demonstratr

Pardon my unpatriotic title, but I’m currently in a rather unpatriotic mood.  No doubt America was never a real place, it was always an ideal.  If Walt Whitman heard America singing, I can only imagine that today, there was a whimper in the air.  Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said today that the Air Force would like to start using “non-lethal weapons” such as “high-power microwave devices” on US citizens in ”crowd-control” situations (http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091306K.shtml).  In his words, “If we’re not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation. (Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press.”  (No shit! People would be angry that you fired a “microwave beam” at them from the sky?  How silly…)  What do you suppose would constitute a “crowd-control situation?”  Let’s say an angry mob of (oh I don’t know) 400,000 Americans marching through Washington to demand the end of an unpopular war?  Think how quickly they could have ended the “Battle for Seattle.”  So much for rubber bullets I guess…

As if that weren’t enough, the Senate Judiciary Committee has sent a bill to the Senate floor basically rubber-stamping Bush’s domestic-spying programs.  Unless I just don’t understand the dynamics, that means the Dems are going to have to filibuster the bill to stop it from passing.  The New York Times article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/13/washington/13cnd-capital.html.  Oh well, those pesky rights weren’t doing much for us anyway…

The best part is that the national government has the audacity to call September 20 “Constitution Day.”  My only hope is that this domestic spying bill passes on that day - and that the Senate remains utterly oblivious to the irony.

Oh yeah, 90 Iraqis were killed or found dead over the course of the last two days (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/world/middleeast/14iraq.html?hp&ex=1158206400&en=7d2bd3ea22a49966&ei=5094&partner=homepage).

but… AMERICAN FREEDOM MUST BE PROTECTED!

Brandon  

I know that I said earlier on the listserv that I would try to address the editorials that appeared in the Herald-Leader today.  I’ve decided not to do that.  Hopefully, everyone knows why I disagree with the a great deal of what Stempel (in particular) says (http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/editorial/15497068.htm).

I read most of the article on fascism that Michael referenced in his previous comment and this along with a couple other articles really changed the trajectory of my thinking today.  In the fascism article (see http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1128-24.htm), Paul Bigioni argues that certain economic factors attended the rise of fascism in the early twentieth century and that fascist leaders were ultimately working along-side big business (and not the other way around).  I tend to think this obscures to some degree the particular ethnic tensions that existed at the time, in Germany in particular, which also played a great part.  But, ultimately I think the point is well-made.  It is the business of business to treat humans as Zeug - mere equipment - or as a mass of consumers - one indistinguishable from the next.  Thus, business finds an easy ally in racists and fascists who think of many humans in an even more dispicable light.

The thinking which sees humans as tools to be used or as obstacles to be destroyed is, of course, part and parcel of the thinking which sees war as a viable option (I guess you can take this as my criticism of Stempel).  The effects of this thinking and the chaos and destruction that it wreaks are not limited to the obvious.  Bombs and bullets destroy people - there is no doubt.  And big business knows no bigger business than the production of these instruments of mass death.  However, the effects of warfare run far deeper than explosions and indeed there are a great many wars which are fought daily in the absense of gunfire.  Politics, as Foucault says, is war by other means.  Today’s DemocracyNow! combined with an article from the Herald-Leader provides ample illustration. 

DemocracyNow! reports a statistic which should come as no shock to anyone living in America - urban black males live CONSIDERABLY shorter lives than their white counterparts across the country (see http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/12/139200).  It is also well known that suicide is on the rise among young blacks.  Further, there are over 1 million black Americans currently in prison in the United States.  The war on black America is not fought with bombs and bullets.  Mostly, it is fought economically, ecologically, physiologically, and psychologically.  Who fights this war?  What has business to do with this?  There are a lot of answers to these questions.  But I ask you only to consider what the effects of universal health care would be on such a situation and to think who opposes such a measure and why.  It is in the interest of hospitals and insurance companies that health care be unaffordable and inaccessible to a great number of people.  One might also point to Mayor Daley of Chicago who vetoed a raise in the minimum wage there today for fear that Walmart would leave town.  For Mayor Daley, Walmart, and the health care industry urban African-Americans are mere equipment…

In today’s Herald-Leader it was reported that Appalachian males in Eastern Kentucky also live CONSIDERABLY shorter lives than their counterparts across the country (http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/15497018.htm).  I’m not even going to go into refuting the ridiculous ideas about why this is the case that are stated in the article.  Mostly, they all trade on a ”stupid hillbilly” stereotype of Appalachian men.  Does it occur to the author that LACK OF HEALTH INSURANCE probably plays a role in who goes to the doctor when and what kind of treatment they receive?  The fact is it’s not working in the coal mines that is killing Eastern Ky men.  The vast majority of them don’t work in the coal mines.  It’s been more than 20 years since they did.  Rather, they are being subjected to large scale ecological, economic, physiological, and psychological warfare.  I refer anyone interested only to the case of the Martin County Slurry Spill which is the exception to the rule only in the magnitude of the disaster (this story should fill in the details, but its over three years old and there’s more to be said: http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2003/11/13/slurry_coverup/index.html). 

Compare this to what is happening today in Lebanon where they are dealing with a giant oil spill which could kill many Lebanese (see http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1433338.ece.)  The environmental, physiological, psychological, and economic consequences of the fighting will be the real WAR.  The soil of Lebanon and, thus, the people will not recover for a very long time and not until MANY of them are dead.  And these dead, as we all know, were mere obstacles to Isrealli security.

 Alright.  So that’s a lot and I could go on for a very long time.

Brandon Absher

I wrote the previous entries as well.