Morning Comrades.
The last week has left many of us overwhelmed and once again in shock, myself included, with a million of things on the tip of our tongues and an ever increasing awareness of what it means to oppose the brutal reality of capitalist demands.
I have no mind to discuss, or point out the violence at hand in Palestine and especially to compare death tolls to build a moral case from the safety of my own when the situation is all too clear. The question of morality, legality and so forth upon which our leaders are justifying the events of the last week, exist only as a tool employed by the bourgeoisie and the ruling classes to justify their violence for profits abroad, and increasingly at home. What is clear is that the manufactured consent that allowed the “west” to rule over the world in the name of freedom and democracy over the last 70 years no longer exists and despite their best efforts, both through manipulation and violence, are starting to crack.
The west has been at war since I have become an adult, nearly 3 decades now, from the Balkans, to Iraq and Afghanistan, Syria, Libya to lately Ukraine and now Palestine - with more that I am missing I am sure - for the cold, hard reality of maintaining the US led hegemony around the worlds natural resources to maintain the continuous growth of profit for a select few here in the West, at the very real expense of everyone else. Sadly, this was the case before I was alive and yet it seems that every generation has to come to grips with this reality and in a seemingly never ending cycle matures enough, hopefully, to see though the manufactured consent of the ruling classes to oppose this system of violence. Yet, with the privilege of having been able to dedicate a large portion of my adult life to the study of history, both on the barricades and in Universities, the reality of this is changing, even in my lifetime. Whereas the struggle of my youth and the generations before me, here, were inherently defensive and pointed towards carving out niches of safety for dissidents through concepts such as social welfare, freedom of speech or organization ( rarely achieved ), the combination of 40 years of neoliberal austerity, 40 years of masks-off economic dictatorship, police brutality, never ending wars and more have created a reality amongst many of us that a reform of our existence is not enough to end the global suffering.
With that, the demands of the people, here at home, are becoming increasingly realistic in what needs to be done vs. what the ruling classes are willing to allow, case in point, the reactions across the West in regards to the events in Palestine vs. what our governments and their capitalist bosses want to happen.
It took a mere few hours after the events in Palestine started to unfold for the collective political leadership in the West to unequivocally support the government of Isreal, with business’ and media, their stars and consent manufactures to follow suit. The reasons for this are obvious. Nevertheless, across the world, and even here in the Imperial Core, vast amounts of people from the Americas to Europe voiced their, at the very least, demand for peace and an end to the policies of the Israeli government that have led to this. Granted with numerous nuances all of which are fair, even if I personally disagree with some of them. With that, you have an increasingly clear reality in which the populous perceives a reality upon which actions are demanded, since oppression and violence aren’t what any one wants ( n.b.: spare me the human nature bullshit at this point, please ) and what our leaders do, the exact opposite. Now, we’ve had this situation in my lifetime before, when, for example, well over a million people marched on the seat of the UK government prior to the illegal invasion of Iraq and were utterly ignored, on the basis of morality and real-politik. It is different now as witnessed by the thousands of thousands of protests against the manufactured violence and wanted reality, and the immediacy of violence and laws against it.
The political and media reaction across the West in response to the peoples wishes and anger was striking, within hours and days and this continues right now, their entire machinery went into hyperdrive passing laws - always amazing how quick governments, even the parties in opposition, can get together to protect their bosses - making any and all protest, let alone support of the Palestine cause illegal, and meeting it with the only way they know how to, violence at the hands of the police and the courts.
Following the governments suit were the media and the internet companies by deleting huge amounts of commentary in support of Palestine, firing employers that were critical even in the slightest of our governments actions and more. The pace at which any and all dissent is being suppressed by any means necessary is staggering and I am by no means able to catch up with it. Again, we have seen this before in the aftermath of 9/11 and again, I feel, that our reaction is different today. Ironically, the destruction of reality by means of social media fragmentation and so on has also created a reality in which their tools at manufacturing consent are also less effective.
As I wrote in the beginning, similar to everyone else, I am in shock, again, at the violence and equally the reality we are facing. The false belief we were all indoctrinated with from birth, that we live in a democracy, that the west was the beacon of freedom and equality is shattered. It is horrific that this conclusion had to be arrived at through an ocean of innocent peoples blood around the world and thus it is all the more important to demand and strive towards an end to their tyranny. The earth is not dying, but it is being killed by people with names and addresses and the historical and ongoing injustices for profit have to be put to end.
As Assata Shakur so aptly stated:
“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”
We serve the revolution,
Yours,
V.