Manuscripts Don't Burn is noting with interest the continued development of the Neocon strategic agenda in the Middle East / Iran / Pakistan / Central Asian region, as Pakistan is now brought to its knees due to financial aid to the country having been stalled since June. Last week President Zardari travelled to China, having expressed reluctance to seek US financial aid due to the political strings attached - following recent US incursions into Pakistani territory, including bombing of civilians, schools, etc, on the border, overt pro-Americanism is a political no-no. China clearly said "no" (now why would they do that?), and now Zardari finds himself having to eat his words and go cap-in-hand to the IMF asking for his very own bail-out.
And the cost of all this? An estimated $6bn - cheap given the recent $700bn bank bail-out. And, in return, the US would be able to impose "conditions" rather unpleasant to the democratically elected Zardari.
Manuscripts Don't Burn would playfully like to offer the following scenario: the IMF approach, whether successful or not, will trigger further huge political instability in Pakistan, with, in all likelihood, Zardari shortly falling from power, to be replaced by a far more compliant pro-US non-elected military governorship. With UN oversight, of course, and a nice big fat "peacekeeping force" to make sure everything goes according to plan. Unless, of course, Mr Zardari is willing to play ball, and assume the position...
Or, well, maybe we just have to invade Pakiranistan after all...
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Welcome to the Revolution...
Today our societies suffer from a massive disconnect between the world we *think* we live in, and the world we actually live in. Thanks to the propaganda fed to us every day of our lives, we think we live in a "modern" world of democracy, freedom of speech, and individual liberty. In actual fact we live in a world which is barely post-feudal, encumbered by Imperialist caste systems and hierarchies, and switching over from late Imperialism to proto-fascism (call it "corporate feudalism" if you will) during our lifetimes. Note the distinct lack of words like "freedom" and "democracy" in the above.
Marketing and window-dressing is all - the virtuosity of spin. Even in the Middle Ages, when people were chopping one another up on the flimsiest of pretexts and with alarming alacrity, the prevailing dogma was a Candidean "all for the best in the best of all possible worlds", that the state was structured "as God ordained it", and that the world was one of universal brotherhood and love. When of course nothing could be further than the truth. It should give all of us pause when we blather on about freedom and democracy - the West is a loose mercantile coalition of one party states masquerading as two party states. The reason the US elections pretty much fall 50/50 each time is because people vote pretty much randomly - there are no real issues to distinguish them. "What color chains do you want today?"
To paraphrase Orwell, revolution never comes from the "proles". Western history documents several so-called revolutions - English in the 17th century, American and French in the 18th century, a close call Europe-wide in 1848, the Russian in 1905-17, Chinese in 1949, etc, etc. In none of these were the leaders from the working class; quite the opposite, they were from the disgruntled mercantile classes, looking to remove the glass-ceilings of inherited privilege. And they worked - but only by recruiting the proles to their side by LOTS of egalitarian-sounding marketing.
We are facing a similar Revolution today. Twenty years ago the Cold War began to crumble. Since then, the old guard have struggled to stay in power - finding us a new Bogey Man (in a beard and turban this time) to drum up population-controlling fear, and desperately trying to keep the old oppositional us-and-them confrontation going to feed the military-industrial complex which drove 20th century history from start to finish. With the most Orwellian of irony, the old world order even tried to sell itself to us as the New World Order. Some people bought it; someone always does.
But there is a bunch of mitteltier rebels out there trying to break the NWO glass ceiling; and it's the merchants, again. There are resources *everywhere* available for exploitation today, and the corporate feudalists want to *get at them*! In every Western country over the past decade we've seen corporate interests and government interests gradually become the same - actually the definition of fascism - but in clear opposition (most of the time) to the OWO/NWO.
Hence today's Revolution. The OWO/NWO is collapsing under the weight of its own inertia; in its place, a much more agile corporacy, perhaps not quite global yet, but heading in that direction. As with most Revolutions, its going to be disturbing to the peace of all of us for a while, but, uniquely, perhaps, this time, our New Masters, the corporate feudalists, would like to keep us Consuming and Producing just as before - it's simply the agenda that's changed. There's been a coup d'etat in the West.
Tragically, the rest of us are left blinking in the rubble, clutching our smoke-and-mirrors dreams of a free modern world of liberty and fraternity in tatters to our chests. To quote Starship Troopers (!), the only freedom any of us ever really have is figuring things out for ourselves. Bitter comfort, when you may be losing your house and savings to "historical necessity".
The trouble with Marx is that Lenin gave us the idea we could shortcut the historical dialectic, somehow jumping from "post-feudal late Imperialism" to "socialism-building-communism" in one fell swoop, hurdling possibly centuries of social development in a single bound. The aftermath of the Russian revolution gave the lie to Leninism. But Marx is still in there - we inch one step forwards, as capitalism comes face-to-face with its own contradictions when placed on a global stage. Now we get to post-capitalism - a kind of managed version of what we had, with hopefully some greater social controls. But, dang, is this social progress thing ever a slow business...
HG Wells in "The Shape of Things to Come" predicted total economic collapse and a century of rigorous self re-education before our society could reach some form of sensible organization. Here at Manuscripts Don't Burn we think that's optimistic; last week the US spent TEN TIMES the sum it would take to deal with global hunger on a "bailout" of its banking system, so we have a way to go yet before the era of universal brotherhood dawns.
Perhaps this is the eternal paradox of the intellectual. The world *could* be a paradise, if only people were... well, different... not like they are... weren't people, basically... if only they were more like us here at Manuscripts Don't Burn... oh, bother... ;-)
In this hinterland of history at the tale end of the Middle Ages, we can offer only this advice, from a dear friend who happens to run a Swiss bank investment company in the City in London: Keep it local. Show, don't tell. Create functioning communities and networks *where you are*. Sidestep the corporacy and create your own alternative system. Rebel in small things; don't watch advertising; don't follow the demands of the herd to be "alternative" in acceptable ways. Keep smiling, and crack targeted jokes. Never just mumble and let another overt oppression take place.
As the ex-mayor of London said, if voting changed anything, they'd abolish it.
Cause for hope or despondency? Manuscripts Don't Burn votes for Hope - at the price of eternal vigilance. Our civilization has a long way to go yet before it reaches the place our propaganda tells us it's already at. But that's no reason not to keep heading in that direction. It *is* the right direction.
Marketing and window-dressing is all - the virtuosity of spin. Even in the Middle Ages, when people were chopping one another up on the flimsiest of pretexts and with alarming alacrity, the prevailing dogma was a Candidean "all for the best in the best of all possible worlds", that the state was structured "as God ordained it", and that the world was one of universal brotherhood and love. When of course nothing could be further than the truth. It should give all of us pause when we blather on about freedom and democracy - the West is a loose mercantile coalition of one party states masquerading as two party states. The reason the US elections pretty much fall 50/50 each time is because people vote pretty much randomly - there are no real issues to distinguish them. "What color chains do you want today?"
To paraphrase Orwell, revolution never comes from the "proles". Western history documents several so-called revolutions - English in the 17th century, American and French in the 18th century, a close call Europe-wide in 1848, the Russian in 1905-17, Chinese in 1949, etc, etc. In none of these were the leaders from the working class; quite the opposite, they were from the disgruntled mercantile classes, looking to remove the glass-ceilings of inherited privilege. And they worked - but only by recruiting the proles to their side by LOTS of egalitarian-sounding marketing.
We are facing a similar Revolution today. Twenty years ago the Cold War began to crumble. Since then, the old guard have struggled to stay in power - finding us a new Bogey Man (in a beard and turban this time) to drum up population-controlling fear, and desperately trying to keep the old oppositional us-and-them confrontation going to feed the military-industrial complex which drove 20th century history from start to finish. With the most Orwellian of irony, the old world order even tried to sell itself to us as the New World Order. Some people bought it; someone always does.
But there is a bunch of mitteltier rebels out there trying to break the NWO glass ceiling; and it's the merchants, again. There are resources *everywhere* available for exploitation today, and the corporate feudalists want to *get at them*! In every Western country over the past decade we've seen corporate interests and government interests gradually become the same - actually the definition of fascism - but in clear opposition (most of the time) to the OWO/NWO.
Hence today's Revolution. The OWO/NWO is collapsing under the weight of its own inertia; in its place, a much more agile corporacy, perhaps not quite global yet, but heading in that direction. As with most Revolutions, its going to be disturbing to the peace of all of us for a while, but, uniquely, perhaps, this time, our New Masters, the corporate feudalists, would like to keep us Consuming and Producing just as before - it's simply the agenda that's changed. There's been a coup d'etat in the West.
Tragically, the rest of us are left blinking in the rubble, clutching our smoke-and-mirrors dreams of a free modern world of liberty and fraternity in tatters to our chests. To quote Starship Troopers (!), the only freedom any of us ever really have is figuring things out for ourselves. Bitter comfort, when you may be losing your house and savings to "historical necessity".
The trouble with Marx is that Lenin gave us the idea we could shortcut the historical dialectic, somehow jumping from "post-feudal late Imperialism" to "socialism-building-communism" in one fell swoop, hurdling possibly centuries of social development in a single bound. The aftermath of the Russian revolution gave the lie to Leninism. But Marx is still in there - we inch one step forwards, as capitalism comes face-to-face with its own contradictions when placed on a global stage. Now we get to post-capitalism - a kind of managed version of what we had, with hopefully some greater social controls. But, dang, is this social progress thing ever a slow business...
HG Wells in "The Shape of Things to Come" predicted total economic collapse and a century of rigorous self re-education before our society could reach some form of sensible organization. Here at Manuscripts Don't Burn we think that's optimistic; last week the US spent TEN TIMES the sum it would take to deal with global hunger on a "bailout" of its banking system, so we have a way to go yet before the era of universal brotherhood dawns.
Perhaps this is the eternal paradox of the intellectual. The world *could* be a paradise, if only people were... well, different... not like they are... weren't people, basically... if only they were more like us here at Manuscripts Don't Burn... oh, bother... ;-)
In this hinterland of history at the tale end of the Middle Ages, we can offer only this advice, from a dear friend who happens to run a Swiss bank investment company in the City in London: Keep it local. Show, don't tell. Create functioning communities and networks *where you are*. Sidestep the corporacy and create your own alternative system. Rebel in small things; don't watch advertising; don't follow the demands of the herd to be "alternative" in acceptable ways. Keep smiling, and crack targeted jokes. Never just mumble and let another overt oppression take place.
As the ex-mayor of London said, if voting changed anything, they'd abolish it.
Cause for hope or despondency? Manuscripts Don't Burn votes for Hope - at the price of eternal vigilance. Our civilization has a long way to go yet before it reaches the place our propaganda tells us it's already at. But that's no reason not to keep heading in that direction. It *is* the right direction.
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Economic "Crisis": The Great Redistribution Continues Apace
The current state of the global economy - ie what happens to us all in the West - is only a crisis from the perspective of those on the receiving end. For the powers that be - the big banks, global corporations, and major landowners, everything is proceeding according to plan.
What we're witnessing is a particularly blatant episode in the huge redistribution of wealth from poor to rich which has been going on since the 1980s, reversing the more egalitarian post-war redistributions of the 50s and 60s. The poor are being divested of their ability to buy and hold property at an alarming rate, their "savings" are about to be destroyed by extremely high inflation, future education, welfare, public works, and healthcare budgets have just been spent in advance in the "bail-out", and assets with any concrete value are being placed into the hands of the mega-rich.
The future for most of us is indenture - lifelong indebtedness to the banks in return for a roof over our heads, little different from the indentured serfs and tenant farmers of the Middle Ages.
What floors us here at Manuscripts Don't Burn is the scale of their blatant audacity - not only harnessing the media-government complex over the past 20 years to ensure astronomical indebtedness amongst the population, but then actually forcing them to pay *twice* by "bailing out" the toxic debt which their pea-under-the-stone "trading instruments" have excreted. You couldn't make it up - as Dubya has so famously said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time - and those are the ones you should concentrate on".
Why aren't people rioting in the streets? Our allegedly-elected government has finally admitted it's in bed with big business and working directly against our interests, and we just roll over and turn the telly on?
Thank God at least our governments have been repealing our civil rights and introducing all that draconian "anti-terror" legislation. That way, they can club us down and lock us up when we start protesting at our coming homelessness and hungriness, and it'll all be legal!
Ignorance is Strength, indeed.
What we're witnessing is a particularly blatant episode in the huge redistribution of wealth from poor to rich which has been going on since the 1980s, reversing the more egalitarian post-war redistributions of the 50s and 60s. The poor are being divested of their ability to buy and hold property at an alarming rate, their "savings" are about to be destroyed by extremely high inflation, future education, welfare, public works, and healthcare budgets have just been spent in advance in the "bail-out", and assets with any concrete value are being placed into the hands of the mega-rich.
The future for most of us is indenture - lifelong indebtedness to the banks in return for a roof over our heads, little different from the indentured serfs and tenant farmers of the Middle Ages.
What floors us here at Manuscripts Don't Burn is the scale of their blatant audacity - not only harnessing the media-government complex over the past 20 years to ensure astronomical indebtedness amongst the population, but then actually forcing them to pay *twice* by "bailing out" the toxic debt which their pea-under-the-stone "trading instruments" have excreted. You couldn't make it up - as Dubya has so famously said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time - and those are the ones you should concentrate on".
Why aren't people rioting in the streets? Our allegedly-elected government has finally admitted it's in bed with big business and working directly against our interests, and we just roll over and turn the telly on?
Thank God at least our governments have been repealing our civil rights and introducing all that draconian "anti-terror" legislation. That way, they can club us down and lock us up when we start protesting at our coming homelessness and hungriness, and it'll all be legal!
Ignorance is Strength, indeed.
The Pakistan Gambit (4): Do As You Are Told
CUI BONO?
Get a map. Look at all the countries surrounding Iran, and think of the best way of geographically isolating a country which you can't - yet - invade. You need: Iraq, Georgia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan... and Pakistan. Dominos, falling, year by year.
As we reported, by this time last year the USA was operating forces covertly within Pakistan despite protests by the Pakistani army. Increased instability within national borders, resulting in unrest, factionalization - the usual destabilization tactics.
Last Friday / Saturday, after 12 months of political turmoil, the new Pakistani government issued a clear statement that infringements on their sovereignty by "foreign powers" (guess who?) were unacceptable.
Hours later, a "bomb" destroys the hotel where a secret meeting of the Pakistani government was due to happen, but fortunately changed at the last minute. Message: TOE THE LINE. WE CAN GET YOU ANYTIME.
Yesterday, the Pakistani army start firing on US troops unilaterally and illegally crossing their borders.
Draw your own conclusions. Here at Manuscripts Don't Burn, we're comparing and contrasting every other CIA covert ops destabilization campaign since the war.
Regime change, anyone?
Oh, no, hang on, it's the TERRORISTS. Riiiiiight... Always is, bub. We're the good guys, remember, whoever we kill.
Get a map. Look at all the countries surrounding Iran, and think of the best way of geographically isolating a country which you can't - yet - invade. You need: Iraq, Georgia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan... and Pakistan. Dominos, falling, year by year.
As we reported, by this time last year the USA was operating forces covertly within Pakistan despite protests by the Pakistani army. Increased instability within national borders, resulting in unrest, factionalization - the usual destabilization tactics.
Last Friday / Saturday, after 12 months of political turmoil, the new Pakistani government issued a clear statement that infringements on their sovereignty by "foreign powers" (guess who?) were unacceptable.
Hours later, a "bomb" destroys the hotel where a secret meeting of the Pakistani government was due to happen, but fortunately changed at the last minute. Message: TOE THE LINE. WE CAN GET YOU ANYTIME.
Yesterday, the Pakistani army start firing on US troops unilaterally and illegally crossing their borders.
Draw your own conclusions. Here at Manuscripts Don't Burn, we're comparing and contrasting every other CIA covert ops destabilization campaign since the war.
Regime change, anyone?
Oh, no, hang on, it's the TERRORISTS. Riiiiiight... Always is, bub. We're the good guys, remember, whoever we kill.
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
The Strip-tease of the Search for Life on Mars
The search for life on Mars has become such a drawn-out and elaborate strip-tease that many of us are forced to conclude that NASA (etc) are already sure they've found it, and are simply preparing the ground socially for the announcement. Now, even the Pope is pretty sanguine about ET, and has said it all fits into God's great plan, which should sort out the concern of a large chunk of the global population.
30 years ago, an announcement of alien life might have had unpredictable social consequences. Now, Manuscripts Don't Burn is pretty sure most Brits would barely register the news, as long as sports and soap opera broadcasts weren't interrupted.
The sad fact is that science is still a minority patronage game for governments, much as it has ever been, and has to scrabble for the leavings from the budgetary table. No matter how excited science enthusiasts may get, most people are just not bothered, and will simply parrot a number of socially-acceptable cliches to cover their lack of interest (to whit, the BBC HYS entries).
The end result is a painfully slow pace of research, and an equally slow uptake by the social consciousness, ideally with minimal social upheaval. Only the rapid spread of the internet has got out of control from this perspective - and now the world's governments are trying, with clumsy threats and propaganda, to persuade the world's people to agree to put the genie back in the bottle.
Manuscripts Don't Burn for one would be absolutely delighted to see yet more evidence of life on Mars. However, we are pretty much convinced it's already Out There, and lots of it, so it would just confirm what we already think...
The simple truth is that exploratory entrepreneurialism is not the traditional forte of governments. What we really need is a Bill Gates or Richard Branson to get on board and kick ass - we already have the know-how to be out there in the solar system right now, with bases all over the place and plenty of resource exploitation to pay for it.
Tho, with the obsessive secrecy of our governments, Manuscripts Don't Burn wouldn't be surprised if we were already doing it...
30 years ago, an announcement of alien life might have had unpredictable social consequences. Now, Manuscripts Don't Burn is pretty sure most Brits would barely register the news, as long as sports and soap opera broadcasts weren't interrupted.
The sad fact is that science is still a minority patronage game for governments, much as it has ever been, and has to scrabble for the leavings from the budgetary table. No matter how excited science enthusiasts may get, most people are just not bothered, and will simply parrot a number of socially-acceptable cliches to cover their lack of interest (to whit, the BBC HYS entries).
The end result is a painfully slow pace of research, and an equally slow uptake by the social consciousness, ideally with minimal social upheaval. Only the rapid spread of the internet has got out of control from this perspective - and now the world's governments are trying, with clumsy threats and propaganda, to persuade the world's people to agree to put the genie back in the bottle.
Manuscripts Don't Burn for one would be absolutely delighted to see yet more evidence of life on Mars. However, we are pretty much convinced it's already Out There, and lots of it, so it would just confirm what we already think...
The simple truth is that exploratory entrepreneurialism is not the traditional forte of governments. What we really need is a Bill Gates or Richard Branson to get on board and kick ass - we already have the know-how to be out there in the solar system right now, with bases all over the place and plenty of resource exploitation to pay for it.
Tho, with the obsessive secrecy of our governments, Manuscripts Don't Burn wouldn't be surprised if we were already doing it...
Monday, 5 May 2008
Irrelevant diversions as the price of food rockets...
The average UK family is facing a £1700-a-year utility and food bill increase over the past 12 months - that on a £20K gross salary. For most of the population, regardless of what the government says, actual experienced inflation is running at 10-15%.
It's inevitable, we are told. Poor harvests. Overpopulation. Global warming. "The era of cheap food is over." "We all have to tighten our belts and pull together - it'll be like the war again. It's the New Austerity."
Bullshit.
The elephant in the room is that we have food riots all around the world and looming shortages / starvation because a bunch of brokers are being allowed by supine governments to create a bubble in commodities (ie FOOD) to try and claw back some of the money they lost in the subprime fiasco (after they'd been "allowed" to flog off the backup foodstores we'd set aside to prevent this sort of thing happening).
It's not global warming, it's not overpopulation. Our governments are allowing private individuals to speculate with the global staple food and energy supply. Irresponsible laissez-faire and lack of planning is the crime, that and the fact that the media are not shouting the truth from the rooftops.
But, hey, this is corporate feudalism - it's cool if people die, as long as the brokers keep making their millions. We can always blame it on global warming and overpopulation! The poor saps will never cotton on till it's too late - then they'll be too hungry to do anything about it.
Buy coffee! Buy rice! Buy wheat! The price is gonna rocket once the people start dropping!
*****
Support material: Truthout.org, "Making a Killing from Hunger"
It's inevitable, we are told. Poor harvests. Overpopulation. Global warming. "The era of cheap food is over." "We all have to tighten our belts and pull together - it'll be like the war again. It's the New Austerity."
Bullshit.
The elephant in the room is that we have food riots all around the world and looming shortages / starvation because a bunch of brokers are being allowed by supine governments to create a bubble in commodities (ie FOOD) to try and claw back some of the money they lost in the subprime fiasco (after they'd been "allowed" to flog off the backup foodstores we'd set aside to prevent this sort of thing happening).
It's not global warming, it's not overpopulation. Our governments are allowing private individuals to speculate with the global staple food and energy supply. Irresponsible laissez-faire and lack of planning is the crime, that and the fact that the media are not shouting the truth from the rooftops.
But, hey, this is corporate feudalism - it's cool if people die, as long as the brokers keep making their millions. We can always blame it on global warming and overpopulation! The poor saps will never cotton on till it's too late - then they'll be too hungry to do anything about it.
Buy coffee! Buy rice! Buy wheat! The price is gonna rocket once the people start dropping!
*****
Support material: Truthout.org, "Making a Killing from Hunger"
Thursday, 3 April 2008
Olympic blackmail brings China into line
The Daily Telegraph reported this morning that China has revealed to the UN details of Iran's "secret nuclear program". How wonderfully decent of them, we are told, that they've shown sense and kicked these Mad Mullahs in the nuts as they so rightly deserve. Hurrah!
Naturally we are not given the opportunity to comment on this piece of "news". So, just for fun, Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to present an "alternative" interpretation of this shock cooperation by the nefarious... we mean cuddly... or is it nefarious... damn... Chinese... Remember folks - we're at war with Eastasia, we've always been at war with Eastasia...
Dick Cheney has a matter of months left in office, and the eastern Med and Red Sea are teeming with a recently much-bolstered US naval presence (presumably to ensure fishing and sunbathing expeditions continue unmolested...). He's declared openly that Iran is in his sights, but the military disagree, and have started resigning. Even the intelligent reports don't help Deadeye Dick in his mission to "Save Tha Werld...", so we need something a little more weighty. Something that will stick in the UN. But Russia and China won't play ball - Dick, mate, you can't just go blowing shit up cos you want to. It's where we get our oil...
Then, quite out of the blue, riots break out in Tibet. China blames the Dalai Lama and friends for stirring things up. Surely not that nice man in the orange dress and glasses who's always smiling? Suddenly, the west is talking about boycotting the Olympics, which China has been pouring dosh into and spinning into the biggest propaganda event of the century. At last - a lever which might just budge those Intractable Chinese.
Suddenly the Chinese turn up with all this evidence that the Iranians are bomb-crazed loons hell-bent on bombing us all back into the stone age (hang on... sorry, I think that's someone else...). The crime? Iran has "obtained information on how to manufacture nuclear-armed weapons". What - you mean they Googled it? Get away! That's just unfair! Of course, we in the West are too afraid to Google it anymore, lest we get spirited away for a few years' holiday in Guantanamo, but those Evil Mullahs just don't care - they LIKE orange jumpsuits, for Chrissakes! They Google everything - they just refuse to be censored like good God-fearin' patriots.
Well, more fool them. Googling shit is a crime, now, punishable by Nuclear Destruction by Deadeye Dick. Watch this space as the hysterical media machine ratchet up the pressure for the Iranian gambit. Dick *could* leave it for his idiot-grinning corporate successor to follow up, but our suspicion is that he wants to press the buttons himself. Manuscripts Don't Burn puts its money on an attack before year-end.
Naturally we are not given the opportunity to comment on this piece of "news". So, just for fun, Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to present an "alternative" interpretation of this shock cooperation by the nefarious... we mean cuddly... or is it nefarious... damn... Chinese... Remember folks - we're at war with Eastasia, we've always been at war with Eastasia...
Dick Cheney has a matter of months left in office, and the eastern Med and Red Sea are teeming with a recently much-bolstered US naval presence (presumably to ensure fishing and sunbathing expeditions continue unmolested...). He's declared openly that Iran is in his sights, but the military disagree, and have started resigning. Even the intelligent reports don't help Deadeye Dick in his mission to "Save Tha Werld...", so we need something a little more weighty. Something that will stick in the UN. But Russia and China won't play ball - Dick, mate, you can't just go blowing shit up cos you want to. It's where we get our oil...
Then, quite out of the blue, riots break out in Tibet. China blames the Dalai Lama and friends for stirring things up. Surely not that nice man in the orange dress and glasses who's always smiling? Suddenly, the west is talking about boycotting the Olympics, which China has been pouring dosh into and spinning into the biggest propaganda event of the century. At last - a lever which might just budge those Intractable Chinese.
Suddenly the Chinese turn up with all this evidence that the Iranians are bomb-crazed loons hell-bent on bombing us all back into the stone age (hang on... sorry, I think that's someone else...). The crime? Iran has "obtained information on how to manufacture nuclear-armed weapons". What - you mean they Googled it? Get away! That's just unfair! Of course, we in the West are too afraid to Google it anymore, lest we get spirited away for a few years' holiday in Guantanamo, but those Evil Mullahs just don't care - they LIKE orange jumpsuits, for Chrissakes! They Google everything - they just refuse to be censored like good God-fearin' patriots.
Well, more fool them. Googling shit is a crime, now, punishable by Nuclear Destruction by Deadeye Dick. Watch this space as the hysterical media machine ratchet up the pressure for the Iranian gambit. Dick *could* leave it for his idiot-grinning corporate successor to follow up, but our suspicion is that he wants to press the buttons himself. Manuscripts Don't Burn puts its money on an attack before year-end.
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