Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - ObamaWatch: Get your Reagan and Bush the Elder FOIA requests in asap

roachboy · 01-22-2009, 05:49 AM

this is an interesting move.
i think there are several ways to think about it, several scenarios this could set up.

a) the first that comes to mind concerns the s&l scandal, which was more swept under the carpet than addressed. i can't help but think that the lending practices that caught up with derivatives trafficking are a result of practices put into place in that context that were already manifestly problematic. so there's a sense in which access to more infotainment on this may provide a denser context for thinking about the present nested debacles--by for example providing clearer indications of neoliberal-created systemic problems.

b) i think this is important as a way of changing the data-frame for thinking neoliberalism more generally. behind the blah blah blah about "free markets" and behind the 19th century social darwinism that was then and has been until recently of a piece with it, there has been a steady stream of criminal action---about which more information is preferable to less. this in part is a version of the above: the right has been ideologically centered on a wholesale revision of the past, and that reframing of the past has enabled the sustained idiocy of their policies to acquire a certain veneer of logic. demystifying that process of erasure/revision and demystifying the realities behind the blah blah blah of conservative/neoliberal double=speak seems to me a necessary component of moving out from under it. history matters. even the right knows this--that's why controlling information has been so important to them.

3. i have long thought the reagan period particularly loathesome.
i saw its actions in nicaragua as a perfect allegory for the reality concealed behind its framing of itself.
i am quite interested in the release of information about the contras.
it has always seemed odd to me that the neo-cons have been able to traffic in the discourse of terrorism given that central to their myth of origin was the funding, training, logistical support and political endorsement of a campaign that by any definition of the term was a terrorist action.

but these are longer-term scenarios/potentials.
in the shorter run, the release of this information is theater--theater that i happen to endorse both in itself and as theater--which signals the end of the counter-revolution, the end of the entire approach to governing particular to neoliberalism.

i don't see any immediate action following from this theater.

but--again---if the idea is a fundamental change of ideological and political direction, hauling up the curtain that concealed the machinery of conservative power is a necessary and salutary step. no need to hoist them--they did it to themselves.

01-22-2009, 05:49 AM	#3 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	this is an interesting move. i think there are several ways to think about it, several scenarios this could set up. a) the first that comes to mind concerns the s&l scandal, which was more swept under the carpet than addressed. i can't help but think that the lending practices that caught up with derivatives trafficking are a result of practices put into place in that context that were already manifestly problematic. so there's a sense in which access to more infotainment on this may provide a denser context for thinking about the present nested debacles--by for example providing clearer indications of neoliberal-created systemic problems. b) i think this is important as a way of changing the data-frame for thinking neoliberalism more generally. behind the blah blah blah about "free markets" and behind the 19th century social darwinism that was then and has been until recently of a piece with it, there has been a steady stream of criminal action---about which more information is preferable to less. this in part is a version of the above: the right has been ideologically centered on a wholesale revision of the past, and that reframing of the past has enabled the sustained idiocy of their policies to acquire a certain veneer of logic. demystifying that process of erasure/revision and demystifying the realities behind the blah blah blah of conservative/neoliberal double=speak seems to me a necessary component of moving out from under it. history matters. even the right knows this--that's why controlling information has been so important to them. 3. i have long thought the reagan period particularly loathesome. i saw its actions in nicaragua as a perfect allegory for the reality concealed behind its framing of itself. i am quite interested in the release of information about the contras. it has always seemed odd to me that the neo-cons have been able to traffic in the discourse of terrorism given that central to their myth of origin was the funding, training, logistical support and political endorsement of a campaign that by any definition of the term was a terrorist action. but these are longer-term scenarios/potentials. in the shorter run, the release of this information is theater--theater that i happen to endorse both in itself and as theater--which signals the end of the counter-revolution, the end of the entire approach to governing particular to neoliberalism. i don't see any immediate action following from this theater. but--again---if the idea is a fundamental change of ideological and political direction, hauling up the curtain that concealed the machinery of conservative power is a necessary and salutary step. no need to hoist them--they did it to themselves. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite