The Empire in Flames
A reflection before an election.
I watched an air battle unfold above me this summer. The intruder was spotted, circling high above everyone, hunting, riding the thermal updrafts. Watching.
The bald eagle, soaring over the pond, was looking for goslings. The crows had taken exception, and the rival murders united under the common cause and took to the air to fight their ancestral foe. They coordinated, one would dive, hit the eagle, then call to the others to tell them what they’d just done.
The eagle, harried, distracted, and unable to hunt, departed, leaving the crows and geese rulers of the sky once again. The murders went back to their usual rivalry; the battle was over, one of the countless skirmishes since time immemorial.
I’ve come to realize that you see things very differently from the ground.
The world as we know it is in flames. The American Empire is flailing in blind rage. It’s losing the war in Ukraine, and the genocide and murder it has supported in Israel is turning that nation, and the Empire as a whole, into a pariah. In both cases, there is not one adult in the room capable or willing to put an end to the wanton violence.
The heyday of the American Empire is over. Small organizations like Ansar Allah have hypersonic missiles, the Russian and Chinese militaries both have achieved rough technological parity, and the Empire can no longer trade on the soft-power that was a ubiquitous feature of the Cold War and Aughts. The world is multi-polar now, though the Americans keep acting like it’s not.
There hasn’t been a more effective justification to the Russian invasion of Ukraine than the American support of Israel. We see, clear as day, that the Americans will fund rogue fascist regimes that murder their neighbors with American participation, aid, and bankrolling. When we see the behavior of Israel and the American unwillingness to restrain them, we see why Russia doesn’t want American puppets on their borders. You don’t have to agree with the decision to invade to realize that there were reasons to doing so.
After Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon, can we say with a straight face that receiving “support” from the American Empire is anything but a death sentence?
I’ve been keeping a healthy distance from social media lately. Nothing in particular has inspired this, but rather the cumulative effect of so much anger, negativity, and wasted emotion. As @knilirabaj said on Bluesky, “the human brain has not evolved enough to experience constant exposure to absolutely horrendous fucking takes.”
Social media has turned into the new Opiate of the Masses, rending mass action inert and heavily monitored. People will on one hand, push back against any suggestion of ‘echo chambers’ or only interacting with people they agree with, then the next minute, howl with incoherent and uncomprehending rage that someone who lives in a society filled with propaganda actually believes that propaganda.
And it’s not like they also don’t believe propaganda too. In a world where you can find literally any information, real or otherwise, the internet has made a virtue out of believing anything you hear from the group that you support. And why not? If everything is contradictory, then why not believe what you want to and just divorce yourself from reality right?
Whatever helps you sleep at night I suppose. For my part; I’ve accomplished more, seen more, and challenged my perceptions more sitting in the dirt watching my vegetables grow. Wasting breath and mental energy on people who’d rather exist in a fairytale world that only exists on the internet isn’t what I like to spend my time doing.
There are those who argue that it’s working, that radicalization via internet memes is the way capitalism will be overthrown. We live in the Golden Age of Capitalism; the rich have never been richer than they are now. The systems that exist to let us vent our frustrations are a safety valve for the rich, not a tool to end oppression. It astounds me people even believe otherwise. The revolution will not be televised, but somehow, you’ll post socialist memes through it?
The Left in North America is in a worse position now than it was four, eight, or twelve years ago, and it’s getting worse, not better. It is fair to say that the ones most likely to argue about the relative virtues of dead Communists are not the ones who will actually take power, but in that case, who will be? Anti-capitalists with soft hands don’t impress me much.
I recently saw on a radical graffiti page a wall scrawled with “we failed you Gaza,” written in spray paint. It made me sad to see, first and foremost because of the ongoing genocide, but also for the author. Genocide is not and will never be on the ballot. The Empire wants it to happen, and there are no anti-empire parties. The author is feeling guilt over a power they do not have, over the choices of others they cannot control. Feeling guilt on behalf of the guilty parties, who feel no guilt at all.
The story of the Left in 2024 is the story of people trying desperately to wield power they simply do not possess and have no avenue to acquire.
Sometimes silence is as much of a statement as words. In a world gone mad with greed and hate, non-participation is a form of power. In my case, it’s a power given to me by the very systems I now despise; a pension for my time fighting a war on behalf of Empire. The irony is not lost on me, but what other choices are there? I’ll take what advantages I can.
Do you know how much labour by others go into some of the simplest parts of your life? A cheap shirt, the slice of tomato you didn’t ask for on your burger, a drop of gasoline. There are interconnected industries, systems, governments all working to ensure you consume. Decrying capitalism while eating a banana in Canada, in January. Termites are more rational than human beings living under capitalism.
Hypocrisy is everywhere, mine and yours, but the least we can do is see it for what it is.
It’s not wholly fair to say I am a doomsday prepper, but it’s not entirely inaccurate either. The failure of capitalism isn’t actually a doomsday, and prepper doesn’t mean a big stack of guns and body armour. Rather, I would say that every day I try to remove myself one little step at a time from capitalism. That is something I have power over, and something I can do, a little bit at a time.
You should never abandon your ethics and beliefs but knowing when you are a tiny part of a massive, billions-strong interconnected web of humanity is important. Knowing where your power isn’t is as important as knowing where it is.
I don’t know how this coming week will unfold. The American Election could be a crisis, or a nothing. The reality is that the Democrats winning the election is the most dangerous outcome for everyone not sharing a continent with the US of A. The Biden administration has been one of the most dangerous, immature, and violent regimes in modern US history. At least when George Bush provoked wars he couldn’t win, he did so with small, non-nuclear nations.
We don’t need to keep indulging American delusions. If you were to look at the media coming out of that country, you’d think that electing a Democrat or Republican might actually matter. It will matter, to them, but let’s not keep pretending that if one or the other psychopath wins, that somehow the Empire will become either benign or evil. The bombs falling on Gaza have ‘made in the USA’ on them, not ‘made by Republicans/Democrats.’
Will the Americans fall into civil disorder or outright civil war? Probably not, but it’s possible. The Democrats won’t do anything, I think that’s fair to say. Americans have lost the right to abortions, gender affirming care, and have seen the President given unlimited power by the Supreme Court. Cops murder people daily and imprison more than any other nation. Since the Democrats have made no effort to curb any of these, the only logical conclusion is that either they support these decisions, or at minimum aren’t concerned about them.
Will the Republicans do anything? Maybe, maybe not. It’s a decent guess that they’ll seize power one way or another, and then sic the cops on the people who oppose it. The cops will gleefully comply, then the Americans will calm down and return to their favorite hobby: bombing foreigners. If the Democrats win, perhaps the right wing will become violent, perhaps not, but without a doubt, the Americans will calm down and go back to bombing foreigners. This outcome, the American hegemony, is baked in. No empire will ever willingly relinquish power, empires do so only when forced, usually from within.
What I know for a fact is that if you’re reading my words, you have no power over what happens next, so take a breath, look around, and see the world around you. It’s a hellish, messed up place, so take some time to enjoy some of it. Check out the tiny ant colony at your feet. Watch a chickadee pick through some bird seed. Try to grow some veggies in a window box. Make connections with a real human, not just the people in your phone.
Author’s note: Since I wrote this piece I lost my dear friend Kirby. In the Greco-Roman world, the epitaphs to dogs have been found, and recorded. Here’s my favorite:
"My eyes were wet with tears, our little dog, when I bore thee to the grave. So, Patricus, never again shall thou give me a thousand kisses. Never canst thou be contentedly in my lap. In sadness have I buried thee, and thou deservist. In a resting place of marble, I have put thee for all time by the side of my shade. In thy qualities, sagacious thou wert like a human being. Ah, me! What a loved companion have we lost!"
Beautiful pictures. Yes, grow vegetables, enjoy the natural beauty around you, and enjoy your well-earned security off the beaten track. No need to watch the dying throes of a terminally corrupt empire.