Further, in a battle for the kids, or any remaining resources, our lying spendthrift plays cards with the judge and drinks with the sheriff, while we are friendless.

This is late stage American empire. Some citizens still refuse to acknowledge the empire, much less our dead broke, meddling, force-driven and corruption-wracked empire led by fools and grifters. But a growing number do.

At this time of year, winter brings a mental and physical rest, introspection, a time to connect, heal, dream and plan for a better spring, summer and fall. Yet how many of us really feel rested, connected, healed or able to dream? The gifts of the season have been stolen by the Krampus state, and even the good children will not be spared.

Weak and weaker generations of men warped a tiny idealist republic into sick, hollow empire. Generations of serfs more enslaved and impoverished than their European namesakes have been cultivated in town and country alike. The quality of material life has increased slightly, but the quality of rebellion, of courage, and of character and community has been obliterated. There is no vague thought of bringing pitchforks and tar to a government meeting, no possibility of a Robin Hood to take on state theft and arrogance, no possibility of revolution beyond spasmodic rage, something the empire leverages, and even welcomes.

We are unable to put down our existent empire like an aged pet, to fond memories, with peace preserved, liberty regained, and prosperity nurtured. Instead, we may have to treat the terrorist state as it treats those it calls terrorist – with roughness, disrespect for law, using the language of pain rather than persuasion. The US empire has killed 20 million, and destroyed the livelihoods of many more in the past 70 years. It has created modern fairy tales that allow it to shoot survivors on the high seas, and it views the world through the eyes of the mad, the thieving, and the paranoid. This empire overwhelmingly funds, fuels, and supports obscene mass murder in Gaza and obscenities in the West Bank, and allocated billions to a destructive and deadly war in Ukraine, both for no reason that it can articulate, other than hatred. The United States has fully earned the label of terrorist state, and relishes it.

Washington, under any president, will unhesitatingly launch violence at home and abroad. Today, the coarse bold language of threat emanates from every Washington podium. The threats are aggressively aimed, trigger-ready, at those who seek to question it. DC treats Venezuelans who resist the empire the same as it does Americans who simply ask questions about it.

We the people have been reduced to the abused spouse of a corrupt and overbearing state. As such, we may come to be grateful for the unexpected slap that jars us awake, quickens our pulse, and sharpens our gaze and our instincts. Just as the key to a bad dream is suddenly waking up, the key to ending war and empire is a new and unsettling recognition of reality. We must not be afraid to measure Washington's words and actions against mathematical and natural facts, evidence, and common sense.

Our masters – as well educated as they are – cannot do math in their heads, and lack ability to apply even basic theorems or formulas. As Glen Greenwald points out, they cannot even add, and quite possibly cannot read. It goes without saying they cannot hear, and most cannot see. Congress, with a handful of exceptions, do not understand how the Federal Reserve works, believing it both moral and effective to inflate their debt away, shift it to the unborn, and make war to steal from their creditors. They believe they are not only authorized, but honor-bound to steal from the people.