yogthos

yup

I think that's exactly what it is, Japan is in a bad place economically now and they're really worried about what Trump will do to them.

I imagine it won't be so much dismantling as purging all opposition and stuffing agencies with loyalists.

For sure, and I do agree with you that it is important to recognize the failings of the socialist countries.

I find it's also important to be realistic about what social systems can accomplish. They ultimately create selection pressures within society that encourage people to act in a certain way. In my opinion, the core job of a system is to ensure that there is a positive alignment between individual interest and the interest of community as a whole. However, this isn't magically going to eliminate negative behaviors such as corruption, and so on. These things are present in every human society, and socialist societies aren't immune from these problems. What I tend to focus on is the overall direction of travel, and I think that's where we can be optimistic right now.

I can't believe anybody expected that to work. Western politicians, analysts, and diplomats were exposed as being utterly incompetent throughout the war.

Sure, I'm not disagreeing with your critique. I'm just pointing out that the direction of travel is still overall positive. We don't live in a perfect world, and socialist countries don't always act in a principled way. However, the power of the empire is diminishing and the Global Majority finally has a chance for self determination. This should not be understated.

that's why Alphabet was created

          Alphabet
          /      \
     Google     Evil

I think it's too early to tell which way things go right now. Mask off fascism is certainly a possibility and a lot of the same trends that happened in Germany in the 30s, such as union busting, jailing labor organizers, and so on, could certainly be on the table.

I think they're going to pick their battles, and they're not going to go to open war with the west over Gaza. However, it's pretty clear that BRICS has been very effective at curtailing western power and influence globally. I don't see anything the west can do to change these trends.

I don't entirely agree here, I'd argue that BRICS is directly helping insulate countries from these predators. We're also seeing them increasingly turning on each other. My expectation is that we'll start seeing the west cannibalize itself going forward.

Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that the collapse of the American system is not a linear decline but a transformation of accumulated quantitative failures into a qualitatively new phase of irreversible crisis. Decades of neglected contradictions have now reached a critical mass threatening to overwhelm the system’s capacity to function.

For years, the US has deferred addressing foundational issues, treating them as isolated problems rather than interconnected symptoms of a failing system. Some examples include stagnant wages, over a trillion in student debt, and over half of households living paycheck to paycheck. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives US infrastructure a C- rating, with failures like the 2021 Texas power grid collapse becoming increasingly common. Life expectancy continues to decline, and there's a mental health crisis exacerbated by privatized healthcare. Public schools are severely underfunded, and so on. Meanwhile, prison and military budgets continue to balloon. These are not discrete issues but compounding stressors that amplify each other.

It seems that the convergence of these problems has finally passed a threshold where the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Corporate profiteering and wage stagnation render basic needs like housing and healthcare unaffordable. Trust in government is at historic lows as a result of the standard of living collapsing. Polarization and alienation drive far-right radicalization, while mutual aid networks attempt to replace state support.

This is no longer business as usual, it's a phase change where the contradictions of the system can no longer be contained by reforms or rhetoric. The qualitative shift triggers a feedback loop that causes disintegration to continue to accelerate. Opportunists like Biden and Trump exploit desperation, channelling rage into nihilistic policies that deepen inequality. The Jan 6 riots show that large numbers of people increasingly see the whole system as being illegitimate. Meanwhile, corporations continue to double down on exploitation, union busting, and tax evasion that further immiserate the working class. The "solutions" that the policy makers come up with, like austerity and increased privatization, only worsen these problems.

I'd argue that the US has reached a point of no return. Unlike past crises like 2008 recession or stagflation in the 70s, there is no New Deal or neoliberal pivot that can restore stability. The scale of collapse requires radical restructuring, which the capitalist system is structurally incapable of delivering.

The empire is in a terminal phase where collapse fuels further collapse. The only exit is fundamental change that requires dismantling of the capitalist order. The transformation from quantity to quality is complete, what emerges next depends on who seizes the moment.

China is committed to using renewable and clean energy for everything. Putting tariffs on the dirty energy sources, not only are they sticking the USA in the gut, they're also accelerating the switch-over to clean energy by making dirty energy sources expensive. I think this is an absolute win for China.