mhoye22h ago
During the first few weeks of Operation Desert Storm we'd routinely see footage of entire battalions of Iraqi soldiers walking up to the first American GI they could find waving white flags, believing that the worst thing that could happen to them at the hands of the American military was a shower, an MRE and a pack of cigarettes. The mythos of America as just actor was largely intact then, and that mythos saved a lot of American lives. And then Abu Grahib happened, and that all ended.
Show threadmhoye

Suddenly the prospect of surrendering yourself to American custody meant maybe getting tortured to death and maybe getting sexually humiliated as part of the process; everyone saw it was better to die fighting. In days the entire tide of that conflict in that whole region changed; there was no recovering from it.

We're looking at the long unwinding of that story here today, everywhere. Nobody can or will believe in Americans, or even the idea of America, again. That's over now.

Apr 8 at 1:38amWeb
Show threadmhoye21h ago

I think the only real question right now is how the rest of the world manages the unwinding of dying empires. What does America make, these days? Obsolete cars, "innovative" financial instruments, rented software, GPUs, guns and corn. Did I miss anything?

I sometimes wonder what Britain minus London looks like on a spreadsheet. What's the all-money side of the "only then will you realize that you can't eat money" coin?

Show threadmhoye21h ago

Alanis Obomsawin once, often paraphrased, said "When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money."

I, naively, believe money is useful. But once the last haven is shuttered, once the last rent is sought, once the last hoards of wealth are taxed.... who are you - what is left - when money is not enough to make money?

Show threadmhoye8h ago
Somewhat longer form blogpost here: https://exple.tive.org/blarg/2026/04/08/the-decline/
The Decline | blarg

Show thread64 Islands Aroha Cooperative21h ago
@mhoye hate. hate and fear, important domestic products in usa and certain oil-rich overseas territories, now spilling over into the wider global market
Show threadclew8h ago

That’s even worse than the 1920s line that “the Balkans produce more history than can be consumed domestically and have turned to export”.

@airshipper @mhoye

Show threadQue21h ago
@mhoye this is what I often tell people about living in California is that we can eat the food we grow here.
Show threadclew8h ago

defend it; New Jersey also was originally a garden. And then water table contamination and ruburban overspill.

@BabblingGeek @mhoye

Show threadTheriac20h ago
@mhoye
A lot of Scots want shot of Westminster because of how badly it manages our country's resources so you may get to see partially what a Londonless UK looks like fairly soon.
Show threadChris Siebenmann19h ago

@mhoye Hot and cynical take: America makes dollars. That may stop mattering¹, but there aren't any great replacements so far AFAIK and there's a lot of inertia in international trade settlement and so on.

¹ and there are some senior Americans who effectively want it to stop doing that. Another word for 'making dollars' is 'a persistent trade deficit'.

Show threadRycochet16h ago
@mhoye The Uk is what you get when kings and the could be kings of the banking sector control an economy for centuries and regularly exercise the power of veto over every economic policy. There's only the occasional blip where they consider the other bits as they're afraid of being shot in basements by peasants who want to give communism a go.