blog (January, 2002)
The Visage of War
When I'm home I keep my head out of the general sort of global happenings -- the daily, the new -- to a large extent. I don't read the paper, (except the funnies,) or watch the news, and online I can avoid headlines and seek out the information I want - read about the parts of humanity I might be interested in. Here, it's easier in some respects, as my sphere of life is kind of outside the world, and global goings-on don't seem to affect me quite as much.
I am not completely isolated from things, though: My coworkers like to update me on the doings of crazy Americans, like the sniper and his short-lived reign of terror, and Bush and his own, larger scale and more terrifying, reign. And, living in a hostel, I meet others from around the world each day, and must confess to them that I share the same nationality of a lot of loony, shortsighted, and ignorant folks. I won't apologize for being American, nor am I embarrassed, but I will only be held accountable for the current situation to the extent that every other person in the world is responsible to the same degree. Everyone's a loony and everyone's shortsighted and ignorant. And everyone's responsible. I don't know enough about details to discuss politics. I don't want to. I know too much of it is selfishness and power struggle and bullshit, and I'm tired of it. I don't want war, or terror, or division.
I am not proud to be an American, nor am I ashamed. I have no reason to be proud (to hold respect for myself) because I was born in one place rather than another. I have no reason to be ashamed specifically of the actions of a people born near me. Any self respect and ashamedness I hold deals with me, and deals with humanity, and is not held to an artificial border of state.
Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice. Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.
-- H.D. Thoreau, Walden
luft of center
Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
--Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II (source: Bush Watch)
conditions for modern war
Since warefare, and the credible threat of resorting to it, is still at the core of state power, since the end of the Vietnam war strategists have been busy finding ways still to make war. Only under this condition can economic, technological, and demographic power be translated into domination over other states, the oldest game in humankind. Three conclusions were rapidly reached in advanced, democratic countries, regarding the conditions necessary to make war somewhat acceptable to society:
1. It should not involve common citizens, thus being enacted by a professional army, so that the mandatory draft should be reserved for truly exceptional circumstances, perceived as unlikely.
2. It should be short, even instantaneous, so that the consequences would not linger on, draining human and economic resources, and raising questions about the justification for military action.
3. It shold be clean, surgical, with destruction, even of the enemy, kept within reasonable limits and as hidden as possible from public view, with the consequence of linking closely information-handling, image-making, and war-making.
Dramatic breakthroughs in military technology in the last two decadres provided the tools to implement this socio-military strategy. Well-trained, well-equipped, full-time, professional armed forces do not require the involvement of the population at large in the war effort, except for viewing and cheering from their living rooms a particularly exciting sho, punctuated with deep patriotic feelings.
-- Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society
chomsky on middle east
What the right response was to the terrorist bombings on September 11 is another question. If we want to talk about that, we should be willing to establish some principles. So for example, one elementary principle is that if something is right for us, then it's right for others. If it's wrong for others, it's wrong for us. If we can't accept that principle, we can't even talk about right and wrong.So if those who believe that the right way to respond to September 11 was by bombing Afghans, should also believe that the right way to respond to US terror is by bombing Washington. I don't know anybody who believes that. I certainly don't.
...
It's extremely hard to take Bush and his advisers seriously when they talk about their reasons for wanting to depose Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein is a monster, there's no doubt about that. Getting rid of him would be a boon to the people of Iraq and the world. But Bush's advisers are not opposed to him because of his crimes or because of his efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction and we all know that.
-- Noam Chomsky, Interview: Lateline in Australia
Richard Melville Hall
Moby's website holds some essays he wrote included in some of his album liner notes. They're all short and worth reading; he is insightful and straightforward. Essay excerpts:
Bowie: What shall we be excited about tomorrow?
Moby: To see heaven in a grain of sand and eternity in a wildflower. And 'Cops' on Fox.
Bowie's Questions with Moby's Answers
the conservatives want a seemingly neat and compartmentalised society wherein stable appearances are maintained and archaic cultural archetypes are adhered to religiously. i grew up in a world of rigid cultural archetypes. i grew up with white businessmen going to office buildings while their wives stayed at home and their kids went to school. or, more accurately, i grew up with alcoholic, adulterous businessmen who lived culturally insular lives while their wives took sedatives and smoked cigarettes and vented their frustrations on their kids, and these same kids took reams of drugs, got abortions, drove drunk, and victimised the weaklings. i grew up in what most conservatives would consider a utopia; lots of money, prestige, cultural cohesion, and good conservative values. but their values were in fact aesthetics, and maintaining these aesthetics ruled and ruined their lives. almost everyone in this suburban bourgeoisie system hated their lives, but because they had been brought up to worship these aesthetic myths they felt that to question them was an admission of personal failure.
-- Moby, Cultural Conservativism
news from camp x-ray
...apparently about 4% of the caged birds are singing foully at their cagers:
I just got a late-night phone call from sno-dog down in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he's been playing jail guard for the Taliban/Al Qaeda/etc. Assurance upon assurance I received from him that he's been acting sufficiently ethically, and that, regarding the current buzz in the US media on the prisoner's treatment, "they are not getting any undeserved punishment." Perhaps that quote, taken out of context, misrepresents what he was saying, but he was purposely vague, and he left much to my own interpretation or imagination. I do the same for you.
I don't have the answers, just like everyone else. I cringe when I think of what's most likely going on in Afghanistan, but it's easier to excuse what's most likely going on in Cuba. It's my understanding that the prisoners there are signed, sealed, delivered evildoers, so it's excusable on a "you got what was coming to you" level. It gets hazy, however, in consideration of foot soldiers in another army, (and then certainly less hazy, tho on the other end of the spectrum in consideration of civilians.) I certainly can't see international scale right-from-wrong at my low rung of the information food chain - neither can you. But our country's leaders say "go and fight for us." Aren't we the same villainous despots to the opposing side as they are to us?
The product-of-one's-environment issue is a tricky one. Just less tricky when you're the guy that says, "yes, you should go fly a plane into a building and kill thousands of people."
I'm just glad I'm not there. Glad that I don't have to make those decisions, or be engaged in a moral struggle where the opposite side is fought with morals too. Glad that I don't have to harden myself, blind myself to rid myself of that struggle.
sweet dreams