Permanent war has cannibalized the country. It has created a social, political, and economic morass. Each new military debacle is another nail in the coffin of Pax Americana.
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!
'No complexity at all'. Our Congress, our President, are sociopathic killers. No thinking at all...war solves all!. Kill people using our most sophisticated weaponry. Kill kill kill.feed the war machine. No complexity at all. No nuance. Just kill first and than find another place to kill more_ than another, than another.....
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.
No Power Elites are what they are ... but it is the Chinese or Russian one and it is their people who should decide or not, it is not the US business to do it for them ....
It has only been very recently in human history that the concept of respecting borders has even come up.
The first attempt, as I understand it, was the Treaty of Westphalia after the 30 Years War.
The concept of the modern nation state was born from that conflict.
It took Europe over 300 years to get the pernicious demon of internecine warfare within "European Civilization" out of its system. That was followed by the post-WW2 world order that the United States established. Has the US done a lot of really stupid and "bad shit"? Oh yes, the greatest foreign policy disaster in American history was Iraq 2. Vietnam was right up there as well and in some respects, as it turns out, perhaps "worse". The whole justification of the war in Vietnam was to prevent the emergence of a hegemonic autocratic power in East Asia which would be inimical to perceived American interests. Given the ascendancy of China it is pretty fair to conclude: "Well that didn't work."
I always bear in mind that it is the Power Elites of civilizations that start the wars, the rest of us just get dragged into it and pay the highest price. The world has globalized and financial interests are spread throughout the globe with significant interdependencies. Taiwan is an example of the most important location for the manufacture of semiconductors. The most sophisticated manufacturing technologies (all of which come from the West) are employed there to make these highly sophisticated electronics.
Currently China can get the width of images down to about 26 nanometers. In Taiwan they are getting it down to 3 nanometers. That additional expertise has immense economic consequences. Naturally, having control of Taiwan would have a number of advantages for the Chinese Power Elite. However, just as the current situation in the Ukraine has significant implications for access to wheat, so too would a war over Taiwan have significant economic impacts well outside of China and Taiwan.
America was isolationist after WWI. It kept its nose out of European Affairs and Japanese Affairs. It did not start the war in Europe or Japan's invasion of China.
Border lines may not have been drawn as they are now, but they have certainly been observed from archaic times. Perhaps the best ancient (western) examples would be Rome & Persia; or indeed Athens and Sparta.
But: I am sure you would agree: peace is always preferable to war, in our forever unideal world; after fanfares begin to get repetitive, and all we are left with are the ruined husks of the places we once knew.
I'm not so sure how well border areas were observed. Persia sought entry into Europe on any number of occasions. Eventually the Ottoman Turks sought to invade Europe repeatedly over centuries. Islam held the Iberian peninsula for over 700 years.
Putin's administration has made a strategic mistake. Hopefully things can wind down and Ukraine can be a neutral state. It is hard to know how all will end up.
This was one of the 'starting' problems: Ukraine wanted into NATO (which calls itself defensive ...) and into EU (I do not think if you ask the EU people ANYONE would have wanted the most corrupt state in the region in the EU, but now everything is changed ... by whom???)
To be honest, I find the idea of "economic growth and development free of political interference..." fairly unlikely, and perhaps not even desired. In my mind the question comes down to who will be exploiting the people/resources to create growth, and who will be acting as watchdog to restrain such exploitation. Which is inevitably a job for the political class.
How do you figure "They will be offering economic growth and development free of political interference in their domestic policies." ? Ask the chinese Uyghers if they are being assisted without gov't interference. Ask the Ukrainians if they're being assisted by russia or if the russian people are being assisted by the invasion as a matter of apolitical domestic russian policy. All the assistance in Africa that's coming from china and russia may at first glance be magnanimous gifts but they will come for their pound of flesh and they will rape and pillage the countries they are 'helping' just like all powerful nations do. Are russia and china any better than the us (place names purposely not capitalized to illustrate my well-founded contempt)? Are they going to offer their goods, money, and services free of charge domestically or internationally due to their good hearts? Both china and russia treat their own citizens with heartless disdain as evidenced by censorship of free speech and imprisonment (or worse) for those who speak out. I am not trying to say that the us is 'better' than russia and china--our evil takes but a different form--but please do not conflate 'not the us' with 'better.'
Uh… drinking the mainstream, govt-approved kool-aid. Russia bad, China bad. America the white-hatted cowboy. Who GENOCIDES, WARS & AGGRESSES on the less weaponized of the world, in order to jeep the ECONOMY afloat⁉️
Not the moral compass you’d like to believe. People & Life-n-Death are not Video Games to add points to your score!
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.
So well spoken. It's as if you reached into my soul and explained it's grief. Covid and it's response unveiled so much of our Governance distain for it's people especially it's elderly and those with chronic health conditions. I dought we are not still cannibalizing hospital beds for future pandemics.
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.
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!
"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.
As usual Chris Hedges gets it right. We are heading toward a castrophe with the people in charge being incompetent, either not doing anything about these problems or even making them worst. If an individual functioned in this way they would be considered to have a severe psychological problem which would require treatment. One major reason for this is we live in capitalist system where lives have little value and profit even though it leads to bad outcomes for most people is accepted.
I think unrestrained capitalism and corporatism are the same thing, the corporatists own (dictate) what the politicians do without restriction, i.e. unrestrained capitalism.
Corporatism requires the government connection. There is nothing about capitalism that invites the government connection. However, since the motivation of a corporation is very simple, as is the motivation of owners of capital that invest, is to seek profit and returns... if the government is a vessel to help in that pursuit, then the corporation will certainly do it. The corporation competes in the market with other corporations. If one gets an advantage with a government connection, then the others will play the same game.
Corporations are just like a dog in some respect. They have to be controlled from crapping on the floor and chewing up the home... but they seek just a few things... and mostly one thing. The equivalent of the corporatist dog is a situation where the neighbor keeps opening the gate and inviting the dog in for steak so he will hang out at the neighbor's house and benefit the neighbor and his kids. You should not blame the dog... blame the neighbor.
So, we should blame the government and not the corporations. Cut off all politicians and government employees from any connection with any corporation that monetarily benefits the politician or government employee or their family members in any way. No stock trading for any national politician including family members. Same for all government employees in the NAICS codes that connect with their agency. All conflicts of interest vetted with significant penalties for the politician or government employee.
Since there are only 2 party's how do you propose to do this?
Anyone who runs in a 3rd party are called spoilers and other names. IF I had to vote in the US it would be for a party with no corporat money but it's not going to happen.
Capitalism has been inextricably intertwined with government since its inception. They are two parts of a working whole.
The exact relationship between the two is the domain of politics (and democracy), but the idea of capitalism by itself spinning along without government is historically and conceptually wrong.
Merchants and armies and banks have worked in tandem since the heyday of the city-state.
Sadly your claim lacks any basis in reality. Capitalism is a fairly recent concept and most governments didn't really exist as such back in "the heyday of the city state". That was the whole big deal about the Magna Carta and Runnymede. The barons and earls forced King John to bow to their demands and limitations on his power. Were these guys a government? No. They were a bunch of warlords. If you are interested, from Webster's Third New International Dictionary (unabridged, all 4 inches of it): Fascism - Any program for setting up a centralized autocratic regime with severely nationalistic policies exercising regimentation of industry, commerce, and finance, rigid censorship and forcible suppression of the opposition.
That pretty much describes the Ukraine and goes a long way towards describing the US. Your mistake is thinking that economic systems (capitalism, feudalism, socialism) automatically beget political systems (dictatorships, monarchies, democracies). They don't. Frankly, capitalism flourishes quite nicely without any government at all.
Breathless hyperbole from the committed followers of the cult of anthropogenic global warming. You will kill far more people putting in idiot bans on fossil fuel production and use before there are adequate sustainable energy technological advances in place.
If you libtards would support nuclear maybe you would be credible here.
All you need to do is look at the devastation of ecosystems, the genocide to take oil from other lands, investigate and realize our military is working for oil companies and not want any more smoke in the air to be against big oil. I don’t know if my politics are liberal or libtard, I just don’t want needless wars and nature destroyed so I can have vehicles that run on gas.
I don’t even care if I get called a libtard, and if you disagree with my views it’s fine if you want to debate and ask why I believe in ending fossil fuels.
Why have vehicles? We got along without them for centuries. Living standards were a lot lower, but, guess what, our living standards are going lower anyway.
What I would do is help with phasing out fossil fuels. I’m not an inventor. And I would also push for a new fuel or power source that would not cause environmental damage as much as possible or have to be obtained by murder, enslavement, ecosystem damage or threat of military attack.
Support nuclear? You didn't come off as serious with your list of canards above; this is the capper. "Libtards," a childish ad hominem, doesn't help your arguments along at all either, which are just typical libertarian and reactionary cant anyway. You wandered in here somehow, ready to set the "libtards" straight. Keep digging.
Why do read and subscribe to his substack Chris Hedges, who Is left wing if you think he is so wrong? If it was me I would read and subscribe to a writer who’s view I mainly agree.
Why would you only subscribe to and comment on newsletters that only echo your political beliefs? That is pathetic and weak... like you need validation to function. I am always open to debate to learn something new. If you have some rational points (not those based on the emotive symbolism of your political tribe) I am all ears.
Sorry, but there is a lot of math and economics mistakes in much of his list. Democrats were provided an expensive but important lesson that they are seemingly too dense or too stubborn to learn.
Politicians went on a money handing out spree backed by their moral crisis of a pandemic. It created hyper-inflation. The lesson for Democrats is economic price theory. The economy runs on a price equilibrium that is balanced by the invisible hands of capitalism and markets. Liberals think that government can just make changes... pump trillions into the economy, force business to pay people more for example... or give people money for not working... and that this will not have any negative consequences in the economy.
We spent trillions that were mostly Democrat directed only to cause even greater harm to the people the money was claimed to help.
Paying off student debt is just another example of an idea that will cause perverse economic incentives and will cause economic harm.
You cannot fix income equity by printing money or taking money to hand out to others. You cannot drive up the cost of everything over global warming fears, open the border to a flood of millions of new poor and uneducated immigrants, oppose education reform and adopting a party platform that just calls everyone that disagrees a racist.
Come to the table with real working solutions, and I am an eager participant.
So, I should subscribe to the right-wing and libertarian websites? Wrong. My convictions and beliefs aren't based on politics. You are not open to debate or to learn something new; your comments prove that unequivocally. Yuore here to lecture people who you presume to be your inferiors.
How can you know with your head so tightly in your ideological bubble? If you never leave the comfort of your safe ideological space, your view will narrow and become too myopic to be of value in any debate. There is much more than I don't know than I know. Same for you. So does everyone. I put out my points for what I think I know, and when I get a response like this it is clear to me that you lack substance to debate the point, and instead just use personal invective like "I lecture people whom I presume to be my inferiors."
That last word is telling. In my experience debating my liberal friends, their ego is WAY too wrapped up in their need to feel smugly superior about their politics. That is why they melt or get so damn angry when challenged. I makes them irrational with respect to problem solving. Because they can never admit they are wrong about anything.
My political beliefs do not define my ego. My ego is with my family, God my work... my accomplishments in business and my contribution to making lives better for as many people as I can. I would expect my ideas to be challenged, but generally my left friends just call me names and refuse to talk. I keep trying.
The causes for inflation are wars, domestic central banks and unproductive investments.
To compare Obamacare to Medicare for all is apples and oranges. One requires private health insurance as the dominant payer and the other is a regulated public insurance. One is for profit and not efficient due to conflicts in risk premiums and the other is not for profit and would have over 3OOM participants so risk is spread out.
A viable Covid relief plan would've provided needed resources to those in need of it and not Tom Brady, private equity, etc. Hedges' argument is that relief program was authored and signed off on by the GOP when Trump was president and neoliberals when Biden became president. In either case it wasn't effective.
The US has 8.3% inflation because of wasteful spending on wars, militarism, unproductive investments by the public and private sectors. Share buybacks and dividends utilizing a credit system that artificially keeps interest rates below what markets would pay for risk will do that. Investing in F35s over hospitals, roads and schools will also do that not to mention subs, tanks, 800 military bases, etc.
Addressing income inequality is not an empty shell argument. The US needs to invest more into its school systems to improve education. Qualified teachers need to be paid more. A credible 21st Century healthcare program for the US would include 30M more Americans and reduce the median household expenses on healthcare. The US wouldn't have had as many deaths from Covid had we had a better prevention system, Fauci nothwithstanding.
Whether it is 17M or 20M or 10M it is too many children going hungry in the richest nation in the world. In a country that is a net exporter of food, it is a distribution problem and a lack of subsidy for the children. The Department of Agriculture doesn't represent the citizen's best interests. It represents the interests of Big Ag and the associated ancillary industries.
Gun control exits in all other so-called republics such as Australia, UK, New Zealand, France, Japan, etc. without the carnage that occurs in the US.
$15 dollars an hour is not inflationary. Most states have already installed it or will down the road. Those states that haven't are experiencing record quit rates presently therefore the employer is losing productivity as they need to recruit, hire, train and raise the wage and/or improve the worker conditions. Worker productivity has not kept up with wage increases since the 70s. This too has facilitated wealth and income inequality.
Oil and gas companies are not utilizing the permits they have to drill in the US. Neoliberal and neoconservative policies since Nixon have contributed to the problem we have with how we generate energy. Hedges is arguing that it needs to change from a 19th Century technology to a 21st Century technology.
Inflation is being driven both demand and supply. The easy money that the FED has injected into the US and by proxy the world economy as well as the fiscal stimulus that has faded has caused the demand side to create part of the conditions for inflation. You are correct that broken supply chains are also a contributory factor as are oligopolies.
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.
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.
Agreed. for our increasing delusional America reality has almost disappeared. That's why I continue reading Hedges and other "archeologist" authors like Chomsky that are unearthing reality for us to see.
"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.
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.
Yes, Chomsky and other Leftists like Paul Street fairly demanded that Leftists like myself vote for Biden; they were actually quite sanctiminious and snotty about it. "What, you can't take five minutes to vote (for Biden)?" I'm still pissed about it. There was also that group of Lefties that signed a letter pretty much saying the same thing. They were all wrong, as we see now. Chomsky has earned the respect that he gets, but I believe he and the others were simply frightened by the idea of Trump getting 4 more years. It turns out Biden is worse than Trump on virtually every subject.
Chomsky also jumped on the Pfizer bandwagon and efforts to jab everyone or lock up the unvaccinated which is as absurd as supporting the war machine lobbyists with blind faith in an equally criminal cabal, captive agencies & think tank mouthpieces.
The D's and R's are one in the same. They both work for the same, small party. Also Chomsky has made himself irrelevant over Covid19. IMO, he overstepped his professional boundaries the same as Hollywood celebrities and rock musicians overstep theirs. I suppose that is the curse of lionization.
Boundaries of topics within the realm of his expertise . He's not a medical professional...IMO shouldn't be giving advice to the public in that regard. Not that he not allowed to. He just appears ignorant in doing so.
Chomsky's realm of expertise is to show reality as seen by him. He is a great intellectual, not a parrot, and nobody can expect from him to play the roll of a tarot reader. I've never known of any true liberal like him or Hedges to solicit a vote for somebody or support any idea. They perfectly understand that mature adults are absolutely granted the freedom of choice and thoughts.
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..
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.
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?
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!
No one brings the complexity and unveiling of the curtains like Chris can.
'No complexity at all'. Our Congress, our President, are sociopathic killers. No thinking at all...war solves all!. Kill people using our most sophisticated weaponry. Kill kill kill.feed the war machine. No complexity at all. No nuance. Just kill first and than find another place to kill more_ than another, than another.....
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.
Ah the Utopia of Chinese and Russian paths to a glorious future.
Do you seriously think that if the US Power Elite is so bad that the Power Elites of China and Russian are better?
No Power Elites are what they are ... but it is the Chinese or Russian one and it is their people who should decide or not, it is not the US business to do it for them ....
In an ideal world you are absolutely correct.
We don't live in an ideal world.
It has only been very recently in human history that the concept of respecting borders has even come up.
The first attempt, as I understand it, was the Treaty of Westphalia after the 30 Years War.
The concept of the modern nation state was born from that conflict.
It took Europe over 300 years to get the pernicious demon of internecine warfare within "European Civilization" out of its system. That was followed by the post-WW2 world order that the United States established. Has the US done a lot of really stupid and "bad shit"? Oh yes, the greatest foreign policy disaster in American history was Iraq 2. Vietnam was right up there as well and in some respects, as it turns out, perhaps "worse". The whole justification of the war in Vietnam was to prevent the emergence of a hegemonic autocratic power in East Asia which would be inimical to perceived American interests. Given the ascendancy of China it is pretty fair to conclude: "Well that didn't work."
I always bear in mind that it is the Power Elites of civilizations that start the wars, the rest of us just get dragged into it and pay the highest price. The world has globalized and financial interests are spread throughout the globe with significant interdependencies. Taiwan is an example of the most important location for the manufacture of semiconductors. The most sophisticated manufacturing technologies (all of which come from the West) are employed there to make these highly sophisticated electronics.
Currently China can get the width of images down to about 26 nanometers. In Taiwan they are getting it down to 3 nanometers. That additional expertise has immense economic consequences. Naturally, having control of Taiwan would have a number of advantages for the Chinese Power Elite. However, just as the current situation in the Ukraine has significant implications for access to wheat, so too would a war over Taiwan have significant economic impacts well outside of China and Taiwan.
America was isolationist after WWI. It kept its nose out of European Affairs and Japanese Affairs. It did not start the war in Europe or Japan's invasion of China.
Border lines may not have been drawn as they are now, but they have certainly been observed from archaic times. Perhaps the best ancient (western) examples would be Rome & Persia; or indeed Athens and Sparta.
But: I am sure you would agree: peace is always preferable to war, in our forever unideal world; after fanfares begin to get repetitive, and all we are left with are the ruined husks of the places we once knew.
I'm not so sure how well border areas were observed. Persia sought entry into Europe on any number of occasions. Eventually the Ottoman Turks sought to invade Europe repeatedly over centuries. Islam held the Iberian peninsula for over 700 years.
Putin's administration has made a strategic mistake. Hopefully things can wind down and Ukraine can be a neutral state. It is hard to know how all will end up.
This was one of the 'starting' problems: Ukraine wanted into NATO (which calls itself defensive ...) and into EU (I do not think if you ask the EU people ANYONE would have wanted the most corrupt state in the region in the EU, but now everything is changed ... by whom???)
To be honest, I find the idea of "economic growth and development free of political interference..." fairly unlikely, and perhaps not even desired. In my mind the question comes down to who will be exploiting the people/resources to create growth, and who will be acting as watchdog to restrain such exploitation. Which is inevitably a job for the political class.
How do you figure "They will be offering economic growth and development free of political interference in their domestic policies." ? Ask the chinese Uyghers if they are being assisted without gov't interference. Ask the Ukrainians if they're being assisted by russia or if the russian people are being assisted by the invasion as a matter of apolitical domestic russian policy. All the assistance in Africa that's coming from china and russia may at first glance be magnanimous gifts but they will come for their pound of flesh and they will rape and pillage the countries they are 'helping' just like all powerful nations do. Are russia and china any better than the us (place names purposely not capitalized to illustrate my well-founded contempt)? Are they going to offer their goods, money, and services free of charge domestically or internationally due to their good hearts? Both china and russia treat their own citizens with heartless disdain as evidenced by censorship of free speech and imprisonment (or worse) for those who speak out. I am not trying to say that the us is 'better' than russia and china--our evil takes but a different form--but please do not conflate 'not the us' with 'better.'
So, that’s your rationale? The bad guys will come and do it anyway… so, we might as well do it first?
"offering economic growth and development free of political interference in their domestic polices".
Wow; you sure are smokin some good sit.
Uh… drinking the mainstream, govt-approved kool-aid. Russia bad, China bad. America the white-hatted cowboy. Who GENOCIDES, WARS & AGGRESSES on the less weaponized of the world, in order to jeep the ECONOMY afloat⁉️
Not the moral compass you’d like to believe. People & Life-n-Death are not Video Games to add points to your score!
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.
So well spoken. It's as if you reached into my soul and explained it's grief. Covid and it's response unveiled so much of our Governance distain for it's people especially it's elderly and those with chronic health conditions. I dought we are not still cannibalizing hospital beds for future pandemics.
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.
Yes sir, history is a bitch .... (thanks for your summary BTW)
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!
Well said Chris.
"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.
As usual Chris Hedges gets it right. We are heading toward a castrophe with the people in charge being incompetent, either not doing anything about these problems or even making them worst. If an individual functioned in this way they would be considered to have a severe psychological problem which would require treatment. One major reason for this is we live in capitalist system where lives have little value and profit even though it leads to bad outcomes for most people is accepted.
Capitalism isn't the culprit. Corporatism is... the kind of game that Joe Biden plays.
I think unrestrained capitalism and corporatism are the same thing, the corporatists own (dictate) what the politicians do without restriction, i.e. unrestrained capitalism.
Corporatism requires the government connection. There is nothing about capitalism that invites the government connection. However, since the motivation of a corporation is very simple, as is the motivation of owners of capital that invest, is to seek profit and returns... if the government is a vessel to help in that pursuit, then the corporation will certainly do it. The corporation competes in the market with other corporations. If one gets an advantage with a government connection, then the others will play the same game.
Corporations are just like a dog in some respect. They have to be controlled from crapping on the floor and chewing up the home... but they seek just a few things... and mostly one thing. The equivalent of the corporatist dog is a situation where the neighbor keeps opening the gate and inviting the dog in for steak so he will hang out at the neighbor's house and benefit the neighbor and his kids. You should not blame the dog... blame the neighbor.
So, we should blame the government and not the corporations. Cut off all politicians and government employees from any connection with any corporation that monetarily benefits the politician or government employee or their family members in any way. No stock trading for any national politician including family members. Same for all government employees in the NAICS codes that connect with their agency. All conflicts of interest vetted with significant penalties for the politician or government employee.
Y'know there's a name for the corporate - government combo. It's called fascism.
To succeed as you describe with preventing corporations having control of government is to get big money out of politics.
Since there are only 2 party's how do you propose to do this?
Anyone who runs in a 3rd party are called spoilers and other names. IF I had to vote in the US it would be for a party with no corporat money but it's not going to happen.
Capitalism has been inextricably intertwined with government since its inception. They are two parts of a working whole.
The exact relationship between the two is the domain of politics (and democracy), but the idea of capitalism by itself spinning along without government is historically and conceptually wrong.
Merchants and armies and banks have worked in tandem since the heyday of the city-state.
Sadly your claim lacks any basis in reality. Capitalism is a fairly recent concept and most governments didn't really exist as such back in "the heyday of the city state". That was the whole big deal about the Magna Carta and Runnymede. The barons and earls forced King John to bow to their demands and limitations on his power. Were these guys a government? No. They were a bunch of warlords. If you are interested, from Webster's Third New International Dictionary (unabridged, all 4 inches of it): Fascism - Any program for setting up a centralized autocratic regime with severely nationalistic policies exercising regimentation of industry, commerce, and finance, rigid censorship and forcible suppression of the opposition.
That pretty much describes the Ukraine and goes a long way towards describing the US. Your mistake is thinking that economic systems (capitalism, feudalism, socialism) automatically beget political systems (dictatorships, monarchies, democracies). They don't. Frankly, capitalism flourishes quite nicely without any government at all.
Without unfettered capitalism there is no corporatism
Drill baby drill will lead us to a more severe climate crisis where there will be no need for gas since most people will be dead!
I agree with you. The writer you responded to sounds like a Libertarian who hates wastefulness but equally disdains ANY government programs
"Drill baby drill" is a idiotic chant that comes from, among others, Sarah Palin.
Breathless hyperbole from the committed followers of the cult of anthropogenic global warming. You will kill far more people putting in idiot bans on fossil fuel production and use before there are adequate sustainable energy technological advances in place.
If you libtards would support nuclear maybe you would be credible here.
All you need to do is look at the devastation of ecosystems, the genocide to take oil from other lands, investigate and realize our military is working for oil companies and not want any more smoke in the air to be against big oil. I don’t know if my politics are liberal or libtard, I just don’t want needless wars and nature destroyed so I can have vehicles that run on gas.
I don’t even care if I get called a libtard, and if you disagree with my views it’s fine if you want to debate and ask why I believe in ending fossil fuels.
What fuel would you have your vehicle "run" on?
Why have vehicles? We got along without them for centuries. Living standards were a lot lower, but, guess what, our living standards are going lower anyway.
What I would do is help with phasing out fossil fuels. I’m not an inventor. And I would also push for a new fuel or power source that would not cause environmental damage as much as possible or have to be obtained by murder, enslavement, ecosystem damage or threat of military attack.
Support nuclear? You didn't come off as serious with your list of canards above; this is the capper. "Libtards," a childish ad hominem, doesn't help your arguments along at all either, which are just typical libertarian and reactionary cant anyway. You wandered in here somehow, ready to set the "libtards" straight. Keep digging.
Go away troll
You need your safe space?
Why do read and subscribe to his substack Chris Hedges, who Is left wing if you think he is so wrong? If it was me I would read and subscribe to a writer who’s view I mainly agree.
Why would you only subscribe to and comment on newsletters that only echo your political beliefs? That is pathetic and weak... like you need validation to function. I am always open to debate to learn something new. If you have some rational points (not those based on the emotive symbolism of your political tribe) I am all ears.
A good point. It is good to study points of view with which you disagree. Everything that Chris Hedges stated is rational and fits in with the facts.
Sorry, but there is a lot of math and economics mistakes in much of his list. Democrats were provided an expensive but important lesson that they are seemingly too dense or too stubborn to learn.
Politicians went on a money handing out spree backed by their moral crisis of a pandemic. It created hyper-inflation. The lesson for Democrats is economic price theory. The economy runs on a price equilibrium that is balanced by the invisible hands of capitalism and markets. Liberals think that government can just make changes... pump trillions into the economy, force business to pay people more for example... or give people money for not working... and that this will not have any negative consequences in the economy.
We spent trillions that were mostly Democrat directed only to cause even greater harm to the people the money was claimed to help.
Paying off student debt is just another example of an idea that will cause perverse economic incentives and will cause economic harm.
You cannot fix income equity by printing money or taking money to hand out to others. You cannot drive up the cost of everything over global warming fears, open the border to a flood of millions of new poor and uneducated immigrants, oppose education reform and adopting a party platform that just calls everyone that disagrees a racist.
Come to the table with real working solutions, and I am an eager participant.
We have little (if any) agency to affect change, so squabbling is a natural alternative.
So, I should subscribe to the right-wing and libertarian websites? Wrong. My convictions and beliefs aren't based on politics. You are not open to debate or to learn something new; your comments prove that unequivocally. Yuore here to lecture people who you presume to be your inferiors.
How can you know with your head so tightly in your ideological bubble? If you never leave the comfort of your safe ideological space, your view will narrow and become too myopic to be of value in any debate. There is much more than I don't know than I know. Same for you. So does everyone. I put out my points for what I think I know, and when I get a response like this it is clear to me that you lack substance to debate the point, and instead just use personal invective like "I lecture people whom I presume to be my inferiors."
That last word is telling. In my experience debating my liberal friends, their ego is WAY too wrapped up in their need to feel smugly superior about their politics. That is why they melt or get so damn angry when challenged. I makes them irrational with respect to problem solving. Because they can never admit they are wrong about anything.
My political beliefs do not define my ego. My ego is with my family, God my work... my accomplishments in business and my contribution to making lives better for as many people as I can. I would expect my ideas to be challenged, but generally my left friends just call me names and refuse to talk. I keep trying.
No, I did not call anyone a libtard. It was a very general pejorative. It was meant to define the entire group in the context of the point.
Sort of like Hillary’s basket of irredeemable deplorables.
The causes for inflation are wars, domestic central banks and unproductive investments.
To compare Obamacare to Medicare for all is apples and oranges. One requires private health insurance as the dominant payer and the other is a regulated public insurance. One is for profit and not efficient due to conflicts in risk premiums and the other is not for profit and would have over 3OOM participants so risk is spread out.
A viable Covid relief plan would've provided needed resources to those in need of it and not Tom Brady, private equity, etc. Hedges' argument is that relief program was authored and signed off on by the GOP when Trump was president and neoliberals when Biden became president. In either case it wasn't effective.
The US has 8.3% inflation because of wasteful spending on wars, militarism, unproductive investments by the public and private sectors. Share buybacks and dividends utilizing a credit system that artificially keeps interest rates below what markets would pay for risk will do that. Investing in F35s over hospitals, roads and schools will also do that not to mention subs, tanks, 800 military bases, etc.
Addressing income inequality is not an empty shell argument. The US needs to invest more into its school systems to improve education. Qualified teachers need to be paid more. A credible 21st Century healthcare program for the US would include 30M more Americans and reduce the median household expenses on healthcare. The US wouldn't have had as many deaths from Covid had we had a better prevention system, Fauci nothwithstanding.
Whether it is 17M or 20M or 10M it is too many children going hungry in the richest nation in the world. In a country that is a net exporter of food, it is a distribution problem and a lack of subsidy for the children. The Department of Agriculture doesn't represent the citizen's best interests. It represents the interests of Big Ag and the associated ancillary industries.
Gun control exits in all other so-called republics such as Australia, UK, New Zealand, France, Japan, etc. without the carnage that occurs in the US.
$15 dollars an hour is not inflationary. Most states have already installed it or will down the road. Those states that haven't are experiencing record quit rates presently therefore the employer is losing productivity as they need to recruit, hire, train and raise the wage and/or improve the worker conditions. Worker productivity has not kept up with wage increases since the 70s. This too has facilitated wealth and income inequality.
Oil and gas companies are not utilizing the permits they have to drill in the US. Neoliberal and neoconservative policies since Nixon have contributed to the problem we have with how we generate energy. Hedges is arguing that it needs to change from a 19th Century technology to a 21st Century technology.
Ur delusional
This inflation is not being driven by excess demand. It's being driven by supply shortages and by market power by companies like Amazon.
Inflation is being driven both demand and supply. The easy money that the FED has injected into the US and by proxy the world economy as well as the fiscal stimulus that has faded has caused the demand side to create part of the conditions for inflation. You are correct that broken supply chains are also a contributory factor as are oligopolies.
Inflation is being driven by our record setting levels of government net operating debt. More succinctly, the U.S. is living far beyond its means.
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.
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.
Agreed. for our increasing delusional America reality has almost disappeared. That's why I continue reading Hedges and other "archeologist" authors like Chomsky that are unearthing reality for us to see.
"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.
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.
Yes, Chomsky and other Leftists like Paul Street fairly demanded that Leftists like myself vote for Biden; they were actually quite sanctiminious and snotty about it. "What, you can't take five minutes to vote (for Biden)?" I'm still pissed about it. There was also that group of Lefties that signed a letter pretty much saying the same thing. They were all wrong, as we see now. Chomsky has earned the respect that he gets, but I believe he and the others were simply frightened by the idea of Trump getting 4 more years. It turns out Biden is worse than Trump on virtually every subject.
Chomsky also jumped on the Pfizer bandwagon and efforts to jab everyone or lock up the unvaccinated which is as absurd as supporting the war machine lobbyists with blind faith in an equally criminal cabal, captive agencies & think tank mouthpieces.
The D's and R's are one in the same. They both work for the same, small party. Also Chomsky has made himself irrelevant over Covid19. IMO, he overstepped his professional boundaries the same as Hollywood celebrities and rock musicians overstep theirs. I suppose that is the curse of lionization.
He "overstepped his professional boundaries"? What on Earth does that mean? What boundaries? He's entitled to speak on any subject he wants.
Boundaries of topics within the realm of his expertise . He's not a medical professional...IMO shouldn't be giving advice to the public in that regard. Not that he not allowed to. He just appears ignorant in doing so.
Chomsky's realm of expertise is to show reality as seen by him. He is a great intellectual, not a parrot, and nobody can expect from him to play the roll of a tarot reader. I've never known of any true liberal like him or Hedges to solicit a vote for somebody or support any idea. They perfectly understand that mature adults are absolutely granted the freedom of choice and thoughts.
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..
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.
Extra! Cancer kills host.
The loss of public and global faith are possibly more damaging than the political and economic catastrophes.
Hedge's essay illuminates the undeniable reality that the USA is a depraved, declining and dangerous empire.
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?