Wow! I am going through the throes of an intellectual type of orgasm after reading this lengthy, but all important article. Therefore I hope that my "high" is not distorting my perceptions when I think that this might be the most important article I've ever posted. It brings together so many insights from my previous posts and contributes even more to understanding our very troubled world. The only important thing lacking is a revolutionary solution to our dystopic future under capitalism. But that is our assignment.
Whereas I have seen the split between two ruling class factions as centered around strategies to cope with the power realities of Russia, China, and Iran, he sees this split as encompassing far more factors--and he may be right.
Both sides of the US Deep State blame each other for the system’s failures, neither wishing to admit their own complicity in driving the systems responsible for those failures.
One side wants to respond to the systemic crisis by accelerating market share of the old paradigm — extending the life of the fossil fuel system and deregulating predatory capital. While most are climate deniers, some even appear to recognize the dangers of environmental crisis and resource scarcity but wish to shore up the US Deep State against the crisis as a nationalist response: Fortress America.
The other side hold a deep faith that technological progress will save the day and permit business-as-usual and endless extraction-premised growth to continue — they believe that digitally-driven technological innovations will allow Wall Street to have its cake and eat it: we can grow the economy, and enrich a tiny number of financiers in the West exponentially, and the dividends will trickle down to the Rest with a bit of technocratic tinkering, selective regulation and generous philanthropy.
Neither side truly understands that they both remain locked into the old, dying industrial neoliberal paradigm.