Colonialism never died . . .

Close to the finish of The Divide, by Jason Hickel, and it’s been quite the eye-opener.

I thought I knew a lot about inequality and the machinery that produces it, but this book adds a stunning amount of new evidence, at least for me.

I also thought I knew a lot about the machinery in place, natural to capitalism, natural to the evolution of capitalism, its internal logic, etc. etc. . . but the book adds new evidence there, too.

It also makes me think that (arguably) the most pernicious of Trump’s nearly 14,000 lies during his presidency is this:

That the United States has been screwed over on trade agreement after trade agreement, and that we keep “losing” in the process.

Bullshit. The US hasn’t been the loser, or the victim, or on the wrong side of these agreements since the early 19th century — and we’re the freakin authors of the vast majority of them. We created this system. And at least since WWII, we’ve led the charge in screwing over and victimizing the developing world, and it’s not close.

The way things have been rigged by “the West,” with the US being the chief evangel and policeman, is surreal. Hickel describes the tentacles of the system in a clear and concise way, and there appears no way out, at least for the global South. What used to be done via wars, coups, occupations, assassinations, etc. etc. is now done largely via the WTO, World Bank and the IMF . . . and it’s strangling the life out of the developing world. Details galore in the book . . . enough to make me want to scream.

From “structural adjustments,” to trillions in tax evasion, to lying about pricing/invoices, to forced austerity, slashed wages, slashed social investments, to the continued threat of military invasion and assassination . . . the global South has been ripped off by the West to the tune of (literally) trillions, all the while suffering horrific levels of poverty, disease, death and environmental disaster. Most of this could be avoided or flat out resolved, if the lust for profits and control didn’t trump life and the planet at every turn.

Hickel, in the section I’m in now, offers some solutions, but he’s not sanguine about it all. And because climate change is tied to all of this as well . . .

As the young kids used to say, O_M_G.