Venezuela
whenever you read the history of u.s. violence in korea, vietnam, cambodia, iraq, or afghantistan, you immediately realize that either the best funded military in world history is completely incompetent to defeat anyone, no matter how poor or how rural, or that “victory” was never really the object. it was for weapons dealers to get rich obliterating a country they assumed no americans cared about. that goal was achieved.
as the u.s. government and corporate media now drag the american taxpayer against their will into yet another war, we can already dimly glimpse the likely outcome. we will kill and abuse thousands of ordinary venezuelans. we will obliterate the country for no reason. we will "lose" the war. and meanwhile those of us lucky enough to own fossil fuels companies or the media, those of us who fund both of our otherwise decrepit political parties, will get instantly richer. there will be no funds left over for the u.s. population, which will be brought to ruin once again.
some things have changed however. even as recently as 2003 our presidents and all their teams were obliged to fan out to tv talk shows for months in order to sell their war. focus groups would meet in secret devising ways to make their lies sound less barbarous and preposterous.
but now that the biden-harris regime has officially ushered in an age in which u.s. warmaking is undertaken without the slightest pretense of consent by the taxpayers funding it, without even the suggestion that they care a pin about international law, trump is simply at liberty to commit whatever atrocities spring to his mind. any seeming opposition to his whims from within the ruling class itself will continue to be nothing but an illusion — strongly worded emails or social media posts that have zero effect on the killing.
meanwhile our media, whose stated purpose is to be a check on the rich and powerful, but who have long since become the publicity wing of the very same, will devote endless speculation as to the precise meaning of this or that vague and offhand remark by trump, while ignoring what even a child can see is the real weenie: the u.s. is about to slaughter thousands of innocent people. the public will be asked to further develop its inability to be shocked.
what makes trump so dangerous of course is not that he’s the worst human being to ever rule a country. even a quick perusal of history, including recent history, shows it to be littered with leaders at least as depraved, violent, incompetent, repressive, corrupt, or criminal. no, what makes trump different is the apparatus he has been handed. a monstrous humanity-killing machine, better funded and more militarized than our species has ever enjoyed...with any imaginable crime fully and automatically normalized by both parties and by its corrupted media...and with just enough of a lethargic or brainwashed population, with no interest in history, unable to part with its cherished corporate conveniences, who have been successfully convinced that they are totally powerless.
speaking of which, there’s a perfectly good reason that today’s democrats are so useless at opposing republicans, and so unashamed about doing the exact opposite of what their voters want on issue after issue, and it is this. they aren’t selling policies, or even selling victory. they are selling the idea that you are powerless.
an essential feature of our two-party political system, or any fascist system, is “the right to be wrong.” or “the right for representatives not to represent.” or “the right for lawmakers to be lawbreakers.” that’s why trying to play gotcha with our politicians by using shame, scaremongering, or even law enforcement, never seems to result in the slightest reduction in harm. the beauty of the system they lead is that pointing out that they are bad guys just helps advertise their intended message.
today’s ruling class, regardless of party, loves it when you find out they were at epstein’s parties. they thrill to the sound of your accusations that they are liars and hypocrites. they tingle with joy at your discovery that they support genocide or political assassinations or public hangings. these are all just advertisements for their naked power, confirmations that no matter how depraved their behavior, there’s nothing you can do about it.
once you’ve become comfortable committing genocide and obliterating countries, there’s really no more hope for you, whether you’re an individual politician or a party. there’s no line left that you won’t cross. you’ve now stated publicly that you no longer have any self-respect that could somehow be engaged and steered in the right direction.
the “big tent” democratic party concept is such a pathetic way of trying to sell voters on what is actually a republican platform, one that most democratic voters hate for good reason. simple necessities like taxing the rich are cheerily wiped away by simply using this magic phrase. forever war, mass deportation and detention, overpolicing, ice, fossil fuel profiteering, demolition of international law, record homelessness, and genocide itself -- these policies prevail year after year because we are a “big tent” party.
stopping the humanity-killing machine that is the u.s. politico-economic system can’t be accomplished within that politico-economic system. why would actual change to this machine’s basic operating principles ever be permitted by the machine itself? it would have to be shut down and replaced. those continuing to prop it up would need to refuse to do so. the machine encourages hope that something might change if you just tune into corporate news a little more often, or send a little more money to this or that duopolist politician. in reality, the only hope is to make it impossible for the ruling class to do business as long it insists on mass murder as their business model. this means targetted refusals to buy from or work for corporations who do. it means backing politicians who don't take billionaire funding or who are independent of the two-party system.
here are some things that our current politico-economic system has been carefully designed to be unable to do:
stop global warming
end racism
create peace
tax billionaires
hold its leaders accountable
make sure its population is safe, healthy, and solvent