Note: This builds upon some of the compelling points that Tesha Miller, Xavier Otero, Wolf Lacey and other people have made on this Facebook thread.

Hardly hyperbole any longer.

Hard as it may be for Americans to stomach—born and bred in a culture that reveres individualism and “free enterprise”—there will be no peace and justice and no respect for animals, nature and the planet until we get rid of capitalism as the chief socioeconomic paradigm not only in this nation but around the world. Sounds difficult if not impossible? It is.  But it’s also indispensable. It’s either that, or civilization, and much of the natural world, as we know it, will die.