This is all true but I think we need to talk about the mechanism. It isn't that Americans are pushing one war after another because we think we'll get rich, or that all the problems Caitlin mentions are worsening because Americans or others are being enriched. Rather a tiny percentage are being enriched--and they're the ones with power, because under capitalism, money is power. Those with the mental illness that makes them crave ever more wealth, once they get beyond the level where they could spend it all, use some of the extra wealth to influence politics, primarily to ensure that the flow of ever more wealth into their hands is unimpeded.
So we have a political system where decision are made by elected "representatives"--but they get elected by spending lots of money on campaigns, and they get the money from special interests, which after the election want payback in the form of special favors. This is how it works, and you can blame the voters for electing these sociopathic monsters, when they could instead have voted for--the other sociopathic monsters. There are lots of ways this system could be fixed but the Supreme Court in the US has blocked them, and I'm sure there are similar reasons other countries work basically the same way--maybe not quite as marinated in corruption as the US but bad enough to provide no challenge to the stinking, ecocidal, rapacious system. We could rise up to force change, but we don't, because as Caitlin so tirelessly says--and yet not enough!--WHO CONTROLS THE NARRATIVE CONTROLS THE WORLD. That is the key.
When I see posts like this, I like to remind everyone that China publicly executes its corrupt Oligarchs. Russia seems to just make them disappear. America assassinates political leaders that stand against the Oligarchy.
This is all true but I think we need to talk about the mechanism. It isn't that Americans are pushing one war after another because we think we'll get rich, or that all the problems Caitlin mentions are worsening because Americans or others are being enriched. Rather a tiny percentage are being enriched--and they're the ones with power, because under capitalism, money is power. Those with the mental illness that makes them crave ever more wealth, once they get beyond the level where they could spend it all, use some of the extra wealth to influence politics, primarily to ensure that the flow of ever more wealth into their hands is unimpeded.
So we have a political system where decision are made by elected "representatives"--but they get elected by spending lots of money on campaigns, and they get the money from special interests, which after the election want payback in the form of special favors. This is how it works, and you can blame the voters for electing these sociopathic monsters, when they could instead have voted for--the other sociopathic monsters. There are lots of ways this system could be fixed but the Supreme Court in the US has blocked them, and I'm sure there are similar reasons other countries work basically the same way--maybe not quite as marinated in corruption as the US but bad enough to provide no challenge to the stinking, ecocidal, rapacious system. We could rise up to force change, but we don't, because as Caitlin so tirelessly says--and yet not enough!--WHO CONTROLS THE NARRATIVE CONTROLS THE WORLD. That is the key.
When I see posts like this, I like to remind everyone that China publicly executes its corrupt Oligarchs. Russia seems to just make them disappear. America assassinates political leaders that stand against the Oligarchy.
And all three are totalitarian.
Unless people wake up.