I am not here referring to the constant war waged by certain Western governments in a style so reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984. What I am referring to is the continual struggle against the powers which seek to enslave mankind.
I have been pondering for some time now how it might be possible to overthrow a system of government such as is present in countries like the UK and USA. Here structures have been erected that ensure that only those who represent certain values can ever attain power. Those values can be summarised as the exploitation of the majority, be they local or abroad, to increase the wealth and power of a few. This unspoken tenet is hidden in plain sight under the guise of "economic growth". Economic growth we are told is good and must be maintained. It leads to the creation of wealth we are told. This concept is now so well established that no one even needs to justify it, to question it is to label oneself a fool, it’s just obvious. Well, in that case I am happy to be a fool in the eyes of the world and I know I am not alone. A moment’s reflection on the matter soon leads to the observation that in a world of limited resources, of both a material and a human nature, wealth cannot be created it can only be redistributed. "Economic growth" for us means taking wealth from one group and giving to another. It simply is not possible for everyone to experience continual economic growth. This is true on any scale. If one nation’s wealth grows it is at the expense of others. If one group’s wealth increases then the wealth of the rest is reduced. Remember that monetary wealth is irrelevant here. Money is just a token of exchange for things of real value. Otherwise we could just print an ocean of money and make everyone rich.
It is the pursuance of this goal of "economic growth" that leads to so many of the world’s woes. Or, in another’s words "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils". In the pursuance of wealth or "economic growth" the West strips other countries of their natural resources and uses their people as cheap labour. In addition unfair trade laws have been instituted that allow us to export to them our excess produce and pit our subsidised and highly efficient industries and farming against their fledgling ones, leading to the demise of those livelihoods, leaving them dependant on us and further impoverishing them. If they refuse to comply they will not be able to trade with the West who are the biggest consumers of everything. The IMF and World Bank are tools of the West used to help enact this enslavement of nations. History has shown that accepting loans from these bodies is tantamount to suicide for any struggling nation, because of the conditions attached to them that require the recipient to accept the unfair trade, to hand over their basic utilities to Western private industry, cut public benefits and reduce minimum wages. All conditions designed to allow Western businesses to exploit them. Yet many governments accept these terms for reasons of short term survival.
If any country fails to engage with the West on these terms or seeks to shake loose these shackles, aggression is sure to follow. This operates on a sliding scale as deemed necessary, from backing political opposition groups, to arranging coups, to military intervention.
Internally too the systems of government and power in the UK and USA work to increase the wealth of a few. Public services are eroded and privatised, public works contracts are awarded to private industry at hugely inflated costs, public money is used to buy weapons of no conceivable use or which only serve aggression, the list goes on and on. The result is that the standard of living of the masses drops and the gap between rich and poor increases. A constant stream of disinformation and distraction keeps us supine beneath this system. TV, magazines and more, whilst not evil in themselves, are used to provide a stream of entertainment to distract us, and media and education are based on the unspoken assumptions of the rectitude of our governments and society. We only invade nations to save them from the horrors of their governments; our arms industry is labelled as a the "defence industry"; the use of private industry for public works provides better value for money and so on. Questioning the all pervasive way in which our governments serve private industry is not given air time. When misdeeds and lies come to light or are so vast they can not be hidden, they are put down to individuals who can be sacrificed if necessary, or they are explained as mistakes arising from the human failings of our leaders who are only seeking to do good. The idea that we are the good guys and it would be madness to question it is constantly reinforced.
Effecting meaningful change to these systems via the electoral avenues provided in the UK and USA is only theoretically possible. You can start a political party which much more closely represents the views of the majority of the populace than the two major parties in either nation, but getting it into power is another matter. The primary gatekeepers here are the dominant media outlets. Owned as they are by those with vested interests in maintaining the current systems, they will ignore or deride your party, ensuring that the masses will not consider voting for it. If by some genius you should manage to get past this Cerberus like guardian to achieve some measure of public notice then you will most likely be assaulted by various mechanisms of character smearing and other pressures apt to crush you. This is a reflection of the fact that the problem lies not merely in the incompetence or corruption or unethical nature of the leading parties, but also in this wider system of government and control.
How can one overcome such a vast and all encompassing system comprised of a myriad of interlinked government and private bodies empowered and protected by thousands of strands of legislation and law?
To sweep it all away and erect something new would require a huge revolutionary effort which I see no way of mounting. A few nations have managed it in the past, usually via armed rebellion, but such uprising would surely be doomed to failure in this age in such nations as the UK or USA.
What then is the alternative? I see no other option but to steel ourselves for unending war. To fight to tear down every unjust law; to seek to expose and eradicate every act of injustice and every example of corruption, every instance where our nations put people second to profit, one by one. To build systems, such as the Fair Trade movement, which demonstrate a better way of living. We have to do this in the knowledge that new laws and systems and deceptions will be erected even as we overcome the old ones. We will have to continually educate people as to the nature of this struggle, generation after generation. We will win battles but the war will go on. There will be no ultimate victory here. We will never be able to sit back and say the job is done, because these injustices arise from human flaws of greed and selfishness which we can not eradicate, though we can do much to combat them. Fighting this war is, for me, a must and I cannot be truly alive living any other way.
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