Geopolitics

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A discussion of geopolitical trends from history and today.

geopolitics (jē″ō-pŏl′ĭ-tĭks) noun

The study of the relationship among politics and geography, demography, and economics, especially with respect to the foreign policy of a nation.

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Americans are waking up. A grand reckoning awaits us | Robert Reich [Opinion] (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by HowRu68@lemmy.world to c/geopolitics@lemmy.world

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It has been a “fucking nightmare”. But sometimes a nation needs a nightmare before it can fully awaken to long-simmering crises.

The US had to come to this point. We couldn’t go on as we were, even under Democratic presidents. For 40 years, a narrow economic elite has been siphoning off ever more wealth and power.

I’m old enough to remember when the US had the largest and fastest-growing middle class in the world. We adhered to the basic bargain that if someone worked hard and played by the rules, they’d do better than their parents, and their children would do even better.

I remember when CEOs took home 20 times the pay of their workers, not 300 times. When members of Congress acted in the interests of their constituents rather than being bribed by campaign donations to do the bidding of big corporations and the super-wealthy. Trump has precipitated a long-overdue reckoning.

That reckoning has revealed the rot.

It has also revealed the suck-up cowardice of so many CEOs, billionaires, Wall Street bankers, media moguls, tech titans, Republican politicians and other so-called “leaders” who have stayed silent or actively sought to curry Trump’s favor.

Note: I think this trend holds true for many recent crises in other countries as well, directly or indirectly. We need to reveal the rot and all do our own reckoning.

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[–] theparadox@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Honestly, it's hard to believe. Since I started paying attention to politics I've been progressively more and more disgusted by what many other Americans are willing to accept and even champion. Clearly, people have to see what is happening and object to it!? Nope.

Trump absolutely slammed the accelerator on this disgust. Every goddamn, motherfucking week that has gone by, there has been some crazy fucking bullshit that nudges some absurdly resilient speck of my brain matter and makes me think "Alright, seriously, this has to be the breaking point. People will finally start to abandon the GOP en masse..." but it's a delusion. It doesn't happen. I don't know how the speck has somehow not become completely desensitized to it.

The fascists have finally built something capable of sustaining the falsehoods. The opposition is happy to make bank campaigning as the opposition party. Enough judges are willing to side with the powerful, with utter fucking disregard for precedent or the law. The media and the universities are afraid to challenge them. The influencers know they can get paid by billionaires to feed their garbage to the masses, and the masses will thank them and tip them for their grifts. Technology can mass produce convincing enough slop that nothing is real - it takes infinitely more effort to refute it than it does to create it. Anything real can just as easily be accused of being slop - it takes infinitely more effort to prove its truth than to accuse.

[–] BaroqueInMind@piefed.social 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The breaking point is when we have mass unemployment, like Star Trek style Bell Riots happening. And guess what type of voter a person who owns a lot of ammo or guns leans? Which side do you think the cops will take? Which side is going to be absolutely steamrolled in such a conflict?

[–] zd9@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

/r/liberalgunowners

/r/armedsocialists

[–] BaroqueInMind@piefed.social -2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Republicans and MAGA gun ownership overwhelmingly outnumbers liberal and socialist gun ownership by a high order or magnitude. Both would get stomped because MAGA made it culturally acceptable to openly own and consistently train with firearms.

A liberal keeping their overpriced ancient bolt-action wooden hunting rifle in their closet and never takes it to the range is going to be a simple loot drop for a morbidly obese Bubba shooting his $3k modern ergonomic magpul with full-auto bump-trigger and high power optics, who could shoot the dick off a fly from 300 meters away without getting off his mobility scooter.

[–] zd9@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

lol ok buddy, whatever you say

[–] IronBird@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Murdoch has spent the last 4-5 decades building the most powerful isolating propaganda machine in the world. a good 25-30% of the US lives an entirely different reality than the rest. and with how the US's fuck ass electoral system is setup, <25% of the population controls 75% of national power via the senate.