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An American city has been without power for 2 weeks, unacceptable. (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/workreform@lemmy.world
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[–] 24 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The government is no longer serving everyone. It's not even serving the red states that voted for the current regime. It's serving the ultra wealthy. It's even openly pay to play: You get access to Trump by bribing him.

Also the regime is incompetent and despises expertise, so not only can they not negotiate with Iran, but they can't operate the US armed forces to engage Iran with military force. The administration serves as an adverse force multiplier. And is wrecking the lives and integrity of the units.

The US is no longer a nation. It's a pile of debt and assets that are being financialized, picked apart like buzzards would a carcass.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

    The government is no longer serving everyone.

    When did it ever?

    The US is no longer a nation.

    Most nations have historically operated like this. Hell, it's the foundation of feudal societies. Oversized robber-baronies which violently extract wealth from their residents, for the aggrandizement of the aristocracy. If you go back to the old school 19th century Anarchist literature, it's this view of government that underpins their belief in the abolition of state systems.

    But to claim the US has stopped being a nation because it has shit domestic policy? I just don't know what kind of definition of "nation" you're working with.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago* (1 child)

    There's a propagandized version of a "nation" as "a country with functional and supportive social systems," which I think most people subscribe to. Whether or not their country every really qualified as a "nation" by that metric is debatable.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago

    There’s a propagandized version of a “nation” as “a country with functional and supportive social systems,”

    Or, more generically, a set of borders that define the reach of a national bureaucracy, sure. I don't think anyone can argue that the US has borders. And I certainly don't think it can be argued that we lack a bureaucracy.

    A lot of the argument boils down to whether or not you like what the current bureaucracy is doing within and around those borders. Which, hey, don't get me wrong. Death to America. But it's one thing to say the country should die and quite another to suggest it's already dead.

    As soon as the election churns some of our legislative and state-exec bureaucrats, you're going to see a liberal renaissance in patriotic nationalism coming up against a sudden Neo-Confederate fervor in the Usual Suspect territories. Expect the streets to be full of parading chuds screaming "We want our country back!" the week after the polls close. This happens damned near every election cycle. But it's little more than a social release valve. Half the people screaming about succession and civil war and Revolution 2: Electric Boogaloo are going to be penthouse neocons in bright blue cities and Silicon Valley soar sports.

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  • [–] 8 points 23 hours ago*

    It feels like the worst parts of Las Vegas and "Big Box Retail." Everything is being parted out to private equity, and it's not for us people (or even U.S people) anymore.

    I use Vegas as an example because all of the fun family-ish attractions and locals' incentives have all but been eradicated, replaced with celebrity-DJ'd highrise night/day clubs and luxury shopping that seem to pander to the most egregious ends of wealthy foreign money. (Probably where a lot of shady deals go down, too.)

    The other end is conventions, of course. If you wanna woo a guy who knows a guy to give you your boss's boss's boss a government contract for kill-drones, it probably happens here.

    The majority of residents' place in this new structure is as servants, hawking luxury goods and experiences they themselves couldn't possibly hope to attain because they're actively shut out.

    A little tangent here, but my point was: Feels like the entire country is following this ruinous pattern.

    The rich are their own country, and if they have it their way, we are but their footstools across the globe.

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