For weeks they have said: once we're in a war, public support will swing behind it. I have never doubted this. That's one reason I have never appealed to the fact that 'the British people don't support this war'. The British People, whoever they are, did not set my political agenda in the miners' strike. Soon enough the slaughter may be naturalized. The conflagration we know to be wrong may seem to be granted legitimacy, not by law or argument, but by happening. 'The rational is the real' and vice versa: the difficulty of denying the actual. I fear for my instincts. I hope yours will not be dulled. A page in history turning: a new start. The US government apparently promises that after this, things will be different: they're going to be in charge, and do as they like. That will make a change. A new moral era. A grey gauze cast over the light of spring days, as we pass to another world founded on colossal crime. No world in which to live. I walk an early evening Oxford Street to see Evan Dando play. I have never seen such a crowd here. He starts with 'Eve of Destruction', a song I barely know but recognize enough. Today it electrifies. He goes into 'Rudderless', half the rest of Shame About Ray, tons more, rarely stopping for applause. He pauses for one speech in which he tells the truth about Dubya. The new Evan Dando record is marvellous. An amazing proportion of the songs are tuneful, touching, thoughtful. He's a sufficiently good lyricist to make baffling the old assertions about his stupidity. Yet at some level, for the first time, I feel what 9/11 made some people (and not me) feel: doubt about what all this can be worth; about where value can live, from now on. I walk back down towards Centre Point, imagining nuclear conflagrations set off by this unprovoked action. Last night a majority of the democratically elected representatives of the UK voted for it - voted to unload the most advanced military equipment in the history of our solar system, and probably our galaxy (to speculate beyond that level seems rash), upon a poor and weak nation which has been forced for months to destroy its weapons. A poor argument for democracy, these mad, bad fools, weak-minded yet all too strong. Westerns: if someone asks you for a fist-fight, you throw away your gun-belt. It insults cowboys to compare the US administration to them: that's what they want you think, and what crass half-thinking media encourage. The US administration insists that you drop your guns, so they can shoot you. If you don't drop them, they'll shoot you for not dropping them. If you drop them, they'll shoot you because you're unarmed. I think of this coldly calculated insanity, and think of the shame that should burn in the heart of all those bad people who voted for this carnage, and the worse people who drafted it to suit their own calendar. What will survive of them is evil. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+