Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Terrorists

roachboy · 06-24-2004, 12:07 PM

not interested in personal flames in the place of actual argument. if you have something to say about the argument that i am advancing, then take it on.

the fact is that the americans are a symbol for globalizing capitalism. the americans are seen--more often than not rightly--to be propping up oppressive regimes around the world--the saudis among them. i''l go back to this below....

second, the fact is that there is nothing in my argument that would lead anyone who actually read it to reduce what i am saying to simple economic conditions. revolutionary/radical movements rarely form within conditions of absolute poverty--maintaining poverty is therefore a political choice made by any number of regimes, including the american. they **do**emerge in places of extreme political repression--this **does not** correlate directly to economic oppression--unless you really believe the right crap about economic and political freedoms being identical. an oppositional movement requires certain logistical conditions to be in place, to maintain itself, to articulate its line, to spread that line. they also require a sense of coherence amongst the people they address--you cannot have people who are totally atomized, totally abject---you need a sense of political outrage, of the arbitrariness of the situation endured, etc.

the fact that the regime associated with globalising capitalism creates/supports/maintains conditions of extreme political repression around the world is only partially a function of the actions undertaken by the economic entities that operate within it--it is the entire system--the state(s), the economic order and particularly the ideological regimes that shape how actors within each part of the apparatus think and act--that is responsible for creating and maintaing repressive conditions.

on "the rights problem"----formal rights mean almost nothing. if you want to reduce the problems associated with "terrorism" then it makes sense to reduce the distance that seperates claims about freedom from the grinding realities of degradation that bely those notions. you would think that maybe---maybe--the contradiction between claims made by ideologues of the existing order on the order of "dont worry, be happy, this is the best of all possible worlds" juxtaposed with realities that contradict everything said might in itself be enough to politicize people. you might even think that the existing system itself creates its enemies. you would be right in that.

as for the matter of the palestinians--how much more degrading a situation can you imagine than having spent several generations interred in camps? the set of associations that would lead actors to go from thinking about american complicity in maintaining those conditions to action--even though the americans are obviously not exclusively responsible for them--is not rocket science to figure out. how this set of associations could become a kind of lingua france for framing other types of opposition is again not rocket science.

how things are seen is almost inevitably the function of the frame of reference you use to process information--there is no objective picture--having taken a middle eastern history 101 class does not give you any necessary direct line to how variables are put together by people.

advocating exclusively a "hard line" against the phantoms you call "terrorists"--the mirror image of the conditions the political line you argue for---the expression of the consequences of that line--- might make you feel better, but does really nothing but insure that the problems you complain about wil not but continue, will multiply, will in short get worse.

but it does make you feel better. the retreat into fatuousness often is therapeutic. it is a complicated world. better to watch tv.

take on the argument, then--that is fine---but changing the subject and then shifting into patronizing mode is less than impressive as a tactic.

06-24-2004, 12:07 PM	#57 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	not interested in personal flames in the place of actual argument. if you have something to say about the argument that i am advancing, then take it on. the fact is that the americans are a symbol for globalizing capitalism. the americans are seen--more often than not rightly--to be propping up oppressive regimes around the world--the saudis among them. i''l go back to this below.... second, the fact is that there is nothing in my argument that would lead anyone who actually read it to reduce what i am saying to simple economic conditions. revolutionary/radical movements rarely form within conditions of absolute poverty--maintaining poverty is therefore a political choice made by any number of regimes, including the american. they doemerge in places of extreme political repression--this does not correlate directly to economic oppression--unless you really believe the right crap about economic and political freedoms being identical. an oppositional movement requires certain logistical conditions to be in place, to maintain itself, to articulate its line, to spread that line. they also require a sense of coherence amongst the people they address--you cannot have people who are totally atomized, totally abject---you need a sense of political outrage, of the arbitrariness of the situation endured, etc. the fact that the regime associated with globalising capitalism creates/supports/maintains conditions of extreme political repression around the world is only partially a function of the actions undertaken by the economic entities that operate within it--it is the entire system--the state(s), the economic order and particularly the ideological regimes that shape how actors within each part of the apparatus think and act--that is responsible for creating and maintaing repressive conditions. on "the rights problem"----formal rights mean almost nothing. if you want to reduce the problems associated with "terrorism" then it makes sense to reduce the distance that seperates claims about freedom from the grinding realities of degradation that bely those notions. you would think that maybe---maybe--the contradiction between claims made by ideologues of the existing order on the order of "dont worry, be happy, this is the best of all possible worlds" juxtaposed with realities that contradict everything said might in itself be enough to politicize people. you might even think that the existing system itself creates its enemies. you would be right in that. as for the matter of the palestinians--how much more degrading a situation can you imagine than having spent several generations interred in camps? the set of associations that would lead actors to go from thinking about american complicity in maintaining those conditions to action--even though the americans are obviously not exclusively responsible for them--is not rocket science to figure out. how this set of associations could become a kind of lingua france for framing other types of opposition is again not rocket science. how things are seen is almost inevitably the function of the frame of reference you use to process information--there is no objective picture--having taken a middle eastern history 101 class does not give you any necessary direct line to how variables are put together by people. advocating exclusively a "hard line" against the phantoms you call "terrorists"--the mirror image of the conditions the political line you argue for---the expression of the consequences of that line--- might make you feel better, but does really nothing but insure that the problems you complain about wil not but continue, will multiply, will in short get worse. but it does make you feel better. the retreat into fatuousness often is therapeutic. it is a complicated world. better to watch tv. take on the argument, then--that is fine---but changing the subject and then shifting into patronizing mode is less than impressive as a tactic. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 06-24-2004 at 12:09 PM..