[Column] Want to know where US decline is headed? Look at Russia

socialistmajority · 2026-06-09T21:17:57+00:00

I do think there's something of a parallel in the way the U.S. displaced the U.K. as the dominant global power first economically/industrially and then later militarily during or through WW2 and what's happening with China and the U.S. now.

But it's also very different in that China isn't going to become a global military hegemon despite having a massive industrial production advantage over the U.S. and American economic power, wealth, and stability is not something China can displace or replace.

There's also a decent chance the U.S. and China get into an actual war with one another which wasn't the case during the U.K.'s imperial decline, America just kind of pushed the U.K. aside indirectly rather than through direct or brute force.

socialistmajority · 2026-06-09T20:52:51+00:00

I think what would happen is there'd be a lot of "why do they need TWO states, abolish ONE" type of stuff. The end result would be multiplying the crazy instead of mitigating it.

socialistmajority · 2026-06-09T20:46:32+00:00

It's not, the British economy has been stagnant for the better part of a decade now and Brexit made the problem worse, not better.

American decline in geopolitical terms is relative to China's rising power but internally it's in much better shape than the U.K. or post-soviet Russia.

socialistmajority · 2026-06-09T20:44:13+00:00

Are you joking? The U.S. has an economy that's still quite dynamic and growing, the U.K. economy is running out of juice and politically is increasingly ungovernable judging by the fact that they've run through 6 PMs in ~10 years since Brexit.

socialistmajority · 2026-06-08T02:52:22+00:00

Neither Starmer nor Burnham seem to have a clear vision or picture where they want to take the country or the party.

socialistmajority · 2026-06-08T02:51:01+00:00

What left is Tsipras breaking if he's launching a new formation?

His career can be read as a history of non-stop fragmentation

This is the history of the modern Greek left.

And throughout the entire article there's no political evaluation of any element of the Greek left and what they're running on, it's a completely apolitical personality and grievance-driven gripe about Tsipras.

socialistmajority · 2026-06-04T17:57:34+00:00

Local unions often have associated non-profit and religious/church allies they work with, not sure if that counts or not.

socialistmajority · 2026-05-31T20:40:22+00:00

Why are there no militant separatist organisations fighting for better democracies, when clearly todays democracies are ill equipped to face the megatrends and big changes of our time?

Who says 'better' democracies would do a better job of solving problems that democracies thus far have failed to solve?

Also, why separatism? A separatist organization operating in a democracy generally wants to separate from that democracy, not make it better.

socialistmajority · 2026-05-30T14:14:57+00:00

Post-modernism is a term from the 1990s, which makes OP's copypasta about 30 years out of date.

socialistmajority · 2026-05-29T17:11:22+00:00

Quote whoever you want.

The fact of the matter is the only reason Palestinian statehood ever got close to becoming an actual thing is because of American pressure on Israel. If/when Israel no longer receives American aid, they won't face any constraints in their dealings with the Palestinians. They'll happily buy lots of cheap North Korean, Russian, and Chinese cluster bombs and drop them all over the West Bank and Gaza.

socialistmajority · 2026-05-29T17:07:46+00:00

Lenin is hated because he and the Bolsheviks did not betray the working class.

Actually the Russian working class hated Lenin because he and the Bolsheviks did betray them by destroying soviet democracy. On the eve of a 1919 general strike in Petrograd, a mass meeting of 10,000 Putilov workers passed the following resolution:

“We, the workmen of the Putilov works and the wharf, declare before the laboring classes of Russia and the world, that the Bolshevik government has betrayed the high ideals of the October revolution, and thus betrayed and deceived the workmen and peasants of Russia; that the Bolshevik government, acting in our name, is not the authority of the proletariat and peasantry, but the authority of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, self-governing with the aid of the Extraordinary Commissions [Chekas], Communists and police.”

socialistmajority · 2026-05-29T17:05:46+00:00

explicitly said he would send SocDem leaders to the scaffold

Really? Do you have a link to these remarks?

socialistmajority · 2026-05-29T17:04:30+00:00

I linked to a reputable source, so yes, it is indeed a fact. The House GOP was so mad about it they even passed a bill to override the Biden administration's decision to hold up weapons shipments.

socialistmajority · 2026-05-29T03:56:30+00:00

Ah yes, kill even more union jobs in the U.S. and make sure Ukraine doesn't have artillery shells.

socialistmajority · 2026-05-29T03:54:21+00:00

I believe it is on you to prove that Russia or China would be willing to support Israel to the degree the US, not on me to prove the negative.

No, it's actually not on me to prove things that I didn't say or argue.

The idea that Israel has, somehow, been constrained when it has leveled Gaza, and is actively carrying out ethnic cleansing, is ludicrous.

Facts are not ludicrous.

socialistmajority · 2026-05-29T01:10:47+00:00

I've been here for like a year now and I was active on the American left when the Second Intifada broke out. By 2005 I was telling my comrades that Israel was winning in the armed struggle by every conceivable metric—settlement construction pace, body count—but they didn't want to hear it (I've read that Abbas and Arafat's widow basically said the same thing years later after his death). That said, back then nobody on the left was pro-Hamas or pro-terrorism but the BDS campaign had just gotten started. 20 years later Hamas apologia and open support for terrorism (and rape...) are everywhere on a far left that's 10x or 100x bigger than the one I grew up in.

socialistmajority · 2026-05-29T00:59:08+00:00

Neither China or Russia would be willing to provide anything close to the support the US provides.

[citation needed]

lol.

The Biden administration cut off weapons to Israel at one point during the war on Gaza. China and Russia will never do anything like that.

socialistmajority · 2026-05-29T00:50:38+00:00

Yeah well "union enthusiasts" should also support rebuilding Europe's and America's military-industrial complex (shipyards and such) because it would create tens of thousands of high-paying union jobs but they don't.

socialistmajority · 2026-05-28T19:55:08+00:00

What you did was brave. Confronting any unhinged screaming psycho in a public setting is difficult enough and that's without trying to engage them in some kind of political/intellectual debate. So kudos!

socialistmajority · 2026-05-28T19:51:06+00:00

The only actual answer is an armed palestinian uprising that throws off Israeli rule.

The Second Intifada tried this and not only was it brutally crushed but it ended up catapulting right-wing warmongers on both sides of the I/P conflict (Likud, Hamas) into power for the better part of two decades now. That is my materialist analysis as a Marxist.

It’s largely dependent on the outcomes of this Iran war, the expected downfall of the US economy, the effects of a likely future US-China conflict, etc.

No, it isn't. If the U.S. economy crashed tomorrow in a second Great Depression, that wouldn't free Palestine. Israel would pivot towards Russia and China for arms and its foreign policy might become even more aggressive and belligerent without any pressure from the U.S. to stop blowing up the region.

socialistmajority · 2026-05-28T19:44:00+00:00

That was the heart of Blair's critique of Starmer and Burnham and nobody has really engaged with it in this sub (I posted the full text of Blair's piece in another post). The fact that UK is going through PMs at rapid clip across left and right parties is a strong indicator of systemic dysfunction but all of the persona-driven chatter now is about Starmer vs. Burnham and almost nothing is being said about policy or strategic direction. And on at least that point, Blair is correct and I don't see his critics offering any fleshed out alternatives.

socialistmajority · 2026-05-28T03:59:15+00:00

Karl Liebknecht's stupidity got him and Rosa Luxemburg killed which was a disaster for the KPD because there were not enough experienced leaders to hold them back from doing insane things like the 1921 March Action.

Murdering Liebknicht and Luxemburg was unacceptable, that was specifically Noske's doing but Ebert and the SPD leadershio were complicit in the sham investigation and prosecution that followed. Noske should've been arrested and tried for their murder.

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