What do blue-collar workers and the Taliban have in common?
Both are enemies of the United States of America.
In fact, according to US Army Major Ralph Peters, under America's sprawling new Global Information Empire, the Taliban of Afghanistan and blue-collar workers in America are "brothers in suffering."
[I]n every country and region, [those] who cannot understand the new world, or who cannot profit from its uncertainties, or who cannot reconcile themselves to its dynamics, will become the violent enemies of their inadequate governments, of their more fortunate neighbors, and ultimately of the United States.
We are entering a new American century, in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent.
* * * The future is bright--and it is also very dark. More men and women will enjoy health and prosperity than ever before, yet more will live in poverty or tumult, if only because of the ferocity of demographics [immigration!].
There will be more democracy--that deft liberal form of imperialism--and greater popular refusal of democracy. One of the defining bifurcations of the future will be the conflict between information masters and information victims.
* * * Historically, ignorance was bliss. Today, ignorance is no longer possible, only error.
The contemporary expansion of available information is immeasurable, uncontainable, and destructive to individuals and entire cultures unable to master it.
The radical fundamentalists--the bomber in Jerusalem or Oklahoma City, the moral terrorist on the right or the dictatorial multiculturalist on the left--are all brothers and sisters, all threatened by change, terrified of the future, and alienated by information they cannot reconcile with their lives or ambitions.
They ache to return to a golden age that never existed, or to create a paradise of their own restrictive design. They no longer understand the world, and their fear is volatile.
Information destroys traditional jobs and traditional cultures; it seduces, betrays, yet remains invulnerable. How can you counterattack the information others have turned upon you? There is no effective option other than competitive performance.
For those individuals and cultures that cannot join or compete with our information empire, there is only inevitable failure [.]
* * * These noncompetitive cultures, such as that of Arabo-Persian Islam or the rejectionist segment of our own population, are enraged.
Their cultures are under assault; their cherished values have proven dysfunctional, and the successful move on without them.
The laid-off blue-collar worker in America and the Taliban militiaman in Afghanistan are brothers in suffering.
It is a truism that throughout much of the 20th century the income gap between top and bottom narrowed, whether we speak of individuals, countries, or in some cases continents. Further, individuals or countries could "make it" on sheer muscle power and the will to apply it. You could work harder than your neighbor and win in the marketplace. There was a rough justice in it, and it offered near-ecumenical hope. That model is dead.
Today, there is a growing excess of muscle power in an age of labor-saving machines and methods. In our own country, we have seen blue-collar unions move from center stage to near-irrelevance. The trend will not reverse.
At the same time, expectations have increased dramatically. There is a global sense of promises broken, of lies told. Individuals on much of the planet believe they have played by the rules laid down for them . . . only to find that some indefinite power has changed those rules overnight.
The American who graduated from high school in the 1960s expected a good job that would allow his family security and reasonably increasing prosperity. For many such Americans, the world has collapsed, even as the media tease them with images of an ever-richer, brighter, fun world from which they are excluded.
These discarded citizens sense that their government is no longer about them, but only about the privileged. Some seek the solace of explicit religion. Most remain law-abiding, hard-working citizens. Some do not.
The foreign twin is the Islamic, or sub-Saharan African, or Mexican university graduate who faces a teetering government, joblessness, exclusion from the profits of the corruption distorting his society, marriage in poverty or the impossibility of marriage, and a deluge of information telling him (exaggeratedly and dishonestly) how well the West lives.
In this age of television-series franchising, videos, and satellite dishes, this young, embittered male gets his skewed view of us from reruns of Dynasty and Dallas, or from satellite links beaming down Baywatch, sources we dismiss too quickly as laughable and unworthy of serious consideration as factors influencing world affairs. But their effect is destructive beyond the power of words to describe.
[snip]
There will be no peace.
At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault.
To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.
Keep in mind, this was published in the US Army War College Quarterly, way back in 1997 - long before 9/11.
IN other words, the so-called "War on Terror" is neither a war on terror, nor a war against Islam - it's a war waged by the INFORMATION MASTERS [aka, Money Masters and IP Holders] against anyone with the temerity to stand in the way of their ever more brutal plans for world domination - disgruntled Americans included.
If Americans don't wakeup soon and realize that the war on terror is really a war on US, it will be too late to do anything about it.
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Thanks, Cherifa, for bringing this smoking gun to our attention.
