Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
On 19/01/07, Michael H Goldhaber [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The Contras were in Nicaragua. Reagan hardly hid his political support for them, but was eventually forced by Congress to be secretive about direct aid to them. Yes, Nicaragua, sorry. That's just one of many examples of covert US military action... isn't it? All those books by former CIA agents like John Stockwell... or do you disagree? Do you maintain that the US has never engaged in any secret wars? How do secret wars fit into your view of the US military? I'm sorry to be a pest, but I feel as if you haven't answered this question. As for Saudi Arabia, I understand that shortly after the Iraq invasion, the US closed all its bases there. [...] (I don't dispute that are bases in places such as Qatar.) Doesn't that amount to the same thing? It's a small concession to the Saudis but basically maintains the status quo. Those bases did not go up in 1973, as your timeline would suggest, but in 1990, after Saddam invaded Kuwait. I don't have access here to the books Brian recommended, but... it seems that the 1973 oil embargo caused a major readjustment of U. S. policy priorities in the Gulf the U. S. began periodic naval deployments in the Indian Ocean and expanded Diego Garcia into a naval station capable of supporting major air and naval deployments.[1] The US considered using force to seize oilfields in the Middle East if the 1973 embargo went on for too long[2], and the British government was afraid they might really do it[3]. After the embargo ended, high levels of oil production actually caused economic problems for the Gulf countries, and would have liked to reduce production. This option was firmly refused by the US, who let it be known that any reduction in production would practically represent a cause for war American officials implied, in public and in private, that they were prepared to intervene militarily in zones of oil production if their vital interests required it.[4] It seems that Carter and Reagan would very much have liked to establish more bases in the Gulf, particularly in order to make sure the Soviet Union would not be able to interrupt the flow of oil to the US, but couldn't persuade their Gulf allies to let them do so until 1991. Anyway, my main argument is not that particular interests at times seek to benefit from American military might, but that as a domestically extremely powerful and culturally important institution, the military and ist supporters keep finding rationales for strengthening it. On the whole they probably believe whatever the momentary rationale is, but they and certainly, their main Congressional supporters, do not really quesiotn that there must be one. The rationale of protecting access to oil is not momentary; it has been a feature of US policy in the Gulf since Nixon justified his twin pillar policy in 1973 by saying that assurance of the continued flow of Middle East energy resources is increasingly important to the United States[1]. However, it almost seems as if you agree with me here. If US presidents have really believed in that rationale all this time, and if this is why they've carried out the military policies we're talking about, wouldn't removing the possibility of such a rationale (by eliminating US dependence on oil) make it more difficult to justify certain military interventions? I realise that you're probably going to say, No, because they'll just find some other excuse. But, well, look at what people who study conflict prevention say. A lot of it seems to be about reducing material causes for conflict, which typically involve competition for scarce resources, such as water, oil, grazing land, and so on. When you have an army, and another country has something you need, it's tempting to take it by force. I agree with you that reducing the size of your army to the minimum necessary for self-defence is sure to help as well. But it's hard not to notice that the US has the highest resource consumption per capita of any country in the world, and also has the largest military capacity. As George Kennan put it in 1948: we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.[5] So what I'm suggesting is this: if you have a teachable moment, take advantage of it not only to teach Americans about their bloated, self-serving military, but also about the economic disparity that that military is being used to protect. Point out that US oil consumption is an environmental disaster as well as a cause of war. Try to end the occupation of Iraq, yes, but also try to get people thinking about how to change the US economy (e.g. by eliminating the use of fossil fuels)
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
In my original piece on Iraq, I tried to make the point that the main reason for US militarism is itself, it's ecnomic benefits(?) at home, and its effect in solidfying the country behind leaders and policies that otherwise would be more suspect. Justifications or rationalizations in terms of defending something or other have to be produced from time to time, but it is folly to take those at face value. Best, Michael On Jan 12, 2007, at 10:53 AM, A. G-C wrote: Sorry of my bad English ... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
Sorry of my bad English On 11/01/07 12:54, Benjamin Geer [EMAIL PROTECTED] probably wrote: On 11/01/07, Michael H Goldhaber [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: b) Venice is in fact becoming de-populated, with its natives moving to the car-unfree mainland; That's because tourism has driven up real estate prices to the point where locals can no longer afford to live there. There are ways to prevent this from occurring in car-free cities, and some of these are discussed in the book _Carfree Cities_. The author emphasises that Venice is not an ideal car-free city, and that it should be possible to build better ones; hence his detailed design proposal. ... c) it is a complete mistake to think that Americans' access to oil depends on having troops in Iraq =97or anywhere in the middle east for that matter. How do you explain the proliferation of US military bases in the Middle East[1] if those bases aren't intended to protect American access to oil?[2] Trying a pragmatic prospective point of view from logic deductions; as in current geopolitics several public and editorial acts can be observed by anyone of us. Hypothesis are not certitudes, but possibilities. Net interfering. Associating or not the lobbies (but allied) the objective could be more obviously to keep a military strategic position of US Defence at the south of Russia and China and front of these powers for preventively secure by an uncontested installation of US hegemony in this region of the world. In between Europe and East Asia and thanks NATO it could be a South continental domination from Pacific Ocean to Atlantic Ocean; what supposes all the more local alliances with a part of Islam (can be Sunnite, can be Shiite, depending of the country if it is directly associated or not with the same interests can be in Defence, can be in strategy - economy). Oil BUT Toward the civil nuclear (Texas again;-). Because civil nuclear becoming now a predictable market of America (more may be with inter agreements between FR and US for tech exchanges more negotiations on the commercial territories in this field: through Anne Lauvergeon -last sherpa of Mitterrand, after what she was protected by working as New York agent of Lazarus Bank then beyond it she became herself the boss as CEO of FR civil nuclear -since the last year. I.e. whether the side of Chirac holds the space and the weapons or what it rests of it in UE -EADS having essentially become the Dassault territory after the departures of UK partner more of Lagardère interests that have gone to tribute US projects -, he finished by leave the earth as civil nuclear in the side of its possible socialist successor). From this point of view: India (Islam now having a good part of the democratic power in this country) is subjected since the agreement of civil nuclear signed by Bush at New Delhi in March 2006: what was a surprise in Pakistan where they could hope since 2002 attack against the FR team of the nuclear submarine that they would be the elected one by US, at the South of Afghanistan, for this superiority on India, as for the both countries having nuclear weapons... Imagine what Iran yet now represents in this geo challenge, as well commercial, as well financial, as well strategic, as well in matter of defence, as well being the bloc of strategic singularity between the Continental East Asia and the Continental West Europe. If Bush wants force the war or install the region in insecurity (it can be a tactical choice to make the wide of the question of human rights in such sanctuaries), do not imagine that the new soldiers will be exclusively centred on the Iraqi affair: but predictably to take more position from Saudi Arabia and Iraq forcing the respect on Lebanon/ Israeli, more expecting the war with Iran - may be more with Syria but Syria is more the problem of FR than of US. Do not you see that they are both defined as potential enemy just being supported by Russia (military) and may being an extend economic territory of China? What forces the ultimate respect to Iran it is the question of currencies part in dollar and part in Euro. But it is nothing in the larger view. It is exactly the key of the uncontested door of the hegemony of the US power on the other world out of Federation of Russia an China which is not the continent of America. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
On 12/01/07, A. G-C [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How do you explain the proliferation of US military bases in the Middle East[1] if those bases aren't intended to protect American access to oil?[2] [...] to keep a military strategic position of US Defence at the south of Russia and China [...] Because civil nuclear becoming now a predictable market of America [...] Imagine what Iran yet now represents in this geo challenge Those seem to me like plausible factors as well, but they can coexist with the importance of protecting access to oil. I think we mustn't forget that the CIA helped overthrow Iranian prime minister Mossadegh in 1953 because the British, hurt by the nationalisation of Iran's oil industry, persuaded the US that Mossadegh was turning towards communism. Thus oil and the Cold War, for example, were closely linked. Ben # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
Felix may well be right that cars lead to a reduction of communal life, and Venice (Italy) seems to an outsider to be a wonderful place. But: a) I hope we don't wait until the US is rebuilt car-free to pull out of Iraq; b) Venice is in fact becoming de-populated, with its natives moving to the car-unfree mainland; c) it is a complete mistake to think that Americans' access to oil depends on having troops in Iraq or anywhere in the middle east for that matter. On this last point, when Iran threw out the Shah and held the American embassy staff hostage, it continued to sell oil on the world market, like any other OPEC country. American petroleum companies and oil-field service companies such as Halliburton may have lost profits, but that hardly affected the supply of oil in the US. As it is, the invasion of Iraq has certainly not increased US oil supplies or lowered prices, but in fact done the opposite. The war is conceivably a war for oil-company profits (which have gone way up since it started) but not a war for oil itself. Best, Michael On Jan 10, 2007, at 6:18 PM, Benjamin Geer wrote: A comparison of car-centric Los Angeles with car-free Venice runs throughout the book. The author's web site provides a brief summary of the book: http://www.carfree.com/ I don't know whether the time is ripe for this idea in the US, but maybe September 11 and the Iraq war could be used to concentrate Americans' minds on an idea that would enable them to rebuild their communities while reducing their dependence on oil (and thus reducing their military presence in the Middle East). # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
Hello nettime, Yes, and a couple of days after this thread started I was stunned to read on my Sunday morning Chicago Tribune the headline Tribune Special Report: How Do We Stop the Carnage? At last! The proper question in the proper terminology, in a big American daily paper! Then my eyes saw the small type in the middle, a sort of Special Report sub-head, which read TEENS AT THE WHEEL. So it wasn't about war at all, just the ever-present tragedy of teenagers getting into fatal traffic accidents. Oh, well. That's the thing, though. While Felix's communitarian critique would suggest that structurally or architecturally-reinforced passivity, a kind of apathetic alienation that rules the country (and in some places it certainly might), I think that is too easy an answer to the question of why Americans are not more concerned with and involved in, say, the anti-war movement. The case is made for a more complex view by the widespread existence of citizens' causes all over the social landscape, as exemplified by the Tribune's report on teen driving. The series was conducted over a whole year and profiles many parents, siblings, and friends of teens killed in car accidents who have taken the experiences and turned them into causes. Some of these people are seriously dedicated to...what? Educating their fellow citizens by speaking out publicly, pressuring or persuading lawmakers to introduce legislation, constantly improving their own knowledge base, partnering with others who have an interest in change--all of these things and more. Basically, these people become politically and intellectually active and put all their (often newly-discovered) powers as participatory citizens to work for their cause, and for the inevitable tribe which forms around a cause. In the Tribune article there was a big picture of a mother-turned-activist, a sort of minor Cindy Sheehan of the anti-speeding contingent of the emerging Safe Teen Driving movement. This newspaper series exposed only one species of citizen-activist. There are scores, maybe even hundreds of types, inhabiting all roles from the expected (ngo intern in DC for the summer) to the boutique (breed-specific dog rescue volunteer) to the surprisingly extant (members of a 'women's board' of a big museum). And it is not simply the variety and distribution of these causes and tribes that impresses me--what's really amazing is the passion and commitment exuded by these people. In America today there is no shortage of warriors for a cause (in regular joe clothing). And no shortage of causes. This is part of the problem. Many points of social life which were once either located in the terrain of apolitical service organizations or only marginally acknowledged if at all, somewhere along the line became the subject of advocacy and even struggle. No doubt about it, in America today the personal is political. Heavy emphasis on the personal, lite on the political. That means there are practically as many causes as there are people. In the meantime, when it comes to the traditional great concerns of an idealized public sphere--matters of war, social policy, and public funds--in America the deliberative mechanisms have become so corrupted by the professionalization of both lobbyists and legislators, the remoteness of the representation, and the taint of electorial fraud, that there is perceived to be no meaningful role for the public anymore in those debates. But the American people will not be denied a carnage around which to organize, even if the big one is out of reach. We will all find our own, and move full steam ahead, even though that means being unable to advocate for the best solution at hand, if that solution has anything to do with The Main Carnage. So, of the many recommendations offered by the Tribune, in its own manufactured 'teachable moment' (as created by wrapping up the epic series with a 'Special Section' of the paper), none of them argue for reducing the overrall amount of traffic on the roads, much less a car-free future. How the earnestness of the politically-innocuous cause can be harnessed to the cause of Ending the Main Carnage, to pull on the same rope, as it were, is the challenge. Boy, once these parents of dead car-wrecked teens, some of whom work with amazing passion to keep other parents from having to go through the same thing, become convinced that a car-free nation is the only way to achieve their goal...that's when we could say the movement (which movement--at that point, does it matter?) has grown. Maybe not in a 'teachable moment' kind of way, during which a greater awareness or re-consideration of one's worldview happens, but in the more human way of assimiliating causes into one's own matrix of demands. Dan W. On 10/01/07, Felix Stalder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now, we are in a situation where nobody has any good idea what to do. [...] There are no community rituals, no community centers, often there are no sidewalks. People
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
On 11/01/07, Michael H Goldhaber [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: b) Venice is in fact becoming de-populated, with its natives moving to the car-unfree mainland; That's because tourism has driven up real estate prices to the point where locals can no longer afford to live there. There are ways to prevent this from occurring in car-free cities, and some of these are discussed in the book _Carfree Cities_. The author emphasises that Venice is not an ideal car-free city, and that it should be possible to build better ones; hence his detailed design proposal. c) it is a complete mistake to think that Americans' access to oil depends on having troops in Iraq =97or anywhere in the middle east for that matter. How do you explain the proliferation of US military bases in the Middle East[1] if those bases aren't intended to protect American access to oil?[2] On this last point, when Iran threw out the Shah and held the American embassy staff hostage, it continued to sell oil on the world market, like any other OPEC country. Iran's oil production plummeted in 1979, and oil prices shot up as a result.[3][4] As it is, the invasion of Iraq has certainly not increased US oil supplies or lowered prices, but in fact done the opposite. The war is conceivably a war for oil-company profits (which have gone way up since it started) but not a war for oil itself. The invasion of Iraq looks to me like a colossal miscalculation, but I find it difficult to explain except as an attempt to turn Iraq into an extension of the Arabian peninsula, i.e. of an oil-rich region with US-friendly rulers and plenty of American military bases. Ben [1] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/centcom.htm [2] http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050425/klare [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_energy_crisis [4] http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
We who oppose the war have been acting apathetic, it's true. I think the reason for some is that it seems our efforts are useless. When the war was beginning there were huge protests; many contacted their politicians,marched, etc. And that accomplished nothing. The mass of Americans swallowed the Bush/Cheney fabrications about links to Sept. 11, and weapons of mass destruction. Our so-called representatives voted for the war in spite of anything we said or did. Not to mention being called treasonous for even questioning and having websites appear at which students could report leftist faculty who were forcing their opinions on students. And ever since the media is mealy-mouthed, reports little about any protest that does happen, and doen't really investigate. Bush has seemed coated in teflon until just recently, and even still, it looks like he could get a way with sending even more troops. I'm afraid many who opposed this war now do spend more energy on local issues where they actually can make some difference, rather than resisting the war. Kim On 1/11/07, Benjamin Geer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 11/01/07, Michael H Goldhaber [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: b) Venice is in fact becoming de-populated, with its natives moving to the car-unfree mainland; That's because tourism has driven up real estate prices to the point where locals can no longer afford to live there. There are ways to prevent this from occurring in car-free cities, and some of these are discussed in the book _Carfree Cities_. The author emphasises that Venice is not an ideal car-free city, and that it should be possible to build better ones; hence his detailed design proposal. ... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
On Friday, 5. January 2007 20:36, Michael H Goldhaber wrote: We have reached a crucial turning point in American history. The November elections and current polls have made clear that Americans have soured on the Iraq war, and want the troops to be withdrawn rapidly. I'm not a close observer of American politics (how come that Lieberman was relected?), but what strikes me as the really remarkable outcome of this election is that it revealed the total bankrupcy of the ideologies that has been dominant since the end of the cold war: neo-liberalism (with its emphasis on freedom) and neo-conservativism (with its emphasis on security), which have produced not freedom and security but abandonnment and fear. Neoliberalism has had to declare bankrupcy a while ago, but 9/11 provided the opportunity to swiftly replace it with its darker cousin, so the void was less obvious. Now, we are in a situation where nobody has any good idea what to do. Bringing the troops home now is as unrealistic as fighting for victory. What comes next? Nobody seems to know beyond short-term political tactical games. But while such desorientation might provide room for creative thinking, I'm not optimistic. The social conditions which have provided the mass basis for the acceptance of faith-based politics are still here. Just that the war in Iraq is too manifestly disasterous to whish away. Salon Magazine recently featured an interesting interview with Chris Hedges, NYT reporter (Bosnia, Middle East), and author of a new book on the US Christian right, American Fascists, that seems directly relevant here. http://salon.com/books/feature/2007/01/08/fascism/ Since the midterm election, many have suggested that the Christian right has peaked, and the movement has in fact suffered quite a few severe blows since both of our books came out It's suffered severe blows in the past too. It depends on how you view the engine of the movement. For me, the engine of the movement is deep economic and personal despair. A terrible distortion and deformation of American society, where tens of millions of people in this country feel completely disenfranchised, where their physical communities have been obliterated, whether that's in the Rust Belt in Ohio or these monstrous exurbs like Orange County, where there is no community. There are no community rituals, no community centers, often there are no sidewalks. People live in empty soulless houses and drive big empty cars on freeways to Los Angeles and sit in vast offices and then come home again. You can't deform your society to that extent, and you can't shunt people aside and rip away any kind of safety net, any kind of program that gives them hope, and not expect political consequences. Democracies function because the vast majority live relatively stable lives with a degree of hope, and, if not economic prosperity, at least enough of an income to free them from severe want or instability. Whatever the Democrats say now about the war, they're not addressing the fundamental issues that have given rise to this movement. But isn't there a change in the Democratic Party, now that it's talking about class issues and economic issues more so than in the past? Yes, but how far are they willing to go? The corporations that fund the Republican Party fund them. I don't hear anybody talking about repealing the bankruptcy bill, just like I don't hear them talking about torture. The Democrats recognize the problem, but I don't see anyone offering any kind of solutions that will begin to re-enfranchise people into American society. The fact that they can't get even get healthcare through is pretty depressing. The argument you're now making sounds in some ways like Tom Frank's, which is basically that support for the religious right represents a kind of misdirected class warfare. But your book struck me differently -- it seemed to be much more about what this movement offers people psychologically. Yeah, the economic is part of it, but you have large sections of the middle class that are bulwarks within this movement, so obviously the economic part isn't enough. The reason the catastrophic loss of manufacturing jobs is important is not so much the economic deprivation but the social consequences of that deprivation. The breakdown of community is really at the core here. When people lose job stability, when they work for $16 an hour and don't have health insurance, and nobody funds their public schools and nobody fixes their infrastructure, that has direct consequences into how the life of their community is led. I know firsthand because my family comes from a working-class town in Maine that has suffered exactly this kind of deterioration. You pick up the local paper and the weekly police blotter is just DWIs and domestic violence. We've shattered these lives, and it isn't always economic. That's where I guess I would differ with Frank. It's really the destruction of the
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
Their good will is nothing when that is all that matters. doch! 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' sound noble, fluent, shakespearian what fit in the bondesque month of the global fatal liege man, the brit hammer of god, his beloved download, the good..then..i dont know..'i feel always compulsively jealous my laptop is always slower than yours for money transfert' would right brand the laborious swiss killbill a la godard, the stammer of the devil, the becket's tramp waiting for the european constitution. the bad # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
folks, in the context of transmediale.07 we are organising a conference panel with several journalists working in bagdad and amman, together with the people who run http://www.niqash.org regards, -a transmediale.07 Conference Panel: The Media Landscape of Iraq =46riday, 2.2. 2007, 12.00 hrs, Akademie Hanseatenweg, Studio 1 Participants: Saad Saloum [iq], Ismael Zayer [iq], Ali Badr [iq], Susanne Fischer [de], Anja Wollenberg [de], Mod. Klaas Glenewinkel [de] The future developments in Iraq will depend crucially on the question whether a process of negotiation can be initiated between the conflicting groups, or whether separation and isolation will continue. The function of the media in this process is not to be underestimated. The media communicate, comment and reflect; they form opinions and mobilise atmospheres of consent or dissent. Since the collapse of the regime, the media landscape in Iraq has been growing and sprawling uncontrollably in all directions, and the coverage of the socio-political situation is as multi-layered and complex as the situation itself. The discussion with Iraqi journalists and artists explores the role that the media play in the development of conflicts and the tight-rope walk between the freedom of speech and the will to survive. MICT (Media in Cooperation Transition) introduce the topic with a report. In collaboration with MICT and the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation. http://www.transmediale.de/site/conference.html ** Conference 'Unfinish!' The transmediale.07 conference, 'unfinish!', deals with the phenomenon of finiteness in art, science, architecture, computer science and politics. The digital culture of the present seems to be neither willing nor able to accep= t final determination and the closure of processes. Instead processuality and continuous and consecutive updates and versions are the credo of current cultural practices. The conference of the transmediale.07 enters into the discrepancy between the desire to open up solidified structures and situatio= ns, and the curse of digital work that doesn=92t come to conclusions,but only to= an iteration of preliminary versions. In this discussion terms such as 'opening= ', 'closure', and 'restart', figure as central aspects. In seven panel discussi= ons and in three keynote speeches, they will be analysed and applied to artistic and socio-political questions. The conference of transmediale.07 in organised in cooperation with the Feder= al Agency for Civic Education. ** transmediale.07 unfinish! January 31 - February 4, 2007 Akademie der Kuenste Berlin, Hanseatenweg 10 # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
On 10/01/07, Felix Stalder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now, we are in a situation where nobody has any good idea what to do. [...] There are no community rituals, no community centers, often there are no sidewalks. People live in empty soulless houses and drive big empty cars on freeways to Los Angeles and sit in vast offices and then come home again. I've just read a very thoughtful book, _Carfree Cities_, that begins with an analysis of how cars destroy communities. The author goes on to provide a detailed design proposal for car-free cities, borrowing heavily from Christopher Alexander's architectural design patterns. In essence, the proposal attempts to combine the best aspects of old European neighbourhoods with an urban topology that allows for very efficient public transport based on a metro or tram system. A comparison of car-centric Los Angeles with car-free Venice runs throughout the book. The author's web site provides a brief summary of the book: http://www.carfree.com/ I don't know whether the time is ripe for this idea in the US, but maybe September 11 and the Iraq war could be used to concentrate Americans' minds on an idea that would enable them to rebuild their communities while reducing their dependence on oil (and thus reducing their military presence in the Middle East). Ben # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
folks, in the context of transmediale.07 we are organising a conference panel with several journalists working in bagdad and amman, together with the people who run http://www.niqash.org regards, -a transmediale.07 Conference Panel: The Media Landscape of Iraq Friday, 2.2. 2007, 12.00 hrs, Akademie Hanseatenweg, Studio 1 Participants: Saad Saloum [iq], Ismael Zayer [iq], Ali Badr [iq], Susanne Fischer [de], Anja Wollenberg [de], Mod. Klaas Glenewinkel [de] The future developments in Iraq will depend crucially on the question whether a process of negotiation can be initiated between the conflicting groups, or whether separation and isolation will continue. The function of the media in this process is not to be underestimated. The media communicate, comment and reflect; they form opinions and mobilise atmospheres of consent or dissent. Since the collapse of the regime, the media landscape in Iraq has been growing and sprawling uncontrollably in all directions, and the coverage of the socio-political situation is as multi-layered and complex as the situation itself. The discussion with Iraqi journalists and artists explores the role that the media play in the development of conflicts and the tight-rope walk between the freedom of speech and the will to survive. MICT (Media in Cooperation Transition) introduce the topic with a report. In collaboration with MICT and the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation. http://www.transmediale.de/site/conference.html ** Conference 'Unfinish!' The transmediale.07 conference, 'unfinish!', deals with the phenomenon of finiteness in art, science, architecture, computer science and politics. The digital culture of the present seems to be neither willing nor able to accept final determination and the closure of processes. Instead processuality and continuous and consecutive updates and versions are the credo of current cultural practices. The conference of the transmediale.07 enters into the discrepancy between the desire to open up solidified structures and situations, and the curse of digital work that doesn't come to conclusions,but only to an iteration of preliminary versions. In this discussion terms such as 'opening= ', 'closure', and 'restart', figure as central aspects. In seven panel discussions and in three keynote speeches, they will be analysed and applied to artistic and socio-political questions. The conference of transmediale.07 in organised in cooperation with the Federal Agency for Civic Education. ** transmediale.07 unfinish! January 31 - February 4, 2007 Akademie der Kuenste Berlin, Hanseatenweg 10 # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
The notion of a teachable moment is fundamental. I take it to mean, a moment when every thoughtful and responsible American, in whatever medium, arena, theater, conversation or public or private function they occupy or can open up, should seize the occasion of widespread uncertainty, failed policy and political transition and use it to state facts, raise questions and outline alternatives that can help shift the way people think about the role of the US in the world. One can see from the way that Michael Goldhaber has written his text that it is meant to be clear, within practically anyone's reading capacities, unambiguous, useful, memorable. I like that. As the Iraqi quagmire swallows up the last bit of Bush's credibility along with many mistaken American certainties, there is a chance to step into the gap, to change the US world view. Benjamin Geer's response adds another dimension. From an American perspective, it is what you might call global media radicalism. Al Jazeera has for years been painted as America's enemy, a dark, ignorant, gesticulating fountain of lies. Ben portrays it as a kind of open door to the disjunctive realities of the 21st century. Qatar has colonized Britain. This, as most people on nettime realize, is possible because world financial flows, concentrating around sources of petrol, have utterly transformed the Arabian peninsula in a period of only 35 years (since 1973). But the dangerous gap between this aristocratic and capitalistic node of the world network in Arabia, and the regional audience it addresses, mired in economic stagnation and more-or-less dictatorial regimes, is also one of those complex realities that the citizens of the planet are trying to deal with. This is what having Al Jazeera in your living room could make apparent. There is an irony in the fact that despite the basic stuff of which deserts are made, it is the temperate USA which seems to have its head in the sand. Beyond the clearly stated and wholly essential verities of the teachable moment, there is a whole universe of contradictions, cultural divides and recalcitrant difficulties of coexistence that forms the very medium of thought and exchange between intelligent human beings in the present. Yet precisely this is absent from public life in the USA. One will answer, yes, but in what national arena or media system is it present? Outside specific diplomatic and business circles, European cosmopolitanism and multilingualism is largely limited to the awareness of one's neighbors on a stretch of land no larger than the continental US. But Europe is not the hegemonic power that has supplied the language, culture, toolkits, economic drive and military punch that together constitute what we call globalization. American cosmopolitanism would need to far exceed Europe's, and take in the very scope of an empire which it cannot hold together in any case, but whose breakup will only be more violent if levels of ignorance in the US remain what they are today. Stretching for a decade or a generation beyond the teachable moment there is the vast, multitudinous project of trying to open up the eyes and ears and heads of our intelligent and capable but strangely reserved and sometimes willfully obtuse friends (or even countrymen) in the endless golf course, donut stop and strip mall that extends between the frontiers of Mexico and Canada. best, Brian # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
If part of the reason for wars like this one is Americans' lack of knowledge about the rest of the world, perhaps it will be necessary to remedy that problem in order to avoid future Iraqs. rohaa, still, americanz are always good guies when they ball up it's cause they dont know or are not informed..manipulated or worst it's the devil itself that take all his precious time for filling in their each blue eyes wiz opaque shit etc. if americanz cant abdicate their faith in their own good will. it's due to some fictionnal virtual feed back where americanz in movie are never bad ones. idiot sometimes, what is not a sine in front of god, but bad, no! it's not my fault but where have you ever hear about 'lack of knoowledge' for tony blair all brit support to americanz for breeding in mass tiny unioonjack starz stripez on earth nearly as more than in a 007 flick? hach..do they both need 'better understanding of the rest of the world?' for better scenarii green back ? rooh..but when the fuck al jazera would run some global sit com moviez where 100 cia would die befor the end of the credits plus all the ones after, for my part i wouldnt be hurted if all the majordomo of the palaces would be chatterbox italians, the maids servants some stinking frenchs, the chauffeurs, doner eater sweaty big germans, all receptionnist short sighted belgian, i mean all as usual, i wouldnt care if the moviez run good : i mean with dress cut super low in the back if hidjab is require plus a picture of mahmoud ahmaninedjab wearing real short for playing football in the secret service office miss chief ..who would care of all the green flag all over zen in the background..ok you would say..i cant only understand so good trick as fartman ones, mucho heavy und popular etc.but hey americanz are not alwez alwez wrong..cause as simpson perhaps i found the mahmoud 's one about final solution contest drawing a bit too much intellectual, elitist even..zen killing americanz a la sergio leone could be funny..und remember he he didnt give a damn fuck to drag texas in some spanish sierra, with some ugly nags the frenchs did want to eat, no need of green cards In saying that this is a teachable moment in pumping tone of virtual led in their fucking ass! so..when the fuck would it sound 'moteur! et 'action' in sahara?..for 007 to die of tetanos or tourista would be fair, for the rest of europe a good tip would be quite enuf..thank you with mucho lowbow # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
nettime Iraq: The Way Forward
I have recently completed the following paper that I thought might be of interest to nettimers. Best, Michael --- Michael H. Goldhaber blog http://www.goldhaber.org Iraq: The Way Forward We have reached a crucial turning point in American history. The November elections and current polls have made clear that Americans have soured on the Iraq war, and want the troops to be withdrawn rapidly. One question now is how best to try to influence the new Congress to act successfully to help end, if not the complex of war, revenge and banditry now swirling through Iraq, then at least direct American participation. But that question cannot be tackled in isolation. Because the war and the war on terror in general have brought Americas reputation for competence, justice and humanity to a new low, through the debate on the war we have reached a rare teachable moment. The assumptions that that have surrounded Americas military posture ever since World War Two can now be brought into public question as never before. This opportunity is not to be missed. If it is the chances are that the failures in Iraq will be accounted for as mere errors in planning or execution. Pressure for further unwise and unwarranted military adventures will continue unabated. On the whole, Americans, and even most of their Congresspeople not to mention the President remain remarkably uninformed about the rest of the world. As a nation, our attention is focused inward, to an extent that most of the rest of the advanced world probably cannot match, if only because so much of their attention is focused on us. Even today, after nearly four years of war and occupation in Iraq, how many Americans can differentiate it from Iran? Most Congresspeople won that position after serving in state or local office hardly a route that rewards any special understanding of the rest of the world. Once they get to Washington, they find themselves overwhelmed by lobbyists and others who want to influence them in a particular parochial direction, not impart general global knowledge or wisdom. (Recently, the Congressional Quarterly journalist Jeff Stein interviewed Silvestre Reyes, the House Intelligence Committee chairman designate. Among other things, Reyes did not know which of al Qaeda and Hezbollah was Sunni, which Shiite. When pressed, he guessed wrong. This may not be the most important quiz question in the world, but it is rather germane to deciding how to handle some of the critical issues we face in Iraq and the Middle East in general. ) Still, while Congresspeople are more expert in domestic issues, that does not mean they are neutral when it comes to Defense Department appropriations and support of the military. Ever since World War IIs expenditures helped lift the country out of the Great Depression, and incidentally made the US by far the worlds dominant military and industrial power, keeping that supremacy has been tied to keeping domestic jobs and maintaining the economy. The very idea of national defense has lent some sense of unity to an otherwise possibly fractious country. A huge military has been taken to be a vital necessity as well as a source of pride, but what it is for is much less asked. There has to be some sort of default answer, of course; if we were apparently without enemies the giant force would eventually come to seem a senseless and unimportant use of substantial funds. In essence, every so often the Pentagons backers are faced with a situation of use it, or lose it. However, Americans general lack of curiosity about the world makes it easy to conjure up opponents, with only an occasional small war or military action needed to prove the point, couple with a much rarer fuller display of the militarys vaunted power. For most of the time since 1945, the Cold War against international Communism centered in Moscow neatly supplied the main bogeyman. But it has been fifteen years since the fall of the USSR. The supposed clash of civilizations with Islam came as a godsend to those many who have reasons to favor continued huge military investments. That led directly to the Iraq invasion. There was simply nowhere else that Americas huge military could with remote plausibility get any kind of a real workout. The visibility of Iraq debacle thus provides a huge and rare opportunity to challenge the countrys basic assumptions about the military. Already among the neo-cons, it is being bruited about that the war was fought with the wrong doctrine. Had we just used the right instruction book, we would have gotten the whole vast toy to work properly. In truth, the very idea that we should or can fight global jihad, or what the neo-cons are now beginning to style a global insurgency, needs to be debunked. The USs real power in the world has been economic and
