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lo-tech terror

  
 
autopilot disengaged
09:28 / 02.10.01
USA911: what the fuck is going on?

more than two weeks on and no TV-friendly rally event? no CNN fireworks? there's no way i would've believed this level of restraint would be possible, especially under bush's kneejerk coalition of warmongering isolationist inbreeds.

but no - it looks increasingly likely that the response is going to revolve around a joint intelligence and special forces intervention.

now - it'd be nice to believe that this marks an upturn in the thinking of US foreign policy - that there's been some soul-searching in the white house.

but - if you want to understand international relations - esp when the US is involved, you don't make the mistake of going in there thinking in terms of human rights , or indeed, the nebulous ‘international community’ we hear so much about.

i think the only way of making sense of how the biggest bunch of institutionalised terminators on the planet have suddenly gotten wise to international opinion etc (and bear in mind – though many nations are cautious about action, there is a much better level of approval than there was for kosova or even iraq) – is that they’ve realised THEY HAVE NO CHOICE.

their superpower status just ceased to mean anything. after years of rambling on about ‘rogue states’ like they’re some kind of bedtime nasty, the US has realised the rules of the game have changed – and nothing. will ever make them. safe. again.

you hijack a plane. you plough it into the concentrated population of a city. or one of the nerve points that keeps the military industrial network together. or a nuclear power plant.

or you get yr average lab, with yr averagely-educated technicians, and you mix up a cocktail of anthrax, or smallpox. and you hire a cropduster and and go drizzle down poison on the swelling streets, downtown.

in military terms, 9/11 marks a massive destabilisation of military power. in one fell swoop, the US has learned, for all its superiority, it is vulnerable to widespread attack - and that being the world's lone superpower is as much of a curse as a blessing.

imaginative guerilla tactics plus a willingness to go kamikaze for a cause cuts through all conventional military thinking. and renders obselete half of their obscene oxymoronic 'smart weapons'.

the US knows it cannot win the 'war against terrorism', any more than it could the 'war against drugs'.

and i don't think they really know what to do. it must be pretty galling to be so humbled - to have it proved so conclusively that the most powerful nation on earth can't even protect its own citizens in its own cities...

one thing's for sure: the new world order just got disordered.

(...)

i'm tirrrred and can't do justice to this now - but i quite fancy expanding this into an article for the zine. there's a bunch of quotes and stats etc that i can use...

thoughts?
 
 
Dee Vapr
09:32 / 02.10.01
quote: but i quite fancy expanding this into an article for the zine

definitely. you should do so.
 
 
autopilot disengaged
16:18 / 02.10.01
the way i'm thinking...

quote:You agree to the estimation that "in 9/11/2001 the world changed?"
Undoubtedly. The history of modern Europe and its North American offshoot is one of carrying out shocking crimes against others -- or mutual slaughter, as in the American civil war or Europe's wars. This is the first time that the guns have been pointed in the opposite direction, at least on any significant scale. The Congo did not attack Belgium, or India England, or Algeria France, or Mexico or the Philippines the United States. The atrocities of September 11 were unique, not -- regrettably -- in scale, but in the target. (Noam Chomsky)

to:

There is no doubt that the afterlife-obsessed suicidal brain really is a weapon of immense power and danger. It is comparable to a smart missile, and its guidance system is in many respects superior to the most sophisticated electronic brain that money can buy. (Richard Dawkins)

to:

President Bush says that the September 11 attack on the United States marks a new kind of war, the first war of the 21st century. There is a sense in which that's true, but what's chilling is the sense in which it's not - the sense in which the attack was old-fashioned. The terrorists didn't use biological or nuclear weapons, and next time they could. A future enemy assault could kill not 6,000 people on American soil, but 600,000. (Robert Wright, The Guardian)
 
 
autopilot disengaged
16:24 / 02.10.01
quote:Before September 11, analysts had assumed terrorists would not want to indiscriminately kill thousands of civilians by releasing diseases such as anthrax or pneumonic plague.

But, Professor Malcolm Dando, from Bradford University's peace studies department, says the attacks in New York ended that assumption.
- The Guardian
 
 
autopilot disengaged
20:09 / 06.10.01
doesn't ANYONE have any feelings on this?

even if only to tell me i'm being ridiculous, i should shut up and sit down? i don't know whether i can bring myself to believe it myself - but it seems to fit - doesn't it?

seriously, if this is the case, it is a MASSIVE, MASSIVE change in global politics and power relations - and may have implications that it is difficult to imagine from our present position.

this could be the end of neo-colonialism, of first world decadence. this could be a new age dawning, right here, right now. for all the wrong reasons, maybe - but who cares why? - this could be the most amazing shift in international relations to happen in my lifetime, and i, for one am really excited by it.

and tom: if you want this article i can make it happen. and i think it would be good.
 
 
grant
22:41 / 06.10.01
It's following the same lines I heard Timothy Leary talk about in a radio interview in the mid-90s about the future of the world: decentralization and a de-emphasis on the nation-state as a unit of power.
He twinned it with the rise of corporate power, rise in states' rights (in America and in the former Soviet Union), and the kind of nodal processes you see on the Internet (mp3s, indie rock vs. the pop star, the web page vs. the TV channel, that kind of thing).
I'm sure he was compiling a lot of other people's thoughts.
 
 
Naked Flame
08:46 / 07.10.01
What freaks me *right* out is that all of this has been made possible by the kind of freedoms we've been celebrating on this board for the last few <insert arbitrary time unit here>, the individual ability to Do Stuff and get away with it despite the ever-increasing amount of rules to fall foul of and information to incriminate us...

we cheered for freedom, speed madness flying saucers, and now we find it goes boom.

Hello, Horus.
 
 
w1rebaby
08:46 / 07.10.01
Who was it who cheered speed madness flying saucers?

There may be some people who don't realise that freedoms can be abused but I don't know if there are any around here. Apart from complete isolationism, absolute border controls and the ability of the police to arrest anyone they want without being accountable, I don't know what could have been done by restricting freedoms to stop this.

The roots are more in the actions of government to avoid granting freedoms in other countries, I would have thought.
 
 
bio k9
08:46 / 07.10.01
quote:Originally posted by autopilot disengaged:
This could be the end of neo-colonialism, of first world decadence. this could be a new age dawning, right here, right now...this could be the most amazing shift in international relations to happen in my lifetime, and i, for one am really excited by it.

You know what the American public cares most about? Not human rights violations. Not government sponsored gorilla troops. Not any of the fucked up stuff our government has been involved in. The American public wants big cars, cheap gas, cable TV, pizza and Chinese take-out. Yeah, everyone feels bad for the women of Afghanistan but how many people are thinking of them after work on a Friday night? Foreign policy doesn't garner votes. What I see are (useless but) inevitable changes in internal security and a more proactive national "defense". What I don't see is the U.S. government changing the way it treats the governments and citizens of other countries except, perhaps, to make sure the governments are receptive to U.S. demands and any opposition stays beaten down.
 
 
Blank Faced Avatar
08:46 / 07.10.01
Some do say that the rest of the world suffer & are subjugated for precisely that reason - so the price of gas in the US never goes over a dollar a gallon. We'll al die so the US can have 8 ltr engines and huge cheap burgers.
 
 
Kobol Strom
08:46 / 07.10.01
No one has really asked what our society is trying to achieve,or what the 'World of BinLaden' is really setting out to do.The idea of progress ,I think,has become maleable in light of the attacks.In some senses it may seem that any new-found understanding of the world of politics or religious thought ,or evil for that mattter:doesn't change the fact that everyones efforts used to bend towards stability.The markets thrived in this state,and competition thrived,and technology was driven forward.Which is why,thrown so far off kilter,we're implementing these 'changes' in a vain attempt to get back to where we were.-Amidst a lot of propaganda about 'the world will never be the same again'.This is true,but the agenda of stability hasn't changed.
What the 'west' is intent on now,is preparing for covert military strikes as well as fireworks.But if you are excited about the possibilities of a world 'band of brothers' emerging from this chaotic mess,you'll have the military to thank for it.A new age of Horus inspired by the securities offered by international armed forces?...ID cards?..Armed coppers on the streets? -Whoop de do.We may feel gratified to advance by tragedy,but we slowly come to resemble that which we fear the most.
We fight for our version of stability through reason and its abandonment,to crush evil shitebags like Bin Laden whose madness hides behind the curtain of faith.Good.It would seem that in order to get our 'Star Trek' worlds,we're going to have to fight for it in our world and in our minds.
The faith in our future has to be just as strong as the faith we have in the past.Our subversive agenda,to create a multifarious interpretation of that future,is a victory for diversity,for individualism,for music,for art,for the fight against disease and poverty.It hasn't changed,and part of that struggle may be up to you.
It involves Words like bullets.Image mind-bombs.Musical blasts.Explosions of creativity.Annihilation of apathy.A never ending war against the forces of mediocrity.A stronger sense of the societal importance of the individual,with an agenda shared by every human being on the planet,and mirrored in the unconscious processes of our minds.To help one another.

[ 07-10-2001: Message edited by: kobol strom ]
 
 
Molly Shortcake
14:34 / 07.10.01
A somewhat related comic strip.

This modern world.
 
  
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