CHRIS HEDGES: As The Empire Self-Destructs
We share the pathologies of all dying empires with their mixture of buffoonery, rampant corruption, military fiascos, economic collapse and savage state repression.
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (2/8/25)
As bad, corrupt and inept as we knew President Trump 2.0 was going to be, President Musk 1.0 is proving even worse; more out-in-the-open corrupt, more unhinged and more destructive. This week’s Time magazine’s cover is perhaps the single most accurate piece of reporting since Mango Man resumed power.
I urge everyone to carefully read Friday’s The Chris Hedges Report for an informed prediction of the coming fascist storm — or should I say ‘Sturm.’
For readers outside the United States, I urge you to read it as well, as Trump’s fascism is not a one-off event. It is part of a rising far right/fascist wave in countries around the world as the colonial Western Empire flounders, dodders, trips and tips to irrelevance.
But, as Hedges explains with historical reference to past empire extinctions, the empire will not go wisely, transitioning into being a collaborative player in the rising multi-polar world. No, it will — as we see now — wrap itself in shrouds of hollow patriotic slogans, racist demonization, perverted religious bluster and threats, vicious persecution and lashing out at the most vulnerable.
Be it at the local playground or international stage, arrogant, ignorant and self-entitled bullies never acknowledge the world with needed humility and acceptance of reality.
Hedges quotes from Matt Kennard’s book “The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire”, which is an excellent resource on the reality of our corrupt empire, putting much-needed context to the flaming shithouse we now see lighting up the world and why the rest of the world will — understandably — be relieved to see the empire dissolve.
The Chris Hedges Report: The Empire Self-Destructs
‘And Then the World Blew Up’ - by Mr. Fish
The near-collapse of our constitutional system of checks and balances took place long before the arrival of Trump. Trump’s return to power represents the death rattle of the Pax Americana. The day is not far off when, like the Roman Senate in 27 BC, Congress will take its last significant vote and surrender power to a dictator. The Democratic Party, whose strategy seems to be to do nothing and hope Trump implodes, have already acquiesced to the inevitable.
By Chris Hedges
The Chris Hedges Report (2/7/25)
The billionaires, Christian fascists, grifters, psychopaths, imbeciles, narcissists and deviants who have seized control of Congress, the White House and the courts, are cannibalizing the machinery of state. These self-inflicted wounds, characteristic of all late empires, will cripple and destroy the tentacles of power. And then, like a house of cards, the empire will collapse.
Blinded by hubris, unable to fathom the empire’s diminishing power, the mandarins in the Trump administration have retreated into a fantasy world where hard and unpleasant facts no longer intrude. They sputter incoherent absurdities while they usurp the Constitution and replace diplomacy, multilateralism and politics with threats and loyalty oaths. Agencies and departments, created and funded by acts of Congress, are going up in smoke.
The question is not whether we go down, but how many millions of innocents we will take with us. Given the industrial violence our empire wields, it could be a lot, especially if those in charge decide to reach for the nukes.
They are removing government reports and data on climate change and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement,. They are pulling out of the World Health Organization. They are sanctioning officials who work at the International Criminal Court — which issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes in Gaza. They suggested Canada become the 51st state. They have formed a task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias.” They call for the annexation of Greenland and the seizure of the Panama Canal. They propose the construction of luxury resorts on the coast of a depopulated Gaza under U.S. control which, if it takes place, would bring down the Arab regimes propped up by the U.S.
The rulers of all late empires, including the Roman emperors Caligula and Nero or Charles I, the last Habsburg monarch, are as incoherent as the Mad Hatter, uttering nonsensical remarks, posing unanswerable riddles and reciting word salads of inanities. They, like Donald Trump, are a reflection of the moral, intellectual and physical rot that plague a diseased society. …
“I spent two years researching and writing about the warped ideologues of those who have now seized power in my book “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” Read it while you still can. Seriously.”
— Chris Hedges
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COWARDICE & COMPLICITY: Supine Democrats Agree To GOP Request To Adjourn Senate For 3-Day Weekend
Cartoon by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams (2/7/25)
Senate Democrats spent much of this past week warning of the authoritarian threat posed by President Donald Trump and his unelected billionaire wrecking ball, Elon Musk, and vowing to dispense with business as usual in the face of an escalating constitutional crisis.
But when Thursday night rolled around, not one Democratic senator objected to the GOP's request for unanimous consent (UC) to adjourn the chamber for a three-day weekend, infuriating advocates who are pushing the minority party to use every opportunity to obstruct Trump's nominees and far-right policy agenda.
"Letting an adjournment for the next four days go uncontested isn't just missing an opportunity to be annoying and waste time, though that's reason enough," Andy Craig, an election policy fellow at the Rainey Center, said Thursday. "It is granting the principle of the matter: We're in a right-now hour-by-hour constitutional emergency and they have a duty to be at their posts."
"The Senate adjourning for a long weekend right now isn't just some mundane procedural question," Craig added, "it is an act of cowardice and abdication, and it should be opposed as such in a way that clearly communicates that."
Under intensifying grassroots pressure to act like a real opposition party, Democratic senators did begin to slow-roll the chamber's procedures this week, including by using up all 30 hours of floor debate on the nomination of Russell Vought, the Project 2025 architect confirmed with only GOP votes on Thursday to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
Senate Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), also objected to several unanimous consent requests Thursday evening, forcing the chamber to hold procedural votes to move forward with additional Trump nominees. Democrats also successfully delayed consideration of Kash Patel, Trump's nominee to lead the FBI.
Those are the kinds of tactics that progressives, including members of the party, are imploring Democrats to deploy at every turn as Trump and Musk continue their lawless rampage through the federal government with the approval of Republicans in Congress.
"No business as usual. No handshakes with extremists. Democrats must use every tool available to delay and defy the Trump-Musk coup. Anything less is complicity."
Democrats don't have the votes to tank Trump nominees in the Senate, but they do have myriad tools at their disposal to grind the chamber to a halt.
"That means doing more than engaging in performative acts of Resistance before heading home for a long weekend," Vanity Fair's Eric Lutz wrote Thursday. "Mitch McConnell didn't spend his time as minority leader conducting half-assed chants outside the halls of power; he was inside, scheming and maneuvering and using whatever power he had to obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. That's how you turn we will win from a rally slogan to a reality. McConnell got a Supreme Court seat out of it. Have Schumer and the Democrats been doing anything nearly as politically productive to this point?" …
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The Roman Emperors you mention were all early Empire, not late, but there was one such late Emperor who really did order one of his legions to march to the east until they located the source of the barbarian incursions and destroyed it, even though everybody knew it would be a disaster.
Needless to say, the legion never returned, the Emperor didn't reign long, and his Empire wasn't long in following him. Another American military adventure into the Middle East NOW, like into Gaza to finish Israel's dirty work for it, would have a very similar effect on the US Empire.
Hi Mark
As you know, Caligula made his horse a senator.
My late mare Angelina would have outperformed 99% of the current US senate, because she had… well, horse sense.