[All the Luther Blissetts involved in the *Q* operation decided to turn every evening of their much-hyped promotional tour into an anti-war agit-prop performance. This text is based upon the stand-up act I'm doing these days, with striking responses from the audience (standing ovations, etc.) ]

KOSOVO, IRON LUNGS AND HARD COCKS

Although you're here because I'm a novelist, I'm not going to talk about my book. It would be *immoral* not to talk about this war, as military aircraft takes off from the Adriatic coast, just a few miles away from this bookstore.

As a matter of fact, *Q* is a Trojan horse manifactured by radical opponents to the present-day world order; its makers at the Luther Blissett Project managed to intrude themselves into Troy, that is mainstream pop culture, and now they're "hi-jacking" every conference, public reading and debate, taking every opportunity to speak out against bloodbath disguised as Humanitarianism". Now that Luther Blissett reached no.2 in the national Hit Parade of books, s/he's got the duty to be uncompromising. You'd rather listen to some complaisant hack? Fuck off and die, then.

What do you think our novel is about? In the 16th century the Great Powers of Europe were head over heels in debt, and had to stir up religious conflicts for strategical reasons. When these conflicts became gangrenous, new international alliances were stipulated to "enforce peace", liquidate God's enemies and establish a New European Order (1555, the Augsburg Treaty, "cuius regio, eius religio"). There were "multinational contingents" of Lansquenets, columns of refugees escaping from villages on fire, "limited national sovereignties" etc.

Is there something vaguely familiar? Ever get the feeling you're being cheated?
Doesn't the Fuggers' Bank resemble the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the likes? Doesn't Charles V's turbulent empire resemble today's Europe? Aren't today's "international police operations" carnages perpetrated by high-tech lansquenets in the name of God, Peace, Democracy or whatever can gild the poison pill? Historical novels, unless they're *Ramses*-like crap, are always political statements, and *Q* is our statement against "humanitarian" war propaganda, as well as - on another level of intepretation - against censorship, the new Inquisition and the ongoing Catholic "Reconquista" .

One is never delirious about mothers and fathers: one is delirious about nations, borders, ethnic groups, races, classes... In recent years we have been delirious about Europe - all of us: myself, the Pope, Milosevic, Emma Bonino, Marc Dutroux...
Europe doesn't exist, nor do we need to feel sorry about it. Identity is only and always something we've lost (or rather, something we never had), and the more we talk about Europe, "Europeanism", European Culture etc., the more these spectres fade away in the distance. United Europe is one of the tallest lies ever: Bundesbank, IMF, *Pensée Unique*, Enfopol, American bases everywhere... And yet it's no good to be "anti-American", just as it is useless to be "anti-European". There's no tactical choice but hiding ourselves *within* Europe in order to escape and make fun of kapos:

'Very few prisoners made up their mind about escaping from Dora, and those who tried were tracked down by the dogs and hung on their return to the camp... So the Russians adopted another tactic: one day they hid inside the camp, for example under a Block... The nazis sought for them outside, and obviously didn't find them... After a week they gave up searching. That's when the Russians escaped for real. They had good chances of making it, since nobody was seeking them anymore.'

The problem is not "America", "Europe" or "limited national sovereignties" etc. The problem is capital, its *unlimited* sovereignty. People talk about nationalisms and ethnic policies, but those are just epiphenomena: the telluric shock that causes subsidence and landslides is still the clash between classes, division of labor on a planetary scale... And yet epiphenomena have devastating consequences...

The NATO bombings prove that Europe doesn't exist. Just fancy Italy! This government is of little worth, a coalition of weaklings and pygmies. They're so used to talk about UDR being the tongue of the parliamentary compass, or the Senate's "mixed group" being over-crowded, that they hardly imagine there's a whole world outside the iron lung of grotesque provincialism that both emprisons them and keeps them alive (or rather, undead). It is stomach-turning enough to witness a bunch of freaks such as the PdCI [Partito dei Comunisti Italiani] becoming the coalition's "critical conscience", being content with the fact that "our" aircraft is not dropping bombs, while the whole country is reduced to a colossal flattop, and Italy is on the front row of this war.

NATO bombings considerably worsened the situation in Kosovo, interrupted food re-stockings and induced a large portion of Yugoslavian public opinion to side with Milosevic, turning the latter scumbag into a bold, daring patriot. Either Wesley Clark and his chums are a bunch of morons, or there's a hidden agenda common to both parties.

Does Kosovo really exist? Come on, let's be serious, who ever gave a flying fuck about Kosovo at NATO headquarters? I'm not the first to say that this pretext is absolutely unbelievable, and I'll change my mind when I witness NATO aircraft bombing Morocco in support of the Saharawi. It took years before people doubted the incident in the Tongking Gulf which provided the pretext for the Vietnam war. Progress exists after all: nobody really buys the bullshit about Rambouillet, not even those who vigorously state the contrary.
As to the KLA, we were repeatedly told that it comprised about 30,000 guerrillas, and yet Serbian comb-outs in Kosovo are encountering no armed opposition. Where are those 30,000 heroes? Why aren't they fighting back as they're backed up by NATO air strikes? Does the KLA really exist or is it an invention of US propaganda?

It might have been any other pretext, the aim is making "Europe" feel the presence of the *carabineros*, confirming that no antagonism will be tolerated on this soil. What is more, such a masculine strength test was necessary in order to supercede the Alliance's identity crisis, harden its character armor, prove that the balls (albeit rarely used) are still at their place, and no Milosevic may take the liberty of busting them.

However, as stated above, identity is something we've lost (just like rights: one starts to claim them once their violation has become everybody's recurrent behavior). NATO is a 50-year-old big man that never screwed but doesn't want to die a virgin, thus he assaulted and raped the first walk-up fuck he bumped into: Yugoslavia. A common idiom among "straight chauvinist males" goes: 'It takes an iron stomach and a steel toe-capped cock to screw a tart like that!'. As a matter of fact, NATO's cock *is* made of steel and the Serbian regime is far from looking good. As to the iron stomach, unfortunately *we* are the ones who need it, since the media are stuffing us with pseudo-humanitarian shit. In such cases, *ius resistantiae* [the right to resistance] encompasses retching and throwing up.

If there's no common hidden agenda, then Wesley Clark is an idiot. Where the fuck is the "art of war"? If Sun Tsu were alive, he'd beat NATO field officers with a stick. After less than a week of war, they no longer know what to do, we hear them arguing that black is white and white black, rambling about "phase B" and air-landing operations... A bunch of lunatics playing Risiko in the asylum's toy library.

And Bill Clinton? Posterity will remember him as a blow-job freak (which I am myself) and an exceptional instigator of Anti-Americanism. Each of his "humanitarian" operations increases hate. As Malcolm X would put it, the chickens of violence will return to Whitey's poultry pen: the US chose to play the "tough cop", but no-one's playing the "good cop". When some cops come to a very bad end, the Pentagon will resort to Nazi arithmetic ("One GI killed, ten civilians bombed"). Any sociopath with access to an arsenal will then stand as a hero of resistance, as Saddam, Milosevic and Osama Bin Laden are already doing. A shitstorm is to come, unless we ignite opposition here in the West.

Yes, Milosevic's regime is authoritarian, repressive, liberticide and, maybe, guilty of genocidal intentions, but... Does any of you remember what happened in Timisoara back in 1989? A fake carnage staged by coupists and former Securitate agents. Corpses were stolen from the morgue, mutilated and piled up in the street. And the snuff movies presumably shot by Serbian troopers in 1991-92? Nobody saw them, then the rumor slowly faded out. And that Swiss tourist who spent his thrilling holidays as a sniper on the Sarayevo hills? Did any of you meet him? I think we should think twice before buying the urban legends spread by the CIA's Shit Department.

Each time a nation, an army and/or a head of state are charged with "crimes against humanity" or whatever, check the ID of those who are "representing" wo/mankind: you'll probably find out that they're as rotten as the ones they're accusing. For instance, as regards Italy, the most enthusiastic advocates of this war are the Radical Party, Emma Bonino and the likes... I hope you remember that they also supported the Israeli massacres at Sabra and Chatila, as well as any other pogrom and butchery perpetrated by Israelis within and beyond their borders. Compared to their pal Begin, Milosevic is a merry prankster.

The US aircraft dropped on Vietnam thousands of dolls stuffed with explosive. The timing was perfect: they usually blew up while children were playing with them. Numberless splinters ran into the children's bodies, crippling forever those who didn't die there and then. The splinters were made of a plastic material, invisible to X-rays, impossible to remove surgically.
And Napalm? What a brilliant invention, a combustible that keeps burning you alive underwater. Other masterpieces were tested in Panama (1989) and Irak (1991) - to the extent that a number of Gulf veterans are dying of cancer due to contact with chemical weapons.

Aren't these "crimes agains humanity"? You bet your ass they are, and yet we never saw Norman Schwarzkopf on the dock, 'cause he was one of the good guys, *he* put people on the dock. We must refuse this "Cardassian" administration of justice (see *Star Trek: Deep Space Nine*), that sentences defendants as guilty *before* the trial. We must be suspicious of those who put the fingers on the world's public enemies, and always resist, sabotage and ridicule these international
police operations.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Luther Blissett, Faenza, 29 March 1999