Adamant Eve of Creative Destruction: The Great Clearance.

Lebensraum. 

A naked field stretches off into the hazy horizon. Field after empty field awaits the tiny germ of life an industrial combine will drop into its fossil-fuel-charged soil. Even at this most basic level, the utter destructiveness of Capitalism lies fallow before our eyes; but they are eyes that cannot see. The only green the stewards of the soil are concerned about is that of the greenback, and that will be all the greenery that's left after another year leaves these fields in the same state they are in now: barren, lifeless stretches of land stripped bare, left bereft of its beauty, its flora and fauna, its humanity. An ugly scar of industrialized wasteland as inimical to life as a Superfund site. Except this one was made that way purposely as part of the plan for its exploitation, as what was once called farming has morphed into just another extraction industry. Take the money and run. 

The 20'th anniversary of 9/11 has passed. Yet the somber remembrance brought no dark whispers of blowback or how we did everything wrong in reaction to it, but we've learned no lessons from what the consequences of our own behavior had wrought. Somehow the nation that decreed Greed as its only measure of success, a nation that spurned its own much-ballyhooed religious "beliefs" in order to do so, still kicks around the term War on Terror (Terror, like Bush's "Shock and Awe", needn't actually kill; it's intention is to create Fear, whereas War has killing as its centerpiece, the Main Event, so a War on terror is akin to letting loose a murderous mob on a threatening neighbor. You could more accurately have called the Cold War a War on Terror, but the Bush wars were anything but cold, unless you mean cold-hearted. Killing and looting were their main components, it's just that the looting part was done on its own citizens ... like father, like son). All the so-called Christian virtues of compassion, empathy and forgiveness were nowhere to be found. How could they be, they had lain buried so deep for so long? We would hear nothing of Justice. We were too thirsty for revenge: "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if you can't use it to obliterate shithole countries every now and then?"

Because Greed is the love of Money, and that love is the root of all Evil. Not Muslims, or Afghans, not Iraqi's nor Iranians. None of these cultures, for all their flaws, arrogantly wave a flag of Evil in the face of the world while claiming they are humanity's exceptional nation. It is only the USA that unabashedly thumbs its nose or crushes into the dirt anything that hopes to preserve anything of beauty and wildness in the world, preferring utter despoliation and ruin, since that's what it takes to squeeze every last cent of profit, no matter what the cost, which every year gets higher: after all, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.

Adopting Greed as its mantra while claiming to be a Christian nation, means that it is not possible to deny the knowledge that the love of money is the source of all Evil, and that the Evil Empire, is therefore, by our own definition, The United States of America. Whether I myself believe that, as people say when I point this out to them, is not exactly the point, is it? What this blog proves more than anything is that what I think has no impact on the world whatsoever, so what difference does it make what I think? None. What I believe doesn't matter; but what the world believes does. And an Empire of greed, which is how America sees and sells itself as, is, by definition, an Evil Empire. And by definition, I mean specifically by definition of the "Christian" bible in which it is stated that Greed, the love of money (and a deadly sin to boot), is the source of all Evil. The year 2001 was the 20'th anniversary of America's election of the President that declared the United States was an Empire of Greed, or leastways, made it plain to its own citizens and the rest of the world, that Greed, sometimes euphemized as "animal spirits" was forthwith to be the sole ruler of its barbaric heart: Greed is god, I mean good. Except everyone knows that it isn't. Even us. Perhaps especially us. After all, no other country delivers a a bible belt in the mouth to those who disagree with it. But we do.

At its heart, Evil is about loss. So there should be no surprise that the USA is the champion of Disaster Capitalism, the economic system whose most fervent acolytes can think of no better selling point for it than to boast of its incomparable powers of Destruction. They prettify it a bit, calling it "creative" destruction, but as the empty field, devoid of any life for as far as the eye can see, is testament to, the destructive element of Capitalism is what drives it, what gives it its force, mowing down everything in its path so all other choices are destroyed, then presenting the clean slate on which they're "Free" to sketch out a vision of total domination and relentless extraction: an overwhelmingly negative force of ecological destruction, one which controls us when we should be controlling it; this is what we have loosed upon the world and forced it, via Blut und Stahl unmatched in the history of mankind, down the throat of every country, indigenous tribe, or other holdout. Those excoriated few who are living a life that doesn't promise but a bit of ease, (which promise is more often than not reneged on), in return for their total acquiescence to the rest of the living environment's complete annihilation. Blind to the fact that we need the earth, (dreams of space "conquest" notwithstanding: the idea that we can conquer space, which is time, is illustrative of how deeply our delusional thinking is embedded in our psyche) whereas the Earth has no need of us; we are gleefully ripping to shreds the fabric of existence to wrap our tender parts in silk underwear.

China's Evergrande's  investors shout, "Give us our money back!" To which Evergrande retorts, "What makes you think it's YOUR money?" It's in OUR possession, and possession is 9/10's of the law. You wanted Capitalism, well, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. 

I believe Marx stated that capitalism has the seeds of its own destruction sewn into it (with golden thread and silver needles). Many have said he's been proven wrong. Maybe. But I guess that's because he had it a little confused. At some point, capitalism can destroy itself, but our vicious form of Vampire Capitalism will destroy Nature first, and while our capitalist engine of destruction is steamrolling over Nature, our being a part of nature, no matter how much we like to deny that painfully obvious fact,  means that our proverbial goose will thus be cooked (as it turns out, quite literally). Then Marx will have been proven to be right. But who hears screaming trees in a forest fire?