brian carroll on Sun, 16 Sep 2001 17:42:32 +0200 (CEST)


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<nettime> a call to peace...



  late last week i sent a post that did not make it to the
  list, which attempted, albeit imperfectly, a strategy to
  address issues of anti-globalization, intellectual property,
  and copyright, using a different logic, a different reasoning,
  a different language than that of opposition:

  http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-bold-0109/msg00151.html

  the logic of war: either-or

  when things are in a closed system, sides can be taken,
  and predictable outcomes can occur. it may be no one's
  choice. to make, to change, but a group of people whom
  work together, cooperation before competition, or at
  least a balancing of these. but, today, pragmatic logic
  that reigns from the enlightenment era, quantum paradox
  and its logic be damned.

  war is a simple test, if attacked, retaliate. US President
  Bush used the word 'test' in his addressing the Country,
  which brought tears to my eyes, as it is all predictable.
  this is not standardized testing though, there are more
  than two choices, but in the logic of either-or, there
  are two choices, for and against, anti- and what is.

  understandably, people, including the Mayor of NYC and
  Governor of NY state this attack as having no reason,
  that it is illogical why anyone would kill innocents.
  this is the status quo of a media system which does
  not offer alternative views of the situation, that
  many people do have reasons for attacking the US.
  but the US is like an island, interior, insulated.
  but no more. many refer to this as Pearl Harbor II.

  a grave concern for anti-movements now underway

  in a world of either-or logic, those whom are working
  peacefully or not, for change, are suspect. predictable
  in that opposition in a closed system leads to war.
  the post that did not make it to the nettime-list
  was meant to suggest that by changing the logic of
  movements of critque and change, that representation
  could be had, not through the same logic of opposition
  and concilliation, but democratic debate, that it could
  be a goal, to get to an open table to discuss issues,
  but not in traditional terms. but to define and de-
  lineate 'public' and 'private' aspects of globalisation,
  intellectual property, and whatnot.

  the concern being that those who stay in opposition-
  mode, internal or external to the US, are now the
  enemy of the people, as portrayed by the media. and,
  scarier still to imagine, that some in the movement
  may find 'victory' in this war-mongering, as it is
  equal and opposite violence to the ideology that
  is trying to be transformed through people and
  their democratic efforts to enact change.

  the clampdown, soon to occur, is of any difference
  to the status quo, it seems. any webpage, any connect-
  ion, any thing suspect. any affiliation. trust no one
  but those above. dissenting the same issues, in the
  same terms, is now not only cultural alienation, but
  also a life-death scenario, should it conntinue in
  violent methodologies, in words, in ideas, actions.

  if a goal could be to make public the processes,
  to define the private aspects that are at issue,
  and the private aspects that are necessary to the
  pragmatism of the everyday economy, yet, also, to
  include the public issues being set aside to promote,
  unabated, the development and refinement of a system
  that does not serve people as well as it serves the
  system, because it is a closed system.

  language is the way out, logic, truth, that is, the
  ideas. the actions. reasoning works, if it can be
  made to be included in the private workings. to
  get into the ideas, instead of bullets. to sit
  at a table or at a podium in debate, rather than
  have standoffs with citizen police, meant to protect
  the system that exists, yet, still, the rights of
  people, within limits.

  could it not be a goal, to get to the table, in
  public, to talk public ideas, with representation,
  in public policy on local and global levels? could
  this not be the goal of the movements underway,
  beyond opposition, but towards transformation...

  yet, the old logic is bureaucratic, it will not do.
  it is circular, looping, maddening. death be told.

  i worry about all the good people on the streets
  trying to make change, protesting, that they will
  now be considered the enemies of the state, as they
  use their rights to protest for change. but without
  a plan beyond the same-old logic. it will not work.
  it is a simple equation. an Standardized Apptitude
  Test (SAT), war or peace.

  please consider language, logic, and the rationale
  of anti-thinking, anti-acting, anti-ideological acts.
  they are now acts of war, violences, bullets, bombs,
  as dangerous as these, if not proposed in some other
  context which offers a different alternative to war,
  on the ground, but to vigorous democratic debate in
  public forums, tables, not tanks and tear-gas, as
  the field of operations. institutions need to open
  up discourse, but not to traditional pundits and
  their either-or logic, on all sides. but to the
  diplomacy of realistic change, with ideals, but
  also concilliations, compromise, and understanding.

  no platform here but that of a citizen whom does
  not find a place on either- side -or the other. it
  just doesn't make sense. it is not so simple. it is
  not one choice or the other, winner and losers.

  'the public' needs to be defined in policy, in
  actions. as does 'the private'. economics is a
  technology that pushes forward, that defines,
  and it is based on private initiatives, business.
  and policy follows. the free market, while it
  may work for private business, does not apply
  for the 'public free market of ideas'. there is
  none. everything is privitized by default.
  without a change in logic, in language, in
  reasoning, there is only the predictable. war.
  which is now underway.

  greatest fear now, given the symbolism of the
  attacks on the US, is a symbolic retaliation,
  which i myself fear is not going to be done
  by smart bombs, given the psyche of the damage
  to the present American ego, and damage to it.
  if done as bravado, as a show of force, i fear
  it could at some point be a tactical nuclear
  strike, given the stakes of where things are
  at. maybe in some remote location. but it is
  a fear. hopefully unfounded. but it seems the
  only thing as strong a show of force, equal
  and opposite, to the inner nuclear explosions
  which now are going off in the brains and the
  emotions of people in the US. everything is
  silent in the small island city where i live.
  quiet. no road ragers today. no honking. all
  is quiet. few cars. few people. silence.
  and waiting, around the televisions, to hear.



  the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings

  as reported on the design-list, the reason the World Trade
  Center buildings fell is because of their unique structural
  design (as stated by John Young of cryptome.org), which
  holds the video up from the outside walls, not from the
  interior of columns. thus, penetration of the outer walls
  caused total structural failure, and collapse, whereas in
  a traditional building of interior column design, would
  likely not have had the same effect of the plane crashes.

  ~g. from design-l mentiones http://www.stratfor.com as
  a good source for info on what is unfolding in the US.



  the weirdest thing i could ever imagine....

  a few months ago (1-3 months) i turned on the TV and
  tuned in the SF/east bay stations, and there was an
  odd movie on, i think it was an episode by the former
  creator of the X-files, or else a made-for-tv movie.

  in any case, the plot was: that the CIA was corrupt
  and needed to create terrorist actions to keep things
  under control. senior CIA people, i think one whom
  'went disappearing', showed up as part of a plan to
  drive a commercial airline into the World Trade Ctr
  (i believe it was these). the son, a geek detective,
  figured out his father was involved and somehow at
  the last minute, was able to turn the plane away
  before impact. but, like the movie the Manchurian-
  Candidate in reverse, the movie's plot was that the
  CIA was the one with plans to take such action.

  that this was a movie, or a tv episode, and a few
  months later this happens, at the World Trade Center,
  and also at the Pentagon, CIA hq, makes one wonder
  about the symbolism of such movie-making as a sub-
  text, a subverting of the movie-image into a type
  of reverse-propaganda of the freedom to imagine the
  absurd, and then, the imagined unimaginable indeed
  happens. the plane does crash. two do. one more
  hits the pentagon. ties into the movie plot rather
  well and makes such an odd, direct, literal connect-
  ion to this movie, that it is beyond belief. it is
  hard to believe such a symbolic act, and its prior
  symbolism in US tv-world of making-believe, is a
  tactic of reverse-pyscho-engineering.


  the fear

  those whom stick to the either-or logic, and those
  who try to move beyond it, everyone, becomes a terrorist
  for not 'thinking alike' in a bureacratic democracy, as
  it necessitates controlling chaos. that is, the people,
  not the technology. giving technology the freedom, the
  people, controlling and odering them to serve the needs,
  economic, social, and political as it is predefined and
  refined in the status quo worldview. how can one work
  for freedom if one dissents, works against, when there
  is a feasible need for a military state, in a state of
  war. freedoms are secondary to duty. to allegiance. to
  orders and controls. it is an impossible situation,
  beyond war war war, unless we can work together as
  public people, sharing a langauge, defining a shared
  logic (both-and, neither-nor, either-or) which is
  more able to address the complexities of paradox,
  of multiple viewpoints, of relativity, truth beyond
  power, but also dealing with the reality of where
  things are at today, realism in relation to idealism.



  it is predictable. closed system, closed thinking,
  closed logic. either-or leads only to war. peace,
  not through keeping things the same, but transforming
  through debate of ideas, not exchanging gunfire, but
  to address the unaddressed, in democratic free speech
  and the public ideas shared. public and private. a
  cooperation. a realization of what the issues are.
  beware of evangilists for the old worldview and its
  logic. it could be deadly. tables, debates, ideas,
  transformation, change, protesting for these, for
  not only inclusion and participation, but questioning
  of the very foundations of the current worldview.
  people are people, still. there is still hope in
  the human community to make change, within different
  ways of seeing/being. i plead for others to consider
  this, to consider how anti-this and that can lead
  to anti-thought, and just more one-sided (they win)
  tv news about how things are perceived. get in front
  of the cameras, with the ideas, the new logic, and
  think beyond the traditional model. it is opening
  up, through questioning, through better reasoning,
  through truth and consequence. freedom is at stake.


  please...


-- 
.. . . . .   .  ..  ..    . . . . ....  ..   ..  ... . . . . . . .
brian thomas carroll		the_electromagnetic_internetwork
electromagnetic researcher	matter, energy, and in-formation
human@electronetwork.org	http://www.electronetwork.org/

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