All around us in America, we are surrounded by examples of low expectations not being met by young people, whether it's academic achievement or television programming. Today's networks are engaged in a race to the bottom with reality TV and news programs that insult the intelligence of most 12 year olds.
Have any of the networks noticed that something happened on cable television, outside the news segment, that suggested that people are interested in watching truly challenging, engaging programming? I'm thinking of shows like 6 Feet Under. Then there's shows like Desperate Housewives and Battlestar Galactica, which combine a pulpy soap opera format with a wink and a nod to slip in some truly thought provoking programming into America's living rooms. Ok maybe "truly thought provoking" is an exaggeration, but it's not utter mind rot either.
News programming is on people's televisions because it is what is on at dinner time. I don't think that many people really watch it. And the main reason is that it is neither entertaining, nor interesting. Fox news is entertaining. The New York Times is interesting. It's hard to both, as it is hard to be all things to all people. But I suggest that the networks could try something no one has ever done on network news before: challenge their audiences and engage them with interesting thoughts and ideas. I think they'd be surprised how many people rose to the occasion. Otherwise it's only a matter of time until we have naked anchor people and circus clowns reading the news.
Those of us who have had the good fortune to live in other country’s, even our next door neighbor Canada, have also had the chance to watch news, state-sponsored and otherwise, that is far more hard-hitting and remains truly investigative. The CBC's "Fifth Estate" has produced thoroughly investigated, highly revealing stories. I would love to hear Karl Rove's spun-up response to the episode they did detailing Bush II's long business history with the Saudis.
One does begin to wonder how much responsibility the news media has for today's sorry state of affairs at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. One wonders if the media tried to pursue the actual facts and substance of issues, rather than regurgitate "objectively" what Karl Rove said the night before, perhaps there would be a louder response to the state of tyranny we find ourselves in. Admittedly, the news media makes a product and sells it and I am not naive enough to think otherwise, but I truly believe you can make a compelling, exciting product that is also beneficial to viewers -- broccoli can be made to taste good. Imagine the sensation that you could generate with a top news story of "Bush policy seems to break the law, again!"
Good night, and good luck.
29 January 2006
25 January 2006
"It's Very Carefully Done"
That's what General Mike Hayden has to say about the NSA's pre-emtpive, warrantless domestic spying initiative. I wonder if they're using the same careful procedures that the US military has used to re-build Iraq? Tho re-build New Orleans? To rebuild Iraq's oil pipelines? Why does the White House or the NSA think they have any credibility, when they have been so incompetent, they can't even get Haliburton to pump oil in Iraq? These people are so useless they can't even steal money given to them! It's as though the rule of law has left the building in America. Our spying operations in the Middle East have been totally incompetent and useless. We don't know where Osama is. We don't know where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is (or we pretend not to). These are the same people that said Saddam had WMD and was in cahoots with al-qaeda. These are the same people who were offered the 20 names of the future hijackers by the "black prince" of Qatar and said, "naw, not tonight." These are the people who kept tabs on Saddam by calling up the Kuwaiti border guard and asking what they could see through their binoculars. This useless, incompetent, mean-spirited administration is concerned with only one thing: permanent power and money. I'm sure they'll have a nice time talking to Hitler in hell. Can I get a "fuck you"? Can I get a "fuck you"? FUCK YOU!
24 January 2006
23 January 2006
make love like a pair of black wizards
| from reading my posts you can tell i'm no zen master. but i've had an interest in buddhism for quite some time, as it seems to offer practical steps towards a more peaceful and fulfilling life. i'm a little more than half-way through "buddhism plan and simple" and it's helping me keep one thing on my mind at a time. i've always been prone to existentialist thought, and i find this book helps me clear the clutter. it's not that hard for me to accept many of the ideas, but it gives me another way of looking that isn't quite so nihilistic. it's also helped me let go of judging and evaluating what i'm doing or thinking. i can always return to just seeing what is happening. |
22 January 2006
Democrats: Get a Platform (save time, I made one for you)
- Real Results, now, no spin required
- International Leadership
- Sensible Economic Policy
- Raise the bar in education, and not with tests
- Let the States decide on divisive social issues
- Real Energy Policy
- Healthcare
- Protect the Environment
- National Security
Politics under the Republican machine have become entirely, 100%, about spin. The Administration has either been totally incompetent (Katrina), or unabashedly handing out no-bid contracts to their friends (Haliburton). Either way, they screwed up a natural disaster, highlighting how unprepared we are to handle another terrorist attack, and there's no oil flowing in Iraq, even though we've given Haliburton billions of dollars to make it happen. Yet somehow everytime the White House says "black is white", some people still believe them. Give us leadership with real integrity that can point to real, measurable, documented, uncontested results. Like number of barrels of oil pumped in Iraq, response time in minutes to disaster, number of containers inspected in ports.
Democracts seem to think that the only way to beat the Republicans is to engage in their own game. That's like saying to beat the Mafia, we'll be a bigger, badder gangster than they are. Because the Republican leadership, at the end of the day, is a mix of fundamentalist preachers and morally derelict crooks, you will never, ever beat them at their own game. So don't bother playing it. Play a real game, called delivering real results to tax payers, now. The economy is surging and our paychecks aren't keeping pace with inflation. Bush can say whatever he wants about tax cuts for the rich, we all know his policy is bullshit and we're all getting screwed. It should not be hard to leverage that in an easy to understand message. Try this: "Under Bush, big corporations and CEOs made more money, while you made less. That's because Republican polices keep the rich richer and you poorer. Vote him out and get your fair share."
Call a spade a spade: Saudi Arabia is not our friend; Uzbekistan is not our friend, etc. We've poured billions of dollars into regimes that torture their citizens and support terrorism against the US. It's time for that to end. The Taliban learned their trade from CIA handlers who thought they were doing a good, fighting the Soviet Union.
Bush has squandered our international leadership position when it comes to issues like human rights and civil liberties. We all know the story of the prime minister of Egypt, when asked why he tortured prisoners, said "Hey, what do you want, America does it!" We must lead by example. We must hold ourselves and our country to a higher standard than anyone else.
Deficit spending, pork barrel spending, incredible defense spending, an overstretched military, "farm" subsidies, tax the poor to feed the rich... the unbelievably retro economic policy of this Administration is unbelievable. Like I said, the economy is surging and our paychecks are shrinking.
Labor unions, manufacturing, and the politics of the 60's are over. The Democratic party must grow into the new marketplace, where we are competing with India and China to keep our economy vital. We need to invest in research and development, not future combat systems. The Internet exists because of basic R&D. Yes, it was a DARPA project, but it was not a combat system. It was an IT system designed to survive a nuclear war.
We have to use free market policies -- yes, Democracts, own it: the Republicans have totally abandoned the idea of free market economics, with no-compete bids, farming out the Medicare drug benefit with the hamstrings cut so that we can't use mass negotiation to get cheaper drugs, etc -- to let farms compete to survive. Our current policy is bad for the earth and squeezes out family farms. We need to encourage the creation of markets for family farms. Today's consumers want heritage meats and organic fruits and vegetables. Meanwhile, we're dumping cotton at below wholesale costs, making it impossible for third world countries to compete.
The message: "Balance the budget, stop subsidizing bad business, make government programs work for you to reign in costs. If government is spending money, demand accountability. Dump defense projects that don't create results. Invest in the future with R&D."
Picking up on the last point: Our high school graduates have no useful skills. It's because we expect so little of them. It's possible that local school districts should be able to do whatever they want, and compete for customers. People who want their children to learn the bible and creationism in school can live in school districts where such things are taught -- after all, it's a free country, that's their purgative. And parents who want their children to know calculus by the time they finish 10th grade can live in school districts that offer such programs. States should decide what the requirements are, not the federal government. States ought to be able to establish what they consider failing school zones.
The teacher's union has to go. It is a disaster for our children. No one is thinking outside the box on education. The racist exurb residents and the bible thumpers don't value education, and inner city and rural students pay the price. The Volvo driving elites like to echo tired platitudes, but they all know that education begins at home. At the end of the day, Americans don't value education, and the teacher's union makes sure that no radical changes take place. We all know that the earth is flattening and our work face will be competing worldwide, and we aren't doing anything nearly radical enough to be prepared for this future. The old, "liberal" policies of the 60's must go. Screw the teacher's union.
Ironically, the Republicans and the right wingers have become the proponents of an intrusive Federal Government, deciding what we can and can't do, based on their beliefs and values. Whatever happened to conservatives who support states rights?
Issues like gay marriage, abortion, and so on, should be local issues. America is about to reach a population of 300 million. We don't all agree on some basic issues, such as: how much the Christian bible is a part of our lives; abortion; gay marriage; etc. There are practical problems when neighboring states have different abortion laws, but the fact is that this issue needs to be settled by legislation. There should be a clear law about abortion, not a Supreme Court decision about privacy, protecting a woman's right to choose. Backwater states with backwater laws can watch their populations shrink as people move to states with laws that reflect their needs, values, and beliefs.
This same concept applies to gay marriage. Some people really care, and some people really don't. States should decide. There's no reason for their to be a federal law or a Constitutional amendment around an issue that has always been handled locally.
Buying oil from unstable states like Saudi Arabia and Nigeria props up those unstable regimes, while the citizens of those countries get the shaft. In addition, living in a country where anywhere outside of the D.C. - Boston corridor means owning a car, we must invest in real public transit. Let the highways rot. Cars pollute. If people want to live in a 3 BR 2 bath house, make them pay. Houses should have a highway and energy consumption tax so middle class families that insist on living this way pay their fair share for the impact it has on society. You want to avoid the reactionary charge that "we know what's best for you" and the urban fascism argument. The idea is that you can do whatever you want, as long as you pay your fair share.
Give us a single payer system, for God's sake. It's destorying our economy and ruining our ability to compete. GM is going down b/c they can't afford to pay the health care benefits of their retirees. Pension plans (like IBM's) are following suits. Employer-offered insurance means that a small, elite group gets coverage that costs an incredible amount, since everyone else has to go to the emergency room to get treatment. Americans need to realize that their demand for drugs and care is ruining our economy. OK, they won't want to hear that, but I think you can say "GM's debt is junk status because they can't afford health care. It's time for a change." That's a nice sound bite for you.
This is important, but it's much more important to talk about it from a national security point of view. Protect the environment by continuing to protect our parks and wildlife -- it's what makes this country worth dying for. And reducing energy consumption means reducing our dependence on the country's that seek to destroy us.
This is at the bottom b/c that's where it belongs. Stop letting fear and jingoism rule the day. Have the courage to call this what it is: a scare tactic, fear mongering, implicit racism, imperial war mongering, etc. Go big or go home. In the meantime, take the steps outlined above and you'll have improved our security 1000%. We'll be a respected world leader.
But, we should be taking threats seriously. Instead of launching pet project wars, focus on the real issues: Iran, North Korea, port security, nuclear power plant protection (hello, Indian Point is 25 miles from NYC), chemical and industrial plant protection, mass transit (Amtrak, NYC MTA, etc). Focus on real, measurable results, and the effective use of homeland security money. Businesses use metrics to measure results, this is an area where it's so easy to show how useless Bush has been at protecting us, making the world more dangerous for America. Show us how you'll protect us with real numbers. Inspect 50% of all containers entering ports in by the first 100 days, etc.
Make big commitments and deliver. Make people expect more, not less.
19 January 2006
Democracy Now Rules
I love my radical left radio -- especially when it truly presents a balanced, professional newscast. While no right-wingers would be able to sit still during this broadcast, the tone of the program is objective news journalism. Amy Goodman is articulate, intelligent, calm, and even-handed. As often as possible, representatives from all points of views are presented on the program. If Human Rights Watch makes a statement, they broadcast Scott McClellan's response (which is usually so absolutely absurd, no commentary is necessary). Check these links:
- http://www.democracynow.org/
- http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/index.html
- http://www.bushcommission.org/
17 January 2006
12 January 2006
mo' money, mo' problems
yeah it's all epistolary today... a letter written to an old friend who asked how was i doing.
as for how i'm doing… it's a mixed bag. having money ultimately gives you more choices in life, but one's day-to-day experience of living is no better and no worse than it was when i was broke. it's just a different set of problems, arguably more complex and irritating ones. i think the idea is that when you have money, you are to pay other people to deal w/ your problems (heh, like a shrink! though i was thinking more of lawyers and those people you can hire in nyc to do anything for you). i feel like my life consists entirely of calling 1-800 numbers and filling out forms. i feel passionless -- but when i wasn't working, i was depressed from having no money. it feels like you can't win. i want to live in a thatched hut on an island and get really weird.
actually, kiona and i both share a dream of living on some acreage in costa rica or something like that. that sounds like one of those things you say when you have a desk job that you're never going to actually do.
so aside from the usual existential crisis about the worth of how i'm spending my time, i'm good. i never, ever thought i would be as good a coder as i've become. i've learned so much from this job and i'm so much more effective, precise, and thorough than i've ever been. i'm getting towards mastery. i suspect if i can survive another couple of years doing this, i will master it, and then my work will take up a lot less time and energy, and i can spend my days calling 1-800 numbers and filling out forms, instead of my nights.
i just bought a new PC exclusively for the purpose of playing games. jk has been filling me in on what to play. i'm sure many doctoral thesises are being written about battlefield 2.
i suppose given that the majority of my blood has russian roots, i should give up on being a shiny happy person and just continue to polish my cynical jokes. i'm doing this mentoring program where i work with 9th graders in seattle's worst high schools. it's one of the hardest, most demanding things i've ever done. but it's been interesting -- not so much the kids, i kind of knew what to expect there -- but the other mentors. i do sometimes think david lynch has it right, we need to just get 8,000 people going om around the world more regularly. the lack of experience i see in the other mentors with the nature of being human is shocking, and it's nice to see people put themselves in a context, like mentoring high school kids, that forces them to stare more deeply into the abyss.
she writes back:
mo' money, mo' problems, eh?
there are more than 8000 people OMing right now, so it takes a few more than that, so join them often. I do it a half hour each day but need to up the ante during these troubled times. and plenty of desk jockeys do bugger off to costa rica or the blackberry farm or the himalayas -- only rich people can afford to be poor in the old ways -- so if that's what you want put your energy toward it... anyway I want the acreage too and so do most people in their right minds, so don't just "share the dream" but make the plan.
as for how i'm doing… it's a mixed bag. having money ultimately gives you more choices in life, but one's day-to-day experience of living is no better and no worse than it was when i was broke. it's just a different set of problems, arguably more complex and irritating ones. i think the idea is that when you have money, you are to pay other people to deal w/ your problems (heh, like a shrink! though i was thinking more of lawyers and those people you can hire in nyc to do anything for you). i feel like my life consists entirely of calling 1-800 numbers and filling out forms. i feel passionless -- but when i wasn't working, i was depressed from having no money. it feels like you can't win. i want to live in a thatched hut on an island and get really weird.
actually, kiona and i both share a dream of living on some acreage in costa rica or something like that. that sounds like one of those things you say when you have a desk job that you're never going to actually do.
so aside from the usual existential crisis about the worth of how i'm spending my time, i'm good. i never, ever thought i would be as good a coder as i've become. i've learned so much from this job and i'm so much more effective, precise, and thorough than i've ever been. i'm getting towards mastery. i suspect if i can survive another couple of years doing this, i will master it, and then my work will take up a lot less time and energy, and i can spend my days calling 1-800 numbers and filling out forms, instead of my nights.
i just bought a new PC exclusively for the purpose of playing games. jk has been filling me in on what to play. i'm sure many doctoral thesises are being written about battlefield 2.
i suppose given that the majority of my blood has russian roots, i should give up on being a shiny happy person and just continue to polish my cynical jokes. i'm doing this mentoring program where i work with 9th graders in seattle's worst high schools. it's one of the hardest, most demanding things i've ever done. but it's been interesting -- not so much the kids, i kind of knew what to expect there -- but the other mentors. i do sometimes think david lynch has it right, we need to just get 8,000 people going om around the world more regularly. the lack of experience i see in the other mentors with the nature of being human is shocking, and it's nice to see people put themselves in a context, like mentoring high school kids, that forces them to stare more deeply into the abyss.
she writes back:
mo' money, mo' problems, eh?
there are more than 8000 people OMing right now, so it takes a few more than that, so join them often. I do it a half hour each day but need to up the ante during these troubled times. and plenty of desk jockeys do bugger off to costa rica or the blackberry farm or the himalayas -- only rich people can afford to be poor in the old ways -- so if that's what you want put your energy toward it... anyway I want the acreage too and so do most people in their right minds, so don't just "share the dream" but make the plan.
Where's the American Edict of Nantes?
I gotta say, I outdid myself on this one. In response to this David Brooks editorial:
To the Editor--
Mr. Brooks takes the current debate over Alito into the context of the great divide of the Democratic party that happened in post-FDR, civil rights-era America. I'm tired of this conversation. The Democratic party of Ted Kennedy has little to no relationship with the concerns of today's young people. I'm taking a bold step and speaking for the many people under 40 that I know who long for the days of Republicans who wanted smaller government and fiscal responsibility, who made the odd tip of the hat to the right wing lunatic fringe to grab some extra votes. I'd take 80's Republicans over 00's (naughties?) Democrats any day -- at least they had a governing policy for me to agree or disagree with.
Most people would characterize my views, much like my idol Foucault's, as ranging from the highly radical to the highly reactionary. Many of my peers share this characteristic. We are university educated white collar professionals, and we feel that reality TV has more substance and depth than today's Washington, D.C. We are totally disenfranchised. We're sick of baby boomers rehashing the struggles of the 60's and passing that off as political debate. We see right through all the song and dance, the dog and pony show. We show our interest in this 2 party system quite plainly: we don't vote. Whether you're talking about the Clinton White House, Bush II (who'll never write this country's much-needed Edict of Nantes), or Reagan, the White House has been driven by pure cash money politics since at least 1980, while all the conversation has covered low-impact wedge issues that make a poor substitute for real policy. I for one am sick of it. I'm sick of baby boomers with their stupid culture wars while the country goes to hell. I'm sick of living in an empire where the legislature consists of ineffective knee-jerk whiners and bellicose imperial servants. Most of all, I'm sick of the never ending self-centeredness of baby boomers who are all yelling at each other in the kitchen, soccer mom vs. liberal elite, while the terrorists set-up base camp in our frontlawn, using all the toys and techniques we gave them and taught them for the last 20 years. Is it going to take 9/11 part 2 for this country to wake up and get real?
To the Editor--
Mr. Brooks takes the current debate over Alito into the context of the great divide of the Democratic party that happened in post-FDR, civil rights-era America. I'm tired of this conversation. The Democratic party of Ted Kennedy has little to no relationship with the concerns of today's young people. I'm taking a bold step and speaking for the many people under 40 that I know who long for the days of Republicans who wanted smaller government and fiscal responsibility, who made the odd tip of the hat to the right wing lunatic fringe to grab some extra votes. I'd take 80's Republicans over 00's (naughties?) Democrats any day -- at least they had a governing policy for me to agree or disagree with.
Most people would characterize my views, much like my idol Foucault's, as ranging from the highly radical to the highly reactionary. Many of my peers share this characteristic. We are university educated white collar professionals, and we feel that reality TV has more substance and depth than today's Washington, D.C. We are totally disenfranchised. We're sick of baby boomers rehashing the struggles of the 60's and passing that off as political debate. We see right through all the song and dance, the dog and pony show. We show our interest in this 2 party system quite plainly: we don't vote. Whether you're talking about the Clinton White House, Bush II (who'll never write this country's much-needed Edict of Nantes), or Reagan, the White House has been driven by pure cash money politics since at least 1980, while all the conversation has covered low-impact wedge issues that make a poor substitute for real policy. I for one am sick of it. I'm sick of baby boomers with their stupid culture wars while the country goes to hell. I'm sick of living in an empire where the legislature consists of ineffective knee-jerk whiners and bellicose imperial servants. Most of all, I'm sick of the never ending self-centeredness of baby boomers who are all yelling at each other in the kitchen, soccer mom vs. liberal elite, while the terrorists set-up base camp in our frontlawn, using all the toys and techniques we gave them and taught them for the last 20 years. Is it going to take 9/11 part 2 for this country to wake up and get real?
06 January 2006
Blood-ties vs. Armies
The Imperative of military organization. I was just sitting at my desk chuckling, thinking about how the work that has taken up the last 2 months of my time has served many purposes for my employer. One of the purposes seems to be to emphasize the need my company has for my department. In large corporate bureaucracies, managers are a lot like samurai seeking to curry favor with the local daimyo, mafia street soldiers looking to rise up the ranks by earning, etc.
I don't blame my boss for doing what he has to do. In fact, I am thankful that he has consistently worked to create work for me and my co-workers to do. Our group has gone from being a glorified operations team that mostly tracks and fixes bugs, to a team that owns services from top to bottom. We own the machines, we monitor them, we fool around with the logs, we get paged at 2am if they break, etc. Soon, our services will, like a tree planting roots, become an integral part of the corporate ecosphere. We will be absorbed, borg-like, having achieved that most crucial of corporate achievements: we will be a dependency.
My boss' managers don't say to him, "how can I help you do you work?" but they say, "what work are you doing for me that gives me something to say to my boss?" What kick-back have you provided that our clan can contribute to the clan boss? The unique and interesting thing about corporate America is that we use military methodology to achieve our aims. Using bio-technology, which Foucault would consider a bio-power, a forming and sculpting, a shaping of the body and mind via repeated, precise motions and thoughts, corporations extract ever-increasing productivity out of their employees. This is fine, I'm not judging it. A corporation's job is to make money, and it means I have a job, and maybe one day I can start my own company and get in on the action.
I never understood why Foucault was so interested in the metaphor of war in his lectures in "Society Must Be Defended". It seemed really abstract. But when I had my little a-ha moment about why I am doing what I'm doing these days at work, it all kind of clicked. I think the bit about war stemmed naturally from his studies in Discipline and Punish, where he first elucidates the spread of the military disciplinary techniques to all western institutions: school, work, hospital, etc.
I have also been thinking about this topic in another light. I was reading this article this morning, and I'm also reading Robert Baer's See No Evil. I've talked about this before, but think about it in this context I've just written about. Westerners have a lot of trouble thinking about organizational entities in terms outside the bounds of a military-like hierarchical structure, for whom existence is in and of itself of value. Let me try to put it another way: it seems to me that westerners view the creation of institutions or groups is an inherent good, and further more, one of their reasons for being is simply to be. Growing in size, acquiring more "power", responsibility, etc. These are why groups form in the western view. That is, they are like armies, seeking to grow in size and power, to be able to conquer other armies.
Presently we are more refined in our militaristic practice. But the culture of bio-power, of using military training techniques to sculpt the minds and bodies of all people, has become transparent -- that is to say, it is everywhere around us, such that it has become invisible. It is like sunlight. I've been thinking about this in the context of Iraq. I think there are plenty of lower-level government agents and officials, like Robert Baer, who would be able to engage in this conversation, correcting my incorrect history, etc. -- but grasping the concept. But all we ever see in the papers is quotes from big Generals who say things like, "Well the Al Qaeda's were utilizing what we call an IED dependent counter-counter insurgent tactical strike operation, designed to weaken our point of presense on the enemy's periphery." They think of it as a tactical organization that exists for the sake of existing, whose goal is to exist as a militaristic concentration of power.
They have never dealt with people who have never been exposed to the bio-power conditioning techniques of the west. They can't conceive of the family, the bloodline, and the neighborhood as the central tenants of a group. Outside the West (Mexico in this case is not the West), it's all about family. Who's your cousin, who did she marry? What neighborhood are you from? It's about the power of the word and the bond. The reason individuals partake in the struggle is that something close to their heart is threatened. Their family, their neighborhood, etc. They don't care about forming an army and conquering. Someone has committed a sin -- like the American heathens have invaded -- and they need to be punished, which usually means getting killed. The whole idea and methodology of terrorism is born out of a community that is not just underequipped, I think they are wholly uninterested in empire-building, at least in the Western sense of it. They are not interested in the Roman style of conquest. I need to formulate this theory more thoroughly.
Products in this article:
I don't blame my boss for doing what he has to do. In fact, I am thankful that he has consistently worked to create work for me and my co-workers to do. Our group has gone from being a glorified operations team that mostly tracks and fixes bugs, to a team that owns services from top to bottom. We own the machines, we monitor them, we fool around with the logs, we get paged at 2am if they break, etc. Soon, our services will, like a tree planting roots, become an integral part of the corporate ecosphere. We will be absorbed, borg-like, having achieved that most crucial of corporate achievements: we will be a dependency.
My boss' managers don't say to him, "how can I help you do you work?" but they say, "what work are you doing for me that gives me something to say to my boss?" What kick-back have you provided that our clan can contribute to the clan boss? The unique and interesting thing about corporate America is that we use military methodology to achieve our aims. Using bio-technology, which Foucault would consider a bio-power, a forming and sculpting, a shaping of the body and mind via repeated, precise motions and thoughts, corporations extract ever-increasing productivity out of their employees. This is fine, I'm not judging it. A corporation's job is to make money, and it means I have a job, and maybe one day I can start my own company and get in on the action.
I never understood why Foucault was so interested in the metaphor of war in his lectures in "Society Must Be Defended". It seemed really abstract. But when I had my little a-ha moment about why I am doing what I'm doing these days at work, it all kind of clicked. I think the bit about war stemmed naturally from his studies in Discipline and Punish, where he first elucidates the spread of the military disciplinary techniques to all western institutions: school, work, hospital, etc.
I have also been thinking about this topic in another light. I was reading this article this morning, and I'm also reading Robert Baer's See No Evil. I've talked about this before, but think about it in this context I've just written about. Westerners have a lot of trouble thinking about organizational entities in terms outside the bounds of a military-like hierarchical structure, for whom existence is in and of itself of value. Let me try to put it another way: it seems to me that westerners view the creation of institutions or groups is an inherent good, and further more, one of their reasons for being is simply to be. Growing in size, acquiring more "power", responsibility, etc. These are why groups form in the western view. That is, they are like armies, seeking to grow in size and power, to be able to conquer other armies.
Presently we are more refined in our militaristic practice. But the culture of bio-power, of using military training techniques to sculpt the minds and bodies of all people, has become transparent -- that is to say, it is everywhere around us, such that it has become invisible. It is like sunlight. I've been thinking about this in the context of Iraq. I think there are plenty of lower-level government agents and officials, like Robert Baer, who would be able to engage in this conversation, correcting my incorrect history, etc. -- but grasping the concept. But all we ever see in the papers is quotes from big Generals who say things like, "Well the Al Qaeda's were utilizing what we call an IED dependent counter-counter insurgent tactical strike operation, designed to weaken our point of presense on the enemy's periphery." They think of it as a tactical organization that exists for the sake of existing, whose goal is to exist as a militaristic concentration of power.
They have never dealt with people who have never been exposed to the bio-power conditioning techniques of the west. They can't conceive of the family, the bloodline, and the neighborhood as the central tenants of a group. Outside the West (Mexico in this case is not the West), it's all about family. Who's your cousin, who did she marry? What neighborhood are you from? It's about the power of the word and the bond. The reason individuals partake in the struggle is that something close to their heart is threatened. Their family, their neighborhood, etc. They don't care about forming an army and conquering. Someone has committed a sin -- like the American heathens have invaded -- and they need to be punished, which usually means getting killed. The whole idea and methodology of terrorism is born out of a community that is not just underequipped, I think they are wholly uninterested in empire-building, at least in the Western sense of it. They are not interested in the Roman style of conquest. I need to formulate this theory more thoroughly.
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05 January 2006
The 22nd Amendment
RE: No More Second-Term Blues
To the Editor--
In light of today's White House, which adheres to the law only when it is so inclined, I view the 22nd amendment as one of the few safeguards against a complete dictatorship in the US. I hardly think it would raise an eyebrow to hear Dick Cheney say, "The President needs to be remain in office indefinitely in the interests of national security and the war on terrorism." (Maybe that's what Bob Ney and Tom DeLay were thinking when they were taking kickbacks from Jack Abromoff too!) I think this is one of the worst ideas I have ever seen in the Op-Ed pages. What we really need is more of a parliamentary-style "vote of no confidence" instead of term limits, so that we could recall our current President right now rather than have to hope that we don't start WWIII before he leaves office.
To the Editor--
In light of today's White House, which adheres to the law only when it is so inclined, I view the 22nd amendment as one of the few safeguards against a complete dictatorship in the US. I hardly think it would raise an eyebrow to hear Dick Cheney say, "The President needs to be remain in office indefinitely in the interests of national security and the war on terrorism." (Maybe that's what Bob Ney and Tom DeLay were thinking when they were taking kickbacks from Jack Abromoff too!) I think this is one of the worst ideas I have ever seen in the Op-Ed pages. What we really need is more of a parliamentary-style "vote of no confidence" instead of term limits, so that we could recall our current President right now rather than have to hope that we don't start WWIII before he leaves office.
03 January 2006
Better Writers Than Me
"There is a clear, unambiguous law, and the President did not obey it. That equals illegal, whatever his reasons. The President's assertion -- that he is qualified and entitled to assess the applicability of the law and to ignore it at will -- is the only relevant question."
Read it all here.
Read it all here.
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