Hedges and the Decline of the American Empire

https://www.mintpressnews.com/chris-hedges-unraveling-empire-united-states/276752/

Chris Hedges is in many respects a brilliant thinker. And yet reading him always saddens me a bit because of his distorted view of Christianity. But given his interaction with its politicised forms and his training under the auspices of theological liberalism, his less-than-Biblical views are hardly surprising. And while his understanding of the Scriptures is often wrong, he understands Right-wing Christianity well enough and thus his comments (though frustrating at times) are often insightful and contain no small degree of truth.

Or to put it another way, he has an acute mind, and as one who reads, reflects, and has benefitted from years abroad, his commentaries provide a helpful degree of insight. I appreciate his criticism of the Left which is often just as cutting and critical as are his comments regarding the fascistic-trending Right.

For several years now he's been marking the decline and fall of the American Empire. He's not alone but his way of presenting the issues remains helpful. His public talks attempt to turn the cynicism and pessimism into optimism as he appeals to grass roots elements. Unlike Hedges, I don't believe there's any reversal in the cards as they say – I don't think he really does either. But as a Christian I can go further and say I don't even believe in the ideals to begin with – things he still believes in and utilises as a baseline for his criticism of American hypocrisy and degeneracy.

America was born of blood, lies, and avarice. It lived by that code and will die by it. My primary interest is in the unfolding of that fall and how it will affect the Church – largely the False Church that has sold itself out to the idolatry.

While the fools on the Right think the DNC is dominated by communists, Hedges knows the opposite is true. The Democratic Party is wed to Wall Street and advocates military imperialism in order to expand the power of American capital. The divide is not between communists and capitalists but between capitalists with some social-democratic leanings and a party that is becoming outright fascistic. It's a case of Centre-Right in contention with the Far-Right.

The fact that one party embraces sexual libertinism does not make it left-wing. And don't be fooled, the far-right party isn't all that socially conservative either. People have confused and conflated these concepts but despite an appearance of overlap, they are not the same.

I was particularly struck by this paragraph:

The worse it gets at home the more the empire needs to fabricate enemies within and without. This is the real reason for the increase in tensions with Russia and China. The poverty of half the nation and concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny oligarchic cabal, the wanton murder of unarmed civilians by militarized police, the rage at the ruling elites, expressed with nearly half the electorate voting for a con artist and demagogue and a mob of his supporters storming the capital, are the internal signs of disintegration. The inability of the for-profit national health services to cope with the pandemic, the passage of a Covid relief bill and the proposal of an infrastructure bill that would hand the bulk of some $5 trillion dollars to corporations while tossing crumbs — one-time checks of $1,400 to a citizenry in deep financial distress — will only fuel the decline.

This was in the wake of a discussion regarding micro-militarism and appeals to history in the form of Greece, Rome, and Britain. Americans think it cannot happen here. And what will the break-up of the American Empire look like? No one knows of course but there have been many that have speculated. It all depends but I suspect it might become very ugly. Of all the historical analogies, Rome is the one that (I think) always seems to resonate most closely with the American experience.

His comments regarding the dollar are I think prescient. He's not the first either but Hedges has a better sense on the pulse of American cultural life than many other commentators. This paragraph was haunting but I fear it may be all too accurate.

The loss of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency will instantly raise the cost of imports. It will result in unemployment of Depression-era levels. It will force the empire to dramatically contract. It will, as the economy worsens, fuel a hyper-nationalism that will most likely be expressed through a Christianized fascism. The mechanisms, already in place, for total social control, militarized police, a suspension of civil liberties, wholesale government surveillance, enhanced “terrorism” laws that railroad people into the world’s largest prison system and censorship overseen by the digital media monopolies will seamlessly cement into place a police state. Nations that descend into crises these severe seek to deflect the rage of a betrayed population on foreign scapegoats. China and Russia will be used to fill these roles.

Those forces may fail and if that's the case the backlash against Christianity may be severe. Either way, Biblical Christians would face quandary. We would have to oppose the fascists in the Church (who are already present and growing) but at the same time we could not support the suppression of the Church that would occur should those forces be stopped. It's a lose-lose scenario for us – humanly speaking. God's will be done and we are called to glorify Him regardless, but these are important things to think on and understand. And as we move in this direction, the middle-class dreams many Christians foolishly chase after are going to seem not only unimportant but foolish. And yet many caught in those traps will continue to compromise in order to maintain their social standing. And one day they'll wake up and realise they given up everything that they once believed in. Or more likely you'll have those who hang on to their beliefs by a thread and yet the 'faith' they possess will not be transferred to the children who will apostatize in large numbers.

Given that this scenario is already being played out, what will happen when things get tougher, more confusing, and Christianity starts to come with a real cost – a cost that even the worldling Christianity that dominates today's Evangelical scene will begin to feel?

This is not a call to fear or panic but a call to vigilance. If you've been asleep, it's time to wake up – and I'm not talking about getting 'woke', nor am I talking about an awakening into Trumpism. The enemy has been unleashed within the Church. The Beasts are preparing for a huge clash. Life is going to change. We had better have our priorities properly in focus.

And while the collapse of the Roman Beast with all its murder and theft was just – the consequences were terrible and lasted for centuries. I will not weep for America when it falls. Truly it is an affront to God – and yet I tremble.