The Dark Tower of Empire
At the same time Bush was elected, hunters have shot dead the last female brown bear native to the Pyrenees. When those two events occurred to me they seemed ominous. Then this dark feeling came true as I read; "Today, we need senators and congressmen to conclude every speech they give with the exhortation: Fallujah delenda est. Fallujah must be destroyed. I don’t mean metaphorically. I mean for the entire population of the city, every man, woman and child, given 24 hours to leave and be dispersed in resettlement camps, moved in with relatives in another village, wherever, and the town turned into a ghost town. Then the entire city carpet-bombed by B-52s into rubble, the rubble ground into powdered rubble by Abrams tanks, and the powdered rubble sown with salt as the Romans did with Carthage. Fallujah must be physically obliterated from the face of this earth."

Fucking scary. Firstly to think they have the right (I guess as an Empire they must think they do..) to dictate which city stands and falls. Secondly, that they would commit a war crime (as collective punishment is) and kill hundreds and destroy the homes of thousands to avenge the deaths of four American mercenaries - welcome to the reality of Bush and Empire.

To resist this is now more than a moral duty. It is survival. The Pyrenees Brown Bear did not, sadly, make it. I hope we can.

Bushfire
So I guess there are lots of people who are thinking: Oh. My. God. He fucking won. Four more years. I guess I am one too. While I don’t think that voting changes anything, it still would have been better for the world had Bush lost. But he didn’t and we need to focus on that. Running parallel to his victory march has been the stunning BBC2 documentary, The Power of Nightmares, in which filmmaker Adam Curtis eviscerates the current 'War on Terror' (TM) bullshit. He notes that as politicians found there were unable to deliver a better world, they have instead fallen back on fear as a tool of power. Seeing the pathetic infighting between the local Neo-Labour/Lib Dem/Con councillors over the power to be puppet ruler of the city made me wonder if one of them might use fear and a tool too? I am waiting for the 'Bristol a target of al Qaeda says city councillor' headline. The collapse of mainstream political life locally and the threat of radical fundamentalists (from the US mainly) makes me think that people need to realise that it is time to get off the fence and start acting. Seeing the Daily Mail, our local rags's Big Brother, crowing for Bush and his crusader agenda shows us that, having conquered the US, the same ideology is now on the march here. There can be no compromise with these people and this ideology; for they offer none. Take Britain hanging on to the coat-tails of the US into Iraq and so we were told, influencing its policy – have we got anything e.g. Kyoto Protocol, justice for Palestine, even a sizable share in the loot from Iraq etc. – no. They took and gave nothing back. "There can be no real peace when living with someone who has already declared war, no peace but capitulation. And even that, as we see around us, doesn’t lead to further peace but to further degradation and exploitation..." (from 'A Language Older than Words' by Derrick Jensen)

Well the G8, with Bush in tow, is coming next year and now is the time to start thinking about a response to these people. They say it is a war for freedom. I agree; they are trying to erode what little freedom we have. They say it is about fighting for democracy. I agree; and democracy needs to be fought for at the grass roots at home first.

Your indifference will not save you. Fighting for what you believe in, could - so get off the fence and act:

- BRISTOL G8 DISSENT BENEFIT At the Plough on Thursday 4th november. Live bands and DJs palying a right old mix of rebel tunes! Starts 8pm.

- IRAQ PEACE BENEFIT Southville, Bristol. An eclectic evening of music to raise funds for the people of Iraq. Supported by Stop the War. Featuring 'The Mysterious Wheels' with Andrew Ranken from The Pogues. Plus two other live acts and Disco hits hour plus raffle. Saturday 13th November. 7pm. Holy Cross & Southville Social Club. Dean Lane. Southville. BS3.

- INDYMEDIA FILM NIGHT [UN ELIMINATING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN DAY] 25th November. A day of events aimed at bringing awareness to the issue of violence against women. Worldwide, at least one out of every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. In the UK alone, on average, two women per week are killed by a male partner or former partner. Nearly half of
all female murder victims are killed by a partner or ex-partner. Join us in solidarity to say 'Enough is enough!' 6.30pm - Candlelight vigil from The M32 Junction 3 Roundabout (aka the Time Tunnel) to the Cube Cinema - chosen because it is the site of violence against women including rape and a death recently - sadly there are many sites in Bristol we could have chosen for the vigil to begin from. Come and light a candle for those who can't due to fear, injury of death. 7.30pm - Cube Cinema Events Begin. Short Films + speakers: Women from Nicaragua speak on their lives and concerns. The films being shown tonight will be a selection of uplifting and inspring shorts chosen by VJ Anakissed (plugincinema.com/toxic dancehall) to finish the night off in style!!

Whohoo! Looks like the Parasite_606 show made it all the way to Japan!!!

Greetings from Osaka, Japan.

Thought you might know (and hopefully approve) the fact that a non-profit
micro-webcaster run by a handful of ex-pat volunteers has been including an
occasional program from your web project. Had a few Parasite & 606 shows on
& now have an "Independent Heroin" installment included in our "Sound
Collage" program. If you'd like to know/see/hear more, please go to:

http://www.radiolavalamp.org

Thanks for the great shows!

Ralph

A Sad Day
I am really sad to hear of the death of John Peel. I first encountered his show aged about 15, when I was just discovering the alternative scene (Ned's Atomic Dustbin and so on!) and a mate put the radio onto this show late one night and there was this crazy mix of music blasting out – I was impressed. Especially as I'd written Radio 1 off as a sick-pop puppy with nothing to interest me. I was not a regular listener but did pop in now and then to hear the familiar and comforting tones of Peely. Like the shipping forecast, if you could hear John play a speedmetal track at 45 (rather than 33) then the world still had hope left. About a year ago my connection to his show grew – for two reasons. First the BBC's streamed radio service got much better and so I could catch his show whenever online. I listened a lot more than before and often listened to some shows twice as they had so many good tracks (e.g. the Jawbone live blues show he did.) Secondly, Parasite's record label, Death$ucker, had the Bong Ra 'Riddim Wars' 7" played on the show – this rocked. My mates music was on John Peel, for fucks sake! The world was ours! Since then I noticed that Peely had played lots of stuff on his show from Death$ucker including Gusset, D'Kat as well as other top acts Big Joan and Movietone to name but a few.

It’s a sad day for music. RIP, John.

The Quagmire of Empire

The vacillation and subservient compliance of the Neo-Labour government of the issue of sending UK troops into the maelstrom, raises a number of interesting points. On the one hand given is a war – that what you do – fight. But the media discourse on the issue seems to revolve around the issue of rules of engagement and the differing approaches of the UK/US forces. Again the media refuse to see the larger issue. To me, what this whole issue shows is just how much of a client state we are. We see the evidence for this again and again – the fact that the decision to go to war was taken a long time before the public discourse, that there was never any question of the UK backing the US and now, UK troops are to be used as a political football by the US.

Neo-Labour ministers have been busy tying to say this is not a political deployment and claiming that it will not be noticed in the US: (e.g. Caroline Flint on Question Time 21/10/04, "I don’t think that people in Boston, Milwaukee or Chicago are going to be particularly affected by what is a military decision.") Bullshit. I checked google news to see what US media outlets have picked up on the deployment – and surprise, surprise – its quite a few: Boston Globe, Kansas City Star, Houston Chronicle, Washington Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, CNN, Voice of America, ABC News, Bloomberg, USA Today - to name but a few. Looks like the editors of the US do think this re-deployment is news.

Time for us to wake up and smell the coffee.

PS. Crimethink have a new poster out...