Even though we had a little bit of warning about federation, I think we’re off to a rocky start. Maybe we should have compiled a list of things we think that may make other people very upset. That way they can quickly get to know what we’re about and go hide in a social media bubble if it scares them.
I figure I’d start with a good one. America deserved 9/11. I’m burying the lede a bit with that one. I don’t think random acts of violence really accomplish much and I don’t think randos, albeit imperial core randos, should die. But this wasn’t a random act of violence, was it?
There’s a little something called Foucault’s Boomerang. Basically it’s the tools, means, and experiments carried out by imperial countries tend to make their way back home one way or another. Military gear gets tried out on the battlefield then next thing you know cops at home have the same equipment. It also works for cause and effect. America did 9/11 to itself.
After WWII America courted the monarchy of Saudi Arabia, who had some really “interesting” religious ideas at the time, to ensure a source of oil. Oil was very important to American manufacturing and the war effort. Our domestic reserves helped us get through WWII. We needed more. So the US decided to look the other way on Saudi foreign policy while they ensured us first dibs on the oil. The UK also made deals on building their infrastructure and finance needs, to which the US eventually pushed them of the back rooms where such deals were made. But that’s another story.
The US also backed anti-Soviet/anti-Communist groups in the Middle-East as they had in other parts of the world. This meant giving aide and weapons and training to those groups. In exchange they would beat up all the communists and pro-soviet people in their country and keep the borders open for US trade.
Not to “yadda yadda yadda” through a lot of interesting history but the US made a lot of enemies and ruined former alliances in these places because we valued the exploitation of their resources more than the actual relationships formed. Once the Soviets were gone, we could just do what we wanted to them and there was nobody left to oppose us.
So our former (and some current) friends stabbed us in the back. The imperialism boomeranged back home and we got a terrorist attack on US soil.
The people who died didn’t particularly deserve it but people die when an imperial power does imperialism. That’s part of why it’s bad. Imperialism will never benefit the common person, it will only hurt us in the end. You best believe all this funding, weapons, and shit going into Ukraine will come back on us too.
What are some other real-ass takes for our visitors who need disillusioning?
Liberalism and fascism are two sides of the same coin.
Capitalism requires endless growth, endless expansion: the economic engine that drives it is profit. It must constantly take more. But the world is not infinite. Once capital has nowhere else to expand, the only way it can increase profits is by intensifying exploitation within its territories: unions are busted, wages are depressed, costs of living rise. The working class must give more and get less. To facilitate this, capital funnels money into police, passes ever more draconian laws, restricts franchise, defunds public services, and redirects working class anger against suitable scapegoats - minorities who do not have the population, money, or political power to fight back. The result is widespread political persecution, pogroms, impoverishment, decay of infrastructure except the tools of oppression: features characteristic of imperial periphery countries arising in the imperial core.
Aime Cesaire describes this process aptly in his brilliant work Discourse on Colonialism:
CW for descriptions of colonial violence, including sexual violence
Michael Novick likewise explains this in Fascism And What Is Coming:
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It’s an excellent essay and short enough to read in an hour or so.
Also a gorgeous audiobook is fairly easy to find of it, meaning gorgeous to your ears. I first listened before reading it: tried to get a good outline before digging in that way because it felt important enough. Would recommend that if you have the time, ability, and energy
https://redsails.org/really-existing-fascism/
I don’t know how often I can link this, but I genuinely just find it the most encapsulating and important take on fascism since Cesaire. (Might be exaggerating, but it’s so digestible and very thorough).
Fantastic article.