For 50 years after WWII, the US led grand narrative of the Western project has held despite some shaky moments. But now that narrative is unravelling. All the talk about spreading freedom and democracy around the world is increasingly seen by billions of people around the world as an excuse for keeping American consumers happy and voting for Tweedledum or Dee.

The global tide is turning. There is no reason to believe that President Bush will win his war against terror. Strategically, the tables have turned. Conventional military power is being undermined – and the global capital machine is now so finely tuned, so delicately balanced, that just one suicide bomber, one hand-held rocket launcher, one gram of anthrax or plutonium, has the potential to crash the whole deal.

Behind the vicious cycles of carnage, retribution and revenge, a new grand narrative is taking shape. Ideas like global governance, bio-economics and media democracy are gelling into a coherent new worldview, revealing the US led corporate/military/industrial order for the soul-destroying doomsday machine that it always was.

Today, as in the years leading up to the Russian and French revolutions, the eruptions of ‘68, and the fall of the Soviet Empire, the economic and political pressures are building up to boiling point. Two generations of overconsumption, decadence and denial have weakened America. American cool is now every bit as vulnerable as the Soviet Utopia was 15 years ago. A global economic crash followed by a major political upheaval is in the cards for 2005.

Kalle Lasn