Trump is simply the empire dropping any remaining pretense that it is anything other than an empire. It is now strong enough that it can do so, sort of like the pimp who has that poor runaway girl in a motel room far from home and far from anyone she knows, no money and no way out, so he no longer need pretend to be a nice guy anymore but something much more sinister.
Actually, I think the problem is the US is not strong but weak, and that is why it is flailing away militarily: as CH says "All empires, when they are dying, worship the idol of war."
Weak economically: having outsourced manufacturing at the expense of the working class to enrich the oligarchs.
Weak socially: split into two warring political tribes each of whom has zero respect/tolerance for the other.
Weak spiritually: the religious open mindness and tolerance implicit in the separation of Church and State has given way to apathetic atheism on the one hand and jingoistic pseudo-Christianity on the other.
Weak economically and socially: the US spends the most per capita on health care with the worst outcomes. A significant fraction of the population has no health care and medical expense related debt is far and away the leading cause of personal bankruptcy.
Religion is not spirituality. I agree that the U.S. is very spiritually unevolved, but it's also a religious fanatic country. Religion is evil, spirituality is good.
Your premise presupposes that the antithesis of "good" is evil. It also presupposes that spirituality has to evolve. Those are entirely your opinions. I think the adjective bad suffices... with no associated dogma or evolution required.
Hell, the Roman Empire worshiped war (literally!) from the first day of its existence and it ran for hundreds of years. In fact, one might say got less warlike, not more.
Axtually, the Roman Empire fits many, f not all of the categories you describe. I
Feral what's becoming clear is that Trump has gone on his drug binge, with his abduction of Maduro, which included dragging his wife along as he heads us back to the 20th century once again, that is drugs, here and there and everywhere and not that it is not a significant problem but it sure provides a diversion for a genocide and Israel's continued abuses. Abscond with Greenland, what the hell, another diversion from the horrors of the past two years and the slaughter and continued slaughter of tens of thousands of people. Old, and smiling Linsey Graham by Trump's side was a distraction in itself, if you saw that one. I think Trump is hauling our attention back to a previous century, that is the century before we wiped out the middle eastern countries seen as a threat to Israel, and no doubt a diversion from the predicted upcoming war with Iran.
True, but he is also creating a diversion from the horrors ahead in regard to Gaza. Netanyahu was trilled at his abduction of Maduro because Trump's upcoming agenda will create a smoke screen for that SOB and the horrors to come. Listen to news feed, very little about Gaza and less to come with drugs in our backyard and absconding with a head of state and Rubio by his side. He's going to take Greenland, right, but it's enough to have people shaking their heads and afraid for our future, and not that they shouldn't be.
In a functioning Republic, that "power" is delegated to the people. If that is abdicated via apathy and ignorance then, well, there is always the 1% that will gladly take those reins.
Representative democracy, (or a "functioning Republic") as a practical matter, is basically an exercise in passing the buck, in avoiding responsibility. Everyone in power claims to answer to and derive their authority from someone else, going ultimately back to "the people" who themselves do not directly exercise power, and who would find it difficult to exercise as a collective action problem, even if they had the formal authority to do so.
The technical term for this is a "beard". That is, a cover for the rulers to do what they want, even though the rulers themselves may be wildly unpopular. After all, your elected representatives approved this. If you don't like it, you can vote for a different carefully vetted corporate imperialist muppet, so until then, shut up and fall in line!
What this means is that real power is often in the hands of unelected bureaucrats, who typically don't even want to stand for election because they don't want the voters to know what their programs are, much less to exercise any oversight. Robert Moses is the classic example here.
Even that minimal level of scrutiny is too much for some, and real power is often exercised by people not formally part of any government structure. Corporate lobbyists or Robert Kagan come to mind.
“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.” Studying history, I I see no evidence of this. At best, it's been two steps forward, and three steps back.
For now. People of faith like me take the long view. The very long view, where Elijah, The Mahdi, Jesus, and unnamed others walk with us and heal our land.
I forget who made the statement, or close to the statement, that "We cannot be an empire abroad and a democracy at home." (It may have been Dan Ellsberg.) All the suffering we inflict, and have inflicted, upon Gaza, upon Iraq and Afghanistan, will come home to roost. We will suffer what we create.
I love to learn new words. Thank you, Mr. Hedges, for “onagrocracy,” a government by braying asses, my new word for the day. (I'm still struggling with the pronumciation.)
Also, hat's off to Mr. Fish. These may be dark times for many of us, but great fodder for the satire of good cartoonists. And Mr. Fish has risen to the occasion. I screenshot his work regularly, and post it all over my community.
Chris Hedges has been spot on for two decades. Like Robert Fisk, the late great journalist of the Middle East, Hedges is a historian of the present, steeped in the past. But our country is so degraded, so ignorant, that few have the capacity to understand his warnings.
Well, you outdid yourself today. You used a tool that an undereducated fool like me can relate to - history. The media has chosen to use "spectacle" in place of history. Spectacle moves the herd much faster than reading history. Governance is not about educating the herd; it is about moving the herd. Keep pushing that boulder up the mountain, Chris. There is value in the futile.
Why should Chris be urged to push that boulder up the mountain any more than anyone else? BTW, there can be value in failure, but I see no value in futility. By all means, enlighten us.
True, True, True. Very skillfully articulated Chris (as usual)....but fellow readers be not dismayed. We are in this current headlong fall from grace because some damn fearful lawyers failed to prosecute Trump according to U.S. Code 2383...because, in their estimation, there was "insufficient precedent".
What the Hell are we thinking? What are we afraid of afraid of??? Why don't we invent and construct a new fucking precedent!... and run all these selfish bastards out of town!
I think it’s fair to say that the Democratic Party is just as responsible for putting Trump in the White House as the Republican Party, and they did it not once, but twice. Thanks, Obama, both Clintons, Pelosi, Schumer et al.
This administration has shown the world that the US has sustained a total moral collapse. New growth will emerge from the destruction. We get to choose what that looks like. G_d willing, we will have learned something from this and will make better choices.
The pattern is set and locked. There will be no recovery, much less reform. The Republic has long since become The Empire. The only useful hope now is for a rapidly accelerated plunge into chaos and destruction. This empire is the dying cancer of the world and will precipitate the war that will destroy humanity.
The insight by George Santayana that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, rings as true today as it did when he wrote it. Empires in fatal decline resort to leaders who reflect the incoherent belief in simplistic and inchoate yearnings for a return to a past that never existed.
I don't spend a lot of time psychoanalyzing psychopaths, that is, people untethered from reality, it's easier to follow character and Trump is evil, because his deeds are evil. The mention of Nazi Brownshits which is similar to the Rapid Response Force (and ICE, etc) our President is attempting to establish should warn us away from dithering. We're facing (or not) deep trouble.
BTW you, Chalmers Johnson and Nader all denied 9/11 was a collaborative inside job because of the way Building #7 came down at 10:00PM when nothing hit it. That was the beginning, IMO of all this Nazification.
Trump is simply the empire dropping any remaining pretense that it is anything other than an empire. It is now strong enough that it can do so, sort of like the pimp who has that poor runaway girl in a motel room far from home and far from anyone she knows, no money and no way out, so he no longer need pretend to be a nice guy anymore but something much more sinister.
"It is now strong enough that it can do so..."
Actually, I think the problem is the US is not strong but weak, and that is why it is flailing away militarily: as CH says "All empires, when they are dying, worship the idol of war."
Weak economically: having outsourced manufacturing at the expense of the working class to enrich the oligarchs.
Weak socially: split into two warring political tribes each of whom has zero respect/tolerance for the other.
Weak spiritually: the religious open mindness and tolerance implicit in the separation of Church and State has given way to apathetic atheism on the one hand and jingoistic pseudo-Christianity on the other.
Weak economically and socially: the US spends the most per capita on health care with the worst outcomes. A significant fraction of the population has no health care and medical expense related debt is far and away the leading cause of personal bankruptcy.
I'm sure you can add your own items to the list..
Religion is not spirituality. I agree that the U.S. is very spiritually unevolved, but it's also a religious fanatic country. Religion is evil, spirituality is good.
Your premise presupposes that the antithesis of "good" is evil. It also presupposes that spirituality has to evolve. Those are entirely your opinions. I think the adjective bad suffices... with no associated dogma or evolution required.
Hell, the Roman Empire worshiped war (literally!) from the first day of its existence and it ran for hundreds of years. In fact, one might say got less warlike, not more.
Axtually, the Roman Empire fits many, f not all of the categories you describe. I
And I can think of plenty more likewise examples.
Feral Finster, you win the incisive metaphor award.
Feral what's becoming clear is that Trump has gone on his drug binge, with his abduction of Maduro, which included dragging his wife along as he heads us back to the 20th century once again, that is drugs, here and there and everywhere and not that it is not a significant problem but it sure provides a diversion for a genocide and Israel's continued abuses. Abscond with Greenland, what the hell, another diversion from the horrors of the past two years and the slaughter and continued slaughter of tens of thousands of people. Old, and smiling Linsey Graham by Trump's side was a distraction in itself, if you saw that one. I think Trump is hauling our attention back to a previous century, that is the century before we wiped out the middle eastern countries seen as a threat to Israel, and no doubt a diversion from the predicted upcoming war with Iran.
And let's not forget, diversion from those pesky Epstein Files.
No drugs necessary. He always was a bully.
True, but he is also creating a diversion from the horrors ahead in regard to Gaza. Netanyahu was trilled at his abduction of Maduro because Trump's upcoming agenda will create a smoke screen for that SOB and the horrors to come. Listen to news feed, very little about Gaza and less to come with drugs in our backyard and absconding with a head of state and Rubio by his side. He's going to take Greenland, right, but it's enough to have people shaking their heads and afraid for our future, and not that they shouldn't be.
P.S. You know if Cuba is on his hit list, well, it just smacks of the past, and he's got Rubio right by his side to make it a big deal.
For now.
I'd love you to be right, but nowhere is it written that there has to be a happy ending, and I don't see one here.
I’m a person of faith so, for me, it IS written. I agree with MLK: “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.”
Far as I can tell, the arc of the universe bends towards power.
For now! Social workers are hard-wired optimists. We have to be.
I'm a feral cat. Anything other than the coldest realism, and I'll end up dead or the subject of a medical experiment.
In a functioning Republic, that "power" is delegated to the people. If that is abdicated via apathy and ignorance then, well, there is always the 1% that will gladly take those reins.
Representative democracy, (or a "functioning Republic") as a practical matter, is basically an exercise in passing the buck, in avoiding responsibility. Everyone in power claims to answer to and derive their authority from someone else, going ultimately back to "the people" who themselves do not directly exercise power, and who would find it difficult to exercise as a collective action problem, even if they had the formal authority to do so.
The technical term for this is a "beard". That is, a cover for the rulers to do what they want, even though the rulers themselves may be wildly unpopular. After all, your elected representatives approved this. If you don't like it, you can vote for a different carefully vetted corporate imperialist muppet, so until then, shut up and fall in line!
What this means is that real power is often in the hands of unelected bureaucrats, who typically don't even want to stand for election because they don't want the voters to know what their programs are, much less to exercise any oversight. Robert Moses is the classic example here.
Even that minimal level of scrutiny is too much for some, and real power is often exercised by people not formally part of any government structure. Corporate lobbyists or Robert Kagan come to mind.
“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.” Studying history, I I see no evidence of this. At best, it's been two steps forward, and three steps back.
For now. People of faith like me take the long view. The very long view, where Elijah, The Mahdi, Jesus, and unnamed others walk with us and heal our land.
Why do they take so long? Do they enjoy watching suffering that happens in the meantime?
But a fairytales help you sleep at night... what can I say?
Brilliant, Chris. Thanks.
I forget who made the statement, or close to the statement, that "We cannot be an empire abroad and a democracy at home." (It may have been Dan Ellsberg.) All the suffering we inflict, and have inflicted, upon Gaza, upon Iraq and Afghanistan, will come home to roost. We will suffer what we create.
I love to learn new words. Thank you, Mr. Hedges, for “onagrocracy,” a government by braying asses, my new word for the day. (I'm still struggling with the pronumciation.)
Also, hat's off to Mr. Fish. These may be dark times for many of us, but great fodder for the satire of good cartoonists. And Mr. Fish has risen to the occasion. I screenshot his work regularly, and post it all over my community.
Mr. Fish is indeed excellent. I like your idea of screenshotting and posting his work locally.
The postings get ripped down a lot. I guess they touch a nerve among fascists.
They could, just as easily, be put back up a lot. That could also touch another nerve among fascists.
USA is now an international criminal organization masquerading as a nation-state.
Chris Hedges has been spot on for two decades. Like Robert Fisk, the late great journalist of the Middle East, Hedges is a historian of the present, steeped in the past. But our country is so degraded, so ignorant, that few have the capacity to understand his warnings.
Well, you outdid yourself today. You used a tool that an undereducated fool like me can relate to - history. The media has chosen to use "spectacle" in place of history. Spectacle moves the herd much faster than reading history. Governance is not about educating the herd; it is about moving the herd. Keep pushing that boulder up the mountain, Chris. There is value in the futile.
Why should Chris be urged to push that boulder up the mountain any more than anyone else? BTW, there can be value in failure, but I see no value in futility. By all means, enlighten us.
Thank you for all your work Mr hedges
True, True, True. Very skillfully articulated Chris (as usual)....but fellow readers be not dismayed. We are in this current headlong fall from grace because some damn fearful lawyers failed to prosecute Trump according to U.S. Code 2383...because, in their estimation, there was "insufficient precedent".
What the Hell are we thinking? What are we afraid of afraid of??? Why don't we invent and construct a new fucking precedent!... and run all these selfish bastards out of town!
B I N G O -- failure to prosecute and a totally compliant and useless Democratic Party that just stands by and watches the shit-show day after day.
I think it’s fair to say that the Democratic Party is just as responsible for putting Trump in the White House as the Republican Party, and they did it not once, but twice. Thanks, Obama, both Clintons, Pelosi, Schumer et al.
I think it it morally essential to expose the Blue party, if we are to have hope for a future .
"These architects of imperial folly are buffoons and killer clowns."
The chuckle I got from that line reassured me I haven't lost my sense of humour in spite of the dark forces of evil swirling all around me.
Or, maybe that chuckle arose out of a contagion from exposure to a world gone mad...
This administration has shown the world that the US has sustained a total moral collapse. New growth will emerge from the destruction. We get to choose what that looks like. G_d willing, we will have learned something from this and will make better choices.
Thank you mightily, Chris. Your perspective is needed now more than ever.
The pattern is set and locked. There will be no recovery, much less reform. The Republic has long since become The Empire. The only useful hope now is for a rapidly accelerated plunge into chaos and destruction. This empire is the dying cancer of the world and will precipitate the war that will destroy humanity.
The insight by George Santayana that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, rings as true today as it did when he wrote it. Empires in fatal decline resort to leaders who reflect the incoherent belief in simplistic and inchoate yearnings for a return to a past that never existed.
Grim truth. Thank you.
I don't spend a lot of time psychoanalyzing psychopaths, that is, people untethered from reality, it's easier to follow character and Trump is evil, because his deeds are evil. The mention of Nazi Brownshits which is similar to the Rapid Response Force (and ICE, etc) our President is attempting to establish should warn us away from dithering. We're facing (or not) deep trouble.
BTW you, Chalmers Johnson and Nader all denied 9/11 was a collaborative inside job because of the way Building #7 came down at 10:00PM when nothing hit it. That was the beginning, IMO of all this Nazification.
“The Fascist State expresses the will to exercise power and to command. -----"
----- Mussolini
The SLIDING fascist BAR of STATE CONTROL!
ALL STATES - including the U.S.