The people at the center of the system have admitted that this is essentially the direction American society will go in as imperial collapse and the climate crisis threaten the empire's power. In June of 2017, the Pentagon put out a study which stated that American power is "fraying" and may in fact be "collapsing,"and it recommended the following measures for defending what it calls the "status quo" of global power: using war campaigns to subdue worldwide "revolutionary forces" like China, Russia, Iran and north Korea, which are collectively threatening to edge out America on the world stage; increased government propaganda and more thorough utilization of America's surveillance system to combat civil unrest; and military expansionism whose aggressive nature is articulated as follows:
While as a rule, U.S. leaders of both political parties have consistently committed to the maintenance of U.S. military superiority over all potential state rivals, the post-primacy reality demands a wider and more flexible military force that can generate ad vantage and options across the broadest possible range of military demands. To U.S. political leadership, maintenance of military advantage preserves maximum freedom of action" Finally, it allows U.S. decision-makers the opportunity to dictate or hold significant sway over outcomes in international disputes in the shadow of significant U.S. military capability and the implied promise of unac ceptable consequences in the event that capability is unleashed.
This declaration of intent to use military force to cajole nations and movements which are disobedient to the empire's agenda is further clarified in the part from the report which frames the "Persistent Conflict 2.0" of our era as a confrontation between global capitalism and its opponents, saying:
"some are fighting globalization and globalization is also actively fighting back. Combined, all of these forces are rending at the fabric of security and stable governance that all states aspire to and rely on for survival."
This is the language that the purveyors of capitalism and empire are using as their more-than-a-century-old power establishment shows signs of disarray. The founders of the project of American imperialism, blinded by their ambition and hubris, promised that there was no way the U.S. would fall into tyranny or lose its dominance, like all past empires have. It's a grotesque spectacle to see the modern day Roosevelts and Hearsts handle the collapse of the empire by applying the same violent and uncompromising logic that was used by their late 19th century forebears.
In a near future where imperial collapse may cripple the very foundations of global capitalism, and where a deteriorating climate will make it impossible for civilization as we know it to function as it has (or function at all), the genocidal aspects of capitalism will become much more brazen. Refugees, the people who are driven into poverty, and the groups deemed to represent "terrorism" and "subversion" will be targeted with state violence. The bulk of humanity that will be endangered by the climate crisis won't receive help from a billionaire class that's preparing to retreat into private luxury doomsday shelters, while leaving the rest of us behind. As Naomi Klein has written about these implications of climate change on class relations:
"In an age of ever-widening income inequality, a significant cohort of our elites are walling themselves off not just physically but also psychologically, mentally detaching themselves from the collective fate of the rest of humanity. This secessionism from the human species (if only in their own minds) liberates the rich not only to shrug off the urgent need for climate action but also to devise ever more predatory ways to profit from current and future disasters and instability."
While we fight against this global corporate military machine, it's crucial for us to understand that the people at the top of the system are going to increasingly see us as disposable. Capitalism has always been a system that treats large numbers of the population like expendable resources, and this is how it will treat more and more people throughout the coming decades.
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