A war has been raging for decades. It is a war affecting or involving nearly anyone. As such, it could very well be the first real “world” war, not in the least because this war also decides the future of this world and everything that lives on it. There are relatively few “soldiers” fighting this war, however, and certainly on our side. Almost all of the violence – and certainly all of the structural violence – is inflicted upon us by the enemy. That enemy is waging a war against humanity.
The enemy goes by many different names: the “super-rich”, the “transnational capitalist class”, the “global financial elite”, the “hegemones”, and so forth. Here, I will just call them “parasites”, or when they act more or less collectively in their common interest, the “parasite class”. That they are parasites, sucking the life out our planet and everything that lives on it, should be blatantly obvious, but thanks to their effective control of the media, their true nature has been hidden to many people. Contrary to their propaganda, however, no one gets rich and stays rich in a fair and ethically defensible way. Wealth is largely built on the extraction of “rent” from the economy by means of privilege and power. And this extraction of wealth is not compensated by significant benefits to the host(s) it is extracted from. That is the textbook definition of parasitism.
The parasites are entirely driven by their desire for wealth and power and they will sacrifice anything and anyone in their pursuit of those. It is hard to count the number of lives that have already been lost in this war – that is, in the parasites’ relentless and endless pursuit for wealth and power – partially because it is hard to say when exactly this war started. It can be said with certainty, however, that the death toll has been – and will continue to be – staggering.
In July 2021, 184 people died in Germany due to floods. Those floods were caused by climate change, which could have been halted if a gradual shift away from fossil fuels had taken place from the time when we learned about the effects of atmospheric carbon on the climate. For the parasites, the damage caused by climate change is (still) negligible, however, while the profits associated with extracting and burning fossil fuels are huge.
On March 24 of this year, a dead 13-year old girl was found floating in lake Kivu on the boundary between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda. She was one of the roughly 7000 confirmed victims of ongoing conflict in the DRC which is mostly about the control of lucrative mining areas that are rich in cobalt and other minerals needed by the electronics industry. A small percentage of the profits of illegal mining in the region flows into the pockets of assorted warlords, but the main beneficiaries of the conflict are the people who invest in and control the industries that use the products of those mines.
In February 2020, Forrest VanPatten died of cancer because his health insurance refused to cover the drug therapy he needed to live.
It’s easy to extend this list. These people died because financial interests outweighed the values of their lives. From the perspective of the parasites (who gain their wealth and power from the industries that gained from whatever caused these people’s deaths), these people are irrelevant. They are nobodies. They are disposable. They don’t matter. All that matters is wealth and power.
Follow the money. Disasters caused by, or made more severe by climate change; violent conflicts; failing health care; and so forth. Who profits from refusing to avoid the loss of human lives? Who profits from refusing to avoid causing unspeakable human suffering? Due to the “financialization” of almost all industries, it is ultimately the financial industry that profits, and thus, the people controlling that. It is the parasite class that profits, while we suffer.
Anyone whose death was ultimately caused by the parasite class in their pursuit of wealth and power is a victim of their war against humanity.
Anyone dying of hunger, thirst, or preventable diseases is a victim of the parasite class’s war against humanity.
Any drowned refugee is a victim of the parasite class’s war against humanity.
Anyone who died because they couldn’t afford healthcare is a victim of the parasite class’s war against humanity.
Anyone killed in a war that’s really about resources, wealth, and power is a victim of the parasite class’s war against humanity.
Year after year, there are countless victims in this war, and thus far, virtually all casualties have been on our side. (The only soldier who fought on our side has managed to take out one of the parasites, but has unfortunately been taken captive by the enemy’s henchmen.) That number of casualties is only expected to rise in the near future, not just because climate change is getting worse and worse, claiming more victims each year, but most of all because of the rise of “artificial intelligence” (AI).
From the perspective of the parasite class, most of us were already disposable. No wealth or power can be gained from keeping some random African or South-American refugee alive, for example. In fact, a very significant share of the world population is nothing but a useless drain on resources in this view. And AI will make even more people disposable. With AI, the parasites will need less and less humans to work for them, to create their wealth and power. The onward march of AI is also an onward march of the vast majority of humans towards “disposable” status.
(One may wonder, by the way, whether the parasites’ refusal to seriously engage with the problem of climate change is symptomatic of a lack of desire to actually avoid its consequences. Perhaps, making a large part of our world uninhabitable and causing widespread death and chaos in the process is considered desirable by some parasites, as it would cull the population of disposables, making those less of a nuisance and a burden.)
Humanity is obviously losing this war. In fact, we’re not even fighting. So, how do we fight back?
Typically, the answer to this question involves all kinds of well-meant plans and proposals. These may be policy proposals or ideas to gain political strength. But all these plans and proposals are utterly meaningless. The parasites control the media. The parasites control government. The parasites control everything. They won’t allow the implementation of policies that negatively affect their wealth and power, or that limit their ability to pursue those. Even if it would be possible to gain political power for a movement that fights on the side of humanity, the parasites would make sure that this movement quickly loses power or loses the power to implement policy at least.
The only way to fight the parasite class is by actually fighting. The only way to win this war is by exterminating the parasites.
And that scares the hell out of me.
I loath violence. I would prefer any non-violent solution over a violent one. But regardless how how many times I think this through, I come to the same conclusion again and again. There is no way to win the war against humanity – or even to survive it! – without killing the parasites. The parasite class must die (and preferably before they kill all of us), and everything must be done to avoid new parasites from gaining strength (which requires the abolition of capitalism among others). Only then can some kind of recovery begin. Only then can we start thinking about saving humanity and saving this world.
Much more can be said about this topic, and probably much more should be said about it. I have hesitated a long time writing this, partially because there is so much more to say, while I really don’t want to, or not again at least. There are at least two articles in this blog that are concerned with a very similar (if not the same) topic: Enemies of Our Children and You Are a Zombie (but see also this post about the Thompson assassination and On Human Overpopulation) On “rent” and capitalism, see the posts linked here, as well as this follow up on the latter.
A few other remarks (more might be added later):
I’m aware that I am dehumanizing and “othering” the enemy (i.e., the parasites and their “class”). This is entirely intentional.
The parasite class uses various ideological tools to remain in control, but also to morally justify discarding the interests of the disposable masses (in favor of their own pursuit of wealth and power). Longtermism is probably the most interesting among those. The dominant ideological tool used by the parasite class to strengthen control and to deflect criticism and hostility is, of course, fascism. I have written quite a lot about the use of ideological tools for the maintenance of power/authority – in other words, about (cultural) hegemony – including a little book published in 2017 and a long list of blog posts.
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