In a sense all I’m ever really pointing at here is the importance of taking responsibility. Taking responsibility as westerners for the suffering and destruction inflicted upon the world by the western power structure that we live under.

Caitlin Johnstone

September 8, 2025

4 minutes

capitalism, imperialism, revolution, US empire, western empire, westerners

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

 

In a sense all I’m ever really pointing at here is the importance of taking responsibility. Taking responsibility as westerners for the suffering and destruction inflicted upon the world by the western power structure that we live under.

To be a westerner is to live in a civilization that is powered by the abuse and exploitation of the people of the global south. Every one of us benefits directly from the way resources and labor are exploitatively extracted from nations that are held in subjugation to the western empire at the barrel of a gun. The very electronic device you are reading these words on is a testament to this reality.

We each have a moral obligation to end this abusive dynamic. We have a responsibility to oppose the mass murder, tyranny, theft and abuse which is being imposed upon the rest of the world by the nations in which we live.

This is one of the reasons why I have no patience for rightists who whine about immigrants. It is not legitimate to live in a civilization which bombs, destabilizes, exploits and extracts from the global south and then complain when the victims of the bombing, destabilization, exploitation and extraction move to your country to get away from the misery your society caused them.

Whenever I say this I get rightists telling me “It’s not OUR fault there are immigrants! It’s our leaders! They’re the ones doing this, not us!”

And to them I can only say, nah. You’re just shirking your responsibility. You’re being immature and irresponsible. You need to grow up and take responsibility for your part of the bargain here. You need to stop blaming your problems on the desperate victims of your country’s abuses, and start doing what you can to end those abuses.

Don’t whine to me about how powerless you are. You know who’s a lot less powerful than you? The immigrants you’re bitching about. The exploited, abused nations they’ve been driven from. You’ve got a hell of a lot more power to effect meaningful change than they do. They’re being blown about by the winds of circumstances which you directly benefit from. Quit your bellyaching and get to work.

Ferociously oppose genocide. Ferociously oppose war. Ferociously oppose militarism. Ferociously oppose imperialism. Stand in solidarity with the ordinary workers around the world who are being exploited by the empire under which we live. Do everything you can to wake your fellow westerners up to the reality of the empire’s abuses and help create a grassroots movement to tear it down. That’s your responsibility.

This is why I’m always dismissive of people who say “Why are you always criticizing the west? Why aren’t you talking about that evil regime over there in Asia or Africa?” Those aren’t my responsibility. I am a westerner. I live under the US-centralized western empire whose abuses dwarf those of any non-western power structure by orders of magnitude. I focus on the power structure under which I live, which also happens to be the most murderous and tyrannical power structure on earth, because that is my responsibility.

Obviously our rulers are far more culpable in the abuses of the western empire than the ordinary individuals who live here, but we in turn are far more culpable in those abuses than the non-westerners whose labor and resources are being extracted so we can have cheap stuff whenever we want it. I’m not saying this exploitation makes all westerners inherently evil, I’m just saying we have a responsibility to do whatever we can to help end an abusive situation.

We need to stop trying to offload the blame for our circumstances onto others and set to work opening eyes and fomenting a revolutionary zeitgeist. Our leaders aren’t going to cease their abuses of their own volition, so we’re going to have to find a way to force them to.

That is our duty. That is our responsibility. We will never create a healthy world and become a truly conscious species on this planet until we have gotten real about this.

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Feature image by Cary Bass-Deschênes (CC BY-SA 2.0)