From my perspective the USA was officially diagnosed with cancer on 1/6/21 and entered hospice on 1/20/25. Though one could easily argue it all officially began in 1776. Regardless, there is no doubt that the USA is in its end days now. And given the requirements for entering hospice I give the USA six months or less before it all collapses into some unimaginable dystopia. Actually just look back to Nazi Germany or Gaza today for what wicked things are likely coming our way. And as Chris alludes to, we will take the whole world down with us including most flora and fauna. And I can’t imagine a more perfect asshole named Trump to be the figurehead to oversee it all burn to the ground. If it was a Hollywood movie one couldn’t cast a more perfect actor to play the part.
We know the foul smelling and even uglier rot at the core of this techie bros coup - many of whom are on the 'spectrum' so utterly unable to experience empathy, compassion, love or caring for another's well-being - including Earth - the only planet with the atmosphere capable of suppirting us human Earthlings.
Please. Let’s stop disparaging people on the spectrum. I do not believe for one second that Elon Musk or most of his tech bros are autistic. I have done a lot of work with people with autism and other disabilities. They are full of empathy, love, and compassion and have nothing in common with the selfish mafia thugs running this country today.
I've wondered for a few years of those on the spectrum might actually represent a different intelligence......we've been notorious in the know it all west for labelling whatever doesn't resemble us.....might be the saints and visionaries were relegating to the wrong side of our stupid bell curve.
There's so much we don't know about everything that's important: life, intelligence, symbiosis, plasticity....
We're reductive ad absurdium creatures.......more often than we realize.
That continues to be a common misconception about autistic people, that they have no theory of mind and lack empathy, etc. Thanks for sticking up for those on the spetrum.
Why adopt such an apocalyptic view, and may I ask did you portend the end times when Biden was in office, or was it during the Bush/Cheney years, or did you adopt this perspective due to all our many middle eastern wars which were set in motion before we even went into Afghanistan after 9/11? A list of countries Netanyahu perceived as dangerous in his 1990's book, Fighting Terrorism. He identified the countries we set out to hit after 9/11 and believe it or not we did. I think the end of the war between Ukraine and Russia may very well prevent the end times. Seems Trump wants to have some denuclearization talks with Russia and China, maybe we should wait and see how that goes. Seems the war between Russia and Ukraine maybe coming to it's end. I hate when people adopt such an apocalyptic view of things, dramatic, yes, but honest, no., Oh, and how I remember that prediction when he came into office in 2016.
Chris Hedges has written many times that our hollowed out institutions will collapse with astounding speed. Seeing what's unfolding now gives credence to the idea.
I think it depends on how soon they wreck Medicare, Social Security and decimate funding for the Medicaid programs. I initially thought we might be in the last ten years of a recognizable public education system but it could be way less than that. There is a nakedness about the desire to shred the social safety net but it will be the point at which this desire to cannibalize the state becomes apparent to a larger circle of ordinary Americans, many of whom are betting on Trump.
Mr. Hedges is the second author I've read today -- Joseph Gerson writing in Common Dreams was the first -- who's pointed out that, among the tools we have to end this madness is a general strike, bringing the wheels of empire to a grinding halt.
A general strike will take a lot of thought and planning: How do you feed and shelter your family when the country shuts down? The thought, planning, and preparation needs to begin now.
Hey, Shawn Fain, you busy? We could use some organizing help.
Concurrent with a general strike, we need a boycott of non-essential consumer goods. My impression is that most in the US consume a lot of non-essential "stuff." The advertising (propaganda) machine has developed a "shop until you drop" mentality that serves only the wealthy. I would love to see a strike work in tandem with a boycott of non-essential goods.
Whether it's a general strike, or a targeted strike of selected industries, I think you're on to something, Lois. What if none of us bought ANYTHING for a day, week, or more, in tandem with a work stoppage?
Yes, I just heard about this, too. It's apparently the brainchild of The Peoples Union, https://jointhepeoplesunion.com. A one-day action targeting the big ones like Amazon, Target, Walmart, Coca Cola, all the behemoths that have agreed to back off or eliminate DEI initiatives. I would want to know more about The Peoples Union, but it wouldn't hurt to do this action for a day, and it looks like it's gathering steam across social media. Plans are to do this single one-day action, then go on to longer ones. I've long been thinking about this because I believe consumption is our most powerful tool. A savage consumerism has been driven into workers' heads for decades. The economy dies without it. Time to mess with it.
How do we know that the People's Union is legitimately interested in civil and human rights and is not a front group collecting information about people who may represent a threat to the establishment? How can someone determine the sincerity of the person setting up this web site and what his true motivations may be? I wish a healthy dose of cynicism wasn't necessary, but these days it is. Look at who the apex predators are in this current iteration of the establishment and tell me I should have no reason to doubt the people I see opening up web sites on the internet who tell me they are here to make a difference, to give power back to the people? Is there a politician who hasn't said something similar? Can anyone here vouch for this website and what it purports to represent?
You're right, and that's why I wrote, "I would want to know more about The Peoples Union." One guy puts it out on IG, then sets up a website that's already talking about a new party and asking for donations. Very suspect. But I've been wondering for a long time about the rampant consumerism that preys on people's insecurities, wrecks our ecosystems, and makes the wealthy few wealthier. We need that "revolution of values" that MLK talked about.
“Fascism recognises the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade-unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonised in the unity of the State.”
Benito Mussolini, 1935, The Doctrine of Fascism, Firenze:Vallecchi Editore. (p.15)
No need to rely only on Fein. Kshama Sawant, a socialist formerly of the Seattle city council, is now organizing to establish a true working-class party. Conference coming up next week. Check it out at https://www.workersstrikeback.org.
Thank you, Monsoon. I went to the WSWS site and read a couple of articles about Fain and the UAW, finding much food for thought there. One takeaway I gleaned was that it doesn't do a hell of a lot of good fora union in one country to cut a deal if it comes at the expense of workers in another country. The fight for justice needs to be international
Good for you for having the perseverance and critical thinking to do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Fein was a democratic party hack and there is not much left for him now that Trump is in office other than align with fascism. I encourage everyone to google "Sean Fein and WSWS' and read for yourself the sell out policies of this overpaid union bureaucrat. We need worker committees not labor leaders.
We need both.........and a membership that knows why its banding together. Let's face it......anyone who talked themselves into not needing a union.....any teacher who dissed their Teacher Union.......has been part of the problems we're facing now........imagine rich philanthropists will take care of us....put our old union dues into a GIC....or whatever we call those stock market bubbles now.
In my province of Canada......they're coming for our Public Pensions. With Trump's help they might suceed.
Still, given the widespread anti-union sentiment that was ginned up across the western world.......you can't blame the unions. Where I live, folks who think they're cutting edge radical could be caught dissing the Unions.
Seems the contempt for the people who actually do physical work has been pretty strong and made stronger by neoliberal hollowing out of western manufacturing.
I remember we actually celebrated that the third world didn't have unions when the big boys we're starting to hate now....moved their factories there.
Is it too late for a lot more solidarity??? I sometimes fear so.
Union President Rev. Ryan Brown, after a long valiant effort to unionize Amazon in North Carolina was just fired by them. He might be another one to call in.
For all of Shawn Fain's failings, I still admire the way he played the big three automakers against each other, getting a better contract for the UAW than had come about for many years. And if we are to organize a general strike, something Fain has alluded to, we're going to need all the help and skills we can get. Chris Smalls, who organized the only successful union organizing push against Amazon, is another one with whom strategic alliances would not be a bad idea.
CNN Business names UAW President Shawn Fain “labor leader of the year” after sellout at Big Three
Jerry White@jerrywhiteSEP
4 January 2024
"The article by CNN Business senior writer Chris Isidore stands reality on its head, presenting the UAW contracts and similar deals at UPS and the film and television industry as historic turning points for workers who have suffered decades of union-backed concessions and falling real wages. It is part of the continuing media effort to to prop up the discredited labor bureaucracy, including articles in the Wall Street Journal (“For Labor Unions, 2023 Was the Year of the Strike—and Big Victories”) and the “left” liberal New Republic (“Hero of the year: Shawn Fain”). "
Real labor leaders and activists do not get named as 'labor leader of the year' by the bourgeoise press unless they play ball.
UAW President Shawn Fain declares his willingness to “work” with fascist Trump
Will Lehman
21 January 2025
The following statement was issued by Will Lehman, the Pennsylvania Mack Trucks workers who ran as a socialist candidate for United Auto Workers president in 2022.
Well done! Two logical fallacies--guilt by association and argument by the assertion of authority. "Real labor" is what you define it as, What the rest of us lessers may think is irrelevant since any disagreement must mean we're among the fooled and unawakened.
No fallacies. Facts. Do your own research. Guilt by association would be :He is bad for he is friends with...". Guilt by assertion of authority would be to turn to someone in and follow their lead." No fallacies here. Only news you do not want to hear. And your statement: since any disagreement must mean we're among the fooled and unawakened
Logical fallacies include: 1.) argument by assertion. Simply claiming something is true. "A REAL labor leader..." As if only your definition counts. 2.) Argument by authority. That's citing someone with credentials as proof whether or not that's relevant to the subject or if the quote is true. I did read material from the WSWS link. If it's there, it MUST BE so, the only source of truth, huh?
"Do your own research" You could easily check what I've posted as comments on this Hedges post alone; decades of research and blue collar experience obvious. "Only news you don't want to hear." So then, as I said, any disagreement with your particular brand of dogma is proof the dissenter must be stupid. Or at least illogical and uninformed because a REAL thinker would be just like you. Of course we lessers are stupid; that's why we need a vanguard of the working class to tell us what to think and what to do.
With nearly 30 years experience as a blue collar worker plus in various service jobs, I've been talked down to by the best of intellects. But do continue; it's amusing. Somewhere Eugene Debs is laughing along with me.
You were duped by anti labor labor. Another American that simply does not understand the country they live in. You take the last word. I have had mine.
To Earlene: You're being bullied by dogmatic armchair leftists, the would-be vanguard that knows what's best for us mere blue collar workers. So what they've never actually held a tool in their lives; their abstract theories are way more important than our lived experience. We're supposed to conform to their expectations. Otherwise be condemned as not real labor people because they assume the right to judge us.
Some of us mere blue collar workers can read, write, and think. Like my grandpa the Wobbly, I'm an autodidact. As you know, there are alternatives to top down, dogmatic socialism--like Tommy Douglas and the NDP. I meant it as humor,(humour?) as justified ridicule, but yeah, considering what's at stake, it's not funny.
Ahh...the grandson of a Wobbly. Heroes for my working class father.......who taught me a lot about socialism and worker rights.
And it is true.......a lot of folks who think they are socialists....aren't really. Up here in the Great White North, we're often more busy telling everyone what's wrong with the NDP, than considering if we all got on side, we might be able to radicalize it from within.
Many 'dogmatic armchair leftists' aren't as left as they imagine. As a great Canadian writer Timothy Findley wrote at the beginning of his great novel THE WARS: "Pay attention: People can only be found in what they Do."
Thank you Chris. At 83 I am disgusted to see what will be the last years of my life taken apart by a fascist Coup. I’m a very “progressive” woman who, when younger would have been in DC fighting this undemocratic takeover
by a man who has become even more dispicable than in his last term in office. I am living now on my Social Security and am hoping I’ll get it as it is due in a few days. I wonder how many republicans live on their social security. Hmmmm. I go to Refaat Alareer’s book. He was murdered by the regime that Biden and now Trump both support. Trump wants to deport the Palestinians to other countries so Netanyahu and his clan can take over Palestinians land.
I just found a wonderful piece on Refaat Alareer (in following up on what you wrote). Thank you for mentioning him. Clearly a wonderful and extraordinarily rare person.
Then you must see the recording of the recent Electronic Intifada, on YouTube, and/or read the interview with Asem Alnabih, the author of the article you linked to.
Yes Linda......I'm not so far behind you in time, and I feel the same way.
The degree to which the majority in the USA have ignored the genocide in Gaza.....sometimes while damning Russia for its 'genocide' in Ukraine....doesn't leave one with much hope for the future.
Wherever some despot or wanna be settler movement sees land they'd like to colonize...it they get the go ahead from the USA....we'll all pretend the victims are the terrorists and hope to God the thieves don't come for what we have.
So much for unregulated private Capitalism. The worship of Mammon leaves no room for high principles or social justice for all. Tragic how quickly its all unfolded.
Thank you Bill and Joy. Yes re Refaat Alareer. I bought his book of poetry and prose a year ago from OR books. It is a wonderful compendium of Refaat’s poems and pieces of writing re what was going on in Gaza. One of his “sayings” show his incredible humor in the worst of the war.
“The problem with Gaza is that it is full of Gazans” (2010)!!!!!
Do you know that while in Congress, Joe Biden threatened multiple times, in the media, to cut Social Security and Medicare? Do you know that Trump has said multiple times that he won't touch them? A more rational reaction would be to fear loss of these benefits if Biden had been reelected.
We are done! Most people I know don’t want to talk about as they are exhausted and they don’t know what or who to believe. It’s hard to get people out of the trance of silent complicity. It won’t happen until there is no other option and then I fear it will be too late. The handmaid tale is beginning
Antonio Gramsci’s observation back in 1930 aptly characterizes the current state: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
I'd caution against "collapse" thinking. What we are seeing, and have been seeing, is consolidation and I suspect it will continue longer than we might think. In any case, by obsessing on collapse we put ourselves in a "waiting" mode, which is disempowering. We need to fight as though there is nothing coming to save us, even collapse.
The ecosystems on which we all rely just to be alive ARE collapsing because of humans. That doesn't mean that we should give up hope or stop fighting, but we need to be realistic in order to properly strategize.
Another brutally honest piece which too few people will read. The only thing that gets the attention of our corporate and oligarchic masters is the loss of money. That means shutting down the economy, it means sacrifice, which is something Americans no longer know how to do. We've been conditioned to atomization, not collective action.
What a wonderful, depressing, summary of where we are today.
About the destruction of Easter Island, Jared Diamond speculated on what went through the mind of the last islander, cutting down the last tree, leaving nothing standing, taller than himself. Did he look around and say: “Oops!”? Or was he blinded by the myths inside his head?
Mr. Hedges implies that we’re standing on that metaphorical precipice, and I wonder how many of us have the insight needed to say “oops” before we cut down that last tree. What percentage of us is needed to stop the madness?
I do know that the techno-fascism is woven into every Tesla, and that makes the Musk-rats not only richer but in greater control. That technological noose may be a good place to start a revolution. Will the owner of the last non ‘smart-phone’, or non ‘smart-car’ have time to look around our island? Will the last paper dollar be our “tree”. Ooops.
''The mine owners did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy - all the gold belonged to them! If the workers are organized, all they have to do is to put their hands in their pockets and they have got the capitalist class whipped.''
~ Big Bill Haywood, Miner, founding member & leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Consumers and workers, develop the class consciousness to put your hands in your pockets and the capitalist system will collapse.
Notice this came out of the lived experience of a worker. Not out of the abstract dictates of dogmatic leftists. My grandpa was a Wobbly; I was a rank and file blue collar union activist for nearly 30 years. We IWW types know we're capable of running our own means of production locally. We don't need centralized, distant management to tell us what to do, even if claiming to be "socialist." Like Eugene Debs said, we don't need nor want leaders--if someone could lead you into paradise, someone else could lead you right back out.
While I applaud gutting of certain war-focused agencies like NNSA, which I had the displeasure to view closeup, my gut reaction to this column is to want to call for the shelving of clerics of all stripes who encourage magical thinking, and locking up all the cops who actually work daily for the mafia state by defending it against the interests of everyone else.
Yeah sure, Trump's the perfect autocrat figurehead for all the ravenous sociopath pigs who'd be content to reduce our prole population to a core of acolytes supporting their tech functions and cleaning their latrines. But the deep roots of the mafia state precede Trump by quite a while, as Chris notes. Greed, selfishness, consumption like nothing else but Homo sap counts for anything, and a fantastic stupidity about Natural cycles and ecological relationships have all been around since humans started plowing the soil, and they ignore the wisdom of aboriginal populations about living harmoniously, instead killing those ideas by murdering their practitioners. Humans seem hopeless to me. I despair of this ever rectifying without a wholesale cleansing and restarting from scratch.
Down with the empire. Give the planet back to the microorganisms.
The view of nature as "red in tooth and claw" was propaganda meant to justify the Social Darwinists and their economic domination. Actual nature is predominantly cooperative--the obligate symbiosis of trees with fungus on the roots proves that. And there are many more symbioses. In my pessimistic moments I'm tempted to cheer for the Bomb. But then I look at the millions of Indigenous peoples who listen to the Earth. And the wild diversity and beauty of life forms like angler fish, orchids, platypuses, redwoods, volvox, gibbons...
Yeah, that's the flip upside for me, but alas I'm having a really bad day. I'd guess not too many folks would recognize/image the beauty of volvox offhand; funny that you chose that; I would've gone for lichens.
The beauty of lichens, especially those crusty 'crustose' types, is often in the eye of the beholder. They're of course a great example of symbiosis. And, as I point out to residents in my low income seniors' apt. bldg, their heavy presence on trees is evidence of air with few pollutants. Volvox are pretty and an example of life in cooperative colonies.
Bio students tend to appreciate Volvox's beauty and colonial nature, and are fascinated by the mutualism of two such disparate organisms as fungus and alga in the lichen; and they also exhibit surprise at lichens' ubiquity, the figure (quoted by Sheldrake) that lichens cover around 8% of earth's surface, functioning as soil makers. So many interesting organisms that often go unappreciated. Bravo for being a teacher where you can.
Where to organize resistance? I think I'll join with public employees in Utah whose governor just signed legislation abolishing public employees' right to collective bargaining.
There is still some social space for struggle and the city hall is and always will be the enemy. A group of good critical thinkers devoted to the public good can organize and take over city hall. We did it in the 70's. Rent Control. It can be done now. Sure, it will take money but we cannot fight the wars in Ukraine or Gaza each day of our lives. We must topple this capitalist system using every avenue we can take. Local takeover of city governments by socialists is the best strategy in light of what we face.
America is a kratocracy (plural kratocracies) (political science) A government established by the forceful or cunning seizure of power and maintained by strength.[1][2][3]
The government established in this case is the billionaire class. The 'cunning' seizure of power is the psyop, aided and abetted by corporate communication techniques.
"I am concerned with power politics—that is to say, I make use of all means that seems to me to be of service, without the slightest concern for the proprieties or for codes of honor."
—Adolf Hitler
"Fascism is a religion. The 20th century will be known in history as the century of fascism."
— Benito Mussolini
And so far, so will the 21st century unless their is an organized movement, a truly left wing populist movement worldwide.
Excellent article, but I can't help but think this bleak analysis lacks nuance.
Trump is certainly not the ideal leader, but I don't see any mention of the positive initiatives. He basically excommunicated some of the worst deep state figures (John Bolton, John Brennan, Mike Pompeo, and a slew of other corrupt intel officials), is in the process of dismantling the CIA-cutouts NED and USAID, forced a ceasefire in Gaza, proposed ending income tax, and recently proposed a trilateral arrangement with Russia and China to reduced the military budget by 50%. Whether the last two proposals can come to fruition remains to be seen, but they would create a huge benefit for the country if they succeed. US debt is out of control and I don't see how we get out of it without massive cuts. And frankly, the Federal govenment in its current stated is bloated and corrupt. We have watched for 15 months as it enabled a genocide, using our tax dollars, and there wasn't a single mechanism within the government that mobilized to stop it. Radical change is needed.
There are definitely legitimate criticisms here, and maybe all of these actions are motivated by self-interest, but I feel a more balanced assessment is warranted.
Lest we forget it was Joe Biden, Blinken, General Austin, Linda Greenfield-Thomas and their whole retinue who paved the way with 2,000 pound bombs and merciless slaughter for Trump and Netanyahu to claim Gaza as real estate. Now that the seemingly mad Trump is in power people are forgetting who put him there. People couldn't stomach Genocide Joe, Bloodthirsty Blinken or the erasure of women's identity, safe spaces, sports and shelters, which led millions to avoid voting or to vote for impossible candidates. The Dems could have run Sanders or Warren to give voters some choice, but instead they preferred to stick with the genocideers. This isn’t just the product of the corrupt, egomanical Trump, it's also consequence of the corrupt credit card Senator Biden and his entourage who never saw a war he didn't like . He's the one who gave billions to Israeli to slaughter the Palestinians so now the next in line is reaping the whirlwind.
The agenda to annihilate Palestine goes way back before Dominick Suter's Urban Moving Systems with Sivan & Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Schmuel, Oded Ellner & Omer Marmari filmed the 911 plane crash,
Or the Kushner crime family and Trump son-in-law Jared prepared the way for Netanyahu and Biden's genocide by initiating the Abraham Accords to tie the hands of other Arab countries to keep them from interfering as the genocide progressed. So now ex-con Daddy Charles Kushner is rewarded with a cushy, prestigious post as Ambassador to France. And the beat goes on with two gangs, Dems & GOP, funded by the same corporations and multinationals, viciously vying to be the public face for their campaign donors.
The question is why did he excommunicate them and the answer is that they are not fascist enough. Do not be fooled by billionaires fighting billionaires. This does not advance our agenda. And do not fall for the tropes about Trump the anti-war president etc.
The man is a fascist, his movement is fascist and the US is now becoming a fascist state.
I am reminded of George Jackson, writing from his cell in San Quentin before he was murdered:
"The final reason why the importance of ideology in fascism must be denied is the fact that it exists in more than one form. In fact, historically it has proved to have three different faces.
One “ out of power " that tends almost to be revolutionary and subversive, anti-capitalist and anti-socialist.
One "in power but not secure'* — this is the sensational aspect of fascism that we see on screen and read of in pulp novels, when the ruling class, through its instrumental regime, is able to suppress the vanguard party of the people’s and workers’ movement.
The third face of fascism exists when it is “in power and securely so.” During this phase some dissent may even be allowed."
“The psycho-social dimensions of fascism become quite complex, but they can be simplified by thinking of them as part of a collective bargaining process carried on between all the elites of the particular state with the regime acting as arbitrator.
The regime’s interests are subject to those of the ruling class.
Labor is a partner in this arrangement.
At the head of any labor organization in the fascist state, there is an elite which is tied to the interests of the regime—and consequently tied also to the economic status quo.
The trappings of this pseudo mass society are empty, cheap, spectacular leisure sports; parades where strangers meet, shout each other down and often trample each other to death on the way home; mass consumption of worthless super-suds or aspirin; ritualistic, ultra-nationalistic events on days to glorify the idiots who died at war or other days to deify those who sent them out to die.
A mass society that is actually a mass jungle.
At its core, fascism is capitalistic and capitalism is international.
Beneath its nationalist ideological trappings, fascism is always ultimately an international movement.”
Jackson was murdered by San Quentin guards in the early 1970's.
-George L. Jackson—Blood In My Eye; Classes At War
But to assert that these intel operatives "aren't fascist enough" stretches creduilty. They are some of the most hardline, fascist elements within the security state, who championed the worst abuses committed in modern US history. The only plausible argument I can see is that they were enemies of Trump, and so he had them removed. But you have to admit, the fact that these figures, entrencehed in the US security state, were so opposed to Trump raises an eyebrow.
And yes, everything this admin and its billionaire acolytes does should be scrutinized, but we should still acknowledge positive developments.
I agree with most of what you say in terms of the virulent fascism today.
We face two fascisms, really but combined into a savor gum drop of despair.
The techno fascists of the ilk of Thiel, Musk et. al. and the white settler fascists, who have been organizing since the end of the second world war.
I understand your use of the 'security state' and do not fault you for it but we must develop a new language: it is the insecurity state.
Do not be duped into thinking that Trump is somehow anti war or anti tech oligarchy; the reverse is true. He wants, along with the oligarchs, to use the State as the umbrella for all policies at home and abroad.
He will and is, respace/ing the forces of repression with his own patreon guard.
A new insecurity state is being built right in front of our eyes.
Soon you will see Mike Flynn again, Blackwater murderer and mercenary Eric Prince and the force of theological fascism both internally and abroad.
The die has been cast. This is the fascist moment.
Our only hope is to ally and fight, even if we cannot win.
Take inspiration from the global south, Mexico with a new socialist. feminist and Jewish president and events in Africa, where France recently lost its colony.
the hope has always been that of the oppressed and they are rising as we are failing.
I take your point regarding the "security state", but in my mind I already equate it with the "insecurity state" as you described.
Anyway, I am not yet convinced either way, but I can't ignore the positive signals coming from the admin. If we take his first term as a guide, IMO it was orders of magnitude less destructive than the mass carnage wrought on the Middle East by Bush, Obama, and Biden. So relatively speaking, he has a track record of being anti-war. If he manages to end the Ukraine war and follow through with all stages of the ceasefire (without following through on his ethnic cleansing plans), it would be hard to argue that he's not anti-war.
Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but we don't have much else to hope for. Realistically, revolution won't come from a country as divided as ours. The examples you cite in Africa don't really apply here, because the people of Africa were united against a common external enemy.
And that is the point. BRICS and the global south are now on the rise and the US is in decline. The changes will come from the activities from those in what was once called 'The Third World' but whose title was robbed by the US. We are the banana republic that imports bananas. Trump is about as anti-war as Nixon was. Do not be fooled by these harbingers of capitalism whose faces change decade from decade. They represent the financial interests of the ruling class.
I think what is missing is an historical materialist understanding of capitalism. for it is capitalism, now financial capitalism, that Trump represents. The fight against fascism must be a fight by an organized working class. Trump represents the anti-thesis of this. War is a result of economic class struggle so if one is to fight against war they must fight against capitalism. Trump is a tool of both the Christian right and the oligarchs.
More than half the human race should lead lives of subservience, sacrifice and obedience to the other less than half?: letters of Geo Jackson:
"Women like to be dominated, love being strong-armed, need an overseer to supplement their weakness. So how could she really understand my feelings on self-determination. For this reason we should never allow women to express any opinions on the subject, but just to sit, listen to us, and attempt to understand. It is for them to obey and aid us, not to attempt to think. Women and children enjoy and need a strong hand poised above them.
In the society of our fathers and in the civilized world today, women feel it their obligation to be ever yielding and obedient to their men. Life is purposely made simple for them because of their nature, and they are happy. When the women outnumber the men in the black societies, the men take as many wives as they can afford, and care for them all equally. In the white for some nebulous reason the men can take only one . . . the rest are left to become prostitutes, nuns, or lesbians. In the civilized societies the women do light work, bear children, and lend purpose to the man's existence. Their job is to train the children in their early life to be men or women. Is this not enough? The rest is left to the men: government administration, the providing of means of subsistence, and defense, or maintenance of life and property against any who would deprive us of it, as the barbarian has and is still attempting to do. Women and children enjoy and need a strong hand poised above them.
George Jackson was incarcerated in Soledad prison. I sent him a letter there once, but it was returned. One might wonder if he was transferred for the purpose of being murdered.
A lot of people say a lot of things. Time will tell what the motivations are, but I doubt the 1% are excited about the prospect of a massive cut to defense spending.
I have always thought that the US would become a religious (evangelical) state.........makes it easy to control people. There will be other religions which means bloodshed.
I look at the religious wars in Europe for knowledge.
Thanks for this brilliantly written editorial Chris.
Do you really believe we are going to become an evangelical state, or should I say do you believe that rhetoric which seems to rear it's head every time Trump's in office?
I don't think that's the main villain, either. It's more about the 1%ers and their corporate edifices turning trickle up into a vacuum to suck up what remains of middle class/worker wealth and natural resources before the econ and ecol systems collapse. There are also pols and techies obsessed with power. As are Gospel of Prosperity preachers, who are useful to and rewarded by the pols and 1%ers. The desperate voters and religious believers who align with them feel like they have no other choice.
The religious state is already extracting its pound of flesh, and may become logarithmic in the near future. Examples: the loss of women autonomy over their own health and decision to bear children or not, or to even prevent pregnancy in some circumstances; the ultra right crush of free speech to denounce the Zionist state and US participation in a genocide in the accusation of being anti-Semitic, where the State and Christians religiously support Israel; the infiltration of our Supreme Court with ideologically Christian based politics; the removal of multiple church ministers who speak against the injustices of the evangelical movement and who promote comfort to the downtrodden; the status of women in our society as second hand citizens, to be subservient, typical of many religious institutions; the Christian prayers in the armed services such as the Air Force, prior to unleashing a holy battle/war against the infidels; the Government Christian prayer meetings, for guidance and blessing as the supplicants continue to wreck havoc on the undeserving; Trump using the military to forcefully clear street demonstrators so he can have a photo op with hand on a Bible; the restriction of saying fuck on TV but it is acceptable to carry the cross and slaughter millions; ad nauseum.
What about the intolerable and dangerous influence of the Israeli lobby in American politics, since they are the ones who are most influential on cracking down on free speech when it comes to Israel? Certainly that's a group that has to be more closely examined and condemned, since it has been so instrumental in our foreign policies, including our middle eastern wars and the genocide in Gaza, which has killed mostly women and children, Ever read Netanyahu's book back in the 1990's, Fighting Terrorism? He named the countries who present a threat, a threat to Israel, and didn't we take them out, one by one. Listen to Jeffery Sach's talk with Tucker Carlson about all our middle eastern wars and who and what was behind them. What about the military industrial complex and their push for war and all those that benefit from it? What about the Trump's ongoing attempts of bringing the war in Ukraine to an end, a war that the Biden administration started, a war that has killed hundreds of thousands, and all to bring Putin down. Or maybe those deaths don't mean much to you? I'm not in love with the evangelical mindset, but they won't and are not the source of all that it wrong with the USA. God, but what is wrong with the US doesn't come down to one group and never will. Take a look at Citizens United that came about in this century and strongly empowered the corporate world and gave them a huge say in the political arena.
I agree with everything you are saying, multiple pieces here. But we were talking specifically about the religious influence in affairs of state, which you expressed as not an important factor. Israel and the Christian Right are connected at the hip by the way. I have denounced both Israel and the U.S. from week one of the genocide, and lost friends because of my stance.
The state and church are supposed to be separate entities in the realm of politics.
But then…The tax free churches are political at the pulpit. The diversion of public school funds to private religious institutions. The placement again of the Ten Commandments on the walls of classrooms is a religious move, although not a bad idea if all would follow the tenets of do not kill, do not lie, do not covet.
Fast forward it appears we are headed toward an oligarchic Christian fascist state.
And Hedges is correct, we must bring the fear to them, power in the streets, power of millions, power of strikes. It will not be easy and we must rebuild local communities and communicate and trust others.
They say the Christian Right is diminishing, and their numbers are no where near what others report them to be, and I never felt they had a significant influence in the political arena. I agree that Israel and the Christian right are connected at the hip, but the Israeli lobby has tremendous influence in our politics and it's influence is far greater, and they have got to go. Adelson, says to Trump, hears a hundred million and clear those Palestinians out of the West Bank. What the hell!!!!!!!!!!!! However the Israeli's have been doing that for decades, so she really means, finish the job. When Netanyahu came into office in 2022 he said he was going to make that his main priority to his Zionists cohorts, and it's one of the main reasons Hamas gave for their assault on Oct 7. As far as choosing Huckabee, as ambassador to Israel, well, lets hope he overdoses on relaxium and sleeps through the next four years. If you are right that we are headed toward a oligarchic Christian state, I'm sure the Israeli lobby and corporate America will be the one's calling the shots.
Please note! This older understanding of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) society has been contradicted by new research that demonstrates how the people of Rapa Nui were in fact the good stewards of their resources that European and American colonists never were (or are). See "Triumph of the Commons:
Sustainable Community Practices
on Rapa Nui (Easter Island." Including colonized indigenous peoples in a list of "failed societies" is a category mistake.
Here's the link to that article you reference. One thing it doesn't do is blame it on the rats. It does go a long way in rehabiliting the people of rapa nui, so that's a good thing. A bad thing is losing a handy example of why we humans ought to treat our planet better. Their conclusion, I already posted in a later reply to one of Jeff's many postings, here it is:
"Consequently, the sustainable communities of Rapa Nui thrived until the arrival of Europeans; the introduction of disease, slave raiding, and new kinds of economic resources resulted in the gradual abandonment of some long-standing traditions."
Please cite some sources for your claim. Agricultural societies ALWAYS eventually destroy their environments, so there's no logical reason that these people should be any different.
One more thing: I'm no expert, but the Rapa Nui case is very similar to other island cultures in the Pacific that shared a unique social and political structure and a very strict set of rules for resource use. This made it possible for these peoples to thrive for hundreds and even thousands of years in very small spaces. Of course, there was also lots of inter-island travel throughout the Pacific that may have worked to take population pressure off of these spaces. Anyway, at the very least, it's all a lot more complicated than simply claiming that all humans are similarly doomed! There are models we can learn from if we look for them.
I never said that all people are doomed. I said that living agriculturally instead of as hunter gatherers is not sustainable. Destroying the planet and killing the nonhuman life here is a choice, be it conscious or unconscious. There are some groups of people who got it right and live correctly, the problem is that they're only a tiny fraction of 1% of humans. We could start moving in that direction if we wanted to, but the vast majority don't want to. As a whole, humans went off the rails thousands of years ago, and it just gets worse as time goes on. Humans ARE doomed if they don't change course and both greatly lower their population and return to living naturally. If humans want to kill themselves off instead of giving up their unnatural lifestyles, that's their choice and not my concern. My problem is that we're killing the Earth and the NONHUMAN life here, and that couldn't be more immoral. Humans make the Nazis look like girl scouts in this regard.
Wow! We have our work cut out for us. Putin is not our (Canada's) enemy - he is not the head of a country threatening to annex us. The American people need to organize to take back their ccountry from this cabal of multi-millionaires and billionaires. The rest of us in the world need to organize to isolate the USA until the American people do that - and ensure it pollution - spread by the likes of the techie bros of which Musk is but one vile example - is first contained and second recycled into something life giving rather than life destroying. Sort of like a recycling of highly toxic deadly nuclear waste - only this is highly toxic deadly social waste.
The U.S. is certainly the evil empire, that's not debatable. But that doesn't let others off the hook. Anyone who lives or aspires to live the opulent, unnatural American lifestyle is part of the problem too.
From my perspective the USA was officially diagnosed with cancer on 1/6/21 and entered hospice on 1/20/25. Though one could easily argue it all officially began in 1776. Regardless, there is no doubt that the USA is in its end days now. And given the requirements for entering hospice I give the USA six months or less before it all collapses into some unimaginable dystopia. Actually just look back to Nazi Germany or Gaza today for what wicked things are likely coming our way. And as Chris alludes to, we will take the whole world down with us including most flora and fauna. And I can’t imagine a more perfect asshole named Trump to be the figurehead to oversee it all burn to the ground. If it was a Hollywood movie one couldn’t cast a more perfect actor to play the part.
We know the foul smelling and even uglier rot at the core of this techie bros coup - many of whom are on the 'spectrum' so utterly unable to experience empathy, compassion, love or caring for another's well-being - including Earth - the only planet with the atmosphere capable of suppirting us human Earthlings.
Please. Let’s stop disparaging people on the spectrum. I do not believe for one second that Elon Musk or most of his tech bros are autistic. I have done a lot of work with people with autism and other disabilities. They are full of empathy, love, and compassion and have nothing in common with the selfish mafia thugs running this country today.
Any blanket condemnation is the very definition of prejudice.
I've wondered for a few years of those on the spectrum might actually represent a different intelligence......we've been notorious in the know it all west for labelling whatever doesn't resemble us.....might be the saints and visionaries were relegating to the wrong side of our stupid bell curve.
There's so much we don't know about everything that's important: life, intelligence, symbiosis, plasticity....
We're reductive ad absurdium creatures.......more often than we realize.
That continues to be a common misconception about autistic people, that they have no theory of mind and lack empathy, etc. Thanks for sticking up for those on the spetrum.
that's a really good point.
Why adopt such an apocalyptic view, and may I ask did you portend the end times when Biden was in office, or was it during the Bush/Cheney years, or did you adopt this perspective due to all our many middle eastern wars which were set in motion before we even went into Afghanistan after 9/11? A list of countries Netanyahu perceived as dangerous in his 1990's book, Fighting Terrorism. He identified the countries we set out to hit after 9/11 and believe it or not we did. I think the end of the war between Ukraine and Russia may very well prevent the end times. Seems Trump wants to have some denuclearization talks with Russia and China, maybe we should wait and see how that goes. Seems the war between Russia and Ukraine maybe coming to it's end. I hate when people adopt such an apocalyptic view of things, dramatic, yes, but honest, no., Oh, and how I remember that prediction when he came into office in 2016.
Human nature Fran. Some people fight others give up.
Frankly I think the chaos is good especially for Europe and the USA not to mention the blighted Island called UK
I think 6 months is a bit optimistic.............2yrs
Usually when empires finally collapse, it takes place fairly quickly.
It takes time to lead up to the collapse, but we have been living through the lead-up for the last few horrible years.
We shall see as time goes by. Things in the USA could easily be horrific within six months.
Chris Hedges has written many times that our hollowed out institutions will collapse with astounding speed. Seeing what's unfolding now gives credence to the idea.
Yes, but Chris has said that economic collapse in the US will happen when the dollar is no longer the world’s currency.
I think he’s right about that.
Intervening facts might affect the prediction's timeline, if not ultimate outcome. If significant enough, how could they not?
I think it depends on how soon they wreck Medicare, Social Security and decimate funding for the Medicaid programs. I initially thought we might be in the last ten years of a recognizable public education system but it could be way less than that. There is a nakedness about the desire to shred the social safety net but it will be the point at which this desire to cannibalize the state becomes apparent to a larger circle of ordinary Americans, many of whom are betting on Trump.
Mr. Hedges is the second author I've read today -- Joseph Gerson writing in Common Dreams was the first -- who's pointed out that, among the tools we have to end this madness is a general strike, bringing the wheels of empire to a grinding halt.
A general strike will take a lot of thought and planning: How do you feed and shelter your family when the country shuts down? The thought, planning, and preparation needs to begin now.
Hey, Shawn Fain, you busy? We could use some organizing help.
Concurrent with a general strike, we need a boycott of non-essential consumer goods. My impression is that most in the US consume a lot of non-essential "stuff." The advertising (propaganda) machine has developed a "shop until you drop" mentality that serves only the wealthy. I would love to see a strike work in tandem with a boycott of non-essential goods.
Whether it's a general strike, or a targeted strike of selected industries, I think you're on to something, Lois. What if none of us bought ANYTHING for a day, week, or more, in tandem with a work stoppage?
That's already planned. February 28th, DONT BUY ANYTHING.
Yes, I just heard about this, too. It's apparently the brainchild of The Peoples Union, https://jointhepeoplesunion.com. A one-day action targeting the big ones like Amazon, Target, Walmart, Coca Cola, all the behemoths that have agreed to back off or eliminate DEI initiatives. I would want to know more about The Peoples Union, but it wouldn't hurt to do this action for a day, and it looks like it's gathering steam across social media. Plans are to do this single one-day action, then go on to longer ones. I've long been thinking about this because I believe consumption is our most powerful tool. A savage consumerism has been driven into workers' heads for decades. The economy dies without it. Time to mess with it.
How do we know that the People's Union is legitimately interested in civil and human rights and is not a front group collecting information about people who may represent a threat to the establishment? How can someone determine the sincerity of the person setting up this web site and what his true motivations may be? I wish a healthy dose of cynicism wasn't necessary, but these days it is. Look at who the apex predators are in this current iteration of the establishment and tell me I should have no reason to doubt the people I see opening up web sites on the internet who tell me they are here to make a difference, to give power back to the people? Is there a politician who hasn't said something similar? Can anyone here vouch for this website and what it purports to represent?
You're right, and that's why I wrote, "I would want to know more about The Peoples Union." One guy puts it out on IG, then sets up a website that's already talking about a new party and asking for donations. Very suspect. But I've been wondering for a long time about the rampant consumerism that preys on people's insecurities, wrecks our ecosystems, and makes the wealthy few wealthier. We need that "revolution of values" that MLK talked about.
Easy for us.......we've not shopped there for years, if ever. Local Coop provides most of our needs....second hand recycling stores our clothing.
In Canada, we're already boycotting American products whenever we can. You may have noticed.
Fein is one of the problems.
He sold out his union.
You can read all about it at WSWS.org
Faux trade-unionism i the cornerstone of fascism.
“Fascism recognises the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade-unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonised in the unity of the State.”
Benito Mussolini, 1935, The Doctrine of Fascism, Firenze:Vallecchi Editore. (p.15)
https://politicalresearch.org/2005/01/12/mussolini-corporate-state
No need to rely only on Fein. Kshama Sawant, a socialist formerly of the Seattle city council, is now organizing to establish a true working-class party. Conference coming up next week. Check it out at https://www.workersstrikeback.org.
Thank you, Monsoon. I went to the WSWS site and read a couple of articles about Fain and the UAW, finding much food for thought there. One takeaway I gleaned was that it doesn't do a hell of a lot of good fora union in one country to cut a deal if it comes at the expense of workers in another country. The fight for justice needs to be international
Good for you for having the perseverance and critical thinking to do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Fein was a democratic party hack and there is not much left for him now that Trump is in office other than align with fascism. I encourage everyone to google "Sean Fein and WSWS' and read for yourself the sell out policies of this overpaid union bureaucrat. We need worker committees not labor leaders.
We need both.........and a membership that knows why its banding together. Let's face it......anyone who talked themselves into not needing a union.....any teacher who dissed their Teacher Union.......has been part of the problems we're facing now........imagine rich philanthropists will take care of us....put our old union dues into a GIC....or whatever we call those stock market bubbles now.
In my province of Canada......they're coming for our Public Pensions. With Trump's help they might suceed.
I agree with both your comments sand absent an organized popular front they will not only come for our pensions they will come for us.
Mammon Worship never ends well......for any of us.
Still, given the widespread anti-union sentiment that was ginned up across the western world.......you can't blame the unions. Where I live, folks who think they're cutting edge radical could be caught dissing the Unions.
Seems the contempt for the people who actually do physical work has been pretty strong and made stronger by neoliberal hollowing out of western manufacturing.
I remember we actually celebrated that the third world didn't have unions when the big boys we're starting to hate now....moved their factories there.
Is it too late for a lot more solidarity??? I sometimes fear so.
Union President Rev. Ryan Brown, after a long valiant effort to unionize Amazon in North Carolina was just fired by them. He might be another one to call in.
I joined the UAW because of Shawn Fein's leadership on the resistance.
For all of Shawn Fain's failings, I still admire the way he played the big three automakers against each other, getting a better contract for the UAW than had come about for many years. And if we are to organize a general strike, something Fain has alluded to, we're going to need all the help and skills we can get. Chris Smalls, who organized the only successful union organizing push against Amazon, is another one with whom strategic alliances would not be a bad idea.
CNN Business names UAW President Shawn Fain “labor leader of the year” after sellout at Big Three
Jerry White@jerrywhiteSEP
4 January 2024
"The article by CNN Business senior writer Chris Isidore stands reality on its head, presenting the UAW contracts and similar deals at UPS and the film and television industry as historic turning points for workers who have suffered decades of union-backed concessions and falling real wages. It is part of the continuing media effort to to prop up the discredited labor bureaucracy, including articles in the Wall Street Journal (“For Labor Unions, 2023 Was the Year of the Strike—and Big Victories”) and the “left” liberal New Republic (“Hero of the year: Shawn Fain”). "
Real labor leaders and activists do not get named as 'labor leader of the year' by the bourgeoise press unless they play ball.
UAW President Shawn Fain declares his willingness to “work” with fascist Trump
Will Lehman
21 January 2025
The following statement was issued by Will Lehman, the Pennsylvania Mack Trucks workers who ran as a socialist candidate for United Auto Workers president in 2022.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/01/22/ssfu-j22.html
Will Lehman was the leftist defeated by Fein. The whole chronicle of the fake elections and the destruction of worker committees can be found above.
Well done! Two logical fallacies--guilt by association and argument by the assertion of authority. "Real labor" is what you define it as, What the rest of us lessers may think is irrelevant since any disagreement must mean we're among the fooled and unawakened.
No fallacies. Facts. Do your own research. Guilt by association would be :He is bad for he is friends with...". Guilt by assertion of authority would be to turn to someone in and follow their lead." No fallacies here. Only news you do not want to hear. And your statement: since any disagreement must mean we're among the fooled and unawakened
Can you clarify?
Logical fallacies include: 1.) argument by assertion. Simply claiming something is true. "A REAL labor leader..." As if only your definition counts. 2.) Argument by authority. That's citing someone with credentials as proof whether or not that's relevant to the subject or if the quote is true. I did read material from the WSWS link. If it's there, it MUST BE so, the only source of truth, huh?
"Do your own research" You could easily check what I've posted as comments on this Hedges post alone; decades of research and blue collar experience obvious. "Only news you don't want to hear." So then, as I said, any disagreement with your particular brand of dogma is proof the dissenter must be stupid. Or at least illogical and uninformed because a REAL thinker would be just like you. Of course we lessers are stupid; that's why we need a vanguard of the working class to tell us what to think and what to do.
With nearly 30 years experience as a blue collar worker plus in various service jobs, I've been talked down to by the best of intellects. But do continue; it's amusing. Somewhere Eugene Debs is laughing along with me.
You were duped by anti labor labor. Another American that simply does not understand the country they live in. You take the last word. I have had mine.
To Earlene: You're being bullied by dogmatic armchair leftists, the would-be vanguard that knows what's best for us mere blue collar workers. So what they've never actually held a tool in their lives; their abstract theories are way more important than our lived experience. We're supposed to conform to their expectations. Otherwise be condemned as not real labor people because they assume the right to judge us.
Oh dear.......'dogmatic armchair leftists'??? Nice to see you smart people who read Chris Hedges are getting it together....lol, but it's not funny.
Some of us mere blue collar workers can read, write, and think. Like my grandpa the Wobbly, I'm an autodidact. As you know, there are alternatives to top down, dogmatic socialism--like Tommy Douglas and the NDP. I meant it as humor,(humour?) as justified ridicule, but yeah, considering what's at stake, it's not funny.
Ahh...the grandson of a Wobbly. Heroes for my working class father.......who taught me a lot about socialism and worker rights.
And it is true.......a lot of folks who think they are socialists....aren't really. Up here in the Great White North, we're often more busy telling everyone what's wrong with the NDP, than considering if we all got on side, we might be able to radicalize it from within.
Many 'dogmatic armchair leftists' aren't as left as they imagine. As a great Canadian writer Timothy Findley wrote at the beginning of his great novel THE WARS: "Pay attention: People can only be found in what they Do."
I don't know if I can define who is or isn't "really" anything. But I can usually see the fallacies or gaps in an argument.
I will look up Timothy Findley; thanks!
Thank you Chris. At 83 I am disgusted to see what will be the last years of my life taken apart by a fascist Coup. I’m a very “progressive” woman who, when younger would have been in DC fighting this undemocratic takeover
by a man who has become even more dispicable than in his last term in office. I am living now on my Social Security and am hoping I’ll get it as it is due in a few days. I wonder how many republicans live on their social security. Hmmmm. I go to Refaat Alareer’s book. He was murdered by the regime that Biden and now Trump both support. Trump wants to deport the Palestinians to other countries so Netanyahu and his clan can take over Palestinians land.
What a sick world and country we live in.
In Hope.
Linda Snider
Hi Linda,
I just found a wonderful piece on Refaat Alareer (in following up on what you wrote). Thank you for mentioning him. Clearly a wonderful and extraordinarily rare person.
In case you might not have seen it:
https://electronicintifada.net/content/my-final-moments-refaat-alareer/50193
Then you must see the recording of the recent Electronic Intifada, on YouTube, and/or read the interview with Asem Alnabih, the author of the article you linked to.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/my-search-refaat-alareers-body/50382
I’ll click on your links now. I must have missed that EI episode! I love
all of the EI group! And ARI getting arrested in, was it Switzerland!?!).
Thank you, Joy. I will.
Yes Linda......I'm not so far behind you in time, and I feel the same way.
The degree to which the majority in the USA have ignored the genocide in Gaza.....sometimes while damning Russia for its 'genocide' in Ukraine....doesn't leave one with much hope for the future.
Wherever some despot or wanna be settler movement sees land they'd like to colonize...it they get the go ahead from the USA....we'll all pretend the victims are the terrorists and hope to God the thieves don't come for what we have.
So much for unregulated private Capitalism. The worship of Mammon leaves no room for high principles or social justice for all. Tragic how quickly its all unfolded.
Thank you Bill and Joy. Yes re Refaat Alareer. I bought his book of poetry and prose a year ago from OR books. It is a wonderful compendium of Refaat’s poems and pieces of writing re what was going on in Gaza. One of his “sayings” show his incredible humor in the worst of the war.
“The problem with Gaza is that it is full of Gazans” (2010)!!!!!
Thank you, Linda, I only learned of him through Chris Hedges on this substack. Yes, a wonderful poet, and human being.
Do you know that while in Congress, Joe Biden threatened multiple times, in the media, to cut Social Security and Medicare? Do you know that Trump has said multiple times that he won't touch them? A more rational reaction would be to fear loss of these benefits if Biden had been reelected.
Jeff. No. I didn’t know that. I hope to get my Social Security soon. Thanks
Linda
We are done! Most people I know don’t want to talk about as they are exhausted and they don’t know what or who to believe. It’s hard to get people out of the trance of silent complicity. It won’t happen until there is no other option and then I fear it will be too late. The handmaid tale is beginning
Antonio Gramsci’s observation back in 1930 aptly characterizes the current state: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
I'd caution against "collapse" thinking. What we are seeing, and have been seeing, is consolidation and I suspect it will continue longer than we might think. In any case, by obsessing on collapse we put ourselves in a "waiting" mode, which is disempowering. We need to fight as though there is nothing coming to save us, even collapse.
The ecosystems on which we all rely just to be alive ARE collapsing because of humans. That doesn't mean that we should give up hope or stop fighting, but we need to be realistic in order to properly strategize.
Brilliantly comprehensive, fatally accurate, and totally excluded from public dialogue.
Another brutally honest piece which too few people will read. The only thing that gets the attention of our corporate and oligarchic masters is the loss of money. That means shutting down the economy, it means sacrifice, which is something Americans no longer know how to do. We've been conditioned to atomization, not collective action.
What a wonderful, depressing, summary of where we are today.
About the destruction of Easter Island, Jared Diamond speculated on what went through the mind of the last islander, cutting down the last tree, leaving nothing standing, taller than himself. Did he look around and say: “Oops!”? Or was he blinded by the myths inside his head?
Mr. Hedges implies that we’re standing on that metaphorical precipice, and I wonder how many of us have the insight needed to say “oops” before we cut down that last tree. What percentage of us is needed to stop the madness?
I do know that the techno-fascism is woven into every Tesla, and that makes the Musk-rats not only richer but in greater control. That technological noose may be a good place to start a revolution. Will the owner of the last non ‘smart-phone’, or non ‘smart-car’ have time to look around our island? Will the last paper dollar be our “tree”. Ooops.
''The mine owners did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy - all the gold belonged to them! If the workers are organized, all they have to do is to put their hands in their pockets and they have got the capitalist class whipped.''
~ Big Bill Haywood, Miner, founding member & leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Consumers and workers, develop the class consciousness to put your hands in your pockets and the capitalist system will collapse.
Notice this came out of the lived experience of a worker. Not out of the abstract dictates of dogmatic leftists. My grandpa was a Wobbly; I was a rank and file blue collar union activist for nearly 30 years. We IWW types know we're capable of running our own means of production locally. We don't need centralized, distant management to tell us what to do, even if claiming to be "socialist." Like Eugene Debs said, we don't need nor want leaders--if someone could lead you into paradise, someone else could lead you right back out.
Easter Island was doomed by the rats carried on slave-trading ships, not by human greed. All the rest is myth.
While I applaud gutting of certain war-focused agencies like NNSA, which I had the displeasure to view closeup, my gut reaction to this column is to want to call for the shelving of clerics of all stripes who encourage magical thinking, and locking up all the cops who actually work daily for the mafia state by defending it against the interests of everyone else.
Yeah sure, Trump's the perfect autocrat figurehead for all the ravenous sociopath pigs who'd be content to reduce our prole population to a core of acolytes supporting their tech functions and cleaning their latrines. But the deep roots of the mafia state precede Trump by quite a while, as Chris notes. Greed, selfishness, consumption like nothing else but Homo sap counts for anything, and a fantastic stupidity about Natural cycles and ecological relationships have all been around since humans started plowing the soil, and they ignore the wisdom of aboriginal populations about living harmoniously, instead killing those ideas by murdering their practitioners. Humans seem hopeless to me. I despair of this ever rectifying without a wholesale cleansing and restarting from scratch.
Down with the empire. Give the planet back to the microorganisms.
The view of nature as "red in tooth and claw" was propaganda meant to justify the Social Darwinists and their economic domination. Actual nature is predominantly cooperative--the obligate symbiosis of trees with fungus on the roots proves that. And there are many more symbioses. In my pessimistic moments I'm tempted to cheer for the Bomb. But then I look at the millions of Indigenous peoples who listen to the Earth. And the wild diversity and beauty of life forms like angler fish, orchids, platypuses, redwoods, volvox, gibbons...
Yeah, that's the flip upside for me, but alas I'm having a really bad day. I'd guess not too many folks would recognize/image the beauty of volvox offhand; funny that you chose that; I would've gone for lichens.
The beauty of lichens, especially those crusty 'crustose' types, is often in the eye of the beholder. They're of course a great example of symbiosis. And, as I point out to residents in my low income seniors' apt. bldg, their heavy presence on trees is evidence of air with few pollutants. Volvox are pretty and an example of life in cooperative colonies.
Bio students tend to appreciate Volvox's beauty and colonial nature, and are fascinated by the mutualism of two such disparate organisms as fungus and alga in the lichen; and they also exhibit surprise at lichens' ubiquity, the figure (quoted by Sheldrake) that lichens cover around 8% of earth's surface, functioning as soil makers. So many interesting organisms that often go unappreciated. Bravo for being a teacher where you can.
Where to organize resistance? I think I'll join with public employees in Utah whose governor just signed legislation abolishing public employees' right to collective bargaining.
Yes, good point. Start at City Hall, the planning commissions, the school boards, the City Councils, etc. Think locally and fight globally.
There is still some social space for struggle and the city hall is and always will be the enemy. A group of good critical thinkers devoted to the public good can organize and take over city hall. We did it in the 70's. Rent Control. It can be done now. Sure, it will take money but we cannot fight the wars in Ukraine or Gaza each day of our lives. We must topple this capitalist system using every avenue we can take. Local takeover of city governments by socialists is the best strategy in light of what we face.
Tax strike. Invoke Force Majeure. Trump has broken the social contract.
America is a kratocracy (plural kratocracies) (political science) A government established by the forceful or cunning seizure of power and maintained by strength.[1][2][3]
The government established in this case is the billionaire class. The 'cunning' seizure of power is the psyop, aided and abetted by corporate communication techniques.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kratocracy
And this is not populism it is faux populism or better stated, by the non-sophists, as fascism.
https://monthlyreview.org/2017/06/01/this-is-not-populism/
"I am concerned with power politics—that is to say, I make use of all means that seems to me to be of service, without the slightest concern for the proprieties or for codes of honor."
—Adolf Hitler
"Fascism is a religion. The 20th century will be known in history as the century of fascism."
— Benito Mussolini
And so far, so will the 21st century unless their is an organized movement, a truly left wing populist movement worldwide.
Thank you, in particular for this Monthly Review article link.
You are welcome, Bill
Excellent article, but I can't help but think this bleak analysis lacks nuance.
Trump is certainly not the ideal leader, but I don't see any mention of the positive initiatives. He basically excommunicated some of the worst deep state figures (John Bolton, John Brennan, Mike Pompeo, and a slew of other corrupt intel officials), is in the process of dismantling the CIA-cutouts NED and USAID, forced a ceasefire in Gaza, proposed ending income tax, and recently proposed a trilateral arrangement with Russia and China to reduced the military budget by 50%. Whether the last two proposals can come to fruition remains to be seen, but they would create a huge benefit for the country if they succeed. US debt is out of control and I don't see how we get out of it without massive cuts. And frankly, the Federal govenment in its current stated is bloated and corrupt. We have watched for 15 months as it enabled a genocide, using our tax dollars, and there wasn't a single mechanism within the government that mobilized to stop it. Radical change is needed.
There are definitely legitimate criticisms here, and maybe all of these actions are motivated by self-interest, but I feel a more balanced assessment is warranted.
Lest we forget it was Joe Biden, Blinken, General Austin, Linda Greenfield-Thomas and their whole retinue who paved the way with 2,000 pound bombs and merciless slaughter for Trump and Netanyahu to claim Gaza as real estate. Now that the seemingly mad Trump is in power people are forgetting who put him there. People couldn't stomach Genocide Joe, Bloodthirsty Blinken or the erasure of women's identity, safe spaces, sports and shelters, which led millions to avoid voting or to vote for impossible candidates. The Dems could have run Sanders or Warren to give voters some choice, but instead they preferred to stick with the genocideers. This isn’t just the product of the corrupt, egomanical Trump, it's also consequence of the corrupt credit card Senator Biden and his entourage who never saw a war he didn't like . He's the one who gave billions to Israeli to slaughter the Palestinians so now the next in line is reaping the whirlwind.
The agenda to annihilate Palestine goes way back before Dominick Suter's Urban Moving Systems with Sivan & Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Schmuel, Oded Ellner & Omer Marmari filmed the 911 plane crash,
Or the Kushner crime family and Trump son-in-law Jared prepared the way for Netanyahu and Biden's genocide by initiating the Abraham Accords to tie the hands of other Arab countries to keep them from interfering as the genocide progressed. So now ex-con Daddy Charles Kushner is rewarded with a cushy, prestigious post as Ambassador to France. And the beat goes on with two gangs, Dems & GOP, funded by the same corporations and multinationals, viciously vying to be the public face for their campaign donors.
https://911research.fandom.com/wiki/Urban_Moving_Systems#Dancing_Israelis_Incident
The question is why did he excommunicate them and the answer is that they are not fascist enough. Do not be fooled by billionaires fighting billionaires. This does not advance our agenda. And do not fall for the tropes about Trump the anti-war president etc.
The man is a fascist, his movement is fascist and the US is now becoming a fascist state.
I am reminded of George Jackson, writing from his cell in San Quentin before he was murdered:
"The final reason why the importance of ideology in fascism must be denied is the fact that it exists in more than one form. In fact, historically it has proved to have three different faces.
One “ out of power " that tends almost to be revolutionary and subversive, anti-capitalist and anti-socialist.
One "in power but not secure'* — this is the sensational aspect of fascism that we see on screen and read of in pulp novels, when the ruling class, through its instrumental regime, is able to suppress the vanguard party of the people’s and workers’ movement.
The third face of fascism exists when it is “in power and securely so.” During this phase some dissent may even be allowed."
“The psycho-social dimensions of fascism become quite complex, but they can be simplified by thinking of them as part of a collective bargaining process carried on between all the elites of the particular state with the regime acting as arbitrator.
The regime’s interests are subject to those of the ruling class.
Labor is a partner in this arrangement.
At the head of any labor organization in the fascist state, there is an elite which is tied to the interests of the regime—and consequently tied also to the economic status quo.
The trappings of this pseudo mass society are empty, cheap, spectacular leisure sports; parades where strangers meet, shout each other down and often trample each other to death on the way home; mass consumption of worthless super-suds or aspirin; ritualistic, ultra-nationalistic events on days to glorify the idiots who died at war or other days to deify those who sent them out to die.
A mass society that is actually a mass jungle.
At its core, fascism is capitalistic and capitalism is international.
Beneath its nationalist ideological trappings, fascism is always ultimately an international movement.”
Jackson was murdered by San Quentin guards in the early 1970's.
-George L. Jackson—Blood In My Eye; Classes At War
https://archive.org/stream/GeorgeJacksonBloodInMyEye_201512/George%20Jackson%20-%20Blood-in-My-Eye_djvu.txt
-George L. Jackson—Blood In My Eye; Classes At War
That's a hell of an excerpt. I'll give it a read.
But to assert that these intel operatives "aren't fascist enough" stretches creduilty. They are some of the most hardline, fascist elements within the security state, who championed the worst abuses committed in modern US history. The only plausible argument I can see is that they were enemies of Trump, and so he had them removed. But you have to admit, the fact that these figures, entrencehed in the US security state, were so opposed to Trump raises an eyebrow.
And yes, everything this admin and its billionaire acolytes does should be scrutinized, but we should still acknowledge positive developments.
I agree with most of what you say in terms of the virulent fascism today.
We face two fascisms, really but combined into a savor gum drop of despair.
The techno fascists of the ilk of Thiel, Musk et. al. and the white settler fascists, who have been organizing since the end of the second world war.
I understand your use of the 'security state' and do not fault you for it but we must develop a new language: it is the insecurity state.
Do not be duped into thinking that Trump is somehow anti war or anti tech oligarchy; the reverse is true. He wants, along with the oligarchs, to use the State as the umbrella for all policies at home and abroad.
He will and is, respace/ing the forces of repression with his own patreon guard.
A new insecurity state is being built right in front of our eyes.
Soon you will see Mike Flynn again, Blackwater murderer and mercenary Eric Prince and the force of theological fascism both internally and abroad.
The die has been cast. This is the fascist moment.
Our only hope is to ally and fight, even if we cannot win.
Take inspiration from the global south, Mexico with a new socialist. feminist and Jewish president and events in Africa, where France recently lost its colony.
the hope has always been that of the oppressed and they are rising as we are failing.
Fascism fighting fascism... Maybe.
I take your point regarding the "security state", but in my mind I already equate it with the "insecurity state" as you described.
Anyway, I am not yet convinced either way, but I can't ignore the positive signals coming from the admin. If we take his first term as a guide, IMO it was orders of magnitude less destructive than the mass carnage wrought on the Middle East by Bush, Obama, and Biden. So relatively speaking, he has a track record of being anti-war. If he manages to end the Ukraine war and follow through with all stages of the ceasefire (without following through on his ethnic cleansing plans), it would be hard to argue that he's not anti-war.
Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but we don't have much else to hope for. Realistically, revolution won't come from a country as divided as ours. The examples you cite in Africa don't really apply here, because the people of Africa were united against a common external enemy.
And that is the point. BRICS and the global south are now on the rise and the US is in decline. The changes will come from the activities from those in what was once called 'The Third World' but whose title was robbed by the US. We are the banana republic that imports bananas. Trump is about as anti-war as Nixon was. Do not be fooled by these harbingers of capitalism whose faces change decade from decade. They represent the financial interests of the ruling class.
I think what is missing is an historical materialist understanding of capitalism. for it is capitalism, now financial capitalism, that Trump represents. The fight against fascism must be a fight by an organized working class. Trump represents the anti-thesis of this. War is a result of economic class struggle so if one is to fight against war they must fight against capitalism. Trump is a tool of both the Christian right and the oligarchs.
More than half the human race should lead lives of subservience, sacrifice and obedience to the other less than half?: letters of Geo Jackson:
"Women like to be dominated, love being strong-armed, need an overseer to supplement their weakness. So how could she really understand my feelings on self-determination. For this reason we should never allow women to express any opinions on the subject, but just to sit, listen to us, and attempt to understand. It is for them to obey and aid us, not to attempt to think. Women and children enjoy and need a strong hand poised above them.
In the society of our fathers and in the civilized world today, women feel it their obligation to be ever yielding and obedient to their men. Life is purposely made simple for them because of their nature, and they are happy. When the women outnumber the men in the black societies, the men take as many wives as they can afford, and care for them all equally. In the white for some nebulous reason the men can take only one . . . the rest are left to become prostitutes, nuns, or lesbians. In the civilized societies the women do light work, bear children, and lend purpose to the man's existence. Their job is to train the children in their early life to be men or women. Is this not enough? The rest is left to the men: government administration, the providing of means of subsistence, and defense, or maintenance of life and property against any who would deprive us of it, as the barbarian has and is still attempting to do. Women and children enjoy and need a strong hand poised above them.
In the '70s, I saw a graffito: "Women hold up half the sky--Chairman Mao." I wrote beneath it: "The bottom half. Communists are also sexists."
George Jackson was incarcerated in Soledad prison. I sent him a letter there once, but it was returned. One might wonder if he was transferred for the purpose of being murdered.
One probably would assume he was. That is how the police state rolls.
But they say that Trump wants to give the savings from cutting expenditures to tax breaks for the 1%....
A lot of people say a lot of things. Time will tell what the motivations are, but I doubt the 1% are excited about the prospect of a massive cut to defense spending.
There will be no massive cut in defense spending for two reasons: one, imperialism and war and two, it is the economy. War is the economy.
I have always thought that the US would become a religious (evangelical) state.........makes it easy to control people. There will be other religions which means bloodshed.
I look at the religious wars in Europe for knowledge.
Thanks for this brilliantly written editorial Chris.
Do you really believe we are going to become an evangelical state, or should I say do you believe that rhetoric which seems to rear it's head every time Trump's in office?
I don't think that's the main villain, either. It's more about the 1%ers and their corporate edifices turning trickle up into a vacuum to suck up what remains of middle class/worker wealth and natural resources before the econ and ecol systems collapse. There are also pols and techies obsessed with power. As are Gospel of Prosperity preachers, who are useful to and rewarded by the pols and 1%ers. The desperate voters and religious believers who align with them feel like they have no other choice.
I agree! Absurd to put them front and center on this issue.
On what bases, or proof do you make such a statement. because Chris Hedges says so?
The religious state is already extracting its pound of flesh, and may become logarithmic in the near future. Examples: the loss of women autonomy over their own health and decision to bear children or not, or to even prevent pregnancy in some circumstances; the ultra right crush of free speech to denounce the Zionist state and US participation in a genocide in the accusation of being anti-Semitic, where the State and Christians religiously support Israel; the infiltration of our Supreme Court with ideologically Christian based politics; the removal of multiple church ministers who speak against the injustices of the evangelical movement and who promote comfort to the downtrodden; the status of women in our society as second hand citizens, to be subservient, typical of many religious institutions; the Christian prayers in the armed services such as the Air Force, prior to unleashing a holy battle/war against the infidels; the Government Christian prayer meetings, for guidance and blessing as the supplicants continue to wreck havoc on the undeserving; Trump using the military to forcefully clear street demonstrators so he can have a photo op with hand on a Bible; the restriction of saying fuck on TV but it is acceptable to carry the cross and slaughter millions; ad nauseum.
What about the intolerable and dangerous influence of the Israeli lobby in American politics, since they are the ones who are most influential on cracking down on free speech when it comes to Israel? Certainly that's a group that has to be more closely examined and condemned, since it has been so instrumental in our foreign policies, including our middle eastern wars and the genocide in Gaza, which has killed mostly women and children, Ever read Netanyahu's book back in the 1990's, Fighting Terrorism? He named the countries who present a threat, a threat to Israel, and didn't we take them out, one by one. Listen to Jeffery Sach's talk with Tucker Carlson about all our middle eastern wars and who and what was behind them. What about the military industrial complex and their push for war and all those that benefit from it? What about the Trump's ongoing attempts of bringing the war in Ukraine to an end, a war that the Biden administration started, a war that has killed hundreds of thousands, and all to bring Putin down. Or maybe those deaths don't mean much to you? I'm not in love with the evangelical mindset, but they won't and are not the source of all that it wrong with the USA. God, but what is wrong with the US doesn't come down to one group and never will. Take a look at Citizens United that came about in this century and strongly empowered the corporate world and gave them a huge say in the political arena.
I agree with everything you are saying, multiple pieces here. But we were talking specifically about the religious influence in affairs of state, which you expressed as not an important factor. Israel and the Christian Right are connected at the hip by the way. I have denounced both Israel and the U.S. from week one of the genocide, and lost friends because of my stance.
The state and church are supposed to be separate entities in the realm of politics.
But then…The tax free churches are political at the pulpit. The diversion of public school funds to private religious institutions. The placement again of the Ten Commandments on the walls of classrooms is a religious move, although not a bad idea if all would follow the tenets of do not kill, do not lie, do not covet.
Fast forward it appears we are headed toward an oligarchic Christian fascist state.
And Hedges is correct, we must bring the fear to them, power in the streets, power of millions, power of strikes. It will not be easy and we must rebuild local communities and communicate and trust others.
They say the Christian Right is diminishing, and their numbers are no where near what others report them to be, and I never felt they had a significant influence in the political arena. I agree that Israel and the Christian right are connected at the hip, but the Israeli lobby has tremendous influence in our politics and it's influence is far greater, and they have got to go. Adelson, says to Trump, hears a hundred million and clear those Palestinians out of the West Bank. What the hell!!!!!!!!!!!! However the Israeli's have been doing that for decades, so she really means, finish the job. When Netanyahu came into office in 2022 he said he was going to make that his main priority to his Zionists cohorts, and it's one of the main reasons Hamas gave for their assault on Oct 7. As far as choosing Huckabee, as ambassador to Israel, well, lets hope he overdoses on relaxium and sleeps through the next four years. If you are right that we are headed toward a oligarchic Christian state, I'm sure the Israeli lobby and corporate America will be the one's calling the shots.
Please note! This older understanding of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) society has been contradicted by new research that demonstrates how the people of Rapa Nui were in fact the good stewards of their resources that European and American colonists never were (or are). See "Triumph of the Commons:
Sustainable Community Practices
on Rapa Nui (Easter Island." Including colonized indigenous peoples in a list of "failed societies" is a category mistake.
Here's the link to that article you reference. One thing it doesn't do is blame it on the rats. It does go a long way in rehabiliting the people of rapa nui, so that's a good thing. A bad thing is losing a handy example of why we humans ought to treat our planet better. Their conclusion, I already posted in a later reply to one of Jeff's many postings, here it is:
"Consequently, the sustainable communities of Rapa Nui thrived until the arrival of Europeans; the introduction of disease, slave raiding, and new kinds of economic resources resulted in the gradual abandonment of some long-standing traditions."
Yes, thank you for the clarification, Joy. The article has 191 distinct citations to support its claims.
Please cite some sources for your claim. Agricultural societies ALWAYS eventually destroy their environments, so there's no logical reason that these people should be any different.
One more thing: I'm no expert, but the Rapa Nui case is very similar to other island cultures in the Pacific that shared a unique social and political structure and a very strict set of rules for resource use. This made it possible for these peoples to thrive for hundreds and even thousands of years in very small spaces. Of course, there was also lots of inter-island travel throughout the Pacific that may have worked to take population pressure off of these spaces. Anyway, at the very least, it's all a lot more complicated than simply claiming that all humans are similarly doomed! There are models we can learn from if we look for them.
I never said that all people are doomed. I said that living agriculturally instead of as hunter gatherers is not sustainable. Destroying the planet and killing the nonhuman life here is a choice, be it conscious or unconscious. There are some groups of people who got it right and live correctly, the problem is that they're only a tiny fraction of 1% of humans. We could start moving in that direction if we wanted to, but the vast majority don't want to. As a whole, humans went off the rails thousands of years ago, and it just gets worse as time goes on. Humans ARE doomed if they don't change course and both greatly lower their population and return to living naturally. If humans want to kill themselves off instead of giving up their unnatural lifestyles, that's their choice and not my concern. My problem is that we're killing the Earth and the NONHUMAN life here, and that couldn't be more immoral. Humans make the Nazis look like girl scouts in this regard.
Wow! We have our work cut out for us. Putin is not our (Canada's) enemy - he is not the head of a country threatening to annex us. The American people need to organize to take back their ccountry from this cabal of multi-millionaires and billionaires. The rest of us in the world need to organize to isolate the USA until the American people do that - and ensure it pollution - spread by the likes of the techie bros of which Musk is but one vile example - is first contained and second recycled into something life giving rather than life destroying. Sort of like a recycling of highly toxic deadly nuclear waste - only this is highly toxic deadly social waste.
The U.S. is certainly the evil empire, that's not debatable. But that doesn't let others off the hook. Anyone who lives or aspires to live the opulent, unnatural American lifestyle is part of the problem too.