From my quick skimming of Yugoslavian history, the period from the end of World War II and in particular the 1970s up to 1986 was actually frought with economic and ethnic tensions. One of the sections of the Wikipedia page is titled "Ethnic Tensions and Economic Crisis." [1]
People should also note that the Ukranian activities have been a long, unfolding process - there was the Orange Revolution there just 10 years ago. The recent events are not unanticipated.
I mention these b/c your post refutes the PP's belief that the U.S. is far from "downhill." I do not believe the U.S. is anywhere near "proper" :) conditions for things to go downhill. It is still wise for us to inhibit the growth of surveillance apparatus, but the U.S. is quite different from the war-torn former Communist republics. We have had some challenges like recessions, the Enron scandal, etc., but we are simply too large, too diverse and have too much momentum for damage in any part of our country to spread and threaten the entirety of it.
I believe the majority of the spying apparatus which has been uncovered has been for national and individual economic cheating and gaining military initiative rather than controlling the population. Gaining access to individuals of interest, however, is a handy fringe benefit, I imagine, and we should certainly curtail the growth of systems which abet this activity. We could start by not working for and not letting our friends work for, the architects and implementers of these systems! Of course it's not a problem for most of us in this particular sphere, because so many of us focus on delighting and creating value for customers instead! yay!
I'm not necessarily arguing with you, but the Wikipedia page was obviously written long after the Yugoslav wars. Hindsight is always 20/20 -- after any major event, we can go back and pick out the causes, but that doesn't mean the causes were apparent or even extraordinary at the time. It's just an effect of confirmation bias.
Suppose the parent was correct and the US was a decade from the same sort of chaos. In such a 2024 world, loads of people could write about the conditions that led up to the current conditions. The rise of the surveillance state, the beginnings of an anti-government movement in the Tea Party, those things would be obvious in 2024. However, if (as is more likely) 2024 America is a lot like 2014 America, no one is going to be writing those articles about how the rise of the surveillance state led to...not much.
I remember how the conflict started in Slovenia. It was initiated by the Yugoslav federal army, which was Serb-dominated. To think of an analogous sequence of events in the U.S., you'd need the U.S. army dominated by one faction, e.g. Texas. Then say California decides to secede because they are tired of giving money to support red states. Federal army comes in (or actually is already in) and starts shooting at state-level national guard and police. That's roughly what Slovenia was like.
It's a huge stretch because the U.S. doesn't really have ethnic factions like YU used to. And its army is not really Texas-controlled, or even if it were nobody would care. :-)
People should also note that the Ukranian activities have been a long, unfolding process - there was the Orange Revolution there just 10 years ago. The recent events are not unanticipated.
I mention these b/c your post refutes the PP's belief that the U.S. is far from "downhill." I do not believe the U.S. is anywhere near "proper" :) conditions for things to go downhill. It is still wise for us to inhibit the growth of surveillance apparatus, but the U.S. is quite different from the war-torn former Communist republics. We have had some challenges like recessions, the Enron scandal, etc., but we are simply too large, too diverse and have too much momentum for damage in any part of our country to spread and threaten the entirety of it.
I believe the majority of the spying apparatus which has been uncovered has been for national and individual economic cheating and gaining military initiative rather than controlling the population. Gaining access to individuals of interest, however, is a handy fringe benefit, I imagine, and we should certainly curtail the growth of systems which abet this activity. We could start by not working for and not letting our friends work for, the architects and implementers of these systems! Of course it's not a problem for most of us in this particular sphere, because so many of us focus on delighting and creating value for customers instead! yay!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia