Most westernized countries treat their citizens to a far higher standard of living than the US.

In addition, and they have much more freedom of choice, despite what most Americans believe. In the EU they have free healthcare, free college, paid sick leave and mandatory vacations, faster, free internet, better newspapers, better magazines, better cars, bidets, clean safe and efficient public transportation and a functioning civilian infrastructure, to name a few examples.

This is what is commonly referred to as civilization.

The civilized world believes that human dignity and quality of life ‘trumps’ the almighty dollar, which seems to be the prevailing benchmark in our godforsaken land. It’s clear that the trillion-dollar ‘defense’ budget robs us of the precious quality of life we all deserve.

The problem is much worse below the surface: the fraudulent idea of ‘freedom’ as defined in quantitative material terms; a neoliberal political economy that privileges growth and short-term profit over all other values; a political system in which corruption has become codified. That is the problem.

‘Neoliberalism’ is an economic term, and it is part and parcel of laissez faire “free market” capitalism. This branch of economic ideology supports privatization of everything, and opposes government sector public services of any sort.

And then of course there’s the behemoth of the hugely bloated national security apparatus, sometimes known as the Military-Industrial Complex [MIC]. Its tentacles reach into the far corners of American life.

Every single citizen is monitored and tracked. It’s as easy as owning a smartphone.

There is no peace party left in this country, even though a few Americans are still committed to the possibility of peace in their lifetimes. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 we had a chance. People started talking about the “peace-dividend”: we could reward our citizens for ‘winning’ the Cold War by redistributing the vast resources that would otherwise have been spent on instruments of death to upgrade our infrastructure and improve everyday life for all Americans.

But before any clear consensus emerged from this victory, the propagandists began funding campaigns across the country to have “their” base spared from closure. They were brainwashed into thinking the loss of jobs would cause serious problems for local economy. Undoubtedly arms industry lobbyists worked overtime to justify maintaining a large and profoundly wasteful military establishment.

President George H. W. Bush first enticed his former ally Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait, and then subsequently discovered that this illegal invasion presented a serious threat to American security and world peace. How convenient.

Since then, policies have been crafted with the intention of keeping the Middle East on a constant slow boil; not enough to cause any severe problems but enough to justify continuing American military engagement there. This ongoing mission has reached the status of perpetual accomplishment.

People’s lives don’t matter, black or otherwise. The environment doesn’t matter. Jobs don’t matter. Schools don’t matter. America is all about Laissez-faire economic rape and pillage, seven days a week, 24/7 – corporate profit and nothing else.

We are in a big race to the bottom: Americans’ jobs are being out-sourced, and most of us are paid barely livable wages while our government – which is supposed to represent us – sends tens of billions of dollars in military aid to totalitarian, genuinely demonic foreign countries. Why are corporations paying no tax while receiving gigantic subsidies from US taxpayers?

I foresee another Great Depression of a magnitude not hailed since the Paleozoic era if this level of greed and lack of concern for our planet isn’t reversed quickly.