In response to the "Empire as a Way of Life" series of essays and the impotency of ALL erudite scholarship in the dissent space that has achieved absolutely zero efficacy in any of its attempts to halt the crimes of "empire". Instead of continuing on with business as usual - perhaps it's time to do a postmortem - as engineers and thinking peoples - to figure out why our anemic protests and rehearsal of profound works of history by the scholarly haven't worked to prevent new similar history from being constructed in new epochs as new faits accomplis only to be lamented over, and how to achieve better than zero efficacy in changing that!
I used to enjoy reading such essays, exposes, and could easily consume endless hours devouring Chomsky's and other 'historians' brilliant analytical studies. I used to be under the impression that 'those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it' - and fearing such infamy upon myself, especially the profound curse of Elie Wiesel "and I still curse the killers, their accomplices, the indifferent spectators who knew and kept silent"
- I wanted to be an 'informed' plebeian.
So how many such history and current affairs books lineup a typical bookshelf in any good bookstore? Last time, I tried counting it in Barnes and Noble - which is a major bookstore chain in the United States - I gave up after 30, and there were plenty more, spilling into history, biography, political science, and religion sections.
How many peoples have marched in protest? On February 15 and 16 2003, the eve of Iraq War, some say 10 million! And what did that accomplish? Iraq today lies in ruin, B and B relected, and another war on Iran appears to be imminent - this time with Nuclear Weapons!
So while the erudite scholars go on profoundly quoting Noam Chomsky and NSC memorandum 68, and helping sell more of his books full of the same platitudes of 'rogue state' this and that, when it comes to 911, all of the chief 'dissenting priests' rushed to magically accept the testimony of the 'same rogue state' in whom all seem to have magically acquired a new found trust! But wait - if one is still alive in 50 years and new NSC memorandum 911 will be made (or leaked) public, more history books, more accolades on exposes, and more money in the bank!
So you attract all these idealist young men and women of consicence who are greatly disturbed by the indefensible, and get them to hear more lectures on history and sociology, chant some slogans, everyone is pleased that they accomplished something venting their frustrations and their conscience, and then they go home and its business as usual. What is the efficacy of all this 'dissent'?
Please see this blog of a recent loss of a mother shot 6 times in cold blood before her family - anyone of you dissenting priests suffered any of that? How peaceful are our lives and how easy is it to attend all these protest marches as the supposed 'conscionable peoples' that lead to precisely zero efficacy except perhaps some weight small loss on the treadmill:
http://munahamzeh.blogspot.com/2007/04/zeinabs-mother-now-it-is-fast-and-easy.html I take the liberty of including below a brief comment that I sent to the publisher of John Pilger's article on 'Attack on Iran' (instead of retyping the same text) and it entirely sums up the problem with well intentioned peoples who think less than strategically - how can they ever combat the likes of "Zbigniew Brzezinski", "George Kennan", and "Paul Wolfowitz" by ad nausem rehearsing the history of their 'accomplishments' in the safety of ones' ivory towers of academe and conference halls, and then doing absolutely nothing with it contemporaneously to prevent new faits accomplis? The perfect example of this is the shocking realization for me which I document in this essay "endless trail of red herrings" at:
http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2007/03/endless-red-herrings.html And the unfortunate sad part of it all? I, like all other well intentioned conscionable peoples in the world, am just as powerless, just as impotent, just as wordy, just as comfortable in my life, and just as clueless on how to create more than greater efficacy in our Moral-Activism! Unless one can stop the attack on Iran with efficacy greater than zero - go home boys (you and I both)! This game is for men who play on the Grand Chessboard - in blood - not for mickey mouse protestors and their academic priests rehearsing histories!
---- begin letter for John Pilger which is just as apropos for all the pontificating dissenting priests in the world ---
From: Project Humanbeingsfirst
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 08:52:07 -0700
Subject: Comment for John Pilger's article - Iran: the war ahead
To:
comments@newstatesman.co.uk [Dear editor - I would like to offer this as comment to Pilger's
article, which was also publiched on the UK indymedia with a different
more telling title. Perhaps you can forward it to John Pilger directly
if you are unable to accept it for any reason. Thanks.]
"The next Imperial Genocide: Iran may be the greatest crisis of modern
times" - and more heart wrenching titles like these - to what
efficacy? Exactly ZERO?
As an engineer looking at the problem space, and all the attempts at
getting a handle on it that lead to zero efficacy, it tells me that
the 'highest order bits' of the problems are not being addressed, or
that need to 'fresh think' the solution space.
'looking from the side' it was then, 'looking from the side' it is
today - and separted by all the reports on the "banality of evil" - to
what avail? More words doesn't seem like the solution.
Solution lies in strategic thinking in the same intellectual space
which seeds this 'imperial genocide' which can also seed its converse
with anything greater than zero efficacy - see 'more words' on this
mode of thinking in this "Open Letter to Amnesty International":
https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/365362.html More 'mere words' from my 'another powerless book':
'Where are the "Zbigniew Brzezinskis" and the "George Kennans" of
peace and justice in the world?
..
I believe that future rests in the hands of the ordinary people of the
world as injustice can never become a fait accompli. Its eventual
global redressing will happen, whether by hook or by crook, by a
people unwilling to continue to endure the poverty, misery, depleted
uranium, and imperial subjugation amidst the luxury and freedom of the
privileged few. Before the world is pushed into that corner where the
"fight or flight" response is the only response left, where death
becomes the preferred option to economic slavery and humiliations and
the world is mercilessly thrust into a global chaos by suicide bombers
and popular uprisings, those with vision and wealth must step forward
to counter the forces of exploitation, corporate greed, and imperial
conquest by studying the methods and techniques of the antagonists,
and effectively countering them in an ongoing and perpetual game of
chess on the "Grand Chessboard". '
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst
http://www.humanbeingsfirst.org --- end letter ---
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