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One thing that’s been interesting (in a Ralp-Wiggins-esque “I’m in danger!” type way) to watch over the last few years is all the “end of history” types re-lear
by roughly 1y ago
One thing that’s been interesting (in a Ralp-Wiggins-esque “I’m in danger!” type way) to watch over the last few years is all the “end of history” types re-learning that Mao was right and that economic might only translates into real power when you use it to buy guns. Europe spent a decade trying to tie Russia into the global economy only to find all that cheap energy meant that when Russia walked into the Ukraine, they were on the wrong side of the ledger to throw their weight around. In the US, our oligarchs didn’t realize how much they were relying on the fact that US government officials believed the same lies about the power of capital that they did, and were caught entirely off guard when Trump walked in, picked up the gun on the table, pointed it at them, and said “I’ll take your wallet, please.”
There’s a whole generation of neoliberals learning Littlefinger’s lesson these days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifaRhL95HUM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifaRhL95HUM - it’s a shame the rest of us are stuck on this ride with them.
- lenerdenator 1y agoTo be fair, life's better when you don't have to rely on the guns. If you're willing to work together to make the pie bigger for everyone, peacefully, you get further. Which is why you have to occasionally knock the people willing to exploit the peaceful order, off.
- lazide 1y agoWhich takes guns. And back at square 1.
- otterley 1y agoI don’t know that it takes guns. If we moved to, say, ranked-choice voting and a multi-party system, the more extreme elements of our country would probably be sidelined.
- nebula8804 1y agoDid you see the bill introduced the other day? H.R.3040 - To prohibit the use of ranked choice voting in elections for Federal office. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3040 https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3040
- otterley 1y agoI did not. Talk about a blatant attempt to power grab, though. Hopefully it never makes it out of committee.
- lenerdenator 1y agoIt still takes them. You need to present it as a choice: you either bring about ranked-choice voting and a wider range of political parties so that issues can be dealt with peacefully, or, face real consequences for attempts to block the efforts at peace.
- anigbrowl 1y agoAnd if they feel sufficiently shut out of the political process they'll rely on their guns. If you think the US is immune from insurgent dynamics, please read more widely. I think you'd find it particularly worthwhile to look into the collapse of Yugoslavia, which also had a federal system.
- otterley 1y agoWell, we did have a civil war some time ago! But given the gross imbalance of military capability between the state and the citizen, I’m not worried today about a successful violent overthrow of the USA.
- anigbrowl 1y agoThat was equally true in Yugoslavia, and indeed in Afghanistan. I think it's extremely naive to assume the US is immune from this. When I told people 10-15 years ago that I thought the US was ripe for and vulnerable to autocratic political leadership nobody took it seriously either, yet here we are.
- bregma 1y agoA few smaller guns used judiciously will achieve that purpose. You don't need everyone using a tank in a Mexican standoff just to have peace.
- lazide 1y agoglances at the MAD stockpile I’m not sure that is really true, eh?
- roughly 1y agoCompletely agree. But I think something lost in this is how much violence the "end of history" state of affairs increasingly relied on to keep that "peaceful" context in place - among the reasons Russia walked into the Ukraine was that Russia considered the Ukraine to be its buffer against NATO, which it viewed as genuinely an existential threat. The Middle East has been in a state of war for 20 years now, the US drug wars in Central and South America have had absolutely disastrous consequences, and the level of environmental destruction we've outsourced to other parts of the world would preclude a lot of our current economic practices if we tried to do them at home. Even in the US, the Mangione killing highlighted this - UHC was the absolute top in denying health care claims, an activity with actual deaths associated with it. Just because the power centers aren't threatened doesn't mean there's not violence present in the system. In the west, we've relied a lot on the fact that the majority of the people with guns have typically been further out in the periphery than us, and all those guns have been pointed at other people on our behalf - our peace is not everyone's peace.
- lenerdenator 1y agoAnd the violence of the next system is going to be far, far greater. But the others will have their peace.
- geoka9 1y agoA nit: "Ukraine" (not "the Ukraine). https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18233844 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18233844