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Our world, in their hands
Ippy D
By the time the next issue of Peace News lands on your hallway mat the US will have elected a new president.
The simple choice for most US citizens in this presidential and congress election is pretty bleak (not counting more radical candidates such as David McReynolds or Jello Biafra, because they will probably not be perceived as a "choice" by most voters, or even on the ballot in many states).
However, with voter apathy at an all-time high throughout the "developed" world (so developed we no longer need to even bother sticking a cross in a box), how many people actually care anymore? In a recent US poll 44% of potential voters said they weren't even following the campaigns. The choice is either to be out on the streets (like the 25,000+ activists in Philadelphia earlier in August) showing opposition and trying to create change in our own communities ("live our lives as though the revolution has already occurred", Matthew p11), or legitimise either Bush or Gore by voting for one of them.
The rogue state
While many liberals and progressives around the world may intrinsically shudder at the name "Bush", thinking of the "Gulf years" (an ongoing project in Iraq) and everything that went with his (relatively) short time in office as president, there are also many unpleasant truths to be swallowed about Mr Gore.
Never mind that while writing strange ecobooks he continues to make money as a shareholder of an oil company (Occidental Petroleum), he can still moan to voters about how high gas prices are ("oh no ... it's terrible ... stop increasing my share dividend"). It is in the arenas of defence and foreign policy that both candidates (and the parties behind them) show their true colours. As William Blum wryly observes in his book, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, "The American Empire, coming soon to a country near you".
What happens next?
With Bush asserting that he "will never place US troops under UN command" (if only that was a guarantee that US troops would stay at home!) and Gore, as woolly on the NMD project as Clinton (let's not upset the military and the rednecks before the election), there should be only two choices for US antimilitarists: don't vote (after all, it only encourages them), or vote for a radical party - one that has the destruction of the US empire at its heart. (Unsurprisingly there aren't too many of these!) As for non-US readers: threaten "US interests overseas" - refuse to be exploited!
After all, the prosperity enjoyed by the US middle class over the past eight years did not come for free, somebody paid for it. Whether through the exploitation of "developing" countries, or cheap labour at home, somebody paid. It is this that the US military needs to defend - this that truly drives foreign and defence policy.
Neither main candidate proposes policies which will in any way challenge the dominant ideas of the world's only true superpower, dominator of space, the policeMAN of the world, the true light of "democracy", they merely reinforce them. After all, it is in their interests to retain the status quo.
If, as antimilitarists, we object to the policies and predominant ideology of the US, and perhaps more to the point, the global consequences of such policies and ideas, we'd beter get our skates on and figure out how to pull the plug. (And that's where PN comes in, reporting on and encouraging worldwide plug-pulling!) After all, now that even North Korea has accepted "the Real Thing" how many new markets are there left to exploit? With this in mind we arrive at the question: what happens next?
As you can probably tell, I took the red pill*.
(*For those of you who haven't seen The Matrix, don't worry. Thanks to Daniel for the inspiration!)
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