This 4th of July, the End of the U.S. Empire Arrives Ahead of Schedule
While the liberal class has been manufacturing consent for regime change in Russia since 2015, conservatives have been manufacturing consent for similar aggression against China. Various media personalities such as Tucker Carlson, popular for his largely accurate critiques of the Democrats but flagrantly wrong on a host of other things, carry off the illusion that there are two sides and two agendas. But illusion is all it is. There is no meaningful difference between two political parties in an empire where maintaining world domination is the only goal.
People that continue falling for the culture war distractions continually stirred up in order to obfuscate this fact and convince citizens that there are "two different sides fighting each other" are either fools or simply tragic victims of the propaganda dragnet under which we live.
To maintain the illusion of "freedom and democracy," the American empire has used the entirety of Hollywood, popular culture, media, institutionalized educations, charitable foundations, and of course government to convince us we live in a nation of "good guys" and "bad guys," and that if only we can vote for enough "good guys" justice and equality will prevail. Continuing to participate in this childish fantasy by choosing not to educate oneself on the facts of how things really work here - who is really in charge and what the agenda really is - amounts to enabling the status quo even as we speed toward total collapse- or nuclear winter, whichever comes first.
Because both political parties are parties of imperialism, there will be no end to the destruction of domestic order and economic warfare against the working classes in this country. Late-stage empires always cannibalize themselves. There is no other way to sustain our endless militarism other than to take the cost out on the citizenry, because the plutocrats and oligarchs who profit from these wars never pay their own debts.
Although Rome lasted much longer than the United States will, we are following the same trajectory of hundreds of empires that have come before us. No lessons have been learned. No reforms will be made. As Chris Hedges has been telling us for decades, nothing but a mass uprising of the proletariat - ie the people - on the scale that causes total disruption to the economic system from which the FIRE sector (finance, insurance, real estate) makes its trillions - will have any effect in changing policy.
All we will ever see is reactionary social and cultural wars as people tell themselves they are fighting some meaningful ideological battle against "the other side's" encroachment on their way of life. Say gay or don't say gay; trans rights or no trans rights; ending racism or denying the existence of racism; the aggressive oppression of women's autonomy in society; and the neverending scapegoating of out-groups on the basis of religion and ethnicity will only get more violent and tribalistic than they already are.
These ideological divisions are hollow in the face of the desperate economic conditions that will only continue to worsen as the empire continues its death march toward the annals of history while the rest of the world unites around a new, multi-polar set of economic alliances which exclude the United States entirely. They also suck all of the oxygen out of the fight for the things that really matter: A habitable planet; a system which provides basic economic security and opportunity for everyone; and peaceful resolution to the many conflicts here and abroad, including the de-escalation of tensions between the world's nuclear powers.
These objectives, while arguably universally valued among people of all ideological persuasions, will never be achieved at the level of government. The executive, legislative and judicial bodies of the American empire have, for decades, been completely captured by the Pentagon's bottomless lust for endless warfare and the corporations' endless lust for profit.
As a prescient example of this fact, we can look at the rabid expansion of NATO - which is a hostile, imperialistic military alliance whose function is to colonize the global south on behalf of the U.S-U.K-Israel imperial axis- in direct opposition to the promises made by U.S. presidents to Russia, even as World War Three has already in fact begun.
The ruling class does not care what happens to the rest of us. As the planet continues to defend herself against human greed, exploitation and consumption; as governments continue to fight the battles of the world's billionaires for domination of resources and labor; as the U.S. dollar speeds toward its end as the world' reserve currency, the top .1% of humanity will extract every last drop of advantage and profit they can and then escape to their armed bunkers and private islands while the rest of us fight over the world's waning drinkable water and food supply.
Anyone who thinks this is a long way off, an overreaction, or a regurgitation of dystopian fiction novels is painfully naive. The end of the Pax Americana has been coming since the 1970s. Just like the Romans, most Americans live in complete denial that the United States we have known and been told about in history classes and media is already on its way out. Like it or not, our survival will depend on our finding a way to work together. Solidarity of the people against the ruling class is, and always has been, the only solution. If we can't find a way to do that, we can all kiss our asses goodbye.
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