183
The American Age Is Over (www.theatlantic.com)
submitted 1 week ago by [M] to c/collapse@slrpnk.net
141 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 40 points 1 week ago (96 children)

I mean it’s good that it’s ended, but the way it’s ending is far worse than most ways it could’ve.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 96 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 43 points 1 week ago (94 children)

    I think an end in this way was foreseeable. I think a segment of the left, particularly the authoritarian left, had a naïve notion that the end of the US empire would inevitability result in some form of class awareness instead of just nostalgic fascism and evangelical millenarianism.

    We'll need each other more than ever in the death throes.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 94 child comments
    •
  • [–] 20 points 1 week ago (8 children)

    Also that the Pax Americana was just propaganda. The war in Ukraine is pretty obvious. However the conflicts in the Sahel have also gotten a lot worse since the US has mostly withdrawn itself from that region. Sudan is especially bad(chemical warfare, mass starvation and so forth). The Congo conflict is also flaring up again.

    I would not be surprised if things get a lot worse in the near future.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago (6 children)

    Doesn't that sort of support Pax Americana being a real thing? If conflicts get worse when America withdraws?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago (4 children)

    I think that's their point, that a segment of the left thought pax americana was pure propaganda and it wasn't. It wasn't benevolent but for years it did keep global conflict tamped down.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    Oh right. I guess I really need to focus on my reading comprehension, its been shit for like two weeks now. This is not the first time in recent times that I have completely misunderstood something.

    Or maybe I have finally become as stupid as I always thought I was.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    Bro, like, go easy on yourself. The rest of the world is ready to eat you up. Don't join them in the feasting.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Hehe no worries. I just enjoy self deprecating humor :D I'm actually pretty happy with myself.

    Other than the crippling depression and anxiety issues. (:D)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago

    Once an empire has subjugated it's territory by force, there is often a time of "peace," enforced through domination and the elimination of any threats to the empire's authority. Of course, empires rise and fall, so it is inevitable that that peace will end, as the empire retracts to deal with internal problems. This generally leaves the subjugated territories in a position of chaos and instability, as the existing power structures no longer have foreign backing to prop them up.

    This is why, even the most moral and well-intended empire (if such a thing could exist) is still problematic on a fundamental, systemic level. I actually made a post about this concept a few years ago. Countries and governments need to be able to stand on their own two feet, backed more by domestic popular support than foreign powers. Of course, there are sometimes pragmatic compromises that have to be made, and no country can be fully isolated from "The Great Game." But I would hardly consider chaos and conflict coming from the retraction of the US empire as a reason to think that empire was a good thing. To me, it just shows that the geopolitical order has been dependent a single point of failure.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago

    There were far fewer deaths in western Europe in 1941-1943 than in 1944. Does that make the "Pax Nazi-Germanica" a good thing?

    When an empire built on exploitation collapses, it is almost always a good thing to remove that empire's puppets and replace them with representative governments. If those puppets desperately cling to power they no longer have the backing to maintain, then it's usually a good thing to remove them violently to end their exploitative ways.

    Thus an increase of violence during the collapse of an oppressive empire is both natural and probably a good thing in the long term.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago

    i think the 'authleft' (at this point the political compass as a phenomenon should be a gen-ed 3 credit-hour class btw) was mostly gen x and millennial doomers with a lapsed DSA membership who thought if America didn't decline we'd start a nuclear war. you experienced the optimistic slice of the terminally online slice who were fans of pretending to have read theory and then arguing with anarchists, please keep in mind that every group of terminally online people you are tempted to generalize should be treated as about 1% of their representative population, assuming posting on social media is their only hobby.

    no matter what set of ideological clothes you put on, the fall of America and rise of China was clear to anyone with open eyes as early as Obama and to schizos as early as Tienanmen square

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • load more comments (83 replies)
  • [–] 12 points 1 week ago

    Yeah… there was a graceful and positive way for this to occur at one point, but definitely not anymore, I think. The last couple years have been less “ripping the bandaid off” and more “stabbing oneself in the neck”.

    I know there will be some real benefits in a handful of contexts and regions, but overall, I shudder to imagine the implications of this rapid and violent abrogation and dismantling of Pax Americana.

    That’s not to say that I’m expressing “wooooo ‘MURICUH”, or pining for days of Cold War yore when we fucked around with fomenting coups in tons of countries - nothing of the sort, in fact. Simply pointing out that nobody fully comprehends what all the fallout from this tectonic geopolitical shift will ultimately encompass. The American global security/enforcement apparatus has underpinned the vast majority of the geopolitical and global economic context and (relative) stability since the end of WW2, and even moreso since the end of the Cold War, and now that we’re… uh… not doing that anymore… this is completely new territory. We are in the geopolitical Wild West now. It’s arguably too broad of a generalization to say “all bets are off”… but a lot of them actually are, in a meaningful sense.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent