Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 20:18:24 +1000 From: Reg Mifflin <regm-AT-space.net.au> Subject: Re: provocation Steve, Couldn't agree more. Incommensurability approaching at 40 knots... Reg At 08:13 PM 9/20/01 +0100, Steve Devos wrote: >Reg > >The virtual reality that Eric is discussing is rapidly coming to pass. It is >moving towards being actual at 40 knots as the ships move towards Afghanistan. >In what appears to be now almost classic postmodern terms they are attempting >to bring Afghanisatn back into the world economy. Such is the unconscious of >the G8 powers - but the question here is not the issue of Capital occupying the >whole world, but when the virtual transgresses into the actual will they be >victorious quickly and the G8 public ticker tape down the streets of New York >(pretending that terroism has been victorius) or will we be standing on the >streets protesting against the Afghan War in 5 years time... > >Personally I'd bet on the latter but I hope that the cowboy understands >violence better than Clinton or Blair appear to and its something else... > >regards > >sdv > > > >Reg Mifflin wrote: > >> Eric, >> >> You ask the big question here: >> >> "It may sound like we've reached the reductio ad absurdum of my argument. >> I seem to be talking about fighting a war while trying to avoid >> antagonizing the enemy! But I submit that this is the weird new reality >> we face. And if the language we're using to describe that reality makes >> it seem inconceivable, then it's time to find some new language." >> >> I know this is hardly the time to sound flippant, but ... >> >> This new war is a crusade that can only be fought by soldiers not wearing >> uniforms. It is a crusade nevertheless because what is uniform to soldiers >> of both sides is a single defining characteristic - certainty in an >> afterlife, and that self-sacrifice will lead to a heavenly paradise. We >> haven't come all that far from the French romaunce, courtly love, the >> chivalric code. >> >> The answer, perhaps, to the dilemma you describe, of resisting panopticonic >> terror (they're watching us, we can't see them) without using a scatter >> gun, would involve military rationalization. Devolve the role of front-line >> soldier to one's own fundamentalist heaven-gazers. Their zealotry might >> easily be channelled into appropriate skills, razor and garrotte, and hand >> to hand combat with (and only with) others of their ideological ilk. >> Two birds one stone? >> Too cynical? >> >> Reg > > >
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