Previously I wrote on the continuing special friendship between Anwar Ibrahim - the Pentagon specifically - and the American imperial power in general. I suggested that we need to understand the consequences of this pattern of alliance.

Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 , a huge success in the United States, attempts to de-construct 'perception management' by exposing the supposed alliance between the Bush dynasty, Dick Cheney and Halliburton , the Bin Laden family, and the Pentagon that led to the quagmire in American and world politics.

Only by looking at events from a political-economic perspective and by understanding the notion of perception-management can we discern the complexities of these potentially dangerous liaisons. By perception management, I mean the ability of one to use print, broadcast, and digital media to enhance one's disposition in the eyes of the public. Public perception can be crafted, and manipulated, including via the use of 'pulp fiction' endorsing who would be the next dictator, president, or prime minister.

We might, engage in many years of living dangerously if we do not know how to de-construct the inner workings of perception management and read these signs of our times. (See my second column - 'Reading' the book of signs )

It is said that capitalism, when it no longer can carry its own internal weight, creates wars that blind us of internal issues and manages perception by displaying anger towards external others.

National anger can be translated into international conflicts, masking the issue that is based on the political economy of control over strategic resources.

To appease the masses that are angry over the issues that govern their daily existence, governments may consciously or uncontrollably divert the national attention into somewhat nationalistic expression directed at some 'foreign power'.

For instance, during the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution of 1789, France went to war with Marie Antoinette's Prussia in order to save the enfant republic from its new internal contradictions.