Image by Hunter Desportes via Flickr
by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Ireland
December 4, 2022
Finian Cunningham on Dec 1, 2022
Daniel Lazare in this interview with Finian Cunningham says that the United States of America is locked in a fateful political and economic crisis that will produce either of two outcomes. Either the country is heading towards more authoritarian rule or there will be a second American revolution.
Daniel Lazare is a journalist, author and commentator who specializes in critically analyzing the politics and Constitution of the United States. He has authored several books, including The Velvet Coup: The Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the Decline of American Democracy.
The Covid-19 pandemic over the past two years exposes the pathological diseased state of US capitalism where private profit is prioritized over public health. Over one million people have died in the US, by far the biggest death toll of any other nation.
By contrast, China’s death toll from Covid-19 stands at around 5,200, or 0.5 percent of the US. That shows that death and disease are not inevitable but actually a result of political choice. That choice is made in Washington under the diktats of capitalist imperatives. And it does not matter whether Democrats or Republicans are in power.
Yet despite the appalling neglect of public health and other vital needs, the United States is racked by militarism and a foreign policy of pursuing confrontation with Russia and China.
The contradictions of the US (and other Western states) demonstrate that capitalism is a dead-end system.
The two-party rigid framework of the United States and its antiquated 18th-century Constitution means that the system is not reformable, says Lazare.
Forebodingly, that means the United States in its politically gridlocked condition is moving towards increasing authoritarian rule under both Democrats and Republicans, or the people will take control through a progressive revolution that puts the interests of workers and the general public first.
Daniel Lazare presents a stark choice for the future that is reminiscent of German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg. Do we choose socialism or barbarism?
Finian Cunningham, is a columnist at the Strategic Culture Foundation, Sputnik, and a Writer on Dandelion Salad. He can be reached at cunninghamfinian@gmail.com.
From the archives:
American Capitalism’s Growing Dysfunction, by Rainer Shea
U.S. Versus China Covid Deaths – A Symptom of Diseased Capitalism, by Finian Cunningham
Collapse Isn’t A Politically Neutral Thing, by Rainer Shea
The “American Experiment” Is Dying. What Will Replace It? by Rainer Shea
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Lazare mentions that “The two-party rigid framework of the United States and its antiquated 18th-century Constitution means that the system is not reformable”, which is confuse the two. The Constitution is central to the United States. Its intent was to provide a framework which restricts what government can and can not do. It was to insure freedom of individuals. Now, having said that, the U.S. has devolved into a neo-fascist Corporatocracy under the management of an ultra wealthy elite (ie: an oligarchy).
America is now a surveillance state. We are one event—real or manufactured—from becoming a police state. They’ve eliminated all other options. This Corporatocracy owns both parties. Their lobbyist write the laws. They restrict Independents (the largest political bloc in the U.S.) and third parties from equal participation. They owned the media (just 5 companies own 95+% of everything we read, hear, and watch). They, in effect, determine public opinion.
Lastly, this Corporatocracy dictates domestic and foreign policy, using the U.S. military as it “enforcers”. It’s all control, be it of assets, resources, or us. The ruling oligarchy has all but removed reform from our options, yet if we can’t reform the system, it defacto leaves itself only two options—-authoritarianism or revolution.
Thanks for your comment, Paul.
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Wow. So succinct and pointed yet all-encompassing in approach, a powerful statement on the necessity and inevitability of the coming revolution. Connects the breakdown of capitalism with the breakdown of democracy, and both with our absurd 300-year-old decrepit, brittle, and unreformable slave-owner Constitution. It’s revolution for a new democracy, or the apocalypse of mature, tyrannical capitalism in world war and planetary destruction. It’s that stark. Unfortunately, while the Left dithers around hoping a new constitution will somehow miraculously materialize and gloriously establish our new republic as an actual democracy at long last, the capitalist Right is hard at work on a different kind of Constitution. ALEC, the Koch network of billionaires, and the other oligarchs have been quietly moving toward a new Constitutional Convention with terrifying intent and clarity. I believe 26 states have called for a convention so far, with 8 more to go. With Trump in the White House—or even worse, the Gitmo Torturer DeSantis, you can bet a Constitutional Convention run by Koch Republicans is a high probability. Unless the Left gets its act together, comes together with a clear vision of an ecosocialist democracy NOW, we are soon in for a brave new world that will be a horror to us all. It is past time to pull our brightest minds together to produce a new Constitution that The People can rally around to meet this rising threat with a bold new vision.
Yes, exactly, mmckinley. Thanks for your well stated comment.