Cheney the Butcher died free, but at least he’s dead.
Dick Cheney died far too old and far too free. The fact that such monsters get to pass away in their eighties surrounded by loved ones instead of alone in a cage is an indictment of our entire civilization. In a sane society, Richard Bruce Cheney would have lived out his life in relative obscurity, working as a gardener or something. In a fairly sane society, people would have realized what a monster Cheney was before he could do any harm, and he would have been driven out of any town he tried to enter. In a slightly sane society, he would have been punished for the rape of Iraq and lived out the rest of his life in a cell in The Hague. But we do not live in a sane society, or in a fairly sane society, or even in a slightly sane society. We live in the sort of society that lets a man unleash a chain of events which kills millions and displaces tens of millions causing more human suffering than the mind can possibly comprehend, and then live out the rest of his life in comfort and privilege, with zero consequences of any kind. Dick Cheney is dead now, but his legacy lives on. The damage he did is still unfolding. The hegemonic, hypermilitaristic ideology he promoted has become the baseline norm. New swamp monsters have stepped in to fill his shoes and advance the same murderous and tyrannical agendas he advanced, confident that they too will suffer no consequences and live long and comfortable lives in reward for their loyal service to the US empire. Dick Cheney left a stain upon our species that we will spend the rest of our lives trying to scrub out. All decent people want our world to move in the exact opposite direction he spent his entire blood-spattered career working to steer us toward. All decent people want to undo everything that Dick Cheney was.
Caitlin Johnstone, https://x.com/caitoz/status/1985682940647657539
1000 Words by 0171
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Meditations
The U.S. has established itself as the mortal enemy of all people’s government, all scientific-socialist mobilization of consciousness everywhere on the globe, all anti-imperialist activity on earth. The history of this country in the last fifty years and more, the very nature of all its fundamental elements, and its economic, social, political and military mobilization distinguish it as the prototype of the international fascist counterrevolution. The U.S. is the Korean problem, the Vietnamese problem, the problem in the Congo, Angola, Mozambique, the Middle East. It’s the grease in the British and Latin Amerikan guns that operate against the masses of common people.
We are at a moment right now where people are asking themselves why can’t the Democratic Party defend this assault on democracy…and I would submit to you that if you can’t draw the line at genocide, you probably can’t draw the line at democracy.
During the Vietnam War, which lasted longer than any war we’ve ever been in — and which we lost — every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.
A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization.
A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization.
A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization.
