I think it would be very tough for RWNJs to manage WMD-like destruction. The strange byproduct of the post-911 surveillance state is that, if the feds are looking for right-wing violence as hard as they have been looking for Islamic Radical violence, they will detect and disrupt that shit really fast. I mean, these groups have shitty opsec. It depends on the sheer volume. They should have no problem managing a couple dozen groups across the country, but if it becomes hundreds or thousands, then they would be overwhelmed and end up playing whack-a-mole.
I think this is an important point. Civil war and instability is bad for sustainably making things. It’s great for piracy. The amount of business today that is basically the second is not small.
Well, on all our parts… we could all be wrong, of course, and we can’t predict the future… but I do think that domestic white supremacist groups have been keeping careful watch about what groups abroad do, and vice versa.
Maybe, but can you imagine 100 coordinated OKC bombing type attacks? There isn’t any reason that something like that could not be pulled off in the right conditions.
That’s the thing - they finally have started to do that which has helped, but all it takes is a republican in office intervening in the autonomy of the DOJ and federal law enforcement to reorient it back towards Islamists and gangs.
The rules of acquisition are sort of a fun house mirror of the capitalist system. The old view that the markets love stability just doesn’t hold up under the cold light of reality. The entire capitalist system was built on violence and disruption of society to ensure some profit off of the wealth of other societies.
Look to the Spanish Civil War. The mass executions and other atrocities, the years of a fascist dictatorship under Franco are the model for what is likely to happen if the MAGA types win a full-fledged civil war. Not that I think that is very likely.
The thing about tech companies is that they make their money B2B. Even if their number of impressions increases, ad spend depends on people buying widgets. If people aren’t buying widgets, the widget companies can’t spend money on ads.
So physical consumption of goods does determine tech company’s bottom line. Too much chaos and disruption will still kill the golden goose for them.
But the right amount of chaos will help them. The chaos that exists NOW is helpful, and they could keep profiting off a greater amount of chaos…
Again, I think this is old style thinking about the markets. Markets thrive in disruptive times as much as peaceful times… The current environment of the globe should tell us that. How many places have been upended by these past few years (since at least 9/11) of disruptions in a variety of ways, and yet corporations have been making record breaking profits this whole time.
Exactly. And that is, one could argue, simply a continuation of the post-civil war violence attempting, largely successfully, to disenfranchise Black people…
That brings up another problem if there’s an American civil war or break-up: the USD’s reserve currency status goes away, and with it much of its buying power. I’m sure those corporations diversify how their wealth is denominated but a change that sudden would still be a major economic disaster for them and the global economy (in addition to the other non-economic disasters that would be priorities for normal humans).
ETA: California might be slightly ok in that regard if it goes its own way. Get your Calibucks now!
Maybe something like the Lebanon in the 1980’s. Several belligerent factions fighting each other and some foreign actors influencing the domestic situation.
