War Metamorphosis: Friendly Spooks Into Invaluable Monsters

“Can we be asked to toss onto the dunghill this unlimited capacity to say NO which is the entire secret of human progress in order to watch and wonder at what is going on without us at the other end of the world?” – André Breton, Preface to “The Political Position of Surrealism”

War is not “inevitable.” Surrealism has always known that the worst is NEVER inevitable. Liberated imagination, unbound by profit and power, can reintegrate a world  divided by cynical conspiracies. Does the parade of rotting suits in the White House REALLY know something we don’t, besides how to make crime pay? When America’s friends – Israel, Indonesia, Turkey, and the rest of the pack – invade neighbors or feed their own people to the mangle, the U.S. cries “encore,” and showers the stage with gifts of money and guns. Thus with Iraq when Saddam Hussein was America’s Friendly Spook. But time made the lovers restless, and now Iraq is a blood-clotted doormat on the path to future conquests. Some 200,000 killed in the orgy of Desert Storm, perhaps a million and a half more (mostly children under the age of 5; but we LOVE the children!) felled by genocidal sanctions, and yet more by persistent air strikes that form the decade’s wallpaper: What is the U.S. without its objects of corrupt desire?

And being pals with the U.S. is as slippery a proposition as being a Mafia stoolie. Since Hussein passed from being a Friendly Spook to being an Invaluable Monster his days have been numbered, and now his number is up. The U.S. smokes all proposals for a non-violent resolution (as it had barricaded all routes to a peaceful settlement in 1990.) Even as we write, another Iraqi proposal for the unconditional return of weapons inspectors is angrily denounced as a “stalling” tactic before it is even considered. It will quickly be forgotten amid the banquet of oily sensationalism scented with patriotic spices, that the White House feeds its media teat-suckers to regurgitate, lap up, and regurgitate again. Imagine trying to stall the war! Brazen! Incomprehensible!

SO WE WILL NOT BUY THE INEVITABLE!

Remember: The U.S. is NOT some “new kid on the block” who must over-compensate for his anonymity by pissing bullets at each social “slight,” but THE practitioner of concentrated power, the Big Boy. Expedient “provocations” are exploited at regular intervals as a diversion for a bored audience.. Here and there, dreams have been flattened to a desert where peace cannot exist even as a mirage, where decency “digs in” underground and predators nourish themselves on what is most abandoned. We know (without any “experts”) that a politician’s mouth is a spigot of lies; AND we do not wish to drown! It will take many hands DREAMING IN UNION to turn off that filthy fountain. AND it is not too early to begin.

WE DEMAND A CHANGE IN TARGETS!

We know the U.S. indulges periodically in scratching its itches, not bothered by where the infection actually lies. Iraq constitutes a threat to imperial complacency: the West  dreams it is on the right side, demanding a revolving collection of those on the wrong side. Yet WHO passes out weapons like flowers? WHO mugs world labor? WHO houses the most corporate thieves and killers? WHO is afraid to see itself as it passes a shop window? WHO holds the deepest and most dangerous myths about itself and kills religiously for those delusions? The answer is clear: if the U.S. is to bomb nations based upon their potential for damage, then it should begin at home, as an act of charity to the world about which it pretends to care.

But what hands feed this beast? You already know the answer, though you are moving into denial: the oil companies, the military/industrial complex and the rest of the usual suspects that bankroll the White House joined in this murderous game of red light/green light by an anaesthetized servant class of pundits and intellectuals, whom we single out for blame because of the betrayal of a particular trust. InfoContainment has become the greatest tool for the maintenance of power, and those Ministries of Truth, which were historically dedicated to countering government and business malfeasance, now dine with the Swine and lick up slop fallen from their lips. THAT (only slightly digested) becomes our breakfast news. But we demand full disclosure, by force if necessary, and (as always) array ourselves against the forces of miserablism and the trivialization of desire.

So, we are suspended in permanent crisis by our Invaluable Monsters. It is past time to return to our senses and reason our way our of this mess.

SO WE HAVE SOME GENTLE PROPOSITIONS FOR THE PIMP AND ITS TARTS!

BEING THAT…

…Complacency and obedience are untenable positions when war is prospected;

…War on Iraq is not inevitable unless the U.S. demands it be; The U.S. is contemptuous of any peace which threatens profit and power;

…The U.S. breathes war, being the largest arms dealer in the world, being the world’s strongest military force, being an economy that relies on military spending for the development of its technology sector, and being the club-happy cop that readily employs violence to expand the economic prospects for itself and its partners-in-crime;

…The U.S. has a bloodlust for Iraq, having made it the first spectacular casualty of the New World Order, crushing it underfoot for a decade, and mechanically plotting to rain yet more horror on its people;

…The U.S. is deceitful, having opportunistically presented Saddam Hussein as a friend and then again as a monster, having exploited and brutally dashed the hopes of Iraq’s Shi’ites and Kurds, having sabotaged the UNSCOM weapons inspection team by loading it with spies, and having supplied disinformation to its own media for the sole purpose of advancing war;

…The U.S. has perversely accomplished all this while claiming to command a moral high ground;

…America’s sidekick Britain is just as reprehensible;

…Australia or any other country which fails to oppose the war does so to their escalating disgrace;

…Bush and Blair pretend to hold the positions of ultimate responsibility and so should be held responsible even though they are puppets of their respective political machines;

WE DECLARE

that it is no longer enough to denounce the murderous policies of Bush and Blair. We  demand these men be bodily dragged from their seats of power, weighed down with a red stone for every lost life that can be laid at their feet, and thrown into the most unforgiving depths of the sea.

And then the free radicals of imagination shall refresh that sea.  

 Authors :

John Quincy Adams(USA), Hannah Cadaver(Australia), Thomas Clarkson(USA), Barrett John Erickson(USA), Brandon Freels(USA), Parry Harnden(Canada), Dale Houstman(USA), Stuart Inman(UK), Rob Marsden(USA), Vernon Masterson(Germany), Evi Möchel(Austria), Pierre Petiot(France), Ribitch(USA), M.K. Shibek(USA), Andrew Torch(USA), Jay Woolrich(UK), Xtian(Australia)

Note : It is impossible to authenticate all the signatures.