Stage Managed Offensive (part two)

Part Two: let’s play war
© Melina Magdalena

I understand things at a simple level. I’ve never been good at arguing for argument’s sake. I see no point in talk-fests that prove nothing and achieve even less.

Why not listen to both sides and come up with a set of solutions that overcome the perceived problems and make it possible to work together for the future?

In the world of stage-managed warfare, why not send our youngsters out to be trained up, achieve qualifications and kill civilians?

If they join up, they get money, training and job security which more than fee-paying universities and technical colleges can offer them. Our youngsters are in less danger as soldiers, than the citizens of the nation-states Australia sends them to protect.

Engaging in war is the drama queen’s technique for grabbing attention. Whether she slaps her rival across the face or steals her understudy’s costume, there is no justification for bombing the shit out of a city or country in order to prove one’s political point.

Such behaviour does nothing but create enmity, hatred, bitterness and grief which can lead only to more destruction and terror.

And the world sits back and watches in smug horror. At least it’s them and not us.

And our leaders say nothing, if not to outright condone the terrors perpetrated by nation-states against one another.

“We have a right,” they say, “to defend ourselves in the war on terror. We have a right to pre-empt the terrors that others are intending to perpetrate on us. If we don’t defend ourselves, no one will. Staging an offensive against our terrorist enemies is the responsible thing to do.”

There is no end to the cycle of terror, when we live in a culture that worships fear as a means of control and manipulation.

Ask yourself – what are you afraid of, and why?

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Imagine that someone decided to bomb the highways, runways and railway lines that connect Adelaide to the other cities of Australia. We can hear them talking …

“What about the power stations – we’d better cut off their power and telecommunications, too. And just for good measure, let’s poison their water supply.”

Why would anyone do that? What would it prove? What could it achieve? I put the same question to you.

Taking a cue from Israel; isn’t that what Australia should do to the good old US of A? Aren’t they are holding one of our citizens hostage in Guantanamo Bay?

How dare they? We’re not in a war situation, are we? Oh that’s right – we’re all in this together, this war on terror. But technically, we’re allies. And besides, the USA has nuclear capability. It’s probably not such a wise move to start taking out their power stations and highways, so let’s just ignore the USA’s terror tactics.

I suppose we wouldn’t all die. Some of us have been hoarding food stocks and fresh water supplies for years, in case of tribulation. Some of us don’t live right in the vicinity of mobile phone towers. Backyard rainwater tanks and vegetable patches would probably save a few. But it wouldn’t be long before families were forced to defend their patches against marauding hungry have-nots who were hapless enough to depend on the stock market to preserve their wealth, and bought big, ugly, cold houses in paved low maintenance garden-free zones.

It wouldn’t be easy to learn to murder those in order to defend our own, but we’d get there, or die in the attempt. It’s all about survival of the fittest, after all.

Imagine that we got ourselves back on our feet, buried our dead (mostly women and children) and began to repair the infrastructure that enabled our communities to thrive. Australians are resourceful. We have plenty of resources for export, so why not re-route some of them to Adelaide, to get us back on track?

Then, just as we’re beginning to breathe freely again, when hospital staff can take stock of their situations and begin to plan how to treat the thousands of less-severe casualties who have missed out on treatment in the meantime, it happens again.

The planes and helicopters fly over while we’re busy minding our own businesses. Submarines just rise up one day in the Port River. Who do they belong to? The dolphins are all dead – we didn’t listen to them anyway. Missiles appear out of nowhere. We see our wives and uncles blown to pieces in the street. A bomb falls on the university – did it miss its target? No actually, the university WAS the target. Our enemy has heard that the professors are teaching our children to rise up against them. We’ve reached a critical point in our learning when we’re able to say – that bomb didn’t just ‘drop’ – it was thrown at us deliberately.

We’re a little smarter this time. We made it look as though we were repairing the same highways we had before, but we were also building a tunnel to Olympic Dam. They’ll never bomb that – they need our uranium. The riff raff of Adelaide are fleeing underground. What’s left of us is getting out as fast as our legs can carry us - by trailer, on foot, by bicycle – desperation is the mother of all invention, and we’ve got no petrol left.

We’ve set up a refugee camp at Roxby Downs. It doesn’t matter that food supplies have to be flown in from elsewhere. We’re used now, to going hungry and thirsty. The kids have learned that it’s no use complaining. Someone will look after us and make sure we don’t get massacred in the millions. What would be the point in killing us anyway? We’ve got nothing left, that anybody else would want. Surely someone in the world cares?

God must have saved us for some reason.
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So let’s dig up the past. Let’s uncover that shallow grave. Let’s look a little deeper than the topsoil. Let’s get real. Let’s seek the heart of the matter and discover the naked truth.

War achieves power only for the greedy and destroys the lives of the innocent millions. War continues a cycle that humanity ought to have outgrown by now. The trauma of those who survive far outweighs the grief for those who die. In some ways, it’s harder to survive. Humans are not actually dependent for our survival, on warfare to lubricate the machinery of capitalism.

Have you lost your connection to what is real in this world?

Here’s a reminder:

• Every human being comes helpless into this world and depends on the kindness of others to raise it to adulthood.
• Everybody lives and dies.
• No human being is of more worth than another.
• We all need food and water and shelter and education and healthcare and love.
• We all come from families and communities whose aim is to nurture and grow.
• All the food we eat was grown somewhere, by someone in the world.
• If storms and warfare destroy the crops, there will be nothing for us to buy in the shops.
• All the water we drink is part of the Earth’s great reservoir that is cycled again and again and again, enabling life to continue.
• Even wealthy westerners are susceptible to starvation and disease.
• Bombs and landmines kill.
• Like war, nuclear power is dangerous for children, animals, plants and people and all living things.


WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.

Stage Managed Offensive (part one)

Part One: leadership squabble
© Melina Magdalena

Big news this week in Australia: John Howard and Peter Costello’s battle for supremacy. Did anyone else notice how little passion either of these men expressed for his position, his party, his nation; his people?

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday who was describing the kind of blank-faced beige bureaucrats who govern us. They have not a smidgeon of character, and are shape-changing creatures who magically alter their facial expressions, stance and opinions to suit whatever occasion presents itself.

However, let’s not ignore their undeniable skills at the art of distraction and media manipulation.

The polls are not favouring dear John just now, and why should they be?

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“Hey Peter – “Let’s play dirty and grab some media attention by acting out in front of the millions of Australians whose lives have been negatively affected by our policies.”

“What a good idea, John! The joke will definitely be on them, if we twist it a little. We’ve got to somehow convince them that politicians don’t lie.”

“The best way to do that is if you accuse me of lying. Then I’ll prove I didn’t.”

Do you believe him?
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My teenagers are good at the same thing. I suppose they learned it from me, in the earliest years of their lives. I honed my skills at the art of distraction during the hours spent waiting for and riding on buses around Adelaide.

I’ve seen my kids band together and create a scene over the most petty and trivial of issues (for example which placemat they get to use at the table, when all the placemats came from the same identical set).

The effectiveness of this technique lies in the fact that I am momentarily distracted from whatever was preoccupying me at the time. My kids do it to jolt me out of distress. They pick up on my distress, become distressed in turn, and act out, in order to put me back on track.

Oh – and Australia needs a nuclear power industry like I need a hole in the head.

GET REAL, FOLKS!