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Thank you for being so articulate! I know these things but you are able to bring them forward in clear and concise language with excellent examples and history. You are a treasure!

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China and Russia no longer care what the U.S. thinks or does. They are busy building their own Eurasian empire free of a weaponized, weakening dollar, economic sanctions, seizure of overseas assets, and nauseatingly, hypocritical moral lectures. They will be offering economic growth and development free of political interference in their domestic policies. Looks like India, Brazil, Hungary, Iran, Venezuela and other countries will be joining. The days of the unipolar world are rapidly drawing to a close.

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I feel much as i think many Germans felt prior to the Nazi party taking power and probably as they felt for a few years after they did. I have watched the slow destruction of our country for forty years now. Watched it gathering speed, watched as the infrastructure of the country, the schools, the colleges, the industrial base, well, everything was sacrificed for the rich who had only one desire to get richer. The poor, the working class, the middle class, all have been sacrificed to the elites and the rich and those who desire power.

The great tragedy of this is that it is a no brainer that supporting the health of the country and the people within it will lead to endless money and power for those at the top. But the real metaphor for it all is a hostile corporate take over. Take over, gut the assets, send the money abroad, sell the shattered shell. That is what the "Reagan revolution" brought us. And then Clinton made it worse by his sell out of the democratic base, and then Obama put the nails in the coffin by supporting wall street instead of main street. The sad thing is, if the politicians had turned inward and focused on what the people of this country needed, if they had kept honor and compassion and the simple desire to make sure our country was healthy, they would have kept international respect and power. Instead, without the USSR to make us more honorable, just to show we weren't them, the disguise came off and what was under the mask was all that was left.

So, reading this article only confirms things I have seen building for four decades. All i can see in front of us is collapse, riots, hunger, fear, and grief. The country can be rebuilt but it will take a very long time. it will take turning inward and doing pretty much the same thing that FDR did but on a much larger scale. it will mean becoming a far different country than we are now. But i am not sure the christian dominionists will give us the time to do that. in this shattered country, in the riots and the food scarcity and all that fear, they will have the chance they have been wanting for so long. regrettably i don't see any sunshine in our future for a very long time.

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Nervos belli, pecuniam infinatam. - Marcus Tullius Cicero

And that will be our undoing. It was, for example, Sparta's. The vast majority of the world is not joining the US and our vassals in attacking Russia economically. When speaking of the Ukraine, you say that Chomsky was the only one to offer a solution to the Ukraine problem. Forgive me, please, but bullshit. Putin was behind the Normandy Format and the MInsk agreements. The United States was behind their sabotage. A short trip down memory lane might be instructive. The old SovU collapses and a number of the old SSRs chose to have an escape. The Ukraine and Crimea are two that chose to do that. The Ukraine illegally annexes Crimea and goes off on a Russian hate fest, canceling and abrogating treaties and agreements with the Russian Federation, cutting rail ties, cutting airline ties, killing predominately Russian enterprises like Antonov, etc. Much of this I consider childish but... Russia did nothing all the while. The Ukrainian president, Iulia Tymoschenko, goes so far as to say, very publicly, "Alright let's go out and kill us some Russians" Throughout all this Russia does nothing but deplore the Ukraine's ignorant behavior. Then, in 2014, the US, in cahoots with their vassals in the EU, fomented a coup. That's when the shit hit the fan. The Donbass and Crimea could see the writing on the wall and petitioned Russia to take them in. So there was relative peace in the Ukraine for roughly 24 years. And then the US, not Russia, fomented a coup. And you bozos want to blame Russia because everything went to hell in a handbasket? Pfui.

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Hedges and Fish hit the nail on the head again, but to no avail. We the People have been rendered powerless by an illegitimate Supreme Court and an arrogant political class corrupted by corporate money that have set the agenda for national and global suicide. Reading Hedges there's no doubt that everything he says has the unmistakable ring of truth. At least with a journalist of integrity like him writing on Substack, readers will have a clear understanding of the forces responsible for The Apocalypse. Aptly named The Merchants of Death, these powerful neoliberal capitalist crazies Hedges exposes believe they will escape retribution and only the poor, the working class and the innocent children of the world will pay the price for America's policy of perpetual war. That's how delusional and insane these Masters of War have become and it appears they will take us all with them as they descend into the abyss. In the face of such hubris and speaking as a conscripted combat veteran of the Vietnam war who witnessed the horrors of their bellicose procedures first hand, I propose a toast to the denizens of the Swamp and the military/industrial Empire they have empowered: "Your greedy policies are the antithesis of the Framers' vision for the Republic. You are traitors and miscreants unfit to pursue your schemes for the dominance of the world. You have betrayed your oaths to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. President Eisenhower warned us about your intentions long ago. Be assured, retribution is at hand; you will not escape the wrath of Nemesis! Shame on you all and may you roast in Hell!

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Well said Chris.

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"No high speed trains." See how that works in California?

"No universal health care." Because it sucks... and we already have Obamacare from the same people that want it to suck.

"No viable Covid relief program." Huh? While I agree that we screwed so many small businesses, more relief after the Democrat COVID spending orgy would be really stupid.

"No respite from 8.3 percent inflation." See the previous.

"No infrastructure programs to repair decaying roads and bridges, which require $41.8 billion to fix the 43,586 structurally deficient bridges, on average 68 years old." Completely agree even though much of this would go into the pockets of the Democrat-supporting union bosses.

"No forgiveness of $1.7 trillion in student debt." Again, see the inflation problem. Also the equity problem.

"No addressing income inequality." This is an empty shell comment. How? You mean by bringing back manufacturing jobs, keeping energy and raw materials costs low, by reforming the education system, by stopping the flow of wage-depressing immigration?

"No program to feed the 17 million children who go to bed each night hungry." Well, given the many trillions already spent on the war on hunger, if 17 million children are going to bed hungry every night (and that claim is dubious) then it is for reasons other than lack of food-related social services.

"No rational gun control or curbing of the epidemic of nihilistic violence and mass shootings." That is because controlling gun ownership isn't a rational solution to the violence and mass shootings.

"No help for the 100,000 Americans who die each year of drug overdoses." Good one. Agree.

"No minimum wage of $15 an hour to counter 44 years of wage stagnation." Inflation. Inflation. Inflation. Don't you get it yet?

"No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon." Drill baby drill. That is the only thing that will lower gas prices.

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think Chris is correct in stating, "Once the U.S. dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency, once there is an alternative to SWIFT, it will precipitate an internal economic collapse. It will force the immediate contraction of the U.S. empire shuttering most of its nearly 800 overseas military installations. It will signal the death of Pax Americana." This death should not be feared, but welcomed as the only thing that will ever move the well-indoctrinated and obedient subjects who populate the United States and other geographies ruled by the imperial owners of Pax Americana to recognize that the owner-rulers' only interest is in power; in ruling the world, forever and ever, amen! Their minions, comprised of the Ivy League elites, political class, military class, corporate class, police-state class, etc., etc. have been tasked with managing their assets, which include the populations as well as the real estate within the imperial geographies. A major part of asset management involves the handling of liabilities, and the citizenry that exists outside the minions is just one huge liability as far as the owner-rulers are concerned. What happens after the collapse will be nasty; but what we have now is a population that is no less delusional than were the Germans who were indoctrinated under, and obedient to the Nazis who warned them of enemies lurking everwhere, both outside and within. All militarism needs is an enemy, and the more the better as far as the profiteering owner-rulers and their minions are concerned. To them, we, the people, are just liabilities.

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Chris, I confess that I often skip what you write because I have a good idea of what you will say and those who need to attend to it will not. What is depressing is that you write the truth and hearing the truth repeatedly gets old. This says something about how I have fallen into the American way of looking for empty novelty, best seen in the attention people give to "the news" that make us feel like we know what is going on though in fact it hides reality from us, entertaining us with a clown show of polarizing antics by empty political celebrities who jostle for a place on the stage.

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"These are demented and dangerous fantasies, perpetrated by a ruling class that has severed itself from reality." Thanks to our propaganda media they can wallow in delusion.

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Let's not lionize Chomsky. He told us to vote for Biden because of climate change. Yet, Biden has signed 34% more oil leases than Trump did after 1 year in office (3,557 vs. 2,658). He's also pushed the absurd "lesser of 2 evils" logic for President since the 1990s. I seriously doubt a D congress would have given Trump $40 billion for Ukraine. The D's are the more effective evil.

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Spectacular analysis of the collapse US Empire.

One correction: Yes, MT Greene did oppose and contrast the $40 billion military aid with the lack of infant formula. But, that comparison is seriously flawed, because it was not the lack of federal money that caused that problem, it was the lack of effective federal FDA regulation and anti-trust enforcement. Worse, shortly after these moments, Greene then voted to oppose funding for infant formula for poor mothers, exposing her attack as sham bad faith opportunism..

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I've been a Chris Hedges fan for decades, I've always had the thought in the back of my mind, "yes, this is all true, but there has to be something, some unseen variable, that will save us from the worst."

That little ember of hope is going out.

It seems like all we can do is focus on being moral and helpful and kind in our personal lives and that the larger human project is out of our hands for any foreseeable future.

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Extra! Cancer kills host.

The loss of public and global faith are possibly more damaging than the political and economic catastrophes.

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Hedge's essay illuminates the undeniable reality that the USA is a depraved, declining and dangerous empire.

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This article is terrifying, and I already believe these things will happen. I try to make this personal. I think this is simmering we all must do. We have a great advantage knowing in advance. I probably have about 20 to 30 years to live, and my health is fairly good. What will I do with my time? I wonder about expatriating, but where? What will happen when my monthly annuity is worthless because the dollar collapses? These are MY questions; I'm sure each of you have your own. Anyone care to share your own?

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