How the Monkey Kings Manufacture Hatred and Sell Tickets to the End of the World

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife, who forgave me for my long absence — she understands why it was necessary.

I. The Spectacle

They come in many forms. Televangelists with perfect hair. Politicians with Bibles in one hand and donor lists in the other. Pundits who have never met a Muslim but know exactly what they believe. They do not live in the places they condemn. They do not know the people they fear. They do not stay for the aftermath.

They are apocalyptic tourists.

They visit the apocalypse. They take pictures. They post on social media. They perform. They do not stay. They do not help. They do not love. The apocalypse is their theme park. The suffering is the attraction. The other is the exhibit.

The Monkey Kings have perfected this tourism. They do not need to build walls. They need to sell tickets.

II. The Circus Masters

The PT Barnums of today do not manage travelling circuses. They manage fear. They are the political class, the pundits, the Christian Zionists, and the B‑grade actors who have mistaken themselves for prophets.

The Christian Zionists are a special case. They support Israel not because they love Jews. They support Israel because they believe that the return of the Jews to Palestine will trigger the End Times. They are not allies. They are apocalyptic tourists .

Their agenda is not to protect Jews from persecution. Their agenda is to ensure that the end‑of‑days circus arrives. They cheer for the destruction of Gaza. They celebrate the bombing of Lebanon. They applaud the occupation of the West Bank. They do not see the bodies. They see prophecy .

The irony is exquisite. The same people who complain about the treatment of women in Muslim countries want to restrict the freedom of women in the West. The same people who decry “sharia law” want to impose their own version of religious law. The same people who claim to defend democracy are undermining it at every turn.

Hypocrisy is not a bug. It is a feature.

III. The Lindsay Grahams of the World

Lindsay Graham is a Christian Zionist. He supports Israel unconditionally. He calls for war with Iran. He votes for military spending. He performs.

He does not talk about child marriage in the United States. He does not talk about the virginity vows. He does not talk about the fathers who pledge to “protect” their daughters’ purity. He does not talk about the hypocrisy.

He is a tourist. The apocalypse is his theme park. The suffering of Palestinians is the attraction. The fear of Muslims is the ticket.

He is not alone. The political class is full of such performers. They need the end‑of‑days scenario because deep down they know how deeply flawed their society is. How broken their political system is. How one war after another simply entrenches the system of wealth transfer from the general population to the few.

IV. The Permanent War Economy

The permanent war economy is not a conspiracy theory. It is a fact.

Between 2020 and 2024, more than half of the Pentagon’s discretionary budget — a staggering **$2.4 trillion** — went to private contractors. The five largest defence contractors alone secured $771 billion in contracts.

As William D. Hartung, one of the report’s authors, explained: “High Pentagon budgets are often justified because the funds are ‘for the troops.'” But the majority of the department’s budget “goes to corporations, money that has as much to do with special interest lobbying as it does with any rational defence planning”.

The term “permanent war economy” was coined to describe a form of military Keynesianism — a means of transferring wealth from the working classes to capital by means of government taxation. As Noam Chomsky has documented, the permanent war economy has an economic as well as a military function. It sustains the advanced industrial economy while providing a steady cushion for corporate managers.

The wars are not about victory. They are about continuation. The contracts must flow. The debt must accumulate. The wealth must transfer upward.

This is not a conspiracy. It is the natural result of the system.

V. The Land of the Free

The “land of the free” is a depressing place. Homelessness. Unaffordable healthcare. Living off tips rather than salaries. Slavery never went away. It changed forms.

The robber barons of the Gilded Age — Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Vanderbilt — built empires on the foundation of war production and its aftermath. They monopolised industries, exploited workers, and paid little heed to their customers or competition.

Today’s Monkey Kings have updated the model. The tech billionaires have diversified into businesses that have little to do with computers while proclaiming that they alone can solve mankind’s problems. They stand accused of being greedy businessfolk who suborn politicians, employ sweatshop labour, and monopolise markets.

The pattern is the same. The drama. The excitement. The fellowship. The othering.

VI. The Manufacture of Hatred

The hatred is not spontaneous. It is manufactured. The same mechanisms are used everywhere. The same rhetoric. The same targets. The same profit.

Step one: Dehumanisation. Muslims are not people. They are “infiltrators.” “Terror sympathisers.” “A demographic threat.” The language strips them of humanity. The same language is used against Jews. Against Hindus. Against Christians. Against the other.

Step two: Normalisation. Violence becomes routine. The media stops reporting it. The public stops being shocked. A Muslim child is killed. It is background noise. A synagogue is vandalised. It is a footnote.

Step three: Entertainment. Lynchings circulate on WhatsApp like memes. Anchors smirk when peddling conspiracy theories. Mobs laugh after torching shops. Cruelty becomes comedy. The suffering is not real. It is content.

Step four: Complicity. The opposition does not object. The courts do not intervene. The international community looks away. Silence is consent.

The Monkey Kings have perfected this. They identify the other. They dehumanise the other. They demonise the other.

The monkeys comply. They do not ask questions. They do not check facts. They do not think.

They other.

VII. The Vaunted War of Civilisations

The vaunted war of civilisations — marketed by certain politicians and academics in the West — does not exist. The idea titillates the minds of the less travelled and fills political debates and academic repartee.

Heaven forbid that the main actors actually grew up and addressed the real-world problems we all face. The circus continues. The wealth must be transferred .

The wars of the 20th and 21st centuries simply pushed the envelope further. We saw wars on everything. Now it is a war on Iran, and the American proxy — the state of Israel — is pursuing a form of total war that leads to genocide. The world watches with bated breath. Will they push the button or not?

The misadventures of the apocalyptic tourists continue.

VIII. The Civil War That Never Ended

The American Civil War did not end in 1865. It changed forms.

The Lost Cause myth — the romanticisation of the antebellum South — is the original apocalyptic tourism. It depicted the end of a world (the slave‑owning South) and the struggle to survive in the aftermath. The tourists do not care that the “world” that ended was built on slavery. They romanticise the lost cause. They mourn the dead Confederacy. They other the freed slaves .

The pattern is the same. The drama. The excitement. The fellowship. The othering.

The tourists do not see the bodies. They see prophecy.

IX. What the Apocalyptic Tourists Do Not See

The tourists do not see the people. They see statistics. They do not see the children. They see demographics. They do not see the grief. They see prophecy.

They do not see the Muslim family celebrating Eid. The mother cooking. The father praying. The children laughing. They see threat.

They do not see the Jewish family lighting Shabbat candles. The grandmother blessing the wine. The grandfather telling stories. They see obstacle.

They do not see the Hindu family celebrating Diwali. The sister lighting lamps. The brother sharing sweets. They see competition.

The tourists do not see people. They see targets.

X. What the Brave Know

The brave know that the tourists are not brave. They are cowards. They visit the apocalypse from a safe distance. They do not stay for the aftermath. They do not help the survivors. They do not love.

The brave stay. They witness. They help.

The brave know that the hatred is manufactured. That the fear is a product. That the other is not a threat. They are neighbours.

The brave do not perform. They act.

XI. A Final Word

The wire is being cut. The garden is growing. The Monkey Kings are running out of time.

And the tourists? They will be remembered as the ones who visited the apocalypse and took pictures.

Not as the ones who stayed and loved.

The vaunted war of civilisations does not exist. Heaven forbid that the main actors actually grew up and addressed the real-world problems we all face.

The circus continues. The wealth must be transferred.

But the brave are not buying tickets. The brave are witnessing. The brave are loving.

Andrew Klein 

April 16, 2026

Sources

· The Atlantic, “Romanticizing the Villains of the Civil War” (2013) 

· Christianity Today, “Not the Christian Zionism You’re Thinking Of” (2015) 

· WION News, “‘War and weapons’ over welfare? Report exposes Pentagon’s $2.4 trillion ‘wealth transfer’ to private contractors” (2025) 

· The Economist, “Robber barons and silicon sultans” (2015) 

· History News Network, “The Great Fundamentalist Crack-up on Foreign Policy?” (2006) 

· The Iranian, “The Unbearable Barbarism Of Permanent War Economy” (2017) 

· Britannica, “Robber baron” 

· Chomsky.info, “The Savage Extreme of a Narrow Policy Spectrum” (2004)