Mon, 04 Mar 2019 12:19:15 +0000

War is over (if you want it) or is it?

One of the music videos that are stuck in my memory is System Of a Down's for the song Boom!. The song itself was released on the leaked album Toxicity II, later renamed 'Steal this Album'. The album was supposed to be anti-commercial with its political and nonsensical songs. It was one of the best selling albums of that year. The lyrics of the song pretty much directly attack idea of war and bombing of civilians, especially focusing on Iraq war. In the music video the protests against it are shown, and the protests themselves are shown as great political power which is there to stop the evil politicians whom do not know better.

The idea of War of Terror at that time was already criticised, and it was not a surprising fact that war on Iraq was based on the idea of fighting 'Islamic' civilisation, as posed in Huntington's ['Clash of Civilizations']. The war itself was rather focused on limiting Iraq power over oil, which is quite unsurprising political decision in this model of imperialism.

But now let's return to the music video. It shows people around the world in protests against this war, as if it was the first war in which violence has happened. It even goes as far as to show Vietnam Veteran who is very vocal about being Vietnam Vet and being against this war as if there was some contradiction in his existence. The protests are shown still as an effective force to end the violence, and suggest that it was 'other' people who started this war and it can be the people who will end it. There are deep problems with this thinking as it considers that it was action of democratically elected politicians, and not the neoconservative think-tanks which planned this invasion and waited for strong argument to put it forward. But is that of matter? We know that those protests were completely useless and we now have hard time thinking of the Middle East without constant wars and the American interventions (or rather dominations) in those conflicts.

Although the most striking point of the music video is the last couple of seconds when the music quits and the beautiful, artful quote by he most vocal pacifists, whom surely ended 1000s of possible conflicts shows up on black background.

War is over (if you want it)
— John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

What a beautiful quote. Very aesthetic. Very calling. It secretly says that we want the war, as it is not over. War happen, because people choose to become soldiers, and they always do this freely and there is no consensus which controls the wars. If this does not sound paradoxical for you, I have some bad news. War will not be over if you want it. No matter how hard you want it to be, it will not be over. Especially in the Imperialist/Globalist world no matter what representatives do you pick, imperialist wars still will exists. And even if somehow we reach utopia it still it will not by wanting, but simple development of the consensus in which war is possible.

To add to this crazy quote, there is a small linguistic confusion coming from construction of English language. The 2nd person pronoun is the same for individual and the group. So it could push the blame for war to the entire society. It is not the group in power which enables the war, it is you and all the people reading this quote. You could end it if you wish. Just get high on LSD and do not fight again. Lose all your values and surrender to imperialists, just to stop all the wars on this planet.

Let's unselect the elites!

Today, in the famous anti-government pro-whistle-blower magazine The Intercept I have read interview with Martin Gurri. He critiques the current government, but in the end he sates that it is us, who select people in power:

We select our elites all the time, and I don’t just mean politicians. We select cultural elites based on the movies we choose to watch, the artists we follow, and the books we read (...) So if we select the elites, we can un-select them.

So it is some kind of vulgar consensus of choices that creates the elites and power. And the political elites are chosen with elections [sic]. The power of supposed un-selection is complete belief in the dream of representational democracy. The elites were selected freely and therefore can be unselected. Again the problem of hatred towards the majority arises. The majority selected the elites, the elites are not good therefore the majority was wrong, and there is nothing wrong with the system as it is dependent on the majority. And majority makes all decisions with complete reason and has a responsibility to have full political knowledge. The control by lobbyists and big businesses does not exist. It is only bigoted idiots which make bad choices and allow them to exist.

The similar point was made in Brexit III episode of famous liberal show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, where he blames politicians for trust in the public, as they are supposed to work like doctors who always know how to do the right thing. The right thing being his own agenda, which is done by rational politicians such as Tony Blair. And here we have a nice wrap back to the music video as he supported Iraq war undemocratically.

To close of this think-piece, in my opinion this blaming of the majority for the evils of current political system is simply relics of Trotskyism and what shows how the modern Left (i.e. Labour Party, Democrat Party) in its highrises completely misunderstands modern politics and still is elitarian. They are so far from working class, that they often find the 'evil' in the working class and the majority which somehow did not have power to stop all wars. The Battle is going again! War is not over (independent on whether you want it)!