You are wage slaves who have a higher standard of living than the other wage slaves that are exploited in order to enable the availability of cheap consumer goods which keep the people docile.
This is about the English (and written in 1882) but now also applies to the USA:
Engels wrote: “You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general. There is no workers’ party here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of England’s monopoly of the world market and the colonies.”
This is an expert from Lenin: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism which I think should be read prior to Settlers if only to disarm the reader from defensiveness. Sakai didn’t invent the idea of the bourgeoisie proletariat, he was building on the ideas of others.
PlaidBaron@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I dont understand the logic though so please help me here. I have lived in the US and do have a good idea of how shitty things are (or were even back then). Things will not improve by inaction and are objectively getting worse. So yes, you risk a lot by acting but if you dont your life will continue to get worse and you’ll end up homeless anyway? Or worse.
No one is coming to save you. You live in the most powerful country in the world. Nobody is going to come in and liberate you. Your only option is to save yourself.
Nobody is claiming it will be easy, simple, or clean. But what other option is left? This is why the rest of us are baffled. Especially since the US has built up the reputation of having a rebellious spirit. Where is that spirit now?
PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I can make this simple: would you be the first to step in front of the firing squad when you have no idea if others will join you in rushing it?
We are not a united people here.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 hours ago
This might be it, because you do pay change for the better with blood, the history is filled with it. The army is brought in, it goes overboard and they open fire on protesters, in every country everywhere throughout history, before people realise what’s happening.
Good luck Americans, this seems to be your turn.
PlaidBaron@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I know that. No one is saying you as an individual need to do this right now. We are saying you need to organize. I think this is a cultural misunderstanding.
When I say ‘you’ I am not referring to an individual. Im referring to you as a people. Maybe that misunderstanding is evidence of the hyper individualism your country has subtly snuck into your lives that prevents you (again a collective you) from doing so.
PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 1 day ago
What did you think I meant by, “we are not a united people”?
You can’t organize peace with people who idealize a fascist society
SarahValentine@pawb.social 1 day ago
Yeah, because they’re all too busy enacting fascism in their own country to do anything about the growing US threat except lick boots.
PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Seriously. The global ultra rich are all working from the same basic playbook. It’s just happening here first due to the extreme concentration of wealth.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 hours ago
Strategically, the best option other nations have to solve the American Problem is to prepare to weather the storm and let the country collapse by itself.
Historically what’s going on now with the US is a pretty straightforward “fall of the Empire” scenario (the biggest Empires invariably fall from internal problems as the generations that created the Empire are replaced by generations which know nothing more than wealth extraction) and interfering with that is a great way to be targetted by the falling empire’s elites and suffer the side-effects of that empire’s death throes.
Looking from the outside, even if Trump is stopped, the problem will at best be delayed since the other party of the Power Duopoly that controls America is also deeply corrupt and done their part in the decay of that country for the last couple of decades (by weakening unions, deregulating Finance, unconditionally saving big companies, having Financial and Economic policies which reward Rentierism above Work, and so on) - Trump is not the malaise that’s killing America, he’s a symptom of that malaise and removing him will not solve the problem, will not stop another one like him to take over in the future and will not alter the trendof decay, only the speed of it.
PlaidBaron@lemmy.world 1 day ago
We are thinking about that. In fact, as per OPs post, many are acting on it.
SarahValentine@pawb.social 1 day ago
No, I meant this part:
“Nobody is going to save you” is such a petty, disgusting thing to say when the people you’re looking down on are being turned into the cogs of a machine that has the entire world in its sights. The world needs to save itself from us.