When you gonna learn? What you gonna do?

The Middle Class Proletariat
The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx. The globalization of labour markets and reducing levels of national welfare provision and employment could reduce peoples’ attachment to particular states. The growing gap between themselves and a small number of highly visible super-rich individuals might fuel disillusion with meritocracy, while the growing urban under-classes are likely to pose an increasing threat to social order and stability, as the burden of acquired debt and the failure of pension provision begins to bite. Faced by these twin challenges, the world’s middle-classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest.

Source: The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Progamme 2007-2036 [PDF, 7MB]
Published by the Ministry of Defence

So mote it be.

On the seventh anniversary of 9/11 the New York Metro newspaper published the headline: Global Survey says 'U.S. behind 9/11". The survey results reflect a growing level of awareness and understanding throughout the world, including America, about the way in which the intrinsically enmeshed worlds of empire, imperialism and capitalism operate. This awareness and understanding of the activities of the military financial and industrial complex has been building ever apace among ever greater numbers of people since the stakes were raised somewhat after the start of the war of terror.

In many ways 9/11 was the day on which the murderous machinations of the new empire builders began again in earnest, but that is not to deny that murderous machinations of ruling class interests have always manifested themselves to varying degrees.

Some claimed that 9/11 was the day the world changed but in fact the world hadn't changed at all.

9/11 was the point at which the U.S. State began to respond in earnest and with barely a challenge to the Project for the New American Century's largely rhetorical question: "Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?" The illusion of Western democracy became an even less consensual illusion than it was previously as aggressive yet pre-ordained modifications were rapidly instituted to U.S. conservative, "neo-conservative" and "neo-liberal" ruling class ideologies. The seemingly knee-jerk but long pre-planned response to the Project for the New American Century's clarion call saw the wheels of the Military Financial Industrial Complex set in motion to cement for private interests the foundations for what State actors in various States and acting roles had themselves repeatedly termed a New World Order. Now Obama promises change so everything can stay the same.

The endless "long war", the origins of which can be traced back through as many years of human history as you are prepared to devote minutes to undertaking the research, became non-negotiable and manifested itself predominantly as U.S. / U.K. led imperialist warmongering and mass murdering in the Middle East. The irony, if not also the truth of the matter, was that the changes were driven by the sufferance of what private ruling class interests had long hoped and in all likelihood prayed for; a "catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor" that would leave no option but to force their hand into a "process of transformation" at all costs, "even if it brings revolutionary change" in the quest for the "exercise of American leadership around the globe."

With the genetically modified imperialist carrot rejected in favour of a plethora of history's most lethal phallus-shaped exploding sticks, NATO's coalition of the killing set about systematically slaughtering first Afghanistan's poor, then Iraq's poor, simultaneously decimating beyond repair each country's core infrastructure. The death toll may now be running undeniably in the millions but, when the NATO Circus of Death is in town with its unholy trinity of creation, destruction and rebirth, the clowns who are the destructors -- who also happen to be the self-appointed creationists and rebirthers -- always profit handsomely. The smartest guys in the room or, more accurately, the most organised and the most heavily armed guys in the room. The dead can't count, the bottom line always does. Even if it is rock bottom.

As the war without end got underway, the humanity collective began with renewed vigour its voyage of discovery, armed with little more than the innate curiosity with which it was born, a desire to start making sense of an increasingly insane looking world and a hyper-linked connection to a world in which the kaleidoscope had been shaken and the pieces were in flux.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the path to wisdom is beset with political dead-ends, diversions and other nefarious but carefully crafted and deliberately placed distractions. Despite all this the kaleidoscopic pieces are starting to settle and they are settling in altogether new and different ways. Ways in which projections and contingencies have long existed among our rulers, decreed as statutes by State bodies, quangos and think tanks in the event that their long-feared hypothetical scenarios are brought to life. When such chaos is brought by the greater mass of humanity to the hotly pursued ruling class order, States historically appear to favour incarnating as their ultimate brutal manifestations, naked emperors of aggression, unleashed by bodies of armed men and brought to bear against all comers, brother and sister alike.

The ride along the geopolitical learning curve has not been particularly smooth or pleasant for anyone, irrespective of race, colour or creed, but this is not to deny that some have suffered more than others. The way has been marked by many important milestones, notable specifically for the way in which they expose the gargantuan lies of ruling class ideology and propaganda. These milestones have appeared in many places, some expected but many more quite unexpected, that are more notable for the added element of surprise that they pack and the way in which they force irrevocable paradigm shifts in the political analysis, thinking and consciousness of everyone.

On 11th March 2004 the same Al Qaeda who bombed New York in 2001 attacked Madrid with a series of blasts across the city's train network. Months later it was announced:

The basic truth is that Al Qaeda does not exist and never has. Al Qaeda is a manufactured enemy who was created by the Bush Administration in order to have an excuse to wage a war for the control of the world’s oil resources. || Al Qaeda does not exist nor has it ever.

-- Joseph John Hrevnack
Pravda, 19th August 2004

Such nonsense as "“Al Qaeda” does not exist nor has it ever" is to be expected of the tool of Communist, Red Pinko propaganda that is Pravda. Therefore the statement should immediately be dismissed and forgotten. No doubt such things are also to be expected of the tools of Communist, Red, Pinko propaganda that are the Daily Mirror, the BBC and Adam Curtis.

But a more insidious and even more lethal menace lurks behind the victory of Ole Cross-Eyes. The Republicans mobilised as never before the politics of fear. They convinced a majority of US citizens that their homes and families were under immediate threat from al-Qaeda. They are not.

In fact, the BBC's admirable Power Of Nightmares series showed al-Qaeda does not exist as the world-wide conspiracy presented by US policy-makers, with commanders, cells and "sleepers" in 60 countries. In that sense, al-Qaeda is a figment of the imagination of Pentagon and CIA war gamers - but it is a mightily useful weapon for war. Not the war against terrorists but the real war against the common sense of voters - the shock and awe campaign against us.

They seek to dupe you and me into a state of permanent panic about the fantasy threat of terror striking on the Tube, or in my backyard in North Yorkshire. ONLY when we have been so convinced will we vote for the politicians who peddle these monstrous nightmares. That is the true menace of the Bush-Blair axis of evil.

-- Paul Routledge
Daily Mirror, 5th November 2004

As yet another poke in the eye for the likes of the Communist, Red, Pinko propagandists like Paul Routledge, Adam Curtis, the BBC, anti-war activists, global justice movements, the left, anarchists, the working class, anyone that cared and any other similar tools of Communist, Red, Pinko propaganda, it wasn't long before the "fantasy threat of terror striking on the Tube" -- which itself may well have been based on the BBC's own invented "fantasy threat of terror striking on the Tube" -- did indeed strike on London's Tube.

Immediately news began to break of explosions on London's underground system so too did the hysterical cries of ten-a-penny terror pundits with loose talk of the devastatingly deadly Al Qaeda terror network striking in the heart of London.

The as yet unidentified bombers had obviously forgotten that all the world's leaders against whom they might have held any number of legitimate grievances would be congregating at Gleneagles in Scotland for the opening day of the 2005 G8 summit. The still unidentified bombers apparently decided that, rather than hold those directly responsible for global injustices to account -- and with logic so perverse that it bears not even the scantest of passing scrutiny -- it would be more politically expedient to attack innocent commuters to achieve their hitherto unidentified aims.

Despite the ensuing media hysteria that followed the London bombings pertinent questions were being asked by many who had been through the mill before: How could the "figment of the imagination of Pentagon and CIA war gamers" manage to materially blow up three Underground trains and a bus? Moreover, how could they do so without the Pentagon or the CIA? Just a day later Robin Cook was to provide a few answers and leave an informational milestone as his legacy in The Guardian:

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west.

-- Robin Cook (R.I.P.)
The Guardian, Friday 8th July 2005

According to Cook Al Qaeda did exist, but only as a grouping of mercenaries that had previously been trained and armed by the C.I.A. in what is a still ongoing battle against Communism. Yet just eight days later as the Al Qaeda suicide bomber myth was emerging to be the hugely amplified white noise to drown out all other signals The Mirror asked in an exclusive report about the London bombings: Was It Suicide?

Such questions persisted across a variety of newspaper reports, albeit mainly in the foreign press, right up until the timely release of the Mohammed Sidique Khan 'suicide video'. In the video Khan makes no mention of suicide, attacking London, trains, buses nor anything else that might incriminate him as a candidate for suicide or bombing. In fact, Khan says nothing that would distinguish him from anyone else who opposes the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or the Palestinian holocaust perpetrated by Israel and it is this facet of the video that is the cleverest of all. Suddenly, by extension, anyone with anti-war sentiments founded on "perceived inustices" is an extremist, a radical and, potentially, a suicide bomber. Patent, palpable nonsense which is only subliminal if you don't notice it.

In 2005 the Al Qaeda that barely anyone had heard of prior to 9/11 was then either a "figment of the imagination of Pentagon and CIA war gamers" and "[did] not exist nor [had] it ever", or a "computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA".

Three days after the seventh anniversary of 11th September 2001 on which the New York Metro published its Global Survey says 'U.S. behind 9/11' story, the notoriously right-wing tool of Communist, Red, Pinko propaganda, Peter Hitchens, undermined years of hearty propaganda work by his new-neocon-left brother Christopher when he wrote in the Daily Mail:

It's the creepy plotters who rule us we should really be scared of

There is no such organisation as ‘Al Qaeda’. The spooks know this, Cabinet Ministers know this and so do the ‘security correspondents’ who so readily trot out the spooks’ point of view on our broadcasting networks.

-- Peter Hitchens
Daily Mail, 14th September 2008

Hitchens' words marked yet another milestone along the tortuous path to figuring out how the world really works. His words as with those of Robin Cook and Joseph John Hrevnack warrant considerable further contemplation. So too do the explicit implications of those words.

Line 1: "There is no such organisation as ‘Al Qaeda’."

Al Qaeda does not exist. Nor has it ever. The Al Qaeda that attacked, killed and maimed innocent civilians and pulverised WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7 with military precision on 11th September 2001 does not exist, nor has it ever. Explicitly: Some actually existing group of terrorists organised and coordinated 9/11, a group not called Al Qaeda. The group actually responsible for this atrocity has never been held to account for its actions.

Al Qaeda does not exist, nor has it ever. The Al Qaeda that attacked, killed and maimed innocent civilians in Madrid on 11th March 2004 does not exist, nor has it ever. Explicitly: Some actually existing group of terrorists organised and coordinated the Madrid bombings, a group not called Al Qaeda. The group actually responsible for this atrocity has never been held to account for its actions.

Al Qaeda does not exist, nor has it ever. The Al Qaeda that attacked, killed and maimed innocent civilians in London on 7th July 2005 does not exist, nor has it ever. Explicitly: Some actually existing group of terrorists organised and coordinated the London bombings, a group not called Al Qaeda. The group actually responsible for this atrocity has never been held to account for its actions.

The list goes on and the pattern and message is clear. The list of terrorist atrocities throughout history for which no one has ever been justly held accountable and for which the real, true and actual perpetrators have never been identified, much less held accountable, is a long one and it is getting longer by the day. In the recent history of terrorist activity on mainland Britain this list includes at least the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes whose inquest is just getting underway three years after his execution by State operatives, the 7/7 London bombings, the Manchester Arndale bombing, the Guildford pub bombings, the Birmingham pub bombings, the M62 coach bombing, and the Hyde Park explosion, among others.

Line 2: "The spooks know this, Cabinet Ministers know this and so do the ‘security correspondents’ who so readily trot out the spooks’ point of view on our broadcasting networks."

Al Qaeda does not exist, nor has it ever. More to the point politicians who profess to be our servants know that Al Qaeda does not exist, yet non-references to the grave threats presented by an entity which they know does not exist, are few and far between. That makes all politicians who talk of the chilling threat that doesn't exist little more than outright liars. They are deliberate and witting liars, fearmongers and propagandists. So great is the deception perpetrated and so long has it continued to be parroted as standard fare that the liars and propagandists are completely devoid of credibility and absolutely cannot be afforded any degree of trust any longer.

Al Qaeda does not exist, nor has it ever. Those spooky media security correspondents whose number is legion know this, yet nary a day passes when they cannot be seen touting their non-existent terror wares on TV or Dead Trees for all to see. Reports of airline terror plots planned by a fictional organisation with fictional and chemically impossible chemistry wreaking havoc and carnage on an unimaginable scale that someone managed to imagine for the purposes of propaganda and fear-mongering. All media security correspondents pushing the non-existent Al Qaeda as reality are deliberate and witting liars, fearmongers and propagandists. So great is the deception perpetrated and so long has it continued to be parroted as standard fare that the liars and propagandists are completely devoid of credibility and absolutely cannot be afforded any trust any longer.

The world of fear as everyone previously knew it is ended. All bets are off. Everything is now officially its opposite. All is lie. Now is a new beginning. The ills of the world are not directly attributable to a bearded man in a cave somewhere on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, nor the non-existent group over which he is reported to preside, their source(s) instead lie elsewhere and are now more exposed than ever before in history. Osama didn't bust the banks, the terrorists did.

The traditional power structures and institutions of authority with their received wisdom, victor-centric historical record and world-view have yet again proven themselves to be nothing more than self-serving liars who are not fit for any other purpose. They had little credibility to start with, now they have absolutely no credibility. The media we relied on for too long to hold the rulers to account had little credibility to start with, now it has absolutely none and it cannot be trusted to do anything other than pollute the world with mindless brain-rotting 'entertainment' wrapped in the tumescent glow of the imperial powers' red, white and blue tricolor.

The terrorists are running the show. The mass media lies, covers-up and misleads the masses to allow them to get away with it. Basta!

Future history awaits the results of how it all plays out from here-on in. A few seconds thought devoted to a comparison between the resources that States command and can mobilise on a whim, and those resources over which the rest of humanity can exercise a similar degree of precise and sustained control, may provide some indication of the way in which the odds are currently stacked.

It has been largely this way since time immemorial.

When you gonna learn?

The Middle Class Proletariat
The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx. The globalization of labour markets and reducing levels of national welfare provision and employment could reduce peoples’ attachment to particular states. The growing gap between themselves and a small number of highly visible super-rich individuals might fuel disillusion with meritocracy, while the growing urban under-classes are likely to pose an increasing threat to social order and stability, as the burden of acquired debt and the failure of pension provision begins to bite. Faced by these twin challenges, the world’s middle-classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest.

Source: The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Progamme 2007-2036 [PDF, 7MB]
Published by the Ministry of Defence

What you gonna do?