Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions, not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The United States is undergoing a transformative moment as the system under which it operates shows itself to be incompatible with the emerging society it's brought about. The problems tearing the country at its seams are threefold – its inability to respond properly to a serious crisis, the inability of its economic system to adapt to such a situation, and its fundamental foundation on white supremacy. Perhaps no better manifestation of these contradictions exists than the straw that broke the camel's back – the extrajudicial killing of George Floyd by a white police officer – given that he was a working-class black American who in his autopsy tested positive for COVID-19.

These contradictions stem from American monopoly capitalism, which is exceptionally brutal and festers a culture of radical alienation, class and racial division and the glorification of violence. It's for this reason that not only must its economic relations change, but its culture must also be revolutionized. 

The federal government has botched its pandemic response and essentially given up on managing it further. U.S. President Donald Trump began by saying that COVID-19 was a hoax, failed to act in time and thus over 100,000 Americans have already died. The country has roughly 4.25 percent of the world's population but has nearly 30 percent of the total deaths in the world from the pandemic – this alone speaks to the failure of the federal government and the American system which allowed the Trump administration to take power.

The corresponding damage done to the economy in just a few months of inactivity is exceptional. Many other countries around the world (the majority of them) operate under a capitalist system, but none have crashed as hard as the United States. Unemployment is expected to be at Depression levels until the end of the year and workers that do return to work will likely see reduced hours, amounting to lower pay.

American capitalism is uniquely contradictory as the society itself is based on relations abolished in many of the capitalist countries, particularly in Europe as a relevant comparison, long before. There's active white supremacy that's not only in political platforms, but also direct political power. Slavery was abolished relatively recently and segregation, disenfranchisement and other racist policies even more recently.

Still today, unarmed black people are killed by police officers in a way that could be accurately described as policy, as police brazenly perform these horrifying acts knowing they are now being filmed but not caring as justice is so rare. Other marginalized groups, including women, people of different gender and sexual orientations, immigrants, religious minorities and others are subject to routine violence and terror. 

These immutable contradictions now fully on display and being challenged by a popular uprising are endemic to the American culture which praises unspeakable violence both at home and abroad. America was founded on the genocide of the native population and established a system of profound human suffering by instituting chattel slavery for generations. As the country exploited black and brown people at home, its imperial ambitions became a reality as it created the most systematic and faceless form of imperialism ever seen.

To legitimize this practice, war and violence is glorified in American culture – the troops and police are deified and violent intervention seen as a sacrament. During the pandemic, the United States continues criminal sanctions and military aggression, showing the depravity of its national security state. At home, mass shootings, often racially motivated, are like clockwork. The police kill thousands, mostly minorities, with impunity. The prison population, mostly minorities, is the largest in the world. The right to own weapons is a rallying cry for a significant part of the population and right-wing militias roam free. This culture of violence has mangled and devoured more lives than one can imagine.

The renowned professor Noam Chomsky once lamented in regards to American culture in the context of the Vietnam War that what's needed in the U.S. is dissent or "a kind of denazification." Denazification, of course, was a policy of destroying all cultural elements of Nazism and purging its sympathizers in Germany after World War II. The problem with the former is that no form of dissent is allowed – any attempt to gain political power to push a progressive agenda is destroyed and peaceful action is met with brutal state repression as we now see.

President Trump has threatened overwhelming military force to respond to the protests, even rebuking Secretary of Defense Mark Esper on this matter and earning the ire of former Secretary of Defense James Mattis. What's been sown for generations both at home and abroad has come to a head. This is why the only option given to the popular uprising – composed of overwhelming numbers of young people of all creeds – is cultural transformation through violent protest. There's no other language that the American system can understand.

As activist Tamika Mallory said during a speech in Minneapolis:  

"America has looted Black people! America looted the Native Americans when they first came here, so looting is what you do. We learned it from you."

"We learned violence from you! So if you want us to do better, then damn it, you do better!"

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