Post B5Z3UsNeU8GF95VogK by artemis@dice.camp
(DIR) More posts by artemis@dice.camp
(DIR) Post #B5Z3UqTFaLYDDs7G88 by artemis@dice.camp
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Maybe I'm wrong about some things when it comes to what the long term effects of this Iran debacle are. What do I really know about anything?But I can't help feeling that the world is shifting, & no one in the US political class is even willing to think about that.
(DIR) Post #B5Z3UqfIrXBxpFksuu by eestileib@tech.lgbt
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@artemis I don't think the US political class even realizes that about half of the country wants to see the US completely humiliated here. Hegseth aside, most Americans don't seem to want to see (particularly white) people *die*, but they also seem pretty ok with data centers and five star hotels getting blown up, and Iran completely depantsing the US diplomatically. I have never seen a national mood like this in the US, ever, and of course it's taboo to discuss on the vry srs nooz. I'm telling people "we had no idea going into 1989 that the Warsaw pact was going to disappear, or that in 1991 the USSR was going to disappear".Trump is even more addled than Yeltsin, and insane on top of it. The US government's financials were on fumes before this war. The US is a continental empire based on a cultivated sense of imperial mission and universal civic membership. ICE killed the idea of universal civic membership, and this war is destroying the will to empire. What's left, March Madness?
(DIR) Post #B5Z3Uqri7P7IRjYnFw by artemis@dice.camp
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You & I know (because we are familiar with the concept of "history") that every so often international power shifts & things realign. A nation that used to be considered one of the mightiest in the world may lose influence. Another nation may suddenly gain relevance & power. Sometimes new states are formed or old ones collapse.Things change. Things always change. Nothing lasts forever.But the folks in Washington? They really don't seem to believe that's possible.
(DIR) Post #B5Z3UrIIWYNrmC01hI by artemis@dice.camp
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Even if the US comes out of this in better shape than I predict, change is still going to happen. The state of affairs now will not be the same until the end of time.Realignments happen. Powers rise & fall.But it doesn't seem to me like the people "in charge" are aware of that. They focus on their domestic squabbles over power & never for a second consider whether everything is going to stay as it is & whether that power will always be available to them.
(DIR) Post #B5Z3UrsoKnahbR5Bbs by artemis@dice.camp
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I suspect some of this is what happens when the top political "leadership" gets old after many comfortable decades in power.Chuck Schumer doesn't think his world can or will ever change. It's not a thing he seriously considers.Truly that's what was so surreal about the Biden presidency. It's like everyone was pretending we were living in a different world.
(DIR) Post #B5Z3UsNeU8GF95VogK by artemis@dice.camp
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It's weird to me because here I am in my 30s wondering why people in their 70s haven't yet fucking figured out that sometimes CHANGE HAPPENS or that living as though nothing will ever change is denial.You'd think living a long time would teach you something, but if you live a long time while ALSO getting progressively more isolated from consequences & from other people, maybe you really don't learn that just because things are a certain way NOW doesn't mean they'll be that way forever.
(DIR) Post #B5Z3UsuyUEuqoR6Qca by artemis@dice.camp
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Maybe I'm really off-base here. Maybe I'm overselling the significance of these events.I still don't see why the assumption is that the way things worked YESTERDAY is the way they will work today & every other day after until the end of time.It really feels like in the US both media & politicians are stuck in 2015, the moment it all "diverged", unable to process the realities of the world NOW, relying instead on what they thought it to be then.
(DIR) Post #B5Z3UtLCuhtq7nNNVg by artemis@dice.camp
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Change is a universal constant.Everything changes. Some things change faster than others, but *everything* changes.Octavia Butler talks about "shaping change", because here's the deal:You cannot freeze time & keep everything the same forever, but if you understand that change WILL happen, you can be an active participant in what direction that change takes.So it's good to poke our heads up & look around every now again & ask "what's different? What's changing?"
(DIR) Post #B5Z3UtiFX2KbHG9mQS by artemis@dice.camp
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I think sometimes when we see something happen over & over again we think "ok, but nothing's changing there. It's the same as it ever was."But it is not. Every time that thing happens, a counter goes up. That's one more time it happened...effects are cumulative."The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over & over & expecting the same result"? Sometimes I think it's really ridiculous to do the same thing over & over & believe the repetition could never lead to a new result.
(DIR) Post #B5Z3UuFDYShcvVa6oS by artemis@dice.camp
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Sometimes the answer to "what changed this time?" is just "you did the same thing for the 100th time. You reached the tolerable limit. SOMETHING had to give."
(DIR) Post #B5Z3UuhZr1O6LSql16 by artemis@dice.camp
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You can't step into the same river twice, & you can't live in 2015. You can try to live as though events that have happened didn't happen, but other people are not participating in that "reality".Actions have consequences. Events have outcomes.