it’s like you believe you can tariff them expecting they won’t do the same. Why do you believe the rest of the world is not going to retaliate and why do you believe America can prosper without the rest of the world?
What’s the point of having a military alliance with countries you puts tariffs on? That’s unfriendly to say the least.
I realize that a lot of people casually brush it aside as a very evil, imperial sounding thing without understanding what a basic organizing model it has been for most of the world for 70 years, and how much their own little personal reality depends on it, whether they get that or not.
It has tremendous economic benefits for the ruling class. And since the ruling class is the direct enemy of the people, the more they benefit, the more it hurts us.
The only people who actually benefit from the empire are politicians and Raytheon executives. Please explain to me how the average person working in an Amazon warehouse benefitted from, how much their “personal reality depended on,” shit like the invasion of Afghanistan.
The currency that person earns has more buying power around the world because of American empire. This is why people enter the US illegally to trim hedges, for example: because the money they’ll earn is worth so much when they send it home to family.
BOOM! And just like that, even your extremely cherry picked example is easily handled.
And in the meantime, their tax money has to go to support it, and the military equipment that’s produced for the war is brought home and given to police, where it can be used against protests and labor organizing. All in the name of “cheaper foreign goods,” which also means that it won’t be as profitable to produce goods domestically. Fucking Reaganite, supply side economics. Hey, notice how in the time we’ve been doing the thing you want, wages have become completely divorced from productivity and everything’s getting more expensive anyway?
“BOOM!” wow you really owned me, yeah you really showed me how stupid I am for thinking we shouldn’t kill millions of random brown people in the Middle East. Calling neoliberals like you the moderate wing of fascism is being way too generous, you’re literally just fascists.
Also, calling an Amazon worker “a cherry picked example” is so fucking revealing about which class you belong to. If you know a hundred employed people, on average, one of them would be currently working at Amazon - unless, of course, you don’t interact with the poors.
Got me, I’m the CEO of Raytheon. Yes, in fact, you were completely owned. And yes, in fact, an Amazon worker is a loaded representation of “the people.” But that’s fine, because I already pointed out how the impoverished continue to risk life and limb to come here for even worse jobs than that. Do you want to argue about whether your example was cherry picked so you can continue to ignore how thoroughly it was put down?
Is it? Amazon and Walmart are the 2 biggest employers in the U.S. Like, there’s a big Walmart in almost every meaningful city or town, and on the outskirts of that town are usually Amazon Warehouses. Walmart, Amazon, Target, Home Depo, (Lowes is Walmart), etc. I feel like these really are representative of “the people”, or “the working man” in the U.S.
It’s a perfectly fine example and I answered it directly. I just think it was especially chosen to be a worker on the lower end, at a notoriously inhumane employer, in order to present a challenge to me in showing how that person could possibly be benefitting from the US dominated world order. But that’s fine. Better than fine, because I still had a direct and completely valid answer to how America’s global empire benefits that person. If anything, that example helped me, because if there’s an answer for Amazon warehouse workers, then there’s pretty much an answer for everybody.
And my answer has gone completely ignored while we all, me included, bitch about whether it’s a cherry picked case. It doesn’t matter.
You fucking liar. I responded to your answer and completely refuted it, you failed to acknowlede my counterarguments whatsoever, blindly declaring that you had “won” just because you responded to my question at all.
This was my response, since you’re pretending it doesn’t exist:
“And in the meantime, their tax money has to go to support it, and the military equipment that’s produced for the war is brought home and given to police, where it can be used against protests and labor organizing. All in the name of “cheaper foreign goods,” which also means that it won’t be as profitable to produce goods domestically. Fucking Reaganite, supply side economics. Hey, notice how in the time we’ve been doing the thing you want, wages have become completely divorced from productivity and everything’s getting more expensive anyway?”
You are so incredibly privileged to think that Amazon was cherry picked. I chose it because it’s one of the largest employers, and because I worked there. And as a matter of fact, it was better than the jobs I had previously. There are a lot of people in this country making a lot less money than Amazon workers, but you can’t even imagine it.
God, I hope you find up on the receiving end of what you support so bad. You deserve it.
I’m going to ignore your profanity and ad hominems again (you are very angry and that’s not my problem) and actually move on to why I say that every American is helped by American empire.
I’m seeing a lot of uninformed fools welcome the end of the US led order, saying, not unlike you that who cares - it only helps the wealthy. This is foolish and arrogant and naive.
Every Amazon warehouse worker owns a phone assembled by impoverished Asian hands, and one of the reasons the phones flow one direction and the poverty flows the other is American dominance and the dominance of the dollar particularly.
You think I’m privileged because I’m not a warehouse worker but I’m saying the warehouse workers of the US are still privileged by global standards, and absolutely stand to lose that privilege when American empire ends. You’re so intent to cry your narrative about the wealthy of the US lording over the rest of the US that you ignore the fact we’re all privileged.
Maybe we all should lose that and that’s all for the best. I don’t know of any reason we should be so anointed. But it’s the height of stupid self pity to bleat that you don’t care if the dollar crashes because the ruling class! As long as you’re paid in dollars, you have a lot to lose here.
To sum up: maybe you have more in common with the ruling class than you think. Maybe you’re throwing stones inside a glass house. This is why you’re so angry, I think: because you clutch the narrative SO tightly that you’re actually the embattled underdog, when 90% of the people in this world would kill to be in your shoes. You clutch this image of me as a billionaire fascist when I’m an immigrant’s kid, you complete buffoon. People hate having their dearest held narratives ripped away. Not sorry.
You are not the CEO of Raytheon, you’re a smug petite-bourgeois who stupidly thinks your interests have more in common with the CEO of Raytheon than with the people of Afghanistan. You’ve probably sold your soul for their blood money and become a loyal fascist ghoul, or if you haven’t yet, it’s what you aspire to.
It absolutely is not. It’s an extremely common job. The second biggest employer in the US next to Walmart.
It wasn’t put down at all, least of all not thoroughly. You just act like it was because you’re a smug asshole who thinks you’re better than everyone because you align with the “smart” establishment, completely ignoring actual reality and material class interests.
I hope some day you find yourself on the receiving end of what you support.
Ah and now with the name calling. And yeah you tried to argue more about the Amazon worker being a cherry pick when it doesn’t matter at all.
Listen kid, I’m all for not killing brown people by the millions too. I’m glad we agree on that.
Where we don’t agree, and where you’ve been utterly put in your place beyond question, is on the topic of whether only CEOs benefit from American empire. All Americans do. Period. That’s the only topic here. Me saying it’s now closed is not smugness: it’s a fact. You can call me more names if it makes you feel better.
The level of smugness is completely off the charts.
You literally didn’t respond to any of my counterarguments at all. Not a single word. All you did was lay out an opening position and instantly declare victory, over and over.
If you support American imperialism, then yes you are. You can pretend to have a problem with the more grotesque elements necessary to maintain your goals all you like, your criticism is purely rhetorical, and even then extremely soft.
“I only support US global hegemony, but I’m opposed to the bad things done to promote US global hegemony (only after they’re already done and can no longer be changed, of course)”
I haven’t expressed any preferences or allegiances any way. All I argued with was the contention that only the “ruling class” benefit from American dominated world order. That’s plainly false.
Next thing I know you’re wailing about killing brown people and trying to pivot the topic and telling me I’m all for imperialism and an asshole. Yes I’m ignoring your bullshit tangents and ad hominem tantrums, because that’s what they are.
You made a claim. It’s wrong. If anyone here is too full of themselves it’s you, because you are demonstrably incapable of recognizing when you are plainly wrong, and will yell expletives at anyone who dares point out that you are.