Hyperpower or Cornered Rat?

[professor rat]

What do we do with the United States? The power which stands at the 
headwater where all the powers of the new technologies of power, 
communication, energy, are now converging? We are in a sense back in the 
nineteenth century: read Churchill's account of brave men (Dervishes) dying 
out on the plain at Omdurman while the handful of the British force and 
their allies just kept on feeding the machine guns. In a day or so, back in 
1898, 11,000 dreams of life and the future were turned into corpses rotting 
in the heat of the Sudan sun, as against a few dozen on the other side. 
What do we do with this monster? There are many within it who share our 
recognition of the carnival of misery which is about to be unleashed. At 
least 100,000 died in the first gulf war. How many are planned to die now, 
burnt in their apartments in Baghdad and Basra, others left to starve, 
their fathers' bodies melting in the heat of thermonuclear charges? I have 
lived less than forty years on this earth, and in that time I have never 
felt before this apprehension of such evil about to be done. All my 
energies each day are seized by the hope that somehow I can stop this 
holocaust unfolding. I burn, I burn, careless of the eyes in the machine 
which watch this witness. I burn, I burn, hopeful that the living hearts 
and minds in that machine might turn against the evil and find in 
themselves directions towards which they might guide some human end. How do 
you confront the spector of another Hamburg or Dresden, another Hiroshima? 
How many bodies must burn on the roads of war before you learn to betray 
the old lies which have enslaved you? Learn to rebel, my friend, and you 
know who I am talking to my friend christ-bearer, and you will achieve that 
greatness of being which when you were younger you hoped would be your aim. 
add your own comments

good! (english)
pjd 4:10pm Sat Feb 22 '03
 comment#239561
I have been on this earth just a bit longer than you - 46 years. Your words 
are exactly those which have been tumbling in my mind - unable to put on 
paper or the glowing CRT in front of me.

We must not rest until we have saved the world from this madness!

TURNING OUTRAGE INTO ACTION (english)
Bob K 6:19pm Sat Feb 22 '03
 comment#239574
And in a few more months, I turn 50. I do see some positives in the present 
situation. So I guess that age does mellow one. :>

This is the first time that I can recall that a peace movement has been so 
widely mobilised on such a grand scale BEFORE the actual commencement of 
the planned massive military incursion (Yes, I know what has been going on 
militarily in Iraq -I mean the officially announced comencement). I also 
cannot recall a point in time where all the hideous reality of the 
imperialist beast has been exposed so openly and is being correctly 
perceived by so many. For that, I do extend my gratitude to W and company.

Finally, I cannot recall any points in past U.S. history where the 
imperialist beast has been so over reaching in so unilateral and obvious a 
fashion. Some have credited this phenomenon with hubris or the arrogance of 
power. At times, I wonder if this isn't more due to fear, similar to the 
cornered rat which sees no other options.

Let's face it: the neo liberal free trade BS cannot maintain itself any 
longer as anything but the disguised imperialism it is as one country after 
another implodes economically. The U.S. economic investment frauds have 
exposed the entire stock market system to be an on paper legal yet 
completely fraudulent con game. The "masters of the universe" might very 
well be now intent on making a few desperate last grabs. They may not be 
acting out of confidence. They may be acting from their fear.

The key we must find now is how to turn our smoldering outrage into 
effective action. Malcolm X had said it correctly decades ago (I am 
paraphrasing here); we cannot stay sad. The Power stucture wants you to 
feel sad and powerless. Revolutions are not fought and won when you stay 
sad. It is only when the sad turns to mad that you stand a chance to change 
anything.

And through it all we should always remember that there really are so many 
more of us than there are of THEM.

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