Corbin, I appreciate the clarity and urgency in what you wrote. The point that really lands for me is your observation that a society that loses the ability to build for its people often defaults to projecting power through destruction. When a nation can mobilize enormous resources for war but struggles to provide housing, healthcare, or functioning infrastructure, it raises serious questions about what our systems are actually organized to serve.
At the same time, I wonder if the deeper problem is not only that we have forgotten how to build, but that we have allowed the economic framework itself to drift so far from serving the collective welfare. When economic power becomes concentrated and production is organized primarily around profit and geopolitical competition, the political system inevitably follows that logic. War then becomes less an aberration and more a symptom of a distorted set of priorities.
The rebuilding you’re calling for feels essential. But to truly change course, it may require more than restoring the state’s capacity to construct large projects. It may require rethinking how economic power is distributed in the first place and how communities regain meaningful control over the systems that shape their lives.
Your central point still stands for me: the real measure of strength should be what we are able to create for the well being of society, not what we are capable of destroying.
There’s a growing conversation happening around these questions. I’ve been contributing to a Substack called https://crisistransition.substack.com where people are exploring how our political, economic, and cultural systems might evolve beyond the patterns you’re describing. I think your analysis would resonate strongly with many of the discussions happening there.
I am 91 years old and my long, very involved life experiences enable me to agree with Corbin and Christy’s positions, both cause and effect of our current dysfunctional government and disengaged citizenry. Thank you both for sharing and articulating so concisely your insights that so many of us struggle to do. I hope to take your offers of involvement but must meet the needs of my extraordinary husband’s dementia first. Will share your information as well. In appreciation, Barb and Bud
Because the government (or what's left of it) is bought and paid for. And Howard Jarvis' dream of a government so small you could drown it in a bathtub fueled DOGE and Drumpf. Their government is fascist oligarchy. But the obese, drug-soaked, hopeless American people keep voting for their own destruction.
Corbin, thank you for the continued clarity of your message...I would imagine that it gets tough to restate it into what seems like a vacuum.
I feel like we need to help build this into a movement...one that isn't named as something that comes with connotations like Green New Deal--people jump to conclusions about what it is without learning about it...something that says what it is like Make America Work Again.
We also need to get candidates, in office or running, to adopt it--in whole or in part.
I wish I knew how to do those things...while I ponder it, I will make as much noise for us about these ideas as I can. Count me among your supporters.
You write that "We can marshal our resources just as easily for peace as we can for war. We can build comfort and safety without missiles."
Exactly!
And this is why an accurate description of how a modern monetary system works is so important. We used the power of public money to mitigate the Depression. We used the power of public money to fight WWII. We shifted 50% of the nation's GDP to fight WWII. We need to shift 10% to fight climate change.
But as long as we allow politicians to still use the "debt" to scare people into accepting Austerity, we will never get the policy package we need. The policy package of Mission for America.
Joyce asks "Why can't we do this?" The short answer is that we are still caught in the Deficit myth, and the myth that government is the problem and only the private sector can save us. We still have the entire economics profession babbling on about the danger of government spending and debt. We MUST change this narrative to reflect reality. We are no longer on the gold standard, and thus the rules of the game have changed. A better economics is out there #MMT.
I believe Fetterman was the only Dem that voted for it, though he continues to demonstrate that whatever he is besides a liar, it’s most certainly not a Dem.
Wow. Best One Yet, Corbin. Thank you for writing what I'm thinking, and saying what EVERYONE needs to hear. This truly says it all: "We can marshal our resources just as easily for peace as we can for war." Please keep doing what you're doing!!
As always, you're spot on. We are so far down this rabbit hole. What really concerns me is that not enough people realize how far down we are. A good example is that Trump never should have made it through the primary of his first presidency. Without an honest assessment of how we got here and how far we've gone astray, I fear there will only be half-assed measures that continue to normalize and trumpet (no pun intended) 3/4 of the damaging postures we've taken and call that success.
Sure "we've" got to support the bright spots we see i.e. Chakrabarti, but history has shown they end up co-opted and/or in the category of symbolic (or very) controlled opposition. They are surely positioned as a threat to the "monsters" that have been in charge for far too long. Most importantly we need to have faith in the invisible march forward of truth and consciousness, not give up on our personal positive world view and keep our eyes open as manifestations of that view are (and will be) in plain site. Corbins writings are surely one of them.
Finally. Somebody who agrees with me. At 80 years old, I do not have enough time left to wait and see if anything gets better; so, I am leaving this sad mess asap. Hoping for a miracle for those who remain.
For all intents and purposes, the 'white' ethnic throwback in 'murka thrives on misery. Not necessarily living it, but certainly creating it. Problem is, what goes around always comes around. Cut off your nose to spite your face stuff. You succumb to fear only to become feared, and then the very natural pushback puzzles you, and your only answer is yet more fear from you and toward you. Now there is a circular firing squad.
Now this is not to say that other ethnic groups in 'murka do not live in misery. They do, but for them the road to misery runs through them. They, reluctantly and with agitation, have little choice but to accept it. They do not have the leverage to do much about it. You can throw in the LGBT+ community too, and, most puzzling, the rank and file female population. Women either suffer from the paternity of Stockholm Syndrome, or are awash in the personal vanity of competition for male acceptance or male adoration or male domination or becoming superior to males in a male's world.
This is what we now build. Grievances. Agitation. Cynicism. Pessimism. Faux competition for third-rate prizes. And largest of all, we build waste and toxicity. It is absolutely everywhere, and we cannot keep up with the disposal and cleanup.
Few in 'murka want to work, let alone know how to work. The ones who do are being hunted down, beaten, detained, deported, destroyed. Our economy is consumption, and we are running out of credit to keep consuming. We are literally running on empty. This is the only reason WAR looks inviting. Puff the chest, clench the fist, force misery on anyone else but us, while yet most of us live in misery that we have to project upon anybody but us.
Why have we threatened and hassled Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, Columbia, Denmark, much of Europe, Gaza, Somalia, and the list that just keeps growing and giving us cause for grievances? As Corbin says, we have nothing else. Technology and gadgets and hubris have destroyed us. TFG is a vicious carpetbagger, nothing more. Its ilk just zooms around the world burning jet fuel like kids eat bad candy, making 'deals' that produce nothing except more misery. Stockholm Syndrome is much more than addiction to misery -- it is the embrace of misery, the complete capitulation to the Dark Side. This is why, right now, inside out looks right side up, bad resembles good, stupidity replaces intelligence and wisdom, violence is depicted as love.
Corbin sees the logical side of all this, but there are much deeper ills than failing to build out a present and future that shares. Sharing is incompatible with misery. Misery hoards, steals, manipulates, takes by force or subterfuge, and lies and lies and lies.
'murka now is nothing more than lipstick on a pig. Hubris is, in the ancient Greek, a violent mindset that must wreak vengeance on some 'other.' Avarice is a favorite weapon of hoarding, take something, anything you had no hand in creating, ruin it, rape it, tear it apart and then throw in an area of town you do not live in, and then complain how trashy that side of town looks. We live in a prison made for us by the worst of us, and we are advertised into enjoying prison life. Here, Neo, have a cookie.
Regarding the above-referenced "Mission for America": I was a bit surprised to see that it proposed the recreation of FDR's Reconstruction Finance Corporation, but does not seem to know that such a project is already being promoted under the name of the National Infrastructure Bank (https://www.nibcoalition.com/). Corbin may want to bring it to the Mission's attention.
Well said, Corbin. The vision you articulate will not come about through electing the right people to serve in the old system. That system has been destroyed and won't be coming back. A new system will need to be built on its own, from scratch. It starts with ordinary citizens coming together and organizing in mutual aid.
Elon Musk and X.COM were supposed to allow free speech. They do......only if you criticize a Democrat or a Republican and keep the divide in this country going, If you start pointing to the Top 1%, Oligarchs/Wall Street/OLIGARCHS the BIG DONOR CRIMINALS that give the Democrats/Republican (UNIPARTY) their marching orders on what to do, what to say, who to attack, and how to do it YOU GET BANNED. X.COM has banned me because I called out the Wall Street Billionaires for sanctioning ILLEGALLY opening the borders and ILLEGALLY allowing 14-20 Million ILLEGAL ALIENS into the country, while most of the ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS/DEMOCRATS (UNIPARTY) said nothing for 4 years about it. The Wall Street controlled FAKENEWS covered it up too.
They could have easily forced their puppets in Congress to change the immigration laws if they felt we needed more workers.But Immigrant workers who are living off the WORKING Middle Class taxpayers (RECEIVING FREE HOUSING,MEDICAL,EDUCATION, and FOOD) afraid to get deported, are willing to work for BELOW MARKET WAGES subsidizing Wall Street TOP 1% profit Margins. Middle class taxpayers taxes keep going up, and wages remain stagnant. The Top 1% taxes keep going down, and income keeps rising at a staggering rate.
The last few years wages were going up for average workers. Capitalism was finally starting to work for the 99%. Wall Street could not keep raising their prices people would stop buying their stuff. They were not going to take a hit and make a little less profit. Suddenly their GOD they worship aka CAPITALISM was not working for the TOP 1%. So they decided to break EVERY IMMIGRATION LAW ON THE BOOKS and CHEAT the 99% out of their leverage and ILLEGALLY OPEN THE BORDERS in a massive ILLEGAL SCAM concocted in DAVOS and JACKSON HOLE by the elites to fleece the American Working Middle Class.
X.COM said I(my account) was not Authentic, and I repeatedly broke X rules(they could not tell me specifically what rules I broke) by calling out the OLIGARCHS so I was silenced on X.COM.
Corbin, I appreciate the clarity and urgency in what you wrote. The point that really lands for me is your observation that a society that loses the ability to build for its people often defaults to projecting power through destruction. When a nation can mobilize enormous resources for war but struggles to provide housing, healthcare, or functioning infrastructure, it raises serious questions about what our systems are actually organized to serve.
At the same time, I wonder if the deeper problem is not only that we have forgotten how to build, but that we have allowed the economic framework itself to drift so far from serving the collective welfare. When economic power becomes concentrated and production is organized primarily around profit and geopolitical competition, the political system inevitably follows that logic. War then becomes less an aberration and more a symptom of a distorted set of priorities.
The rebuilding you’re calling for feels essential. But to truly change course, it may require more than restoring the state’s capacity to construct large projects. It may require rethinking how economic power is distributed in the first place and how communities regain meaningful control over the systems that shape their lives.
Your central point still stands for me: the real measure of strength should be what we are able to create for the well being of society, not what we are capable of destroying.
There’s a growing conversation happening around these questions. I’ve been contributing to a Substack called https://crisistransition.substack.com where people are exploring how our political, economic, and cultural systems might evolve beyond the patterns you’re describing. I think your analysis would resonate strongly with many of the discussions happening there.
I am 91 years old and my long, very involved life experiences enable me to agree with Corbin and Christy’s positions, both cause and effect of our current dysfunctional government and disengaged citizenry. Thank you both for sharing and articulating so concisely your insights that so many of us struggle to do. I hope to take your offers of involvement but must meet the needs of my extraordinary husband’s dementia first. Will share your information as well. In appreciation, Barb and Bud
Thanks for sharing, this was exactly the hopeful but realistic messaging about ALL the crises we're facing. "Polycrisis" is a great term.
Because the government (or what's left of it) is bought and paid for. And Howard Jarvis' dream of a government so small you could drown it in a bathtub fueled DOGE and Drumpf. Their government is fascist oligarchy. But the obese, drug-soaked, hopeless American people keep voting for their own destruction.
Obese?
Corbin, thank you for the continued clarity of your message...I would imagine that it gets tough to restate it into what seems like a vacuum.
I feel like we need to help build this into a movement...one that isn't named as something that comes with connotations like Green New Deal--people jump to conclusions about what it is without learning about it...something that says what it is like Make America Work Again.
We also need to get candidates, in office or running, to adopt it--in whole or in part.
I wish I knew how to do those things...while I ponder it, I will make as much noise for us about these ideas as I can. Count me among your supporters.
You write that "We can marshal our resources just as easily for peace as we can for war. We can build comfort and safety without missiles."
Exactly!
And this is why an accurate description of how a modern monetary system works is so important. We used the power of public money to mitigate the Depression. We used the power of public money to fight WWII. We shifted 50% of the nation's GDP to fight WWII. We need to shift 10% to fight climate change.
But as long as we allow politicians to still use the "debt" to scare people into accepting Austerity, we will never get the policy package we need. The policy package of Mission for America.
Joyce asks "Why can't we do this?" The short answer is that we are still caught in the Deficit myth, and the myth that government is the problem and only the private sector can save us. We still have the entire economics profession babbling on about the danger of government spending and debt. We MUST change this narrative to reflect reality. We are no longer on the gold standard, and thus the rules of the game have changed. A better economics is out there #MMT.
I was confused by the vote on the war. There were too many negatives for me to parse. Which Dems voted FOR the war?
I believe Fetterman was the only Dem that voted for it, though he continues to demonstrate that whatever he is besides a liar, it’s most certainly not a Dem.
Wow. Best One Yet, Corbin. Thank you for writing what I'm thinking, and saying what EVERYONE needs to hear. This truly says it all: "We can marshal our resources just as easily for peace as we can for war." Please keep doing what you're doing!!
Probably the most single, heartbreaking assessment of the US right now. We need to wake the fuck up.
As always, you're spot on. We are so far down this rabbit hole. What really concerns me is that not enough people realize how far down we are. A good example is that Trump never should have made it through the primary of his first presidency. Without an honest assessment of how we got here and how far we've gone astray, I fear there will only be half-assed measures that continue to normalize and trumpet (no pun intended) 3/4 of the damaging postures we've taken and call that success.
Sure "we've" got to support the bright spots we see i.e. Chakrabarti, but history has shown they end up co-opted and/or in the category of symbolic (or very) controlled opposition. They are surely positioned as a threat to the "monsters" that have been in charge for far too long. Most importantly we need to have faith in the invisible march forward of truth and consciousness, not give up on our personal positive world view and keep our eyes open as manifestations of that view are (and will be) in plain site. Corbins writings are surely one of them.
Finally. Somebody who agrees with me. At 80 years old, I do not have enough time left to wait and see if anything gets better; so, I am leaving this sad mess asap. Hoping for a miracle for those who remain.
For all intents and purposes, the 'white' ethnic throwback in 'murka thrives on misery. Not necessarily living it, but certainly creating it. Problem is, what goes around always comes around. Cut off your nose to spite your face stuff. You succumb to fear only to become feared, and then the very natural pushback puzzles you, and your only answer is yet more fear from you and toward you. Now there is a circular firing squad.
Now this is not to say that other ethnic groups in 'murka do not live in misery. They do, but for them the road to misery runs through them. They, reluctantly and with agitation, have little choice but to accept it. They do not have the leverage to do much about it. You can throw in the LGBT+ community too, and, most puzzling, the rank and file female population. Women either suffer from the paternity of Stockholm Syndrome, or are awash in the personal vanity of competition for male acceptance or male adoration or male domination or becoming superior to males in a male's world.
This is what we now build. Grievances. Agitation. Cynicism. Pessimism. Faux competition for third-rate prizes. And largest of all, we build waste and toxicity. It is absolutely everywhere, and we cannot keep up with the disposal and cleanup.
Few in 'murka want to work, let alone know how to work. The ones who do are being hunted down, beaten, detained, deported, destroyed. Our economy is consumption, and we are running out of credit to keep consuming. We are literally running on empty. This is the only reason WAR looks inviting. Puff the chest, clench the fist, force misery on anyone else but us, while yet most of us live in misery that we have to project upon anybody but us.
Why have we threatened and hassled Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, Columbia, Denmark, much of Europe, Gaza, Somalia, and the list that just keeps growing and giving us cause for grievances? As Corbin says, we have nothing else. Technology and gadgets and hubris have destroyed us. TFG is a vicious carpetbagger, nothing more. Its ilk just zooms around the world burning jet fuel like kids eat bad candy, making 'deals' that produce nothing except more misery. Stockholm Syndrome is much more than addiction to misery -- it is the embrace of misery, the complete capitulation to the Dark Side. This is why, right now, inside out looks right side up, bad resembles good, stupidity replaces intelligence and wisdom, violence is depicted as love.
Corbin sees the logical side of all this, but there are much deeper ills than failing to build out a present and future that shares. Sharing is incompatible with misery. Misery hoards, steals, manipulates, takes by force or subterfuge, and lies and lies and lies.
'murka now is nothing more than lipstick on a pig. Hubris is, in the ancient Greek, a violent mindset that must wreak vengeance on some 'other.' Avarice is a favorite weapon of hoarding, take something, anything you had no hand in creating, ruin it, rape it, tear it apart and then throw in an area of town you do not live in, and then complain how trashy that side of town looks. We live in a prison made for us by the worst of us, and we are advertised into enjoying prison life. Here, Neo, have a cookie.
Regarding the above-referenced "Mission for America": I was a bit surprised to see that it proposed the recreation of FDR's Reconstruction Finance Corporation, but does not seem to know that such a project is already being promoted under the name of the National Infrastructure Bank (https://www.nibcoalition.com/). Corbin may want to bring it to the Mission's attention.
Well said, Corbin. The vision you articulate will not come about through electing the right people to serve in the old system. That system has been destroyed and won't be coming back. A new system will need to be built on its own, from scratch. It starts with ordinary citizens coming together and organizing in mutual aid.
Elon Musk and X.COM were supposed to allow free speech. They do......only if you criticize a Democrat or a Republican and keep the divide in this country going, If you start pointing to the Top 1%, Oligarchs/Wall Street/OLIGARCHS the BIG DONOR CRIMINALS that give the Democrats/Republican (UNIPARTY) their marching orders on what to do, what to say, who to attack, and how to do it YOU GET BANNED. X.COM has banned me because I called out the Wall Street Billionaires for sanctioning ILLEGALLY opening the borders and ILLEGALLY allowing 14-20 Million ILLEGAL ALIENS into the country, while most of the ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS/DEMOCRATS (UNIPARTY) said nothing for 4 years about it. The Wall Street controlled FAKENEWS covered it up too.
They could have easily forced their puppets in Congress to change the immigration laws if they felt we needed more workers.But Immigrant workers who are living off the WORKING Middle Class taxpayers (RECEIVING FREE HOUSING,MEDICAL,EDUCATION, and FOOD) afraid to get deported, are willing to work for BELOW MARKET WAGES subsidizing Wall Street TOP 1% profit Margins. Middle class taxpayers taxes keep going up, and wages remain stagnant. The Top 1% taxes keep going down, and income keeps rising at a staggering rate.
The last few years wages were going up for average workers. Capitalism was finally starting to work for the 99%. Wall Street could not keep raising their prices people would stop buying their stuff. They were not going to take a hit and make a little less profit. Suddenly their GOD they worship aka CAPITALISM was not working for the TOP 1%. So they decided to break EVERY IMMIGRATION LAW ON THE BOOKS and CHEAT the 99% out of their leverage and ILLEGALLY OPEN THE BORDERS in a massive ILLEGAL SCAM concocted in DAVOS and JACKSON HOLE by the elites to fleece the American Working Middle Class.
X.COM said I(my account) was not Authentic, and I repeatedly broke X rules(they could not tell me specifically what rules I broke) by calling out the OLIGARCHS so I was silenced on X.COM.
Why can't We do This!