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