To me, the majority of imperial apathy is based on a shoddy premise that could be disproven almost as soon as someone utters it: “Nothing will happen to me, so everything is fine.” For the entire existence of the United States, people have believed that horrible things could happen, and only the targets of those abusers would be affected. Unsurprisingly, the effects and the history of that cruelty have been creeping up on beneficiaries and sycophants for centuries. We are finally in the timeline where ignorance and bigotry are being exposed for the selfish ventures they are, and people are squirming as folks are connecting the dots that others were too comfortable to connect in the past.
Everyone mentions slavery, but there were more people who could not afford slavery than people who could, because paying for the existence of other people is expensive. Therefore, I would mention the effects of white resentment, because many people who could not afford to own slaves were reminded that they were poor. When some people get to do something that others cannot, there are unhealthy ways that such jealousy is expressed. It is important to remember that the poorer white populations got to watch wealthier white people do terrible things to people who were considered utterly powerless, and there was generally no relief from that tension. Such resentment carried throughout generations, and the people who could not even afford to have a weekly servant seethed in hatred against the symbol of power–Black people–they felt they were denied. Black people did not “simply” survive slavery, but the animosity of people who were prohibited from owning slaves, which I believe is one of the reasons that there were so many lynchings and other atrocities from those who were finally allowed to fulfill their violent fantasies.
Fast forward to today, and people are still thinking that unless there is a direct cause and effect, certain events have no relevance to them. Take the unreasonable rise of “artificial intelligence,” a system so littered with errors that it takes hours of human effort to clean up its mistakes. People were thrilled to have something do the work that was “easy” to do, while the “elites” greedily worked to eliminate the jobs to make an even more irrational amount of money. However, what happens when people lack jobs? They spend less money, they stay home, and they look for other things to do with their time other than work for employers who hate them. Now, instead of the system functioning the way it normally does, people have announced that they will not celebrate the holidays and people are looking to organize instead of consume. As I have often said, stupid people make money, and smart people solve problems; AI was not created to solve problems, and look at the mess it has already made.
Now there are the SNAP food benefits that the empire is maliciously cancelling during the holidays, which is one of the reasons that people are avoiding celebrating the holidays. Countless creators are going on social media cackling at how the “undeserving” will finally get cut off the government teat and be forced to work. Stupidly, those people have forgotten that most of the jobs that currently exist are service jobs, which I know because I have two customer service jobs. Businesses are just as dependent on SNAP benefits as their customers, and many are looking at the financial cost of being cruel to those without any income. Without customers to offer services, businesses will be looking to reduce hours or staff–or both–meaning that there will be even fewer consumers to whom employees can offer service. Instead of even maintaining a semblance of a social contract, the government will be destroying the entire socioecosystem based on the premise of “undeserving freeloaders.”
While it might be a conspiracy theory, it is being supposed that the violence of hunger is supposed to serve as a catalyst to enact martial law so that soldiers could move through the streets to commit uninhibited acts of violence. If true, even those who are “complying” will be considered collateral damage, leading to even more deaths and the destruction of possible social safety nets through mutual aid. See, everything affects everything, and there is no way to evade the consequences of one’s actions forever. It might be a better idea to start looking into a way to be accountable and reestablish balance so that people can see the ripple effects, since everything is connected.
Source for image is here.
Chasing A Dying Empire 