-----------------------
Editor’s Note: With the onset of war many within the Peace Movement are frantically seeking ways in which to stop the US-sponsored aggression. There is at the same time an overwhelming push by the US administration and its allies to draw the rest of the world into its illegal hostilities. That purpose is obvious. It’s meant to legitimize a heinous act that has no reasonable or moral basis. Bush’s Big Brother media conglomerate is now in full swing delivering around the clock propaganda into the collective mind of the general public while at the same time covertly attempting to undermine the world wide web so that alternative perspectives to the US agenda are censored as we just saw in the recent hacking of the Al-Jaseera website in the middle east.
We are facing an immediate global crisis that’s been in the making for decades. The following article is one attempt to try and give a general overview of why we’re where we’re at and what needs to be done in order to end the misery and the killing once and for all. It is not intended as a spoof. It is a serious critique not only of one activist’s search for understanding but of the Peace Movement in general and the imminent battle looming on Earth’s horizon; one that will affect us all and therefore one which it behooves all freedom-loving people to consider. It’s my hope that you will read it and weigh carefully the proposal it contains. Any serious criticism and further insights are most welcome.
Those who are in the business of publishing have full rights to reprint it so long as it is carried in total and credit is given. Thank you. In Peace & Solidarity. March 27, 2003
------------------------
Dismantling the Infrastructure of Tyranny by Arthur Topham
“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered” Thomas Paine, The Crisis Papers, 1776.
On March 19, 2003, only hours before the arrival of Spring Equinox, the USA and its motley crew of sword-rattling sycophants commenced bombing the independent, sovereign nation of Iraq. It was, and continues to be, an overt, shameless act of premeditated hostility. It was also a decisive moment; not only for the USA, but for this writer. It was then and there that I decided I’d finally had enough. And so without further adieu I sat down at my keyboard and typed up a Declaration of War aimed at the instigating aggressor nation - the United States of America. I did so, not as a Canadian subject, but as a free and sovereign citizen of the planet Earth.
What follows is my rationale for making such a radical and provocative decision. Call it a temporary loss of insanity or possibly a state of momentary, yet justified, rage. Call it whatever but the time had arrived, after close to forty years of peaceful protesting, where I was finally forced to face my deepest fear of all - the recognition and realization that peaceful means alone, in the face of iron-heeled belligerence and bellicose aggression - was now no longer the appropriate response to the USA’s new rules of engagement. I knew of course it was coming. It was just a matter of time. A foregone conclusion so to speak. The clarity of the US’s intent had been indelibly outlined in graphic detail throughout the tumultuous sixties. The Vietnam war had exposed to the eyes and nose of the global public not only the dirty dealings of the US military but also the stench of collusion and cover-up that rose high above the White House and the office of the Presidency. In fact all that’s taken place since then has been but an embellishment of the original US plan for world hegemony.
So now, when the American-led forces of imperialism made their Mephistophelian choice and struck Iraq preemptively rather than adhere to international law, I knew our world, at that precise moment, was historically and psychically altered forever. Illusions tend to stick to us, as Lenny Bruce once said, like “snot to a suede jacket”. And they’re not easily removed. And in this case the illusion that the US administration would somehow come to its senses rather than use its might to try and legitimize something obviously not morally or legally supportable was the one I had stubbornly clung to. So when President George W. Bush set this historic act of supreme aggression in motion it was as if the last veil suddenly had fallen from my eyes, leaving me, for a brief moment, awe struck at the realization that my deepest and most sacred principles regarding human co-existence were now shattered!
I sat before my computer numbed, yet reflective, like some Nietzschean Zarathustra who, when he heard the old saint in the woods say to him, “With singing, weeping, laughing, and muttering I praise the God who is my God.” remarked to himself, “Could it be possible! This old saint has not yet heard in his forest that God is dead!” And now? Whenever an individual or a group or a nation-state resolves to use sheer brute force as their ultimate means of negotiation those about to die or to be victimized in other ways must recognize this impending reality and act directly and decisively to defend themselves. The realization was profound. What it meant was that the world was no longer held together by a common consensus. Like Nietzsche’s god, international law was suddenly dead - a victim of the collateral damage sustained by the USA’s insatiable and tyrannical quest for global domination.
With a mere click, Might Mouse George had deleted it from the text of humankind’s file for world peace and security and, like some strange zen awakening, I was left contemplating the reality of Evil, appearing in a most hideous and threatening aspect as the once-renowned US of A - the home of individual freedom and liberty - and manifesting before my mind’s eye as the pre-eminent and deadly visage of Darth Vader and the Evil Empire. I saw it as the final wake up call for the natural-born, sovereign citizens of this beleaguered planet. A bright, blood-red signal to stop dreaming that we could somehow, by a showing of good will, trust, patience, dialogue, love and compassion, end the acrimony and the atrocities being perpetrated by this once proud and noble nation; one now held firmly by the hawk’s claws of a righteous, sociopathic tyrant.
As an avid peace activist and radical thinker since the mid-sixties I had continuously quested for universal sister and brotherhood, trying every conceivable trick in the book to advance the concepts of peace, human rights and social/economic justice. Now, witnessing what the US had initiated, I felt molested and pained, as deeply as I imagine rape must affect a woman. It was as if my most sacred, precious heart-center had been violated and abused to the point where the foundation of my whole belief structure, my Being itself, now teetered on the brink of collapse like the Twin Towers of 9/11. It was at this point that I knew, with a finality beyond question, that the people of this planet were openly under attack by a vicious and diabolical presence.
Too many factors, too many parameters, and too many strategies have been debated and tried repeatedly in humanity’s relentless pursuit of the elusive Grail of justice to even begin assessing their specific degree of applicability and appropriateness in this short article. This is neither the place nor the intent. Instead, it must suffice to say that they are all, in some way correct, and shall remain so, even after the radical proposition that I wish to introduce into this general discussion of war and peace. But at the same time that we are reassessing our achievements in the context of the old paradigm of universal consensus we must also begin giving serious consideration to the new world disorder in which we suddenly find ourselves - a world cruising rather swiftly toward an ominous abyss, filled with chaos and madness wherein Might is seen as Right and Love and Peace are viewed as a contemptible form of Weakness.
There is though one element of prime importance in this proposed re-tooling of our basic values and goals that must be profiled beforehand and it’s the mainstream media and more specifically the north American variety. There has always been a persistent reluctance on the part of the Peace Movement in general to acknowledge that an ongoing, covert program of anti-social, debilitating propaganda has been operative throughout the world since at least the turn of the 20th Century when the initial media conglomerates were created. It’s my contention, based on four decades of observation and research, that this omnipresent agenda for social, institutional and spiritual persuasion of the bulk of humanity was designed to circumvent appropriate responses to national and international crises and that it has been the overall determining factor in why we've held back on the final push toward achieving our collectively agreed-upon goals for world peace. Call it a conspiracy if you will for that is precisely what it is. In trying to ignore this program of mass mind-control, especially the portion of it which has been systematically occurring since the creation of the US’s National Security Association and the Central Intelligence Agency back in 1947, we have foolishly overlooked the most critical and sinister component of our captor’s power over us and our potential actions.
The Mainstream Mind-control Media (M3), as I refer to it, IS the Orwellian Big Brother controlling, dispensing and influencing our perceptions of what constitute social, political and spiritual realities and IS therefore a stupendously potent psychic force intentionally being used to inculcate the general public with specific, intentional propaganda designed to create and reinforce a particular mindset which continues to be the main stumbling block to the movement’s understanding of the extent and intent of the US government’s policies, both domestic and foreign. Because of the M3’s purposeful withholding of the required nutrients of vital information from our minds it now becomes extremely imperative that this mind-controlling entity be dissolved in as quick and pragmatic a manner as possible.
Mental prisons
All that we have accomplished en masse as a Peace Movement over the past forty years has only led us, step by step, victim by victim, martyr by martyr, up to the front of the oaken doors of Freedom. We are still within the prison walls. What I wish to offer to those who are standing before that portal to peace, desperately awaiting a final closure to the killing, suffering and injustice in the world, is the proposition that in order for the peace-loving people of the world to step across the final threshold to lasting liberty, happiness, and justice we must first perform the radical and necessary act of dismantling what I refer to as the infrastructure of tyranny.* At the end of the day, and after half a century of struggles, what this implies is that we must metaphorically, and literally, bust down the doors of this exoterically-induced psychic prison which has kept us stifled and confined inside our heads and hearts and shackled us with the seemingly omniscient belief that good will, and good will alone, could and would eventually liberate us all from the horror and suffering of needless and endless war. This belief, inculcated over generations by tyrants, monarchs, organized religions, centralized state governments (both capitalist and communist) and now transnational corporations, has finally reached its apex in our time and proven to be incapable of halting the juggernaut of uncontrolled aggression.
Instead of resolving the endless dilemma of increased and ongoing violence, rogue states such as the USA, Great Britain, Spain and Australia are now acting unilaterally, while at the same time broadcasting via the M3, their sinister siren songs of insanity to those nations still holding on to the old paradigm of peace, relentlessly and desperately attempting to recruit more countries to join them in their collective madness. As a result, what we’re now witnessing in Iraq will soon be spreading throughout the world body politic, like some alien form of rampant cancer, bringing with it increased death and chaos. That infrastructure which, in all its implied enormity and influence, allows, supports, promotes and perpetuates the present reign of terror emanating from the USA and its aggressor allies, MUST be dismantled from the absolute bottom to the acme of its power structure. In order to accomplish that objective it will require an intensity of direct action and civil disobedience far beyond all we have witnessed in the past. What this means for people everywhere is that, coupled with courage, trust and an inestimable sacrifice of self, must come the recognition that we’re now swiftly moving into a place we’ve been conditioned to fear and loath for lifetimes - GLOBAL REVOLUTION!
Forms of transformation
The forms this final battle will take are impossible to describe. They will be as varied and as spontaneous as the individuals and groups who perform them but it should be understood that in a major sense they will be anarchistic or leaderless in design and strategy in order to forbid the encircling and assault that will occur once the process assumes massive proportions. The Creature will not willingly lay down its arms. That we can rest assured of. The struggles now occurring in the streets of America and in cities around the world are indicative of the varied, imaginative and creative ways that individuals and groups can act in order to bring this dismantling process about. As the chanting among the movement’s partisans declares, “There ain’t no power like the power of the people ‘cause the power of the people don’t stop!” And it won’t! once we’ve made the quantum leap to understanding and realizing that our personal responsibility demands that we participate and act to ensure this final outcome. It can’t stop unless we choose instead to succumb and submit to the Evil which now fully penetrates that political/ideological hydra we euphemistically recognize as the New World Order.
As the singer/songwriter John Prine once said, and to which I liken the USA’s actions, they’ve “crossed the evil line today” leaving the world a much sadder, forlorn, fearful and destitute environment in which to try to live a life secure in happiness, peace and harmony. Today’s US government is now controlled by a diabolic cabal of murderers, perverts and religions fanatics with George W. Bush as the mythical Beast of the Apocalypse. Through deceit and malice, and aided and abetted by the M3, he’s now wrapped his nation in sheep’s clothing adorned and studded with stars and stripes and has set upon a course of action that can only lead to a hell on Earth for everyone.
Such is the scenario which has now brought us to the point where, as a Peace Movement in these final hours, we must confront that dark night of our collective soul we previously backed away from and hoped we’d never have to face. The choice is now clear. The longer we hold back the more our rightful, personal power will be sucked from us and used by this armageddon-bound bully to enhance his position and power and inflict further pain and suffering upon generations to come. Yet, for those with the courage and tenacity to pass through this ring of fire and emerge on the other side unscathed and reaffirmed in the deep conviction that this cruel and inhumane infrastructure can be dismantled and transformed it can, and will, be the glorious beginning of a new dawn for humankind, one that will shine on crazily forever! We can make it happen. We must! And we shall!
Violence
And so ultimately my initial outburst of justified rage over this indefensible war against the people of Iraq was, in a very real sense, my personal passage to the realization and acceptance that more radical means are necessary if we are to stop this global touring terror-show now being billed as the inevitable and essential precursor to the final security and protection of the human family. That said, there leaves the question of violence itself to be addressed. With respect to that oft-cited topic I will state in the most unequivocal manner possible that I am not proposing the movement begin employing the same tactics as its repulsive and misguided opponent and suddenly begin violently opposing those currently responsible for the bloodshed and mayhem in Iraq and elsewhere. Such a case scenario I would acknowledge as only one possible course of action, if and when all other imaginative modes of monkey-wrenching have failed to accomplish the objective thus sought. It must be remembered that as there are many ways to skin a cat there are also many ways to prune a bush. What I am cautioning though and now have accepted as inevitable, is that such actions may arise should all other attempts at facilitating this transformation fail. I am not making a judgment one way or the other on the use or non-use of violence. I admit that there is a moral demarcation line here that has in some ways hamstrung the peace movement since its inception and it’s one that I would suggest the forces of Evil have consistently used to their advantage. From cheek to cheek down through recorded history we’ve been martyred and murdered and mind-controlled and enslaved and I am asserting that such a position is no longer valid, tenable or acceptable in the situation that we are now in. As the great writer Arthur Koestler remarked in his book, Janus: A Summing Up: “From the dawn of consciousness until 6 August 1945, man had to live with the prospect of his death as an individual; since the day when the first atomic bomb outshone the sun over Hiroshima, mankind as a whole had to live with the prospect of its extinction as a species. We have been taught to accept the transitoriness of personal existence, while taking the potential immorality of the human race for granted. This belief has ceased to be valid. We have to revise our axioms. It is not an easy task. There are periods of incubation before a new idea takes hold of the mind; the Copernican doctrine which so radically downgraded man’s status in the universe took nearly a century until it penetrated European consciousness. The new downgrading of our species to the status of mortality is even more difficult to digest.”
That, I would suggest is the haunting position we now find ourselves in. With a nuclear holocaust a stark and grim possibility if this illegal war is not curtailed soon will we be able to find the time to assimilate such a dreadful revelation? I would also add here for clarification that, for the benefit of those who still struggle with the concept of violence, I consider the destruction of physical objects, be they vacant buildings, bridges, banks or bombs, not something to associate with the term violent. To me violence is an act perpetrated upon other sentient life-forms not man-made objects. Symbolically therefore, my act of declaring war upon the government of the United States of America was the final voicing of my pent-up rage and the notice given that I WILL RESIST the tyranny planned by Bush and the New World Order. For that reason and that reason alone I feel clear in saying it was both necessary and justified. Like some primal scream from the depths of my Being it confirmed, once and for all, that the spiritual warrior within me will NEVER succumb to any fascist, totalitarian agenda emanating from the US government or any other centralized State apparatus.
With a little help from our friends The next step for the resistance movement is to present to the world a blueprint of the nuts, bolts, beams, girders and facades that comprise this infrastructure of tyranny. One that will give each and every one of us a clear picture of who and what it is that supports this massive, psychotic edifice of Evil currently plaguing the peace of the planet. Given the road map and the actual locations of the facilities and the players who perpetuate this scheme for ecological and genocidal disaster it will then be the personal responsibility of the partisans of peace to decide on their own strategies and courses of action. This superstructure of death and destruction must be dismantled piece by piece rather than crumble like the detonated Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Then, it can be replaced by a new, decentralized global Sanctuary constructed from the recycled remains. Out of that transformative process will come a new home for the human family, one built from the organic constituents of Love, Peace, Justice and Universal Harmony where all of us who truly value the things of the spirit and the flesh can live in safety and freedom.
Finally I would say, please remember that each of us can and must attempt to perform some task which will help to bring that reality to fruition. Recall the immortal words of John Lennon who once said that we CAN get by with a little help from our friends. Let us not falter. Let us not fail. Let us just begin and DO IT!
Namaste!
* It should be noted here and with all previous and subsequent suggestions as to courses of action that the details of such strategies and the descriptions of the multi and varied components of such a superstructure remain beyond the scope of this particular article.
Arthur Topham is a writer, father and grampa living with his lovely wife Shasta in the wilds of central B.C. He is also the founding publisher and editor of the Radical Press and The Radical, an alternative newspaper once published in British Columbia, Canada and now suspended in a devachanic state awaiting rebirth. Arthur spends much of his time in cyberspace monitoring the movements of the Beast and keeping his radical readers informed on his website http://www.radicalpress.com He appreciates hearing from readers and can be emailed at arthur@radicalpress.com
www.radicalpress.com
Dismantling the Infrastructure of Tyranny
By Arthur Topham
Posted on the Independent Newswire on 2 April 2003.
Ref: www.indymedia.org/frot.php3?article_id=307505&group=webcast
