This was hands down my favorite bit from the article:
Some even maintain that every dollar spent on Ukraine is a waste of taxpayer money that could be better used on domestic priorities, such as combating the spread of fentanyl.
These arguments are misguided and dangerous.
How dare they suggest that money would be better spent addressing domestic problems than on a proxy war half way across the world. That’s misguided and dangerous thinking.
I also love how the article takes it for granted that US must prop up puppet regimes in Asia as if that’s somehow in the interest of the people living in US.
I mean, that’s probably not entirely false, working class life in the USA would probably be even more unbearable without access to artificially cheap commodities courtesy of imperialism. The treats must flow.
There are actually direct negative impacts on the working class due to imperialism because it’s moving jobs out of US and driving wages down. Increased profits that companies get through cheap labour in other countries isn’t passed on to consumers either. Sneakers that cost 50 bucks when they were made in US by workers who were getting paid 10 bucks an hour still cost 50 bucks when they’re made by workers in Indonesia making a few cents an hour. The real winners are the shareholders.
Yeah that makes sense, but at this point, losing control over its colonies isn’t going to cause wages in the US to increase, will it? If they’re not exploiting the global south, doesn’t that just mean they have to exploit people at home even harder to try to make up the losses?
Losing control over the colonies will put a lot more power into the hands of the workers in US. The whole scheme with globalization is that you move production out of the country and then people in that country have no say over the working conditions and pay where things are produced. However, when production happens domestically then workers can strike, protest, and so on.
Yes, though a hot war with China probably means the US being completely cut off from Chinese imports. We saw what the COVID supply shocks were like, imagine that but much much worse.