The Twilight of Capitalism
May 5, 2018, Seed Moon Ceremony
From Savage Grace, Resisting Fascism, Chapter 2, p59, by Chris Hedges
We are entering the twilight phase of capitalism. Wealth is no longer created by producing or manufacturing. It is created by manipulating the prices of stocks and commodities and imposing a crippling debt peonage on the public. Our casino capitalism has merged with the gambling industry. The entire system is parasitic. It is designed to prey on the desperate – young men and women burdened by student loans, underpaid workers burdened by credit card debt and mortgages, towns and cities forced to borrow to maintain municipal services.
When a tiny cabal seizes power – monarchist, communist, fascists or corporate – it creates a mafia economy and a mafia state. Donald Trump is not an anomaly. He is the grotesque visage of a collapsed democracy.
What comes next, history has shown, will not be pleasant. A corrupt and inept ruling elite backed by the organs of state security and law enforcement will unleash a naked kleptocracy. Workers will become serfs. The most benign dissent will be criminalized. The ravaging of the ecosystem propels us towards extinction.
Hate talk will call for attacks against Muslims, undocumented workers, African-Americans, feminists, intellectuals, artists, and dissidents, all of whom will be scapegoated for the country’s stagnation. Magical thinking will dominate our airwaves and be taught in public schools. Art and culture will be degraded to nationalist kitsch. All the cultural and intellectual disciplines that allow us to view the world from the perspective of the other, that foster empathy, understanding, and compassion, will be replaced by a grotesque and cruel hyper-masculinity and hyper-militarism. Those in power will validate racism, bigotry, misogyny and homophobia.
Revolt is a political necessity. It is a moral imperative. It is a defense of the sacred. It allows us to live in truth. It alone makes hope possible.
I do not know if we can build a better society. I do not even know if we will survive as a species. But I do know these corporate forces have us by the throat. And they have my children by the throat. I do not fight fascists because I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists.
