No major surprises on the war front then. Uncle Sam’s mega-militia talks tall, then rains fire and depleted uranium on goat-herders and hospitals. This, after all, is what democracy looks like… (infinite) justice in action. And what a fixture eh! The battle of the billionaires. Come die for your tycoon of choice - the Bushman meets the Caveman (by proxy of course). It’s the boardroom bust-up of the century (though fear not, the $12billion Carlyle group - where Bushes and bin Ladens bathe in milk together - have every oil well and missile contract well stitched up). Pull up a seat ringside, watch governments and tyrants fall dutifully into line behind the ‘favorite’. It’s US global supremacy, as it was always meant to be – and you know, it ain’t intended as a temporary state of affairs.
So where does that leave us lot? The anti-globalisation posse was on a roll. It was our fucking party. The condoms were out, capitalism was upstairs stripped and kneeling … (well on a promise of sorts…). Then, jetliners start flooring skyscrapers. Al-Queada/the CIA/some-other-New-World-Order-vested-interest reclaims the airspace, the airwaves… and the old-skool battle banners are back in business. A thousand years on: it’s time to die for your god again. And where’s the anarchist alternative? On her lonesome at the altar. It’s the curse of anti-capitalism: always the fucking bridesmaid… or is it?
True – capitalism is in hyper-drive, the final buyout may well have begun. But things were looking pretty grim for the western style democratic role model pre 9-11.
We can speculate about what advice the Rand Institute, or any of capitalism’s think-tanks working the postal shift on behalf of the West’s power brokers, were coming out with. But the elections of supposedly left wing administrations in Europe and the US had left all but the most entrenched jaded by politics. Representative (or not) government was losing its appeal across the board. How bad were the predictions for twenty five… fifty years time? How long would the people of the west have stomached less and less legitimate leaders? Was global government in fear of losing its grip for ever? Drastic measures were needed? Then, on a magic fucking carpet, along comes the perfect threat: a common enemy, the fear of death-in-your-bed. Out come the flags, up goes the bunting and our mandate-free leaders become our saviours. After all, security needs armies, and armies need ‘strong’ governments to tell them who to kill. Suddenly, ‘democracy’ is back in business.
So, if we’re wise to the master-plan – what do we do about it? Where do those of us - who know that Bush, Blair Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Ariel Sharon and every third world oppressor and first world corporate hot-shot are all on the same side anyway – where do we fit in? Has the dragon of rebellion that reared its head in the jungles of Mexico in 1994, that courted the world on the streets of Seattle in 1999, been relegated to circus sideshow status - to be railed and jailed when the need arises, and manipulated opinions allow?
But all may not be lost. Away from Wapping, Washington and the bar of the Wankers Tavern, there are millions of people who do not feel chained by flags or false prophets, who will not kneel and show fealty to any fucking master - whether that master is enshrined in the scriptures, on their bank notes or in Pennsylvania-fucking-Avenue.
Maybe our role is not to be sucked in by the rhetoric: to expose Blair’s ‘this is not a war against Islam’ as the red herring it surely is. The key players and slayers on either side of the descending veil of hate are interested, purely, in escalating their own power and everyone else’s impotence. It’s not a different show – it’s the same fucking gig in techno-colour.
Instead of defending people’s right to buckle to their respective manipulative , murdering god of choice, (as Globalise Resistance and much of the liberal anti-war movement is doing) perhaps we should be suggesting to them that now may be a good time to shake that particular monkey off their backs. Fuck Islam – moderate or immoderate – Islam is not some innocuous cuddly fucking teddy bear – it is a twisted doctrine of oppression and bogus servitude. Fuck Christianity - ditto. Freedom is not to choose your chains. And now… now seems like a good time to squat the temples and strip the lead from the church roofs to feed the kids… And, of course, the flames?
Now is the not the time to sit on the sidelines out of respect for the dead. Now is the time to take on the killers in respect for those that are still alive. Marconi, Rolls Royce, BAe, Hewlett Packard, GEC in trouble? Good, lets finish the bastards off before Gordon fucking Brown pulls out our cheque book to bail them out. The profiteers made no apology for the speed with which they moved to peddle fear and fire come September 12. No apology need be made when we drag their businesses out to the pyres. Why stop at burning flags?
US airbases at Fairford, Mildenhall and Lakenheath dispatching long range bombers, via a stolen pacific island, to litter central Asia in cluster mines – no fucking way – lets cut the fences, take the fuckers out! You can’t launch a b52 when your runway’s sprouting saplings. Spy stations at Menwith Hill, GCHQ in Cheltenham, or the MoD’s procurement wing in Filton, Bristol. Productive action at any of these sites can save lives. Has there ever been a better time to storm Flyingdales?
And it is not 'realistic' to view this superpower as unstoppable. The abyss looms large. On the lip - peering in for a glimpse of the oil reserves, pipeline routes, precious stones, uranium deposits and globally-strategic real estate on offer – is a Who’s Who of 21st Century empire builders. Is it possible that the Amerika’s imperialist dream will come to a sticky end in the Hindu Kush. “The U.S.'s ability to dominate the entire planet is unravelling. What they're doing now is not something they're doing out of a position of strength but out of desperation and panic,” wrote Stan Goff (an ex-Special Forces trainer involved in US counter-insurgency massacres in Somalia and Latin America) on October 24.
Will the global takeover implode in the place where all empires go to die? These are charged times…crazy fucking days. With a little pushing, anything is possible. After all, without recognition, power is nothing. And without fear, real fucking freedom may finally get a crack of the whip.