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Do not pretend to be anything other than yourself attempting to gain the approval of heartless authority and petty tyrants of the everyday kind.
"I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company."—Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
Deep down, we struggle to come upon accurate words to describe the terrible beauty of our aloneness. In this plight, we are together. In this musing, I, listening to the music of my heart, will attempt to hobble through and send back dispatches conveying a lexicon of aloneness.
A lesson I hope to learn by scribing a travelog of the dark: I've noticed, people who have survived the howling abyss of abandonment, and have been freed from its grip of grief, have been transfigured by the ordeal. Rarely, as a consequence, do such individuals act as errand boys, muscle, or apologists of oppressors.
They have snatched this from the mouth of despair, it would be tragic to be false to the forces that formed them. Thus make a vow to self: Do not pretend to be anything other than yourself attempting to gain the approval of heartless authority and petty tyrants of the everyday kind. Your wounds demand you speak your truth.
Leonardo Da Vinci, "Saint Jerome in the Wilderness"i (1480, unfinished)
Even in our cultural atomization, we are connected to those cast out; we are bonded to society's denizens of the dark, to those who feel the pain of the suffering Earth; to those who the misnomer known as normalcy casts from conscious awareness; to those who capitalist functionality (i.e., crackpot realism) brutalizes, kicks to the curb, and condemns to madness and death… yet life on life's terms, confronts us with innumerable, seemingly infinite connections. Within, we mirror all things. We, unbeknownst to ourselves, communicate with all things. Not only the realm of the human but soil, ocean, storm, star, galaxy, electron…
We, moment to moment, travel the bridge between each other's heartbeats. We are connected both with what we love and what we shun. Moreover, what we cast out and shun will return as affliction. Hence, the Earth herself is unwell and she rages in floods and firestorms.
Breathe in deep, clear your throat, and make exhortations on behalf of the voiceless. If you have a gift for music, compose and play them a song, let the weary take refuge in the rest between musical notes. Display sacred vehemence toward life-defying oppressors who contrive to make the life of the many a prison by incarceration of the heart.
Louise Bourgeois, "The Femme Maison"
When the culture of a nation, intoxicated on extraverted mania inherent to Mephistophelian capitalism, disallows the visions of its denizens of despair into the conversation, compensatory angels borne from the unconscious (what people in times past knew as the soul) will descend bringing on a cultural darkness. In the sterile, clinical language of our time, the phenomenon is termed a pandemic of depression.
Emissaries, invisible in daylight glare, appear in the dreams of the scorned and forsaken; the visitors whisper verse to those capable of stillness, and guide the willing into moments of inadvertent reprieve. In short, deliverance occurs by means of easing the burden of self—which is a gentle way of saying, aiding one in getting the living hell over oneself. These emissaries impart the message the visible world can be a mirage. Hope is an invisible force allied with luminous angels whose light would blind us upon sight. Hence, we are moved to transformation by a force not perceptible during quotidian day.
Paradoxically, because all things arrive freighted with their opposite (enantiodromia) bearers of hope are, often, those aforementioned lonely, despair-wracked individuals driven to stand at the edge of the abyss—the abjectly lonely who have been moved, by desperation, to implore the unseen for mercy.
No person wants to arrive at such a place. One would choose, and most do, a mundane life wherein we follow the signposts, on an exclusive basis, of the visible world—yet is, in essence, given our human proclivity for habitual self-reference, a graceless tour of a house of mirrors. Oh—the hellish mix of confusion and blandness of the choice.
Edvard Munch, "Evening on Karl Johan Street" (1892)
Prayer before sleep: Lord of nightmares bestow grace on me by allowing me to be reborn from within the womb of night. Despair's blackness grants the intrepid traveller the ability to navigate darkness, thereby avoiding a life defined by the limbo of complacency.
A person open to being ministered to, thus transformed, by a numinous voice, calling from the darkness at the edge of the daylight world, will, in all likelihood, spend their days alone, all too often suffering the pain of wounds inflicted by rejection. Loneliness will be a constant companion.
But as Rilke avers in verse:
You, darkness, that I come from
I love you more than all the fires
that fence in the world,
for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone
and then no one outside learns of you.
But the darkness pulls in everything—
shapes and fires, animals and myself,
how easily it gathers them!—
powers and people—
and it is possible a great presence is moving near me.
I have faith in nights.—Rainer Maria Rilke, "You Darkness"
Joseph Beuys, "I Like America and America Likes Me"
Often, a shunned soul, one who travelled through the world of mindless consensus' inferno of fuckwit and has returned, will be put on the defensive by normalcy's bullies and challenged to make an accounting of himself—i.e., to account for the unaccountable. In the end, one who has seen and survived one's own darkness, will be able to apprehend the darkness within his inquisitors. At the speed of a synapse, his tormentors will go from bullying to claiming victimization.
For, when backed against the wall, he is often moved to speak in a soul-plangent lexicon that causes a collapse, even for an instant, of his tormentor's protective yet ad hoc walls of coping—thus revealing the fragile banality that governs their lives. In so doing, he has committed an act, in nice society, that will never be forgiven.
Rilke surveys the scene and sends back this dispatch in verse:
Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Look, how tiny down there,
look: the last village of words and, higher,
(but how tiny) still one last
farmhouse of feeling. Can you see it?
Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Stoneground
under your hands. Even here, though,
something can bloom; on a silent cliff-edge
an unknowing plant blooms, singing, into the air.
But the one who knows? Ah, he began to know
and is quiet now, exposed on the cliffs of the heart.
While, with their full awareness,
many sure-footed mountain animals pass
or linger. And the great sheltered birds flies, slowly
circling, around the peak's pure denial.—But
without a shelter, here on the cliffs of the heart.—Rilke, "Exposed On The Mountains Of My Heart"
René Magritte, "The Glass Key" (1959)
Stop for a moment and take it all in. This life… on our Earth. The beauty. The terror. Notice: The terror involved in taking in the beauty of it all. The act will awaken your heart. Ask yourself: Am I on my heart's path? Or does this road lead me, again and again, into the dominion of exploiters? If you received an affirmative in regard to the latter question, I suggest, after you cease weeping—a sane response to you taking notice of the heart-devoid landscape where you have strayed—ask yourself: How can I reorient myself as to the direction of my heart's path?
Do you feel thwarted by circumstance, by the inherent miseries in facing capitalist hierarchies of immovable power and the system's architecture of exploitation? Rebel by engagement with the eternity delivery system of the imagination. Doing so does not translate into idle fantasy. By a receptivity to originality, by being moved to enthusiasm by acts of creativity… will provide the libido to trundle through the living landscape of imagination; thereby, one does not need to be an artist to live and engage the world in an artful manner.
Become a one person hallelujah chorus for originality. Within you, glide wheels of fire. The valley of bones rises as an army of flesh. This is your exodus out of bondage.
Magritte, "The Healer" (1937)
His rhetoric of ending “forever wars” masks a calculated strategy—one that replaces direct military intervention with economic control, resource extraction, and corporate influence.
The dramatic clash between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dominated headlines, turning what was supposed to be a diplomatic engagement into a public spectacle. Viewers watched in real time as shouting, accusations, and later reports of the abrupt departure by the Ukrainian delegation fueled outrage and speculation. Critics accused Trump of abandoning Ukraine, undermining the U.S. commitment to global democracy, and treating foreign policy negotiations as if he were a mafia boss issuing ultimatums. Yet while Trump’s behavior was undeniably confrontational, the real issue runs deeper than his personal style of diplomacy.
Trump’s approach may lack the diplomatic polish of previous administrations, but the difference is stylistic rather than substantive.
Beneath the theatrics, Trump is not fundamentally breaking from U.S. foreign policy traditions; he is reshaping them. His rhetoric of ending “forever wars” masks a calculated strategy—one that replaces direct military intervention with economic control, resource extraction, and corporate influence. What Trump offers is not an alternative to U.S. imperialism but a rebranded version: a “profitable imperial peace” where stability itself becomes a commodity for American oligarchs. Meanwhile, centrist politicians—his supposed opposition—continue to promote a perpetual war that serves the interests of the military-industrial complex, ensuring that conflict remains a permanent feature of global geopolitics.
Following the disastrous meeting, widespread condemnation of Trump emerged from political analysts and mainstream media. Critics accused him of selling out Ukraine, bowing to Russian interests, and violating the norms of diplomatic engagement. These critiques, while valid in their own right, fail to address the fundamental reality: U.S. foreign policy has always been about maintaining imperial power, whether through military occupation, economic coercion, or geopolitical alliances that serve corporate interests.
Trump’s approach may lack the diplomatic polish of previous administrations, but the difference is stylistic rather than substantive. His overt transactionalism merely exposes what has always been true: The U.S. does not support Ukraine out of a commitment to democracy but because it serves American geopolitical and economic interests. Beneath the veneer of respectability, the Biden administration, along with centrist politicians in the U.S. and Europe, has funneled billions into a war effort that increasingly appears to be less about securing Ukrainian sovereignty and more about sustaining a profitable cycle of militarization and strengthening U.S. global power.
The left must support Ukraine’s fight for self-determination, but its critique of Trump cannot be reduced to liberal outrage over his rhetoric or authoritarian posturing. What is needed is a materialist analysis of the capitalist forces shaping U.S. foreign policy—one that moves beyond the spectacle of Trump’s behavior to examine the deeper economic interests at play. Trump is not simply an outlier; he is both a continuation of and a divergence from the military-industrial complex mindset embraced by the Democratic establishment and centrist foreign policy elites. While figures like former President Joe Biden and European leaders justify endless military aid as part of a moral defense of democracy, they are simultaneously ensuring that the war remains a lucrative investment for arms manufacturers and defense contractors.
Trump, by contrast, has framed his approach as one of “peace,” but this too is a project driven by oligarchic interests, not diplomacy or anti-imperialism. His vision of peace is not about Ukrainian sovereignty but about restructuring U.S. hegemony in a way that shifts power from defense corporations to the energy sector, real estate developers, and financial elites. The far-right’s “imperialist peace” seeks to replace direct military engagement with economic subjugation, where stability becomes a tool for privatization, resource extraction, and the expansion of corporate control over Ukraine’s post-war future. This is not an abandonment of empire but a strategic reconfiguration of its mechanisms. A critical left analysis must dissect why Trump and his allies are so committed to peace—not as a humanitarian cause, but as a means to consolidate power for a different faction of oligarchs, all while leaving Ukraine trapped between Russian colonization and Western economic domination.
The real divide in U.S. foreign policy is not between interventionism and isolationism but between two competing models of imperialism: perpetual war and profitable peace. Centrist politicians and military contractors benefit from an unending war economy, where conflicts like Ukraine serve as permanent revenue streams for arms manufacturers and defense lobbyists. The longer the war drags on, the more profitable it becomes, allowing the U.S. and Europe to solidify and grow their military industries.
Trump’s vision for Ukraine presents itself as a departure from military interventionism, yet it reshapes imperial influence into a model of economic control. This “imperialist peace” positions stability as a resource for capitalist elites, ensuring corporate access to energy, land, and financial markets. Instead of a commitment to democracy or self-determination, this approach prioritizes wealth extraction through industries aligned with Trump’s strongest backers—fossil fuel conglomerates and real estate developers.
As long as U.S. foreign policy remains structured around corporate interests, the world will continue to be trapped in a cycle where war is either endlessly prolonged or peace is crafted to serve the needs of capital.
While Democrats and Republicans both maintain deep ties to the weapons industry, Trump’s policies reflect a strong alignment with fossil fuel executives and luxury property developers. Energy firms invested an estimated $219 million to shape the current U.S. government, signaling their expectation of policies favoring resource extraction and deregulation. Real estate investors, long intertwined with Trump’s personal business empire, have also fueled his political rise through massive financial contributions.
The purpose of Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington underscored this economic agenda. While media attention focused on the fiery exchange between leaders, the trip’s primary objective involved securing a deal granting U.S. companies control over Ukraine’s mineral wealth. This agreement cements Trump’s vision where capitalist elites extract profits from conflict not only through weapons sales but also through post-war reconstruction, energy production, and privatized infrastructure.
Luxury real estate speculators view regions impacted by war as investment opportunities. Waterfront redevelopment in areas previously devastated by conflict has emerged as a lucrative ventures. Stability functions as an asset for those seeking to transform destroyed neighborhoods into high-end residential and commercial spaces, ensuring an influx of capital through privatization. Trump’s strategy for Ukraine mirrors this approach, positioning peace as a mechanism for capital accumulation rather than a humanitarian goal.
Trump’s “imperial peace” extends beyond Ukraine. His proposals for Gaza suggest similar priorities—displacing residents while repurposing land for high-end redevelopment. Recent reports detail his team’s discussions on transforming Gaza into an exclusive investment hub, removing existing communities under the pretext of regional stabilization. This mirrors his broader approach to foreign policy, where war-torn regions become assets for financial elites seeking prime real estate acquisitions.
This version of peace appeals to billionaire investors shaping the digital economy. High-profile figures like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg support Trump not only due to ideological alignment but also because their industries depend on access to land and minerals critical for data infrastructure. Lithium and rare earth elements, essential for artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and cloud computing, remain central to their business models. Securing these materials through agreements structured under Trump’s version of stability allows these tech leaders to expand digital empires without disruption.
Developers pursuing large-scale urban expansion depend on geopolitical conditions that guarantee unrestricted access to construction zones, lucrative tax incentives, and flexible labor markets. This extractivist economic model strengthens corporate dominance by securing control over resources, expanding real estate ventures, and integrating digital infrastructure into newly developed regions. Trump’s approach reconfigures imperial influence into an economic framework where energy executives, land developers, and tech giants dictate the terms of global stability. War fuels one sector of capital, and peace opens new pathways for financial expansion, ensuring that every phase of instability generates wealth for those positioned to exploit it.
Framing the future in terms of perpetual war or imperialist peace obscures how both serve capitalist consolidation. Centrist politicians sustain conflict through arms production and military spending, maintaining profits for defense contractors. Trump offers an alternative where corporate executives expand power through resource extraction, real estate ventures, and digital infrastructure. Both systems reinforce a global structure that keeps economic elites in control, ensuring that whether through war or peace, capital remains the primary beneficiary.
The shock over Trump’s behavior during his meeting with Zelenskyy reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of U.S. foreign policy. While his tactics may be more blatant, his actions expose what has always been true—war and peace are both industries, and U.S. engagement in global conflicts is driven not by moral concerns but by economic interests. Whether through perpetual war or a profitable imperial peace, the capitalist class benefits, while the people on the ground—whether in Ukraine, Palestine, or elsewhere—suffer the consequences.
Trump’s brash, domineering style serves as a distraction from the deeper capitalist dynamics at play. He performs the role of the “strong” business leader, evoking the image of a mafia boss who negotiates through intimidation and self-interest, much as Biden projected the aura of a “respectable” diplomat who upholds international order. Each persona functions as a veneer, concealing the same fundamental commitment to capitalist imperialism. While one brandishes threats and transactional deals, the other couches economic coercion in diplomatic formalities. Both preserve a system where economic elites dictate global affairs, ensuring that policy decisions—whether framed as aggressive or pragmatic—ultimately protect the interests of corporate power.
As long as U.S. foreign policy remains structured around corporate interests, the world will continue to be trapped in a cycle where war is either endlessly prolonged or peace is crafted to serve the needs of capital. The real challenge is not choosing between these two models of imperialism but dismantling the system that allows war and peace alike to be dictated by profit.
The Washington Post’s shift toward free-market advocacy is not simply an editorial decision; it is a strategic move to reinforce the dominant ideological framework that benefits the billionaire class.
The recent directive by Jeff Bezos that The Washington Post editorial section should promote “personal liberties and free markets” is a stark reminder of how freedom under capitalism often boils down to the freedom of economic elites to dictate the parameters of public discourse. While Bezos has suggested that social media provides alternative perspectives, thus absolving his newspaper of the responsibility to represent diverse viewpoints, his decision is part of a broader trend of billionaire media ownership shaping acceptable discourse.
This phenomenon is visible across digital platforms as well. Elon Musk’s control over X (formerly Twitter) has demonstrated how ownership can shape public debate—both through direct interventions, such as the alleged suppression of progressive perspectives, and through more subtle changes to platform algorithms. Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has faced repeated allegations of privileging certain political narratives while suppressing others, including ending its “fact checking” policy that could challenge far-right viewpoints.
Perhaps the most glaring contradiction in Bezos’ advocacy for free markets is the extent to which he, and other billionaires like him, have benefited from state intervention as part of an intentional strategy of “corporate welfare.”
In each case, the rhetoric of “free speech” is selectively applied. While these platforms and newspapers claim to support open debate, their policies ultimately reflect the ideological preferences of their owners. This demonstrates a fundamental truth: In capitalist societies, freedom of expression is often contingent on the interests of those who control the means of communication. The Washington Post’s shift toward free-market advocacy is not simply an editorial decision; it is a strategic move to reinforce the dominant ideological framework that benefits the billionaire class.
Bezos’ framing of free markets as inherently linked to personal liberties exposes a deeper ideological assumption—namely, that economic success is the result of individual talent and merit rather than systemic privilege. This assumption is not unique to Bezos but is foundational to the way many economic elites understand their own wealth and influence.
The logic behind Bezos’ editorial direction is similar to the arguments used by the contemporary far-right to attack Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The opposition to DEI is rooted in a desire to preserve the myth that success is determined purely by hard work and ability, rather than by racial, gender, or class privilege. By rejecting policies that acknowledge structural inequalities, The far-right seeks to uphold a narrative that justifies existing economic and social hierarchies.
This worldview is deeply intertwined with the ideology of neoliberalism, which insists that markets are neutral mechanisms that reward the most capable individuals. However, history shows that markets are anything but neutral. The barriers faced by marginalized groups are not simply the result of individual shortcomings; they are the product of centuries of systemic exclusion. The far-right’s attack on DEI serves to obscure these realities, just as Bezos’ insistence on free markets seeks to erase the role of privilege and power in determining economic outcomes.
By positioning The Washington Post as a champion of free markets, Bezos is promoting the idea that capitalism functions as a pure meritocracy. This serves not only to legitimize his own position but also to delegitimize calls for policies that challenge structural inequality, whether in the form of DEI programs, labor protections, or wealth redistribution measures.
Perhaps the most glaring contradiction in Bezos’ advocacy for free markets is the extent to which he, and other billionaires like him, have benefited from state intervention as part of an intentional strategy of “corporate welfare.” The notion of a truly free market, where economic actors compete on equal footing without government interference, is a fantasy. In reality, corporations like Amazon have thrived not because of unregulated competition, but because of significant government support.
From tax incentives to government contracts, Amazon has received billions in subsidies that have allowed it to dominate the retail and logistics industries. Moreover, the U.S. government plays a critical role in enforcing corporate-friendly trade policies, suppressing labor movements, and protecting the interests of multinational corporations abroad. These interventions are rarely acknowledged in discussions of free markets, yet they are crucial to understanding the power dynamics of contemporary capitalism.
If freedom under capitalism ultimately means the freedom of the wealthy to dictate the terms of discourse, then the very concept of free speech is in jeopardy.
Politically, Bezos’ editorial directive at The Washington Post serves to strengthen a broader ideological alignment between neoliberal economics and far-right nationalism. By framing free-market capitalism as an essential component of personal liberty, Bezos is laying the groundwork for a political agenda that fuses economic libertarianism with nationalist conservatism. This is significant because it provides an ideological foundation for challenging emerging economic policies that deviate from neoliberal orthodoxy—such as the rise of protectionism in response to globalization.
This alignment between free-market ideology and far-right nationalism is not new. Historically, neoliberalism has often coexisted with reactionary politics, as seen in the economic policies of figures like former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Today, this synthesis is being revived as right-wing populists seek to defend corporate interests while simultaneously appealing to nationalist sentiments. Bezos’ intervention in The Washington Post should be understood within this broader context: It is not just about shaping editorial policy but about consolidating an ideological framework that benefits economic elites while limiting the scope of acceptable political debate.
Bezos’ decision to impose a free-market ideology on The Washington Post is not an isolated event; it is part of a larger trend in which media ownership is used to shape public discourse in ways that serve elite interests. This phenomenon extends beyond traditional journalism to social media platforms, where billionaires like Musk and Zuckerberg wield immense power over the flow of information.
At its core, this issue is about more than just media bias—it is about the fundamental tension between democracy and concentrated economic power. A truly free and open society requires a diversity of perspectives, yet the dominance of billionaire-controlled media threatens to constrain the range of acceptable debate. If freedom under capitalism ultimately means the freedom of the wealthy to dictate the terms of discourse, then the very concept of free speech is in jeopardy.
The consolidation of media power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy individuals raises urgent questions about the future of democratic debate. If we are to challenge the ideological hegemony of economic elites, we must first recognize the mechanisms through which they shape public discourse. Bezos’ editorial mandate is not just about The Washington Post—it is a reflection of the broader struggle over who gets to define the boundaries of political and economic debate in the 21st century.