How people perceive themselves is nothing that interests me. There are very few that are gonna look in the mirror and say: The person I see is a savage monster. Instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.
And there it is. You’re rich, so you’re a philanthropist, so you can cure your conscience for not paying enough in tax. Not contributing enough to society.
And I recall, I was seven years old walking into the kitchen to find my mother crying inconsolably. Martin Luther King had been shot. Two months later, she was crying again. Bobby Kennedy was killed. I couldn’t know then what I know now, that the invisible thread connecting Martin Luther King, the Kennedy brothers, and Malcolm X, was that in each case, my government had their finger on the trigger.
My government murdered Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy and John F. Kennedy. My government overthrew good, honest, democratic leaders of the people in Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and Bolivia. Along with Britain, we carved up the Middle East, creating artificial geological boundaries and installing puppet dictators. War itself became our most lucrative industry. Every bomb that is dropped makes somebody millions of dollars. You don’t have to know where those bombs are exploding. You don’t have to see the grieving mothers and the mangled bodies of their children.
Eugene Debs gave this speech in Canton Ohio, in 1918: “Throughout history, wars have been waged for conquest and plunder. The master class has always declared wars. The subject class has always fought. They’ve taught you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. - Triangle of Sadness. (2022) dir. Ruben Östlund
