Implosion of the US

[Avocado]

50 years? 500 years? Ever?

It is unrealistic to expect a grass roots widespread rejection of capitalism in the US.

If so, then the overextension of capital and imperialism by the US can only be the way for the US to politically disintegrate and leave a void to be filled with either another aggressive dogmatic regime or by an alternative.

Personally I look at Greece on its knees/belly and despair at the reluctance of the people to take control. If this is a benchmark then the US has no chance of people power: it would only be by world war or civil/race war that the USGov would fall and allow an opportunity for another future.

In the end, I'm doubting a revolution will happen under normal circumstances and cite the other extreme events as the only possibilities.

[honest john's firing squad]

race war that the USGov would fall and allow an opportunity for another future.
lol.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Nothing says hope for the future quite like "race war".

[Jimmie Higgins]

50 years? 500 years? Ever?The implosion of the US just due to it's own problems is unlikely imo. More likely the US as undisputed world-power will end, and probably challenges to this position will increase rapidly in the very near future.

The US is militarily dominant but no longer the economic leader or even the only game in town for trade deals and so on. China is an industrial powerhouse but is constrained by the current division of the world under US hegemony. Other emerging powers such as Brazil and India will also cause increased competition and imperialist tiffs and eventually conflicts. Russia is also a major factor and is definitely trying to be more aggressive.


It is unrealistic to expect a grass roots widespread rejection of capitalism in the US.I think it's unrealistic not to expect this... maybe not in a measurement of months or a few years, but the US is not immune to the broader changes and increased struggle going on in the world.


If so, then the overextension of capital and imperialism by the US can only be the way for the US to politically disintegrate and leave a void to be filled with either another aggressive dogmatic regime or by an alternative.Regimes much more disfunctional than the US have held on for very long times.

Personally I look at Greece on its knees/belly and despair at the reluctance of the people to take control. If this is a benchmark then the US has no chance of people power: it would only be by world war or civil/race war that the USGov would fall and allow an opportunity for another future.


In the end, I'm doubting a revolution will happen under normal circumstances and cite the other extreme events as the only possibilities.The US may not be the most likely place for a revolution from our current vantage point, but revolutions and history is dynamic. Radicalism in the US has generally come in short and intense bursts - this is why US radicalism has always tended towards romantic ideas of spontaneity (like a lot of the new left in the 1960s). So I think it's pretty possible that a revolution might happen somewhere else which would alter politics in the US and lead to much different possibilities. The radicalism in the US of the 1930s was the result of the Russian Revolution; the Zapatistas helped inspire the anti-globalization politcs of the late 1990s and the Occupy movement is consciously inspired by the protests in Egypt, Spain and Greece. Yes these are currently small things, but if protests can inspire people in the US and help our struggle here, a real revolution would have a huge impact on working class and revolutionary consciousness.

But I think part of the reason the US left had been smaller than in some other places (though this decline in radical politics is more general) is that tendency towards organizing after and upsurge and relying on spontaneity alone. This means that after an upsurge in radicalism, the left-institutions that are formed are then around for the decline in radicalism and the result is that organizations or whatnot then adapt to decline or become reformist once the period of radicalism is over. The New Left succeeded in opening up more free-speech in universities but failed to relate their radicalism to class politics and then as a period of reaction set-in a lot of those radical liberals from SDS or revolutionaries ended up becoming academics but without any revolutionary struggle to relate to became fatalistic po-mo critical theorists or neo-marxists or whatnot. So I think that's why it's important for those of us who have already radicalized to be organizing and trying to build rank and file networks or areas of class struggle even when the prospects for a revolution don't seem too immediate. The more the already revolutionary workers can help set the foundation for future upsurges in class militancy and struggle, the better chance those struggles will have in being effective.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

50 years? 500 years? Ever?

It is unrealistic to expect a grass roots widespread rejection of capitalism in the US.

If so, then the overextension of capital and imperialism by the US can only be the way for the US to politically disintegrate and leave a void to be filled with either another aggressive dogmatic regime or by an alternative.

Personally I look at Greece on its knees/belly and despair at the reluctance of the people to take control. If this is a benchmark then the US has no chance of people power: it would only be by world war or civil/race war that the USGov would fall and allow an opportunity for another future.

In the end, I'm doubting a revolution will happen under normal circumstances and cite the other extreme events as the only possibilities.

Soon Comrade. The Rate of Profit is at a historical 2% in 2010 from 50% in 1850 in the USA. Capitalism is doomed, very soon, very soon...

[black magick hustla]

there is not going to be a "race war". if anything, as old white ppl keep dying off, racial tensions will go down in the US quite a bit.

[Avocado]

there is not going to be a "race war". if anything, as old white ppl keep dying off, racial tensions will go down in the US quite a bit.

I hope you are right:cool:

[Raúl Duke]

It is unrealistic to expect a grass roots widespread rejection of capitalism in the US.

If so, then the overextension of capital and imperialism by the US can only be the way for the US to politically disintegrate and leave a void to be filled with either another aggressive dogmatic regime or by an alternative.
The "over extension of capital," if by this includes current austerity measures, worsening economy, worse job prospects, and a higher income inequality would be a something that could create the conditions in which a "grassroot rejection" of capitalism in the US could arise.

Movements don't come out of thin air...a change in the social conditions, like the kind that you may be describing, in the US can realistically stimulate the rise of a popular anti-capitalist movement in the US

[Pretty Flaco]

i dont understand why this is in the history section. my 2 cents