VIOLENCE AS SYSTEMIC CONSEQUENCE

Like some others, I've had a hard time figuring out exactly where to jump into this rich discussion. But two posts recently caught my attention, both of which asked us to think in very nuanced ways about the contradictions of the media and the current war (and thanks to both for the images):

James Der Derian: Getting up close to the war machine has its dangers (I’ve seen many an embed go native), but it also has its virtues (hearing a two-star general tell you where he’d like to stick all the neocons). And you do get a more variegated view of war, certainly more than the NYTimes, but also more than I’ve recently been scanning in these online exchanges.

Ananya Vajpeyi I suppose one of the threads of our discussion here on underfire is proceeding as an attempt to flesh out exactly what this "somehow" gestures towards -- in other words, we are trying to figure out exactly how "the coverage of the war and the course of the war" are indeed "intertwined".

It seems to me that there are two levels of analysis here, which I'll describe as focused differently on "long dure'e" and "immediate contradictions."

The long dure'e analysis looks, among other things, at the function of spectacle, information saturation, and the meeting of "ideological" and "state" mechanisms. For this mode, which is crucial to looking at the structuring structures of our current moment, I'd notheless suggest we not forget that many of these issues did not start or stop with Vietnam. They arose, for example, and perhaps even -more- intently, in the 1990-91 Gulf war, when spectacle described pretty much everything people in the West were able to see on TV. In those moments, with the Cold War just ended, it looked like the New World Order (GHW Bush's term) would be nothing so much as image-as-event. Of course, the movement had begun long before, and in fact, one could argue that Foucault's work is about defining the much earlier demise of spectacle (punishment for display) toward a rationalized discipline/surveillance that disguised and internalized the operations of power. In ways that are truly hard to u nravel, but vital too understand, the rationalization and hidden-ness of surveillance in the modern era has worked in tension and tandem with the emergence of other kinds of spectacle in the form of media. read more

What would be an originary event of peace?

Wolfgang provocatively asks this question after reminding us that violence is an event and peace is a state, the former more visible, tangible, material and evident than the latter. Can a state become an event, or is this merely the impossibility of trying to find what is perhaps impossible to find? James der Derian usefully tells us that the majority of the “volunteer army” (a misnomer if ever a nome missed) did not simply sign on for financial and educational opportunities not offered to them through any other venue in US society – that, they also were looking for meanings, solutions, direction, purpose in a world and place bereft of it. When the trajectories of western history repeat an oscillation between the “two violent conceptions of history” reconciled under the silence wrought by the unassailable thought of “security,” as Wolfgang, argues, to where can the youth of a nation turn for meaning? The centrality of the violence, and the institutions that seek to contain it and turn it to their ends as well as those organizations and individuals that seek to undo it, results largely from the inescapable situation that the problem of violence is inextricably intertwined with the problem of knowledge itself.

The issue, then, becomes one of epistemology and violence, as well as epistemological violence – all of which seems deeply counterintuitive to us, children of the Enlightenment that we are. But it is more evident in the current moment than perhaps at any other point in time that the part that knowledge plays in creating meaning in the world is bound by and made possible through force: the force of an argument, the subjugation of counter positions, the dismissal or erasure of traditions, the mobilization of wealth and material to legitimize and circulate knowledge in a form, medium or institution (including our beloved internet). Military technology (including our beloved internet) is the most obvious manifestation of epistemological power as it materializes specific technicities that pertain to centuries of scientific, rational and instrumental thought. Our current model for the global university is the research and development institution that emerged under the guidance of coordinated government, corporate and military demands in the US immediately following WWII when the country decided not to demobilize for peace time, as after the first World War, but to step exponentially those processes and knowledges perceived as making a decisive difference in the outcome of the just ended conflict. Such would make us secure, we believed and were told to believe, and security became common knowledge. With these steps, we find ourselves caught in a simulation of security and even a simulation of war (pace Baudrillard) without either being a state or an event.

What would be an originary event of peace? Perhaps a thought, a thought well-considered and contemplated, but withheld. read more

> Ryan Bishop

I disagree with Michael’s other statement: “Allan speaks of theorization as if that has some great importance in lending opposition to violence. Much as I like theory, the relationship is nonsense.” Perhaps we have a different understanding of what theorization means – certainly it can be purely abstract BUT it can also apply and relate to the real world. On the most immediate, basic, spontaneous level one can intervene to prevent violence; on a larger plane theoretical assumptions can both result in violence OR prevent or diminish it. Quantum physics facilitated the construction of the atomic bomb – Hiroshima. Mass non-violent movements in various parts of the world diminished (quite likely) violence. Did the self-immolation of Buddhist monks prevent violence? Were they based on theorizations?

What is useful about the 60’s in the context of the current discussion relates to the strands of utopianism (on many levels) that motivated different spheres of political activity AND the organizational networks that arose to implement various visions of what might be socially possible. In that “strange days” 60’s surreal way there was some common thread that seemed to link the cultural revolution in China with Paris with Bolivia with anti-war protests in Washington.  The link was subliminal yet significantly driven by the potentialities of human liberation OUTSIDE of the dogma of turgid leftist parties. My interest here is not to discuss or dwell on what actually came out of all this (which was actually considerable). My emphasis is on the fact that people created structures suitable to articulating and implementing their goals. In time many of these structures became equally turgid YET without them little could have happened. And, naïve or otherwise most of these structures were built around theoretical assumptions. read more

There seems to be a streak of romantic nostalgia and longing for the Vietnam Anti-war movement.

Why can't kids today just get it together, goes the collective sigh.

It's ahistorical to compare the size of the antiwar movement in 1968-1970 with that of 2006.  You have to look at the entire buildup from 1950s on to make a parallel comparison. Alexander Cockburn points out that, as far back as 1954, Eisenhower secretly decreed that Ho Chi Minh could not be permitted to win open elections. There was no media revelation and the left took another decade to get up to speed on Vietnam. Camelot worship was so strong that even Kennedy's decision to send detachments of US troops as "advisors" to South Vietnam (setting the stage for the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem) did not inflame an antiwar movement. It took the buildup all the way to 1967/68 which led the organized left  to stage large-scale, successful antiwar rallies. All this occurred in an environment of 1968 and what felt like a worldwide anti-imperialist movement (which also created incorrect predictions, as when Tariq Ali described the massive upheavals in Pakistan as "people's power", but by 1971 the movement had been hijacked by the middle class urban elite of the Awami League who became leaders of an independent nation of Bangladesh).

The national draft was always a structural force that was the LARGEST factor in creating and sustaining a massive antiwar movement, as well as fomenting a major breakdown of military discipline and mass desertions towards the end of the war. As described in the film SIR, NO SIR, the movement spread to barracks, aircraft carriers, army stockades, navy brigs, military bases and elite military colleges like West Point.  According to the Pentagon’s own figures, 503,926 desertions occurred between 1966 and 1971. Over a hundred underground newspapers were published by soldiers; national antiwar GI organizations were joined by thousands; and stockades and federal prisons filled up with soldiers jailed for their opposition. By the early 1970s, entire platoons refused to fight and "fragging" (friendly fire killing commanding officers), rampant drug use and open insubordination became the hallmark of a totally demoralized army-- many of whom came home and became robust (and invincible in the context of image politics) visual icons of the antiwar movement. Structurally today's conflict can NEVER produce that kind of movement because joining the military is now an economic option, limited to working class Black, Latino and White kids. By removing the middle class and elite from the possibility of the draft, the military has successfully defanged the key driver. In addition, we should not under-estimate the shrewdness and adaptability with which the US Army took concrete steps to professionalize the army and provide carrots to mollify dissent (today considered one of the most integrated organizations in America, providing "affirmative" opportunities particularly to minorities).

Here's an excellent anti-recruitment flash animation created by a group of young antiwar protest groups (Yes, Virginia, we contain multitudes), which combines elements of SIR, NO SIR, with today's anti-recruitment drives. read more

I was wondering where to enter, until I re-rad Michael's posting, where this caught my attention:

"Yet violence seems much more interesting to notice, watch, playact, imagine, bemoan or discuss than more peaceful topics."

I agree. But is this not because war and violence are events, whereas peace is commonly thought of as a "state", and not as something that could "occur"? And as something that does not occur, how would it enter the archives, the news, or anyone's attention? In the most common representations of western history, "peace" has the meaning of "formally concluding a conflict", as in "Peace of Westphalia", etc. Only in this form it ever appears as event. But int this form, too, its meaning remains fully dependent on the war it ends (and tends to be defined by the victors). So only when the meaning of peace is set into work by a war - only if war is that father of all things including peace -  does peace enter the official archives, or become newsworthy.

On the other hand, thinking peace as fully independent of war, as a entirely distinct reality, as peace researchers have tried to do, tends to leave us with a peace that does not happen, but merely "is".  As such, it remains a metaphysical, heavy, and a-historical concept, charged with the emptiness  and awkward solemnity of things beyond this world, and also with their violence. For this kind of peace easily can justify war, or violence in general, because the metaphysical, non-occurring peace knows no representation except the representations of unaccountable power: it is not something we can engage in, or even speak about, its language used to be the imperatives of power and is now increasingly the silent, factual mode of technology, against which, there is no political appeal. read more

click here to see additional images uploaded by James Der Derian

Sorry about the delayed response, but I’ve found it hard, time- and head-wise, to step back into this interpretive community after spending the last week shooting the return of the 1/25th Marines (New England reservists who spent the last 7 months in one of more dangerous places on the planet, Al Anbar province), whom we’ve been filming for the last year as part of a documentary, ‘The Culture of War’ (some outtakes attached). Getting up close to the war machine has its dangers (I’ve seen many an embed go native), but it also has its virtues (hearing a two-star general tell you where he’d like to stick all the neocons). And you do get a more variegated view of war, certainly more than the NYTimes, but also more than I’ve recently been scanning in these online exchanges.

So my first intervention goes after a para that I suspect Loretta purposely (and provocatively) made ‘target-rich’:

"Young unemployed Americans, from poor and middle class areas, are joining the army because they have no other way to earn a living (see the stats from www.nationalpriorities.com). They are the soldiers who fight in Iraq. Secularization has been replaced by a rising tide of ‘cheap spirituality’ from New Age gurus to Christian fundamentalism. Islam, a solid monotheistic religion, is on the rise everywhere in the West with numbers of converts increasing in all European countries. Advance in communication and technology, in particular the internet, foster physical isolation, people do not socialized as they did before, thus the idea to gather en masse to demonstrate against the establishment is not so appealing as it was in the past. Attitude towards politics is marked by disillusion, politicians are all corrupted, opposition is lead by comedians (see Michael Moore) as if politics was a joke, people who are unable to project an alternative strategy, to put have a vision of how the future should be." read more

To answer Christina interesting posting, I believe that information and images about the reality that surrounds us are readily available. The net, for example is a great place to search for the truth (and yes at the same time is full of lies). The problem is that, we, and for we I refer to the industrialized countries, live inside a web of illusions, market illusions as well as political illusions created by politicians and post Cold War politics and broadcast by traditional and mainstream media.

Let me focus on political illusions. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent triumph of Western capitalism, symbolized by the United States, have triggered a mass euphoria and destroyed any structured political opposition. The so called ‘left’ was buried under the falling bricks of the Berlin Wall. The world we lived in ended. During the Cold War, East and West existed inside a dichotomy, it was healthy because it reminded us and them (those who lived in communist countries) that politics and economics are not exact sciences and that politicians make mistakes. Above all it made people more receptive to political change, in the West it was alternative government, in the East the end of communism. After the end of the Cold War Western politicians became infallible and opposition vanished. Tony Blair politics are even more conservative than the politics of Mrs.Thatcher, a Thatcher’s government would never have abolished the Habeas Corpus, it would have been inconceivable! But the Conservative party will not oppose someone who pursues its own politics, in fact Tony Blair sole opposition comes from its own party, from the left of the Labour party. Blair lied to the nation, yet, nobody is holding him responsible for such an act, why? Because the opposition comes from the Labour party and they will not impeach their Prime Minister. I must stress that several countries went to war in Iraq without any proof of WMD, parliaments were bypassed on the basis of ‘security’. British Parliament was told that proofs could not be showed because of security reasons, members of parliaments had to trust the Prime Minister. read more

I'm Trevor Paglen, and I've been asked to provide some of the visual interventions this week. Here's a brief introduction to my work:
For the last 5 years or so, I've been interested in the space of military secrecy from a number of angles (visual, juridical, material, etc...). I'm currently finishing up a PhD in the Department of Geography at UC Berkeley about all of this. I also recently published a book (with co-author AC Thompson) about the 'extraordinary rendition' program and the CIA's network of 'black sites' around the world. I try to combine art, scholarship, and research in a fluid, seamless, way.

One of the sub-projects within this body of work is a series I've been called "Limit Telephotography" - it's a series of photographs I've been taking of "black" or unacknowledged military bases, most of which are in the southwestern United States.

I've also had the opportunity to photograph some of these CIA 'black sites' while running around the world researching the "Torture Taxi" book, but those images will become public at a show in New York opening on November 16th. read more

There is so many useful important threads to follow here and I kept wondering where to start or jump-in. So...

Michael Goldhaber has stated the following:
 
“We see and are directly affected by suffering because it is so much more central our own humanity than killing is.  Statesmen only barely are beginning to understand this. One thing the Internet has already done is enlarge this contact with “the other side.” I don’t see any easy way for this trend to stop. Nor do I believe that anywhere in the world where such images are available they will not have effect.
This new form of war is entirely opposite of that that prevailed in WWII, where entire cities were demolished to make a point. There was not good war reporting in Japan, for instance, so the allies felt justified in fire-bombing Tokyo, heavily bombing other cities, and then using A-bombs against Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki, just to make a point that might affect the Japanese war cabinet. Today such destruction would be seen immediately throughout the world, and the onus of evil would fall on the bombers, at least mostly.”
 
I am not so sure that today’s new form of war is so different than the past. The technology has changed (its glamor increased?), the destructiveness more targeted or contained but, “when push comes to shove” the number of recent examples of rampant destructiveness employed simply “to make a point” are quite plentiful. read more

Rogue economics is a maze of market-orchestrated interdependencies and curious contradictions: financial aid has impoverished Africa, while high-sugar food donations have triggered epidemic diabetes in its population. Rogue economics is the uncontrollable power which is erasing centuries of social improvements: slave and child labour make Asian products competitive in the West. Rogue economics is the brutal force of unregulated markets: days before 9/11, al Qaeda’s sponsors carried out one of the biggest insider trading operations in history. Rogue economics is the bastard child of Western capitalism and the business partner of globalization’s outlaws: market totalitarianism, crime and terror, the feral economic forces unleashed by the global market.
In this book I try to expose the paradoxical economic connections created by these new market forces. The world we live in is governed by different rules than we suppose, and the global economy is becoming our worst enemy.

“Meet Mr. and Mrs. Middle America, children of the post World War II American dream. They live in the suburbs of a Midwestern town, and this is as far as the similarities with the dream go. Mr. Middle America is a construction worker who, during the recession of the 1990s, waived most benefits to keep his job in a local construction company. Mrs. Middle America is neither a Doris Day look-alike nor is she a housewife. More likely, she is overweight and overworked. Employed as a nurse at a nearby hospital, in her spare time she assists neighbours without medical insurance. The occasional tax free extra cash is crucial to make ends meet. In 2006, the couple’s household income was $46,326, $2,000 lower than in 2001, the year the last recession ended.[i]They have $3,800 in the bank, $8,000 of credit card debt[ii], no stocks or bonds and reside in a $160,000 house with $90,000 still left on the mortgage. Husband and wife shop at Wall-Mart, eat at MacDonald and regularly buy lottery tickets in the hope to win their way out of the middle class. That is Middle America’s overwhelming dream. read more

Thanks to Jordan Crandall for setting this up and inviting me. This is especially in response to the remarks of Saskia Sassen on borders, Alain Joxe on structured chaos and Paul Edwards on weak discipline:

As Immanuel Wallerstein once pointed out, old empires did not survive if they took more than forty days' travel to cross from end to end. On that basis, we now find ourselves in world of six billion people sitting on the head of a pin. Virtual travel, at least, occurs in a fraction of a second, so the possibility of an “empire” or indeed a closed state is out of the question — unless every point is the capital, and, equally, a center of resistance.

Consider that we are all almost literally on top of one another, that crowding is supposed to promote anger and violence, and that so many means for violence are now readily available. What is most striking: The actual amount of violence at any scale is tiny. It is so especially in comparison with what we can easily imagine and what has been repeatedly prognosticated. It is certainly so in comparison with the spasms of killing that dominated the first half or even the first three quarters of the last century. This is not to deny or negate the horrors and criminality of most violence still happening. Nor is it to say that worse cannot happen; it certainly might, but we should not exaggerate the likelihood either. On the whole, Homo interneticus is remarkably peaceful. read more