Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Whir of I Should Be, I Should Be, I Should Be Slows to Silence

Not winning is winning: the debate between Right Corporate and More Right Corporate isn't between no war and war, it's about how much war is the best amount of war to keep the helium-balloon economy afloat, the best way to market the war so that patriotic serfs forfeit their benefits as docilely as possible. Corporate needs enough time to broil the kidneys, boil the tripe, suck the marrow out of the bones of what's left of the real economy. This is a strategic retreat, Corporate hopes a slow retreat, maybe twenty more years of Masters slow. War is the business model.




Consider Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, who may have done as much for the perpetuation of the permanent war against our current Other as any drone-bombing of wedding parties:

Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of "trophy" photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.

They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year.

An investigation by Der Spiegel has unearthed approximately 4,000 photos and videos taken by the men.

The magazine, which is planning to publish only three images, said that in addition to the crimes the men were on trial for there are "also entire collections of pictures of other victims that some of the defendants were keeping".

In one incident in May last year, the article says, during a patrol, the team apprehended a mullah who was standing by the road and took him into a ditch where they made him kneel down.

The group's leader, Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, then allegedly threw a grenade at the man while an order was given for him to be shot.

Afterwards, Gibbs is described cutting off one of the man's little fingers and removing a tooth.

For further enflaming anti-American sentiment, for making the war that wins by not winning even more un-winnable - in other words, for advancing Corporate's interests in a significant but sloppy fashion - Staff Sergeant Gibbs will likely spend the rest of his life in the brig (where I hope he's treated humanely, the motherfucker) for violating Corporate's public relations rules. We all serve Corporate on multiple-levels.

Senior officials at Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.

Yes, we're all aware of the devastating consequences Abu Ghraib wrecked on both George Bush's reelection campaign and Corporate's ability to maintain public support for not just perpetual war, more perpetual war.












THE MOMENT

Marie Howe

Oh, the coming-out-of-nowhere moment

when,   nothing 

happens 

no what-have-I-to-do-today-list 


maybe   half a moment  

the rush of traffic stops.  

The whir of I should be, I should be, I should be 

slows to silence, 

the white cotton curtains hanging still.


13 comments:

  1. The only place I know of to change comment-blocking settings is under Settings then Comments then Who can comment? which I imagine you've checked already. Have you checked your spam filter? Mine's been known to be hyperactive.

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  2. Yeah, it's set to allow anyone to comment, and from I can tell from google (un)help, the spam filter is set by google and fuck you.

    I know Richard says he can comment on blogs using old blooger but not blogs with new blooger.

    Anyone who really wants to say something here but can't in comments, send me an email and I'll copy and paste into comments with full attribution.

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  3. United States forces are conducting a limited and well-defined mission in support of international efforts to protect civilians and prevent a humanitarian disaster.

    Good Morning, Vietnam!

    Of course, that was back in the days when getting the U.S. into a quagmire centered on killing wrong-colored people hurt your re-election prospects, rather than guaranteeing them.
    ~

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  4. hahaha zizek is fucking hilarious.

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  5. Hopefully this means the army will include a bottle of formaldehyde with field provisions. War trophies are important for self-esteem.

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  6. I might be able to help if I knew what "can't comment" means. No window? Can't type? Etc., etc. And what browser would help.

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  7. Yo bubba: this here link is busted:

    "$157M worth of democracy."

    Did Zizek read MacKay on the madness of the Tulip fetish?

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  8. I have to say I love the Robert Scott piece. Didn't know who he was 'til I looked him up. Of The Clean, of course. Thanks.

    Funny, your mentioning Blood Meridian from CFO's reading list the other day and today highlighting the collection of souvenirs from the Afghan dead: the Judge's scapular of ears in BM inspired me (along w/ a true account, Tiger Force, look it up) to include a similarly grotesque collection in a section (re Vietnam) of the novel I'm currently writing. Ho hum?

    But really, are atrocities in war ever surprising? For literary purposes, clicheic?

    Next question: Once a society becomes as militarized as this one was in the aughts, how long does it take to re-tool? Re-purpose? Re-set? How strong a leader, too? Or how subtle? And if such a leader is so strong, won't s/he then be co-opted by the powers that be? And if subtle, who's gonna' know the difference?

    As another cliche goes: one can't simply turn around an aircraft carrier on a dime, no?

    U.N. Sec. Council is a fig leaf, I know, a thin veneer of law. International Law is barely existent; it depends on the consent of all the states. For the most part, power rules—unless it chooses not to. But this Resolution re Libya was not based on false pretenses and phonied evidence as was the Bush/Powell Iraq Resolution farce. It's an important point, raising the key question: When is the use of force legitimate?

    To me, the Iraq fiasco was all about re-purposing the American economy to put it on a military footing. And oil. It succeeded. Is this a winding down? Or, as you suggest, a rewind? I think the question is still open. Or at least hope so.

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  9. To me, the Iraq fiasco was all about re-purposing the American economy to put it on a military footing. And oil.

    And the inevitable totalitarian security-state, can't forget that. That's what makes the War Economy work, and it's what excuses the oil theft. New bogey-men must be fabricated and the Citizenry must be taught to fear these holographic horrors as if they were as real as a night terror!

    Duly distracted, the populace cares not a whit about the fiscal chicanery, the collapsing economy, the society of illusion. They've got more brainwashing to welcome!

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  10. I used to sign in under anonymous with my drip handle at the bottom because I couldn't get Blogger to work here (and other places as well, btw). Then I did the typepad thing which still gives me a blogger notice from time to time that I was not allowed or I had my cookies set wrong or some other pathetic lie, all stuff which I know, even in my techno-klutzitude is false. So, after losing the 5 most brilliant things ever written in the history of earth, I learned to copy and save my comments before hitting publish. Then, when it feeds me one of its lies I just paste it in until it works. Hah! Fuck you Blogger! Unfortunately Blogger edits my comments into the mundane drivel I send to you.

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  11. Re: comments - Richard emails:

    "I can't comment at work, using XP & IE7 (have no choice in the matter; downloading browsers
    is a decided no-no). What this means is that, beneath the words "Post a Comment", I see a big white space, but cannot type in it, cannot select or specify my user name or account, see no buttons for submitting or previewing or anything related to comments. I also see, at
    the bottom of the page, "Done, but with errors on page" (this is also what happens with Twitter, most of the time, rendering that fine venue more or less useless for my outgoing messages, a great tragedy indeed). My
    assumption is that the new version of Blogger doesn't expect people to still be using IE7. Blogs using old Blogger, such as mine, or Ethan's, or ladypoverty, etc, are not a problem."

    Re: perpetual war - it's the weight bearing leg of the Empire's staggering economy.

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  12. I'm not sure the security-state is yet totalitarian. Moving toward authoritarian, yes. Witness the Tea Party, as authoritarian a bunch as you'd ever want to meet.

    Oh, and The Bats. And w/ David Kilmour. Damn, what a great album. I owe you one, BDog, or should I say BlockDogRead.

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  13. There will be The Bats and The Clean showing up here over the next week or two.

    As for blocks, it's what I've been writing on since I was fifteen. If Aquarelles Arches ever made blocks with quadrilles, I'd be in heaven.

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