Why Can't We Commit War Crimes & Destroy The Planet While Still Having An Affordable Lifestyle?

Here's why.

By Lee Camp

Sometimes it doesn’t seem like two things are connected. But deep down you know they are. You try to grasp the correlation, but it’s elusive. …I think I’ve found the answer.

Why can’t we, the United States, regularly blow up fishermen off the coast of Venezuela — without a judge, jury, or relevant jurisdiction — without 49% of American children languishing in or near poverty??

Why can’t we send tens of billions of dollars to help Israel commit genocide while also having affordable housing for Americans? Rather than the monthly mortgage payment on a typical home doubling since January 2020?

Why can’t we manufacture the murder of hundreds of thousands in a proxy-war in Ukraine while still being able to afford going out to eat twice a week at a not-nice but not-fast-food restaurant like Olive Garden or TGI Friday’s or Cheesecake Factory? Instead, a recent analysis finds that an American household earning less than $136,000 a year is essentially under the poverty line. If true, that means only about one-quarter of households aren’t in poverty.

Why can’t we turn Syria into a failed state led by a former Al Qaeda chief without also spending over $13,000 per child per year on childcare?!

Why can’t we spend over $1 trillion a year on our Department of War & Death without 27% of American adults reporting they’ve gone without medical care this year because they can’t afford it? (We all at some point wonder if we should get a professional to fix that broken leg or see if our neighborhood auto mechanic can pull it off.)

Why can’t we commit the largest act of industrial terrorism in history without 14% of Americans going to bed hungry at some point during the year?

Why can’t we (along with our BFF Israel) ethnically cleanse and steal 58% of Gaza without tens of millions of Americans suffering under $220 billion of medical debt?

Why can’t we coup countries like Pakistan, Bolivia, Argentina, Haiti, Brazil, and so many more in recent years — while not having 37% of Americans reporting they can’t even afford a $400 emergency??

Why can’t we kill 4.5 to 6 million people with the Global War on Terror without the American job market rotting in the gutter? A new report shows you have a better chance of getting into Harvard than you have of finding a good job — a 0.4% chance of getting the average job versus an acceptance rate of 3.6% at Harvard.

Why can’t our military emit more greenhouse gases and thereby contribute more to climate change than 140 countries without Americans writhing beneath $1.8 trillion in student loan debt?

Why can’t we have our cake and destroy the world too??

Well, here’s the answer — or at least part of it. The reason the US has a bloodthirsty, tirelessly belligerent global empire that is able and willing to do far more harm to the world than any other country is because we have the most unfettered socioeconomic system. That system uniquely rewards the behavior of sociopaths — those with little to no empathy. If you care at all about your fellow humans, you never become a billionaire or a member of the US elite ruling class. It’s a self-selecting cycle. Those who give a fuck about others are weeded out — with most of them never even wanting to rule over their fellow humans.

All told, this means the capitalist system puts the sociopaths at the top. They are the richest and the most powerful. With the sociopaths running things, all decisions are filtered through a sociopathic lens, rather than a humanity-first lens or something similar.

The ruling elite who decide to commit war crimes / genocide / mass murder / unfathomable destruction are also the ones who decide how to set up American society — how best to extract both money and life-force from average citizens. They are the ones crafting our dumpster-fire healthcare system, and our corporate-friendly taxation system, and our fuck-over-the-poor food systems, and our debt-peonage-loving education system. They are also the ones blocking alternative ideas that would help create a sustainable, peaceful, just world.

It’s the same parasitic, soulless people running all the systems.

And that’s at least one of the main reasons we can’t commit loads of war crimes and generally destroy the planet while still having an affordable, easy life. (Not that we should be comfortable while we relentlessly masticate, digest and defecate our future.)