Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 12:27:04 +1100 (EST)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?anthony=20hayes?= <antyphayes-AT-yahoo.com.au>
Subject: AUT: another leaflet


below is the text of a leaflet we distributed in canberra. it was very
easy to distribute and we had way to little. the obverse had a
detourned graphic - a sgt. rock cover turned into sgt. mutiny with sgt.
mutiny clutching a handful of dog tags and uttering: "screw the wages
of death! this war should be fought against the masters not for them!"

as to suggestions for activity, i'm not to sure on that account. not
bad, but then i wonder about the efficacy of delimiting action, or
priveleging one type of action over another. or is this related to a
lack of faith in the ability of the *masses* to be creative?

anthony

-----------------------------------
THE WAR ON TERRORISM(tm)

As the tanks rolled out around Heathrow and U.S. citizens scrambled for
duct tape to help stop a chemical or biological attack (perhaps the
“duct and cover” for a new millennium), John Howard stands by George
Bush, and Tony Blair in order to… agree.

The War on Terrorism(tm) (capitalised because you know its important)
has reached new heights of dizzying insanity. As the unfortunately
named “coalition of the willing” prepare for a killing spree in Iraq -
against the collective wills of the world’s populace - the
nation-states involved continue with their preparation for illusory
threats.

The new “Let’s look out for Australia” pamphlet and handy fridge magnet
is a case in point. Although couched in the rhetoric of community
outreach and support, the pamphlet has one purpose: to further inflame
our fears. This is the only way the War on Terrorism can be sold and
created from virtually nothing. 

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the U.S. has been shopping
around for a new threat to galvanise its worldview. It rapidly found it
in so-called Islamic “fundamentalism.” In the late 1990s the
concomitant deepening of capitalist crisis and the development of a
vigorous movement of opposition to the spectacle of the IMF, WTO and
World Bank meetings was of concern to all those that wished for the
senility of capitalism to cling on. September 11 2001 arrived at the
opportune time for the world’s leaders. Now any dissent or threat to
their rule can be subsumed under the guise of the War on Terrorism.

Since September 11 2001 the U.S. government and its allies have issued
numerous alerts. Not one of these alerts has eventuated in a terrorist
attack. Remarkably the 2 significant terrorist outrages, the Twin
Towers and Bali, went ahead with what seemed a keystone-cop attitude
amongst the intelligence services – that is they “ knew nothing.” Or
did they? For sectors of the government that have been revealed as
incompetent and down right brutal, we are now expected to go along with
an increase in their powers.

What has been obvious though couched in a cloak of rhetoric and
propaganda, has been the generation of a permanent state of fear, the
descent of a “Perpetual War” mood, that, so the politicians and
generals hope, will justify any act, any order, any method. All becomes
rolled up into the War on Terrorism. Military spending is up because we
“need to protect ourselves.” So spending is cut elsewhere – schools,
hospitals, & other remnants of welfare. The real use of the War on
Terrorism is to test – and thereby reinforce – people’s submissiveness
in a way favourable to the ruling society.

Here lies the actual terrorism - the terrorism of conformity that lies
at the heart of the perpetuation of capitalist society.

We must begin to recognise that this war is everywhere. The inmates of
the Department of Immigration’s concentration camps already know this.
Tightening border controls has been one of the principal practical
expressions of the War on Terrorism. For the rulers the fear of the
other goes hand in hand with the fear of terrorism. This was the theory
and practice of Nazism, and now Blair, Bush and Howard, amongst other
racketeers, are updating it for the modern world.

canberratreason-AT-yahoo.com.au
http://treason.metadns.cx/



====------------------------------------------
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TREASON: http://treason.metadns.cx

RED THREAD: http://redthread.cjb.net
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