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.
You realize some americans dont want to be part of world domination right?
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?
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)”