I often don’t write about the things that make me angry. Mostly that’s because I’ve written previously on something similar, and I don’t like repeating myself. Sometimes it’s because it’s very draining to spend time and energy trying to write relatively lucidly and without hysteria on something that almost no one will read and because I know it won’t make any difference what I think and say. So I think why bother?
The appalling genocide being perpetrated in Gaza at the moment is one such subject. The obscenity of it is so extreme, and writing about it so enrages me and depresses me at the same time, and I know that what I think and say is no different to what tens of millions of other people are thinking and saying, and that what we all think and say will make no difference anyway because the 1% of the 1% of the 1% who run the planet just don’t give a shit. So I’m almost tempted not to bother. Almost; until it occurs to me that I might have something slightly different to add.
It occurs to me that whilst most of us are rightly venting rage against the zionist occupiers of Palestine, we’re not venting enough rage against our very own governments. The hateful little land known as Israel would not be able to behave as it does were it not for the fact that it’s effectively a branch of the US government. So although the mass murderers employed by the zionists are obviously individually culpable and could and should be brought to justice for their crimes against humanity, they’re not the only ones who should be in the dock. The genocide taking place in Occupied Palestine is being approved by the US government, which means it’s also being approved by the governments of dozens of other lackey countries – such as the British government.
The fine and brave people who take to the streets to protest against this latest genocide are obviously right to do so, but I wonder about the main target for their protests. For although Israel should obviously be publicly vilified and opposed at every opportunity, so too should the powerful western governments whose support for that despicable country is so vital.
Here in Britain, for example, the main target of protest should be against the British government for its unwavering support for the US government’s unwavering support for the war criminals. It’s time the European governments realised who their real friends and enemies are. Their real friends are each other. Their real enemy, the only one that matters anyway, is the US government. Many of the brighter statesmen will know that, of course; they’ll know the difference between what’s in the best interests of their country and what’s in their own best interests, and they’ll do what they’re supposed to do: look after their own best interests. They’ll know that when their own country is inevitably bled dry and crushed by its subservience to a foreign empire they’ll be O.K; they will have long ensured that their share of the loot is tucked away safe and sound in some distant tax haven.
That’s been the history of empire since its earliest days thousands of years ago. So there’s nothing new in how the existing empire is operating. It’s been following the well-trod path of previous empires since the earliest days of its creation, and particularly since the end of WW2. But thanks to the Old Boys Club that knows no boundaries and whose imperial membership comprises the 1% of the 1% of the 1%, that fact is not widely understood. The only thing that matters to the club membership is huge personal wealth for club members, and if the club president decrees that members shall look the other way whilst war crimes and genocide is taking place in some distant desert, then that’s exactly what the membership will do.
So, of course, we should rage against the illegal occupiers of Palestine for their unspeakable crimes, but we should be raging more at the US government, which has the power to end the thing in a heartbeat; and at our own government for helping to prop up the empire at the expense of our own people.
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