The Emotional Bankruptcy of the West

by King - (21.5.09)

The blogger world moves to its own laws, its own concerns. Recently, as mainstream voices vaguely tut-tut over Barack Obama’s decision not to release to the general public photographs of prisoner abuse in Iraq, some of which were viewed by US lawmakers in a special session, bloggers for their part had practically gone berserk over this unwise decision, the latest reminder that torture as usual is very much part of west politics no less in the countries they have invaded and temporarily captured as in Guantanamo and other strategically placed torture camps. That is one side of the medal.

Then there is the other. Slowly worn down after years of exposure to the utterly ignoble in the conduct of west wars, we have almost acquired a certain immunity to the effect of further trauma from the widespread battlefields. Where we might still be capable of small, timorous reactions ranging from shock to disgust to downright terror is if we take a look at what is happening to the people of the west themselves. The Muslims dying? That is far, far away and one can’t quite imagine what it all means. But how to accept with the same equanimity, not to say indifference, the crimes westerners without exception are being exposed to on a daily basis by the powers that be? Gradually, very gradually, they begin to catch a glimmer of the sense that they too are in imminent danger, victimised as a matter of course, and subjected to the emotional terror the west wields with such unrestrained cunning and skill.

Emotional terror us? Yes, you. No other than you who get your two square meals a day, have a clean house and good plumbing, access to medical care, at least so long as you linger in the various countries of Europe, perhaps a job, in any case the dole, and to cap it all some money in the bank put aside for a rainy day. So what’s new that you must also sit up and pay attention? The latest west policy towards their own people sums up best as cutting the population down to size. The high rate of political assassination aside, State cops across EU and USA have begun killing people for no reason anyone can fathom. When they are not being killed outright, upright citizens of the west areas find themselves locked up on the flimsiest of grounds. UK is textbook in this respect to be followed tomorrow by the rest of

Europe. Ever heard of the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC)? It’s their job with a little help from local GPs to send Government critics to mental asylums. Heck, forget critics. At a pinch, one can argue they were guilty of breaking the unwritten law of compliance and deserve punishment. But what FTAC powers allow police authorities to do is arbitrary to the point of madness. Anyone at any time can be detained and for no more reason than their stated opinion that the person may be a danger to themselves or to others Then, the latest thing, the psychiatric prison (p.p.), opens its doors and swallows up the unfortunates. As one journalist pointed out, in ex-Soviet Union people finally got their day in court. Even infamous Guantanamo Bay ends up by giving their detainees some kind of a say. Britain’s p.p’s are no-trial places. Once in, not a hope in hell of coming out again anytime soon.

The random, the arbitrary, the absurd is daily fare for west dwellers. There’s Australia, of course, the squatter land, which has launched a food police charged with inspecting lunchboxes of kindergarten kids. The good fight being fought there is the war against obesity. My favourite among these stories is the Brit motorcyclist, 19, who was arrested by police, charged, fined and electronically tagged for four months, all because sweets from a badly opened packet of Imperial Mints dropped out of his pocket as he was riding home. Let world mafia thrive, but do get careless boys and girls to toe the line.

It would appear that like bad parents who never succeeded in gaining the respect of their children, all that now remains to be done is to break the will of the people. Frighten, sap everyone, push them into this dead-end of desperation to break and debilitate before the final physical assault. Sanctions, shadow terror and poverty precede all west physical attacks on the weak, starting with the children as always.

The mindless mentality of waging war – and what a war, one not even the most fervent of supporters could even begin to justify – has come back to infect the west. Financially, first and foremost – America’s wars will cost that country some $660 billion in 2009-2010 alone. How much its allies, including tiny, so-called neutral Switzerland, will have to cough up for the honour of enabling ongoing bloodshed is not known with the same exactitude, but certainly weighs heavily upon the budgets of the vastly contracting west GDPs. Financial erosion combined with totalitarian governance have begun to affect the mindless masses, 99% of the population at a rough estimate, whereas the remaining 1% is probably evenly divided between the elite and those who oppose them with the fiercest single-mindedness. An unraveling economy means entitlements in disarray. The welfare state is on its last legs, even if its beneficiaries haven’t quite realised it yet. This has begun with substantial cuts in pension funds. In America, certain funds have completely dried up. Returning soldiers with wounded minds, their disability pensions also unavailable, spread their own personal brand of disruption wherever they can.

Other unpleasant changes are in the air, too, in a none too distant future. Leaders are running scared. Corruption, rapacity, sanctimonious behaviour stinking to high heaven like the kind British politicians have taught us to expect from them in connection with their expenses, all this acts like salt dripped generously into our many wounds. For USans, the hardest hit by unemployment since they are directly subjected to the boom we hire, slump we fire philosophy of arch capitalism, each new bailout rubs poison into wounds in the same way.

Another form of spreading mayhem among people is to teach them to shit in their pants. From west nurseries to their airports, fear rules the lives of the masses. All pretense of allowing people full freedom has been dropped, though the rhetoric of freedom – democracy, human rights, freedom of speech, thought and association and all that bunkum, is still going strong. On the ground, however, not a trace of it remains. New crimes are invented even as we write these lines. Hate crimes, for instance, defined arbitrarily and applied with sovereign disregard for any norms of justice. Smoke and food crimes are also having a field day. New ones are in the offing, carefully invented in the think machines even as we write these lines. The internet, the sole mode of open communication still within our reach, is under threat from all sides. Soon we might all be sitting there twiddling our thumbs, unable to access anything at all.

Societies such as these stand in no need of external enemies. They are self-destructing, human dignity shredded beyond salvage. As the great philosopher-poet of Pakistan Allama Iqbal once wrote: Soon the west will enter a time where men hold no jobs and women, childless, sit with empty laps. The enemy within is more than enough to justify the militarization of everyday life. In this respect, one should remember the youth corps plans being hatched in US and UK, soon to be imitated by all the other west zombies. In America teenagers as young as 14 are being trained in police combat techniques. The ostensible reason given is the fight against drugs, terrorism and illegal immigration. The truth of the matter is these are carefully planned first steps towards establishing martial law in the USA, with the rest of the west smartly preparing to follow suit. Unless, of course, the star wars take over first, the two sides to the conflict commit to a fight to the death and World War III in all its glory is declared.