee rather than further south. Which ya know, still not ideal, but better than being with SC and the gulf lol.

  • Ziegebock [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I love how people can think that the United States isn't a real democracy and is actually controlled by moneyed and well organized interests, which is correct, and then also think that things would be better if the country be divided into smaller states that would be invariably controlled by the same interests. Like if you think that the Democrats are the politicians enthralled by finance and tech capital who are ever at odds with the Republicans who are the politicians in hoc to finance and extractive capital, what does an independent West Coast Democracy look like and what does Texas look like? Capitalists who have decided to stop competing with each other for the moment and consolidate their power regionally before trying to do imperialism against each other again. Sounds bad, folks.