17. Popular culture promotes global warming. It fans the flames of consumer desire and hastens obsolescence. Mainstream media, the movies, marketing, advertising, branding, celebrity endorsements, etc, put hyper consumption at the core of human existence. The Shopping Religion dwarfs traditional faiths.
18. By 2050, the world population, barring pandemics and/or climate shocks, is expected to reach 9.1 billion. At today's consumption levels, this will increase the demand for oil tenfold. Yet the supply of oil is nearing its peak, or past its peak.
19. Which is why the wars to secure future supplies of oil (and water) have already begun.
20. Hollywood cultivates a taste for violence. Just as the Westerns of the 1950's endorsed the slaughter of Native Americans, today's blockbusters legitimise sadism. In this season's highly acclaimed hymn to collateral damage and spouse bashing, Mr & Mrs Smith, it is taken for granted that the CIA has a right to liquidate anyone on the planet. Further, that the assassin's role is noble, as well as lucrative, sexy and cool. All of life's problems, including a grim marriage, can be solved with guns, explosions and a vicious beating. Followed by orgasm.
21. In 2005, global military expenditure was expected to reach $1 trillion.
22. In the last 5 years, doublespeak has thrived. More than ever, the statements of political leaders are the reverse of the truth. When Condoleezza Rice tells the world that America is the land of laws, she is the mouthpiece of outlaws. While George Bush was saying he does not condone torture, he had already authorised torture and was denying its use, even as footage from Guantanamo Bay showed unconscious prisoners on stretchers returning from interrogation.
23. Hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay are being force fed with plastic tubes inserted into their stomach through the nose, a painful procedure, even at the hands of medical specialists. Some tubes used by guards are said to be "larger than normal".
24. Prior to the turn of the century, only a few intellectuals publicly argued that America was no longer a noble nation, as advertised. By now, it has become obvious to anyone with a passing acquaintance with foreign affairs, that George Bush's America is the world's deadliest Rogue State.
25. The plague of lying and law-breaking began to spread from the White House to its allies on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, itself regarded as illegal by the world's most eminent lawyers.
26. Among the few invading nations who lined up to brown-nose Uncle Sam without being bribed, no tongue licked longer or more vigorously than that of John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister. He disallowed a debate in Parliament. He dismissed the huge turnout of peaceful protesters as "a mob". He was still pretending he hadn't made up his mind about the war, long after authorising the Special Forces to blow-up Iraqi infrastructure.
27. Australian protestors have been jailed for burning their country's flag. The men who ordered the torching of Iraq have still not been arrested.
28. Howard's enthusiasm for war was not driven by revenge. He seemed to act from fear. Perhaps the fear of 242 million Indonesian Muslims on Australia's doorstep. His long held terror of The Other may have bonded him to Bush and his seemingly invincible legions. Or was Howard's fear even deeper, a fear of a values shift, a fear that the status quo was under threat, a fear that a new consciousness might arise and seek from him more than he could give, more than bread and circuses? Meanwhile, there is no crime that America could ever commit in its terror wars, that will shake the loyalty of John Howard, who George Bush rightly calls his deputy sheriff.
29. Truer now than ever: Even if you are not interested in politics, politics is interested in you.
30. When the Australian military became aware of the porno-tortures at Abu Ghraib, it tried to hush them up. One of its officers, then attached to the Pentagon, wrote to the International Red Cross, trying to refute the rumours of abuse.
31. The deaths of well over a 100,000 Iraqis and the mutilation of many more, is still being justified by George Bush as the price of "spreading freedom". What is this freedom? It is not freedom of the press. The US military has shot and jailed non-embedded journalists, it has closed down independent newspapers, it has bombed media offices, it has paid bribes to publish false stories. Is it political freedom? Iraq is in the process of moving from a secular tyranny to a fundamentalist theocracy. No-one knows for sure what will happen, but it is unlikely to replicate the golden age of Athenian democracy.
32. The US has used more illegal weapons on Iraqis, including chemical weapons, than were ever used by Saddam Hussein, (either on his own people, or on anyone else).
18. By 2050, the world population, barring pandemics and/or climate shocks, is expected to reach 9.1 billion. At today's consumption levels, this will increase the demand for oil tenfold. Yet the supply of oil is nearing its peak, or past its peak.
19. Which is why the wars to secure future supplies of oil (and water) have already begun.
20. Hollywood cultivates a taste for violence. Just as the Westerns of the 1950's endorsed the slaughter of Native Americans, today's blockbusters legitimise sadism. In this season's highly acclaimed hymn to collateral damage and spouse bashing, Mr & Mrs Smith, it is taken for granted that the CIA has a right to liquidate anyone on the planet. Further, that the assassin's role is noble, as well as lucrative, sexy and cool. All of life's problems, including a grim marriage, can be solved with guns, explosions and a vicious beating. Followed by orgasm.
22. In the last 5 years, doublespeak has thrived. More than ever, the statements of political leaders are the reverse of the truth. When Condoleezza Rice tells the world that America is the land of laws, she is the mouthpiece of outlaws. While George Bush was saying he does not condone torture, he had already authorised torture and was denying its use, even as footage from Guantanamo Bay showed unconscious prisoners on stretchers returning from interrogation.
23. Hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay are being force fed with plastic tubes inserted into their stomach through the nose, a painful procedure, even at the hands of medical specialists. Some tubes used by guards are said to be "larger than normal".
24. Prior to the turn of the century, only a few intellectuals publicly argued that America was no longer a noble nation, as advertised. By now, it has become obvious to anyone with a passing acquaintance with foreign affairs, that George Bush's America is the world's deadliest Rogue State.
25. The plague of lying and law-breaking began to spread from the White House to its allies on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, itself regarded as illegal by the world's most eminent lawyers.
26. Among the few invading nations who lined up to brown-nose Uncle Sam without being bribed, no tongue licked longer or more vigorously than that of John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister. He disallowed a debate in Parliament. He dismissed the huge turnout of peaceful protesters as "a mob". He was still pretending he hadn't made up his mind about the war, long after authorising the Special Forces to blow-up Iraqi infrastructure.
27. Australian protestors have been jailed for burning their country's flag. The men who ordered the torching of Iraq have still not been arrested.
28. Howard's enthusiasm for war was not driven by revenge. He seemed to act from fear. Perhaps the fear of 242 million Indonesian Muslims on Australia's doorstep. His long held terror of The Other may have bonded him to Bush and his seemingly invincible legions. Or was Howard's fear even deeper, a fear of a values shift, a fear that the status quo was under threat, a fear that a new consciousness might arise and seek from him more than he could give, more than bread and circuses? Meanwhile, there is no crime that America could ever commit in its terror wars, that will shake the loyalty of John Howard, who George Bush rightly calls his deputy sheriff.
29. Truer now than ever: Even if you are not interested in politics, politics is interested in you.
30. When the Australian military became aware of the porno-tortures at Abu Ghraib, it tried to hush them up. One of its officers, then attached to the Pentagon, wrote to the International Red Cross, trying to refute the rumours of abuse.
31. The deaths of well over a 100,000 Iraqis and the mutilation of many more, is still being justified by George Bush as the price of "spreading freedom". What is this freedom? It is not freedom of the press. The US military has shot and jailed non-embedded journalists, it has closed down independent newspapers, it has bombed media offices, it has paid bribes to publish false stories. Is it political freedom? Iraq is in the process of moving from a secular tyranny to a fundamentalist theocracy. No-one knows for sure what will happen, but it is unlikely to replicate the golden age of Athenian democracy.
32. The US has used more illegal weapons on Iraqis, including chemical weapons, than were ever used by Saddam Hussein, (either on his own people, or on anyone else).
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