The American Empire despises democratic socialism not because it misunderstands it, but because it understands it all too well. For democratic socialism, in its essence, is the insistence that the fruits of collective labor be shared more equitably, that the machinery of wealth serve human beings rather than enslave them. This is heresy to empire, whose lifeblood is the concentration of power in the hands of the few and the perpetual commodification of everything.

Empire thrives on hierarchy, on the myth that some must toil endlessly so that others may accumulate without limit. Democratic socialism punctures this myth by saying: health care is not a privilege, education is not a commodity, housing is not a speculative token, but all of these are human rights. In other words, it asks the system to bend toward compassion, and empire, which feeds on extraction, recoils like a vampire before the dawn.

These insight sub-episodes are mirrored on our primary YouTube channel which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/@NilesHeckman/videos