What Bush et al grossly underestimate regarding the current movement is that it is representative of the straw (pun intended) that broke the camel's back--the whole planet is screaming NO More War For Empire! NO BLOODY MORE! The Fifty Years is Enough NGO campaigning for debt relief could easily call itself Fifty Years is Enough of US Imperial War and Expansion. This is it. Civil society, meaning all those exploited over this time period (and before) and their allies, realize that the goals of the Bush et al cabal are completely at odds with their interests, and that Bush et al are declaring war on the world's people. So, when Bush at al escalate the genocide in Iraq, they will ignite a global anti-colonial war, which one way or another will be the last war humanity will fight. Either humanistic values will rule the planet or none will, because corporatist (fascistic) values will soon destroy the biosphere and nothing will be left to rule over.

That such a war is in the offing may seem strange to those sitting in comfort and enjoying the fruits of empire; they cannot comprehend the incredible amounts of exploitation and suffering that go into supporting their lifestyles. Likewise, it will be hard for those living within Empire who are allied with the exploited and suffering to renounce their luxuries and join the war to destroy Empire. To do so, they, too, must realize that the exploitation and suffering they experience is only of a different variety--an early death from environmentally caused cancer instead of malnutrition, for example. To the affluent I say: do not delude yourselves into thinking the policies of Bush et al might not affect you; you are no more than rich Kulaks in their eyes to be milked of your money and children's future. That's right, I'm saying Bush et al are no different from Stalin morally and have a similar statist goal for their empire.

So the Mexican peon's fight is the downsized Long Islander's; the Bangkok prostitute's fight is the St. Louis single mother Walmart worker's; the six-tear-old Afghani girl with only one arm and eye's fight is the eight-year-old Newark, NJ African American's; and so on and so on ad nauseum. When the cruise missiles rain down on Baghdad, they also rain down on every impoverished city and affluent suburb alike throughout the world. Life is too precious, too short, and too fragile for the pursuit of empire to continue. Empire must end, or life as we know it will end, which is why empire cannot be allowed to exist anymore. A new civilization rich in its justness and equity must take the place of the current empire, and the "leaders" of empire must be replaced by an army of true leaders willing to renounce power for its own sake so that they can create the decentralized political economy that is central to the new civilization.

Such a task will not be easy. The empire is ready to kill millions to accomplish only a small part of its overall goal and is willing to let even more of its "own" people die. Yes, it is brutal and immoral, as are its "leaders." But often as history shows, the common soldier can be won away from empire because he is no different from those he is sent to kill and recognizes the immorality of his task. We must encourage such desertions. But have no doubts, this will be a war with an unknown number of casualties and lasting an unknown amount of time. But it is vastly different from the war Bush et al want to wage--theirs is a war of subjugation in the classic imperial sense of that word, while ours is a war of liberation and contains ideals boasted of but never fulfilled by my country: Liberty and Justice for ALL. The war and its genocide are already happening and in themselves must stop; but what everyone awaits is the escalation and informal declaration of war against the people of the world. It's planning for that moment and after that must take place while not forgetting what is really at stake.