The global ruling class is cementing into place a world where they govern without accountability, we are reduced to serfdom, the climate crisis accelerates and mass death is normalized.
Original illustration by Mr. Fish — “The Four Horseman.”
By Chris Hedges
ScheerPost.com
It is hard to be sanguine about the future.
The breakdown of the ecosystem is well documented. So is the refusal of the global ruling elite to pursue measures that might mitigate the devastation.
We accelerate the extraction of fossil fuels, wallow in profligate consumption, including our consumption of livestock and make new wars as if we are gripped by a Freudian death wish.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — Conquest, War, Famine and Death — gallop into the 21rst century.
Those who rule, servants of corporations and the global billionaire class, accompany the suicidal folly by cementing into place corporate tyranny. The plan is not to reform. It is to perpetuate the corporate pillage.
This pillage, more and more onerous for the global population, necessitates a new totalitarianism, one where the billionaire class lives in opulence, workers are serfs, rights such as privacy and due process are abolished, Big Brother watches us all the time, war is the chief business of the state, dissent is criminalized and those displaced by conflicts and climate breakdown are barred entry into the climate fortresses in the global north.
Portions of the human species, the most privileged, will, in theory, hold out a little longer before they succumb to the great die off.
Julian Assange & Journalism
Julian Assange and WikiLeaks won The Economist New Media Award at the 2008 Freedom of Expression Awards. (Index on Censorship)
The persecuted and the abandoned, now in the tens of millions, know the future.
For them, the future has already arrived. Julian Assange, the most important publisher of our generation, whose extradition to the U.S. was approved on Friday by the British Home Secretary Priti Patel, is an example of what will befall all publishers and journalists who expose the inner workings of power.
His imprisonment for revealing the war crimes, mendacity, cynicism, and corruption of the ruling class, including the Democratic Party, heralds a new era. Investigations into the centers of power, the life blood of journalism, will be a criminal offense.
It does not matter that Assange, who suffered a stroke and is in poor physical and psychological health, is not a U.S. citizen or that WikiLeaks is not a U.S.-based publication. It does not matter that all of Assange’s meetings with his attorneys were recorded by UC Global, the Spanish security firm at the Ecuadorian embassy where Assange lived for seven years, and turned over to the U.S., obliterating attorney-client privilege.
The campaign against Assange, and I have sat in on hearings in London, is a Dickensian farce, the persecution of an innocent and heroic man, far more reminiscent of the Lubyanka than the best of British jurisprudence. He is being used to send a message — if you expose what we do we will destroy you.
Lubyanka KGB headquarters in Moscow in August 1991. (David Broad, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Workers, whether in the vast sweatshops in China or the decayed ruins of the Rust Belt, struggle on subsistence wages without job protection or unions. They are cursed by trade deals, deindustrialization, austerity, rising interest rates and rising prices. They, too, know the future.
The decision to raise interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, with new rate hikes on the way, will further depress wages, which have stagnated for decades, increase unemployment and personal debt and make food and other basic necessities more expensive.
Raising interest rates usually induces a recession. But the oligarchs are more than willing to extract blood from the working class. Inflation reduces investment returns. It disrupts leveraged financial strategies.
Prices are not rising because of wages. They are rising because of supply shortages and price gouging by corporations and oil conglomerates. U.S. corporations posted their biggest profit growth in decades by raising prices during the pandemic. Corporate pretax profits rose last year by 25 percent to $2.81 trillion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
That’s the largest annual increase since 1976, according to the Federal Reserve. When taxes are included, last year’s corporate profit rose to 37 percent, more than any other time since the Fed began tracking profits in 1948.
The Billionaire Class
Antitrust laws and breaking up monopolies would ease the strain of inflation and lower prices. Rationing would break inflation. So would a wage-price freeze. Nationalization, reversing the capture of public utilities, the health care system, banking, and other services by corporations, would also blunt price rises.
But the billionaire class is not about to impose measures that diminish their profits. They will keep their monopolies. They will keep their grip on what were once public assets. The message from the billionaire class is this: the economy is run for our benefit, not yours.
Ukrainians, enduring a war of attrition with the infusion of tens of billions of dollars of weapons from the U.S. and Europe, know the future. War is the chief business of the state. It enriches the arms industry. It expands the military budget. The U.S. now sends $130 million a day in military aid and assistance to Ukraine, part of the $55 billion in aid promised by Washington.
The U.S., struggling with societal breakdown and an ailing economy, sees its military as the only mechanism left to destroy global competitors, especially Russia and China.
Russia, hemmed in by an expanding NATO in Central and Eastern Europe, and China harassed by a succession of carrier groups in the South China Sea, which Washington has called a “national interest,” have been united as U.S. adversaries.
B-52 Stratofortress bomber on the flight-line at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, Jan. 15, 2019. (U.S. Air Force, Christopher Quail)
China sees the waterways of Asia and the Pacific as part of its sphere of influence, as Russia sees Ukraine and other neighboring states. The aggressive military posturing of the U.S. on the borders of China and Russia has provoked an unnecessary cold war, one many Washington policy makers nonchalantly expect may evolve into a hot war amongst nuclear armed nations that would potentially obliterate life on the planet.
There is an intensifying scramble for control, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s building of air bases from Japan to Australia along the Asian littoral, giving it the ability to attack warships, including aircraft carriers, in the western Pacific.
The refusal of the U.S. to accommodate itself to a multipolar world and to chase the chimera of unrivaled global hegemony has seen Russia and China solidify an alliance, an alliance cold warriors worked hard to prevent. The hostilities, a self-fulfilling prophecy by U.S. warmongers, delights the Washington establishment whose goal is to perpetuate endless war.
You know you are in trouble when Henry Kissinger, who has called for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia and open negotiations with Moscow “in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome,” is a voice of sanity.
Despotic governments need an enemy to justify the repression of dissidents, the reduction and cancellation of social programs and the iron control of information. Wars justify the unjustifiable — black sites, kidnapping, torture, targeted assassinations, censorship and arbitrary detention — off-the-book war crimes. War induces a state of perpetual paranoia and fear. It demands mass obedience.
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous,” George Orwell writes in 1984.
“Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”
The message of endless war is – if you defy the ruling class, the militarists and the government, you are a traitor.
(UMD Special Collections, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The 140 million people across the globe suffering from acute hunger, a result of the pandemic, the climate crisis and the war in Ukraine, know the future, along with the families of the 15 million people who died from the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of whom with proper prevention and medical care could have been saved.
The refugees fleeing failed states and climate disasters — there could be 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050 — in the global south know the future.
The message imparted to the poor, the vulnerable, the sick and the weak is this: your lives and the lives of your children do not matter.
The oligarchs in the Democratic Party and the establishment wing of the Republican Party are aware they are in political trouble. Is it due to Russian meddling? Is it due to Donald Trump and his proto-fascist minions? Is it caused by journalists and publishers like Assange who give them a bad name? Is it a failure of messaging? Is it a lack of rigorous censorship of the far-right and leftist critics?
The Democratic Party, now united with the establishment Republican Party, is flailing around for a solution. They are bankrolling far right candidates in the Republican primaries, a tactic that backfired on Hillary Clinton when her campaign worked during the primaries to promote Donald Trump as the Republican nominee.
Retrograde Republicans, de facto members of the Democratic Party because they voted to impeach Trump, are being lionized as true patriots, as if they can lure people away from Trump and Trump-like clones.
Robert Reich, along with other Democratic leaders, argues that Rep. Liz Cheney — who voted for Trump policies 93 percent of the time as a member of the House but now looks set to lose her bid for reelection in Wyoming — has “demonstrated more courage and integrity than any other politician in America” and might just be “the best president of the United States for the perilous time we’re entering.”
Jonathan V. Last, in an article headlined “Mike Pence is an American Hero” in The Atlantic, writes that Pence “did more to protect democracy — both on January 6 and since — than any other person inside the Trump administration.”
Perhaps the expected Supreme Court ruling that will overturn Roe v. Wade will work in their favor. Perhaps the televised hearings on the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, an extended campaign commercial, will convince voters to support them. Perhaps the promise of more stringent gun laws will excite the electorate.
What can we expect from a party leadership that believed Michael Bloomberg, who has switched allegiance between the Democratic and Republican parties several times, would save them from progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders?
What can we expect from a party leadership that anointed Joe Biden, who spent his political career dispossessing working men and women, building the world’s largest prison system, militarizing police, destroying the welfare system and funding military fiascos in the Middle East, as president?
The Biden administration is defined by failed expectations, from its stymied Build Back Better Plan to its refusal to raise the minimum wage. It is running on fumes, using gimmicks, empty rhetoric, spectacle and fear to intimidate the electorate.
The descent is pathetic to watch, reminiscent of the moment Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu tried desperately to placate an unruly crowd from the balcony of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Romania building by offering to raise pension and family allowance by $2 a month.
He and his wife were executed four days later.
The discredited East German Communist Party, which like the Romanian revolution I also covered as a reporter, made similar empty gestures, promising to open its closed party headquarters to the public long after anyone cared.
The billionaire class, or at least many of them, would prefer to loot and pillage under the cover of the old political decorum and rhetoric. They like the fiction of paying homage to an emasculated democracy. It gives them the veneer of respectability.
But this is not to be. The rage of the betrayed is articulated by imbecilic demagogues vomited up from the social and political swamp. Corporations and the billionaire class will continue to exploit, but under a cruder and crueler authoritarianism. The social, political, economic and environmental breakdown will accelerate.
Reality, increasingly unpalatable, will cease to exist in public discourse. It will be replaced by Millenarian cults, such as the Christian fascists, and bizarre conspiracy theories, a retreat into magical thinking where evil is embodied in demonized individuals and groups that must be eradicated.
Truth and lies will be indistinguishable. The vulnerable will be cast aside, blamed for their own misery, as well as ours. Those who resist will be criminals. Mass death will sweep across the planet.
This is the world our children will inherit unless those who control us are wrenched from power.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report.”
Author’s Note to Readers: There is now no way left for me to continue to write a weekly column for ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show without your help. The walls are closing in, with startling rapidity, on independent journalism, with the elites, including the Democratic Party elites, clamoring for more and more censorship. Bob Scheer, who runs ScheerPost on a shoestring budget, and I will not waiver in our commitment to independent and honest journalism, and we will never put ScheerPost behind a paywall, charge a subscription for it, sell your data or accept advertising. Please, if you can, sign up at chrishedges.substack.com so I can continue to post my Monday column on ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show, “The Chris Hedges Report.”
This column is from Scheerpost, for which Chris Hedges writes a regular column. Click here to sign up for email alerts.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Chris, you have to go beyond defining the problem and specify the alternatives. People will only become proactive if they see light at the end of the tunnel. We all need to know what the alternatives are ! After the diagnosis, what is the cure?
This is all as demonstrated in the vision, provided by Jesus Christ, from the throne of God, to the apostle John, while John was on the Island of Patmos. The answer is to seek out Jesus and believe in Him, that is, who He is, what He is, what He has said and what He has done, etc. , and reach the point that you truly believe in Him and know Him. The going will still be rough, far worse than what Chris Hedges has written, but for those who do not, or can not believe, it will become worse to the point of being total catastrophe and total destruction, and an eternity of burning regret and horror.
Yes, unless. Always the unless, but unless what? By what means will those who rule us be wrenched from power?
Those who rule us will only be wrenched from power if we, the powerless, unite; all of us, millions of us.
But it will a tremendous fight, because the powerful will try to prevent us uniting.
Julian, un martyr du 21ème siècle !
Il n’aurait pas aimé que nous soyons pessimistes.
Le monde change. Bien sûr, on va en baver, ça sera difficile mais ensuite, pour nos enfants, se sera mieux.
Toute la fausse réalité implantée dans une partie du monde par les médias de grand chemins occidentaux est mise à nue; Ils sont si stupides qu’avec l’Ukraine, à petits pas, ils ont perdu le monopole de l’information-manipulation.
Un conflit attire les regards, c’est bien pour cela qu’ils ont omerté le Donbass depuis février 2014. Et ils ont joué contre leur propre camp en médiatisant la pauvre ukraine “agressée” en oubliant, les stupides, ben, qu’il y a internet, tout simplement. Ah, ils ont mis le paquet ! EN VAIN !
Julian aimerait que nous soyons forts et combatifs ! Nous le serons !
Actually, raising interest rates is good for those of us who don’t have debt. The rates have been too low for too long now. The problem is that the federal government has borrowed too much, and the cost of carrying that huge debt will go up.
That the federal government has to borrow it’s own currency at all is the crux of the problem…a nearly-privatized monetary system controlled by the private banking system and debt-based fiat currency is at the root of it. It will get worse before it gets better.
I’ve been actively contacting people about today’s Operation Mockingbird, which is coordinated at the yearly Billionaire’s Summer Camp, A.K.A. the Sun Valley Conference, in Ketchum Idaho. This conference is where all the heads of the media companies come to get there marching orders and to further consolidate the media industry (See Disney). Parasites like Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Bill Gate, Peter Theil, and many others attend this meeting. If the people of the world are finally fed up with the bullshit fake news they continuously pour down our throats, this is the place to fight back. The time is next month, right after the 4th of July.
FYI – Ketchum Idaho is a small Ski resort community that sits in a very tight box canyon. 8 Bigs rigs could barricade the entire town, just by blocking a few bridges, or alternatively those points could be used by peaceful protestors to haze and voice there discontent to the very parasites that have destroyed this country and enslaved the minds of the masses. The weapons grade psychological warfare they conduct on us is being ignored by the politicians in Washington (both parties) because they also use those techniques to keep themselves in power.
Now is the time to rise up against the lies and deceit. Please come join me in Sun Valley on July 6th, to shine some truth on the cretins that have buried us in disinformation and war propaganda.
Yes!
It’s a grand occasion for us, the powerless, to act on our discontent.
For a possible greater context, I recommend you pick up a copy of “Mankind in Amnesia” by Immanuel Velikovsky. His other works are seminal as well. There is also Charles Hapgood’s “Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings.” Further are the works of Donald Patten and Steven Windsor; “The Recent Organization of the Solar System,” “The Flood of Noah,” and “The Scars of Mars.” Finally check Julian Jane’s “The Origin of Consciousness in the Break Down of the Bicameral Mind. Past is prologue. Context is everything.
Sortie la guillotine
Let’s see; end the extraction of “fossil fuels”, i.e. Hydrocarbons, of which natural gas is one, which, by the way, is used to make fertilizer, which supports the growing of crops. And let’s stop raising chickens, which, by the way, make eggs, and cows, from which milk is extracted. And how about goats, sheep, rabbits, etc. And how to “we” stop this? I know! Let’s make governments more powerful! That will fix everything. See; simple solution to a complicated problem. You’re welcome.
Bright Green Lies makes it very clear that NOTHING replaces hydrocarbons, nothing comes close to the energy they contain. One can oppose their use while at the same time (yes, I know! paradox!) realizing nothing is going to stop their use. I do think we should end all energy subsidies, and that includes solar / wind / hydro, all three of which use more energy than they produce.
Great comment!
Considerably more hard core than the man generally dispenses.
“Mass death will sweep across the planet….unless those who control us are wrenched from power.”
I will agree with him that, going forward, this encapsulates “everyman’s future” unless born into privilege: “The message imparted to the poor, the vulnerable, the sick and the weak is this: your lives and the lives of your children do not matter.”
However, the real tragedy is that I can remember when it didn’t used to be this way. There was still much hope and opportunity to pull oneself up by his or her bootstraps if born anytime in the 40’s and 50’s–in the aftermath of WWII when numerous social programs, and numerous labor protection laws, were instituted to accommodate the millions of GI’s coming home from the world war. The soldiers themselves were essentially offered free college educations if they could hack the challenge and this was an entre to any number of good paying jobs.
The goodwill and largesse was extended to us, the offspring of these same GI’s. The nation and the states constructed huge numbers of first rate educational institutions, in addition to expanding the renowned extant facilities, for my generation and rewarded us with all manner of scholarships and fellowships if we showed any bit of promise whatsoever. Even this was goosed up considerably after the Russians launched Sputnik and seemed to be ahead in the emerging “space race.” My state paid for my entire baccalaureate education at a Big Ten university. The Feds paid for my entire graduate education at another Big Ten institution through my Ph.D. Then it was off to California for a few years of non-tenured seasoning at a couple of UC campuses, again compliments of Uncle Sam before being offered a professorship at yet another state flagship university which evolved into my entire career before easing into a comfortable retirement early in this century.
What greater opportunity could one ask for? Now this would be a pipe dream, especially for your typical public school “all American kid” growing up on the sidewalks of Chicago or Detroit. There are damned few cushy jobs for anyone to advance into (they are mostly all filled, often by foreigners), so the point of preparing for them via years of higher education, especially if self-financed, becomes futile or an act of extreme masochism. For the past 25 years I’ve seen recipients of Ph.D.’s struggling to find non-tenured “adjunct professorships,” which are essentially temp jobs which pay less than squat–usually one or two grand for an entire semester course. Their “career” in academia essentially becomes a part time avocation. Some may hang onto their dreams till past middle age, most cannot afford that luxury. For every top notch American kid willing to try to run the academic gauntlet there are several Oriental or Indian kids with perfect GRE scores competing for the same positions and sources of funding. They have already been habituated to working 24/7 their entire lives so the necessity to essentially live in the research lab (my old bailiwick) becomes second nature to them. That in a nutshell describes how the golden age of American academics came to an end for all but a very lucky and hypertalented few. The story in applied science is much the same with a very difficult expensive entre and ever shrinking opportunities at lower wages. Some consider themselves very lucky to find employment in those dodgy Washington-funded biolabs in places like Ukraine at middling five-figure salaries. America USED to be the land of opportunity for anyone with talent and a desire to succeed. I know, I still remember it. It was a pleasant adventure. Today, the country is as Hedges describes it–no fun even for those lucky enough to still have what used to be considered plum positions.
The department I worked for considered themselves not part of the scam since they offered practical degrees, but I met many students majoring in sociology, basket weaving, gender studies, etc. The academic counselors at the Disney ticket booth sell castles in the sky to students regardless of wage and employment statistics.
Realist: Profound, Insightful, and very admirable “up to the minute” commentary as a supplement to Chris Hedges latest article.
I always enjoy reading, and “learning” from your comments, especially as they coincide with my feelings on the various CN articles.
In my own little mind, I feel the rise and fall of Cultures and Civilizations as the philosopher/historian, Oswald Spengler wrote volumes on in the early part of the 20th century is what I call a “vertical pendulum” of the ascent and descent of nations around the world in recorded history. if I understand his research on the subject.
Basically, once a nation (civilization) reaches their apex in Culture : science, language, the arts, literature, music, and all the things that enhance human development for the betterment of society, then things start to be “taken for granted” and eventually deteriorate, slowly, so it is not noticeable to the vast majority, who eventually lament on “the good old days” which you describe in different ways, as does Mr. Hedges and others. As that society is in the decline, another one somewhere else is rising and when they reach their “zenith” think it will always be this way, and drop their guard, or as Thomas Jefferson said “Eternal Vigilance” and then that nation-state or empire slowly starts their descent. Basically, a rising and falling of Cultures and Civilizations throughout human history.
Sadly, “bone spur Trump” has too many followers believing he will “MAGA”, which he didn’t do in his four years in the White House.
..p.s., If, possible “surround-sound,” would be awesome. The “audio” gets cranked up, in our house, so Everybody can listen to what I read. And, they should be reading. ‘Audio’ is an added bonus, we “got” the soft copy, “Chris Hedges: The Triumph of Death”
It’s a “come together,” being silent, to listen & to work. We get lotsa work done; &, after, we talk about all of it.
TY, Chris Hedges. “Keep it Lit.”
No doubt about it, “The Nation” is in Extreme Decline!!! “The descent is pathetic to watch.” Hence, China’s advice to Biden, “He who ties the bell around the tiger; Needs to Untie It.”
In sum, the rabid, beyond right-wing Corporatists’ Party of Jackasses, Republicans, that “independent,” hot air factory from Vermont, Bernie Sanders; &, posing as POTUS, masquerading as Human, Joe Biden & Kamala Harris are “so ripely symbolic of everything that is unchanging, hopeless,” UNHINGED; and, f.u.b.a.r., about our political system.
Consequently, “Julian Assange faces extradition and state murder while the war criminals he exposed walk free.”
Their emotional numbness lies at the core of their jacked-up personalities. Their FAVORABILITY is @ 85% UNFAVORABLE!!!
On script, outta da gate, the Old Man yappin & yellin, “America Is Back.”
AND, “IT WAS the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, then-SENATOR JOE BIDEN, who played a central role in pushing through the Authorization for the Use of Military Force that provided a congressional rubber stamp for the illegal invasion in Iraq.” Today, US/NATO vs. Russia in Ukraine. Ukraine is the Pawn. Russia rocks the Queen. Et tu, Biden?
Joe Robinette Biden “NEVER had a signature foreign policy achievement in Congress or as Obama’s No. 2.”
But, Joe’s “GOT” Liz. That LIZ CHENEY, of all people, “should be posited as a model Republican by anyone, should affect your stomach acids. Nobody lied better, or with a straighter face, than HER father, DickCheney. An extremely evil, dishonest, cruel, racist thug, DICK CHENEY arranged the APPOINTMENT of his daughter LIZ to a Senior Post at the STATE Department. LIZ joined in the campaign of BIG LIES that led to the IRAQ WAR. LIZ has never apologized for her role in that massive crime. LIZ CHENEY IS a vile woman in a time of vile choices.”
The MSMedia & the WH’s muckity-mucks cover up the fact that BIDEN-HARRIS is the first, most dysfunctional, malfunctioning “presidency,” in history! AND, hate & war is all they got! The Driver is deception, destruction, death. “NO! You must not progress independently. We control the monetary system, the banking system. We have all kinds of ways to attain our ends.”
Biden-Harris campaigned on fixing everything, and what have they done?
Everybody, knows, “The fundamentals didn’t change and won’t change.”
– “The ever-exanding military budget will remain sacrosanct,
– corporate behavior will be deregulated,
– fossil fuels will power the economy until they’re depleted,
– minimum wage remains $7.25/hour,
– health care will remain a for-profit industry.”
BETRAYAL, NO Confidence & the COLLAPSE of the Biden-Harris Domestic & Foreign agenda, is total confirmation that the Democrats’ Party of Jackasses is “NOT a vehicle for social reform, but in fact a graveyard.”
PROTEST & SURVIVE! Rise Up. Revolt! Reclaim Sanity & Peace. Let’s “wrench from power those who control us.” REVOLUTION, Anyone? Everyone?
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here”…The Tempest by Shakespeare.
Need I say more.
The worship of money, violence, greed and a lack of empathy are here to stay. One can only hope that WWIII takes place before we figure out how to travel through interstellar space.
The lack of empathy is pervasive and contagious. It extends to all people everywhere who have an ever decreasing ability to do more than just survive day to day. Their empathy is reserved for those closest to them. They don’t have any to spare. All their efforts are concentrated on survival. This is one of the many reasons people don’t take action or rise up against their oppressors – often until its too late.
Even the worst tyrants in history have cared for their loved ones, and behaved normally with them to such an extent that the loved ones often refused to believe that the tyrant could be so evil and commit such crimes. This meant that the tyrant did not believe himself to be such, and enabled him to justify his actions with feeling guilt or remorse. They were the most dangerous of all, and now we see more and more of them in powerful positions, justifying their actions without any awareness of the effects they have, and believing that the harm they see, which they cause, is actually caused by others.
Worse than any pandemic, the lack of empathy prevents enough people from taking action to stop the powerful from harming them. It’s a viscous cycle, becoming worse as conditions worsen.