Re: Is democracy suiciding herself ?
brain drain: how can 'democracy' be separated out from
its structures, as just a pure idea or ideology that can be
trans/planted elsewhere, to grow and be cultivated by way
of warfare and business intentions, if this is its basis, so as
to establish some foothold in another region under an aegis
or shielded by 'democracy', yet without the institutions, laws,
structures which would make 'the word' and 'ideas' even of
greater strength, ultimately, than a gun or violence as the
mechanisms would exist to protect the right to voice dissent
and protest without, say, getting shot or killed or tortured, etc.
from what i wished to have read, works recommended by
several people whose author recently passed into a better
realm, is Boornstein's 'Discoverers', and a series on history
of the .US which was well regarded by many, it seems. the
'place' is not without contradictions which remain today in
the .US with slavery, with Native Americans still living in a
context which was entombed in some constitution which,
structurally, may leave out certain realities or aspects of
true fairness, balance, which must, throughout time, find
some readjustment, resolution, peace, and transformation.
what happened that changed the .US from one world to
another-- it seemed issues of the gravest of inhumanity,
in the name of 'the good life' choose one future over an-
other, and maybe this complexity taints the ideology of
some pure democracy-- yet what was learned that may
not need to be repeated in the same way, and that, just
possibly, the .US may learn from 'newer' democracies
of how to better address transformations and justices?
has there ever really been a psychological 'peace' in
the .US with regard to its past? and are these structural,
now in place, ingrained in patterns by which programs
of the state's machinery develops further into the future,
in effect, deficiencies that 'displace' people for power of
some nature or kind, to keep conquering of place, of
time, space, of mind, 'the frontier spirit' that also kills...
that is, it is not benign, nor all-seeing and balanced--
the divinity invoked 'in god, we trust' on the money, is
it emblematic of a holding-pattern against inhumanity,
or some suspension of judgment that, in the end, this
will all actually work out, just trust the bureaucracies?
people in the .US, day in and day out, from beginning
to the present, work on every issue imaginable within
the scope of injustices, to less or more success, yet to
have the freedoms to challenge and change, a basis
for change and transformation does seem to exist in
even these, darkest of days. it could be comparable
to viewing in the galaxy somewhere the birth of stars,
something that may seem beautiful at a distance, a
spectacular vision, may be the most violent process
of annihilation and creative destruction in this scale.
maybe 'deconstruction' is a way to get towards a way
of seeing/saying a process that is both good and bad,
that is complex and contradictory, about a place and
ideas, settled upon, a basis for living, and existence.
maybe the .US, .CN, .RU, .IQ, .AF, .QT and others, in
experimenting with democratic changes in various
ways, go through some kind of similar yet uniquely
different processes to change, which may be a type
of self-suicide of the parts that do need to change, in
relation to those pangs and tensions and incredible
forces which exist to stabilize all situations, as what
is at stake is existence and improvement is required.
obvious devolution of 'a democratic system' seems to
be part of a cycle which could be related only to the
economic system, whatever it may be, though also
to the representation of people in the structures and
institutions said to represent a specific place or state.
the thing that has made sense to me was when the
thing that is said to be democracy is, as plato in the
republic seemed to say, goes beyond itself and is
then into a post-democratic state of dictatorship or
something similar. historians have remarked that it
is possible for serious subversions to occur in the
.US system, and still it can snap-back into a better-
for-all scenario (fingers crossed), where more are
represented and the bureaucracies serve a public
interest and not some hijacking by private policies.
i believe the pre-democratic, versus the despotic
post-democratic, realms were of authoritarian and
other types/forms of governments, which may be
an indication that it is possible to proceed through
some transformation rather predictably, structurally
changing based on how other very large structural
shifts have occurred previously, elsewhere, though
maybe without the need for the same detrimental
effects, say, total violence, genocide, civil war, etc.
the discussions on 'place' and psychology of mind
is hard to separate from ongoing events. one thing
that always amazes and fascinates me is to hear
of the sanity of what is presented to be a 'violent
irrationalism' which, if one believes the television
and mass media, is all that some are capable of--
yet to hear words spoken, by whomever, in states
of war or complex situations that are largely being
filtered out of their actual contexts, so as to appear
as a message in the violent storm driven seas of
the psychological mind-- that 'we do not have any
problem with citizens of country X, we just do not
want _______'. it is a message that has been of
consistent regularity throughout the decade or
more of similarly stated intentions-- 'we have a
problem with policies, not your people,' et cetera.
which, most would call reasonable, remarkably
generous given a situation, enlightened even.
yet, it may be portrayed as one-sided barbarism
for some political gain or gang, to exploit this. it
would seem to indicate there is something very
much different between such thinking and that
of 'terrorists' who are not in a local geographical
situation-- whose territory is the global map-- and
who _do want to kill citizens of countries XYZ. yet
to then here the .US call these same people as
being 'terrorists' shows the duplicity of binarism,
or too simple logic without complexity or paradox.
if one was living within a place that now is within
reach of a new future, yet also nearby the edge of
failure, to cast the future into an inescapable chaos-
what would 'terrorists' want to do? would they call a
truce? would they miss the chance to bring worlds
into total impossibility, no matter the human costs?
or, would they be directed by some primal urge to
avenge some primal, tribal acts of retribution? the
.US is using the language of force and retribution,
-- 'to save face' -- it is said to show the people of a
place said - to only understand violence - violence
to show the truth of the power, or the power of truth.
well, in a democratic structure it would seem to be
a very different situation, (paradoxical, too). in that,
usually laws, institutions, words replace the guns.
cops, national armies, constitute organized defense
of a place. the persons to defend and protect are to
attack and destroy in the name of 'democracy' -- it is
one-side of many possible sides that co-exist in a
place, in minds, it would seem. flipside, though, in
a democracy 'freedom' of the press or media does
not include the 'right' to call for the death of another.
at least, it is not something encountered often and
if so, it is probably necessarily dealt with, in most
any government good-bad-and-ugly, with limitation.
to hear .US media decry the padlocking of, what is
reported as a paper calling for the death of soldiers,
would go well beyond 'free speech' in this country,
yet the media here decry the 'lack of democracy' in
Iraq, for a padlocking which may try to contain what
may not be containable in terms of a processing of
all the complex factors involved in peoples minds,
in the interactions of place...
meaning: what if, in Saddam's land that was under
his knuckles and swords, 'free speech' was by the
sword and gun, and, without democratic institutions,
laws, structures, the insurance policy one has is that
which the NRA (national rifle association, here) is
said to protect with guns, freedom of defending the
constitution against its overtaking-- yet the political
party who is running the works and associated with
this lobbyist group at home would seem a very odd
combination given that, in its own way, this may be
what is happening in Iraq-- don't tread on me, again.
what if the truth of power were somehow to be able
to be bridged or transformed with the power of truth,
to keep communications, to build the needed and
necessary bridges across cross-purposes and aims,
to make possible shared-interests that are open to
review. This is not happening with .US policy in .IQ,
it is largely opaque what is happening there and it
is impossible to trust any statements from 'official'
sources as it is a spin-factory of political magicians.
how to see what what cannot see, to see beyond, it
is not a weakness to be realistic, it actually would be
a way to 'save face' by being upfront and honest of
what is going on, what the shared goals are, and to
put this 'private war' into its context of larger goals--
of place, of people. what the hell is going on with a
private sector in Iraq, in terms of democracy? in the
.US there could be said to be at dual-purposes by
default, one is after profit, the other is to regulate
these desires against more common denominators
which serve the larger, aggregation of purposes.
there is much greater strength in the truth of the
Iraqis who are reasoning their case, than in the
violence of power, as it shows a superior intention
to transcend the limits of violence, it appeals to an-
other, some-other interaction. democracy does not
seem to be equated with lighting hostages on fire,
or the indiscriminate killing of citizens, as terrorists
have been said to do. the flaws of 'private thinking'
may be too great to reason with, they may be bound
to a specificity that is not as large as the questions-
so in the case of 'what in the world is the world doing
in Iraq?' -- from what most, it is assumed, assumed,
was to help. was to stabilize, to open up a future in
what may have knowingly been a suicidal action in
terms of the human costs. what is the benefit, now?
from reading the news of a place, it is death, war,
insurgency, words that do not reflect the reasons
for being there, the hatreds, angst, horrors, tragedy,
loss, anguish, pain, inhumanity, insanity, chaos, the
grief and frightening prospects do not bode well for
any 'mission' related to democratic intentions being
accomplished-- it seemed to be a pre-text, rather, for
another agenda still largely out of view, privatizing of
place, 'the occupation' that may be happening in the
corporate sense, which also happens here, which is
known as 'corporate takeover' -- yet within war zoning.
the NRA would do what, exactly, in such a situation, if
their laws and structures and institutions were doing
this work, what would the gun lobbyists be doing? it
is likely, if the constitution was at stake, their right to
bear arms may also protect certain aspects of place,
of mind, that a place belongs to those who live there.
that Iraq is composed of Iraqis who will defend Iraq.
that seems to be nearer to the idea of 'place' in the
sense that it is being presented in the news, as a
situation without thought, logic, rationale, for why
things are out-of-control or people-hate-.US or the
many varieties of points of view on what could still
be the best chance to challenge and change, with
the greatest efforts of peaceful exchange, to bring
smaller oppositions into a larger question of future
coexistence and necessarily new relationships, in
terms of both internal and external states of affairs,
national and individual states, inter-, infra-, extra-,
and intra-. some may see 'saving face' more to be
a question of 'saving mind' in a mindlessness of a
situation rapidly losing itself, its grounding, in the
realities involved-- not that this description is that,
though surely it is not Dick Cheney's world vision
which is accurate, who acts himself as a warlord,
in his rhetoric. how to interact if at dual-purposes,
at home and abroad, here and there, if one may
be at risk for any and-or everything they do, think,
decide, act upon, .... in a 'democracy' at least there
is a belief, maybe the illusion at time, of an ability
to transcend the existing conditions by rights to
speak truth to power, to change structures of the
system of oppression, to air grievances in legal
and other systems (media)-- it is also possible to
forgo this and, as is also evident, to use force to
make one's point-- which is seen here as being
irrational-- such as the commonness of graduate
or other students going to school and shooting a
professor or teacher who may be at the edge of
the limitations of reason or at some junction in
which these forces of words are not enough to
communicate, and the power becomes a truth,
a type of writing upon the news page of events.
of place, of mind, what is said to be civil war may
be 'a blessing in disguise' - if opponents who are
feared afar for a blood-letting were to actually find
shared interests that transcend differences, to find
a commonality on their own terms, of new relations,
humanitarian assistance, as part of a storied land-
scape in which it may be critical to acknowledge a
context in which the last guns on the streets were
of a dictator, and distrust in guns and force may far
exceed any commercialized-broadcasting of good-
messages, in other words- trust-me propaganda of
a nature that is remembered, not far from a dictator
who tormented a nation and region and people, in
that to see the 'liberator' is to see a mirror-image of
a similar type of tactics, operations, and strategy.
what if transparency were brought into the affairs
of a place-- the beauty of a place and a culture to
be recognized, valued, respected, ... shared, loved.
what are the traditional artworks and artforms of the
Iraqi peoples? what are the types of dance? have
any appreciations of the place, the unique talents
and senses and awareness that always seems to
keep alive under the most brutal of oppressions,
have they seen the light of day in this new Iraq, in
this new environment? what are the artists doing?
what are the thinkers thinking? what are merchants
and artisans and craftspeople doing? what kind of
celebration ever happened, in re-establishing the
situation and autonomies? Is Iraq 'free' in the sense
of 'freedom of life' or is it free as in the consequence
of 'freedom' as its own value, a negative anarchy in
which the social-darwinists prefers the most vicious
predators upon which to hierarchicalize new power?
it is unknown, it is a question, all of it, here, for the
most part, 'over there', that place where all hearts
are focused who have hearts, and some do not--
even the baddest, meanest, toughest, most corrupt,
ungodly son ... may still have a heart -- and may still
be able to do the right thing at the right time for the
right reason. and for some greater purposes in life,
than just the immediate. 'terrorists' are not like this,
though, as they are set upon a way of interaction in
which, good or bad, everyone is a target to be killed.
it may not be someone who believes they are doing
something for the right reasons which may not be
the right reasons, or who cannot fathom some full
consequence of what is involved, who really can...
though there are some who no longer care-- they
do not fight for anyone but their own selfish needs
to be superior, in the name of religion, as prophets.
that is the thing that differentiates, to me, at least,
the loose-lipping of 'terrorism' with everything that
moves, in comparison to an entirely different threat
in which everyone, Iraqis and Americans, and all
others, are on the same side, or, in the same place,
geographically in the land, and in the mindscapes.
should Iraq fail, 'terrorism' may be at fault, as might
a too-simple 'freedom' -- an ideological malaise in
which 'the terrorists' do not even need to be there,
after the fact, though the only benefit is theirs, as it
hurts both Iraqis and the world with better dreams.
ideologies function based on reactions, 'freedom
is good' is unquestionable to a true-believer who
has never seen the ugly wrath which they censor,
and like a private profit, ask for tithing and prayers
to bring them their holy land, even if armageddon.
ideas, thinking, reason in public realms have been
able to work throughout these conditions to find a
balance, which does have limits upon roles of the
private minds/places and also the public minds/
places, in interactions, so one does not need to
annihilate the other to co-exist, unless it is binary
logic and a standardized test of multiple choices
which is more the work of machines than of any
human imagination to transcend limits of ballots
and butterflies voting for a conquering kingdom,
which the .US constitution was in response to,
so deja-vu, flip the switch, either-or, flipflopping
of some machine of state currently on auto-pilot.
that the state of the world is the individual, that
the state of the individual may also be a nation,
that there are many states and many peoples,
how to bring all of these together-- if dividing?
if realism is added to place, it would help, yet
this is the crucial function of censorship to stop
that which contradicts itself, that is, brings views
into question that are based on top-down types
of authority in which there are 'no safe questions'.
there may not be safe questions, though it is a
possibility there is a responsible questioning in
that, to not do so is to lose the right to question.
if one follows bin Laden's logic, and Atta's, it is
not a reactionary response in the sense they
may have desired it would seem. imagine that
an architectural critique of 'modernism' in the
realms of the Arab and Islamic worlds is to be
in the form of suicidal hijacking of airplanes
into two of the world's tallest towers in the .US
under the guise of revolutionary aims-- that is
an architectural critique certainly well outside
the realm of protected speech -- attacking the
symbols of 'modernity' -- and -- get this:
bin Laden was the architectural modernizer
of both Mecca and Medina.
imagine what that means in terms of architecture.
the refurbisher of the world's largest religion, its
most holy of places, is built (with great skill and
insight into blending of tradition and modernity, in
terms of aesthetics and technology, for instance)
decides to kill 3,000 people in NYC and all over
the world, in the name of these holy places and
their religion, representing a few billion people--
in the name of the religion, no less. The beauty
of these places, from what has been seen in the
imagery that is rarely seen here-- is to mediate
-- a common question shared the world over--
not just in the Middle-east , and that is how to
deal with the universality of science and of the
technologies with respect to public and private
place, belief, traditions, cultures. What does bin
Laden do? he hates skyscrapers in the Middle-
East and instead of blowing those up, he attacks
what is ideologically mistaken from the reality of
the situation-- the ideological 'root cause' which
is a private agenda well- and horrifically-executed
on 9/11, 4/11 and so many other places and times,
including diplomatic embassies around the world.
this is not in the name of peace, it is in the name
of war, and it is in the name of religion-- yet is it
really this? it would seem to be a highly-biased
and self-important criticism-- hypocritical in the
extreme-- in terms of the architectural situation.
what would an ideologically reactionary monster
of a modern-machinery of the 'west' do? is there
any chance that bin Laden was planning on the
.US hitting Mecca and Medina, as a result of 9/11?
architecturally, it would make a lot of sense that
such a wager of the architectural critique is part
of the equation-- as the WTC was a profanity in
bin Laden's terms. usually architectural critiques
here in the .US involve someone acting out the
social mores and values and if it is any good, a
little theater may enter into the equation once in
awhile. yet, suicidal airplane hijackings are not
the way to resolve the situation: it is a Howard
Roark of the Fountainhead in reverse, or in a
some subversion to raise property (mental and
physical) values of certain ideas or ideologies,
of place and mind. as a result, 'Mecca' must be
a better architectural model of the future in how
to deal with modernity, that would seem to be
involved somehow, as it is a driving part of this
'critique by pure violence' that may be bred as
part of the inability to act 'out' inside a place, to
hit outward, not inward, at the situations as the
abilities to do so may not structurally exist. this
is to say-- it makes no sense if bin Laden is to
be hitting the .US skyscrapers as a critique of
those going up in local landscapes and minds.
is it possible that bin Laden so identifies with
the rebuilding or restoration of holy places that
in a sense, these became 'privatized' by a very
similar capitalistic business sense of the wicked
entrepreneur with plans to (literally) take-over the
world by waging a campaign (of violence) against
opponents in a bid for a (hostile) takeover of the
direction of events, from this modern machinery
that has puzzled everyone, yet casts it into terms
unrealistic to the questions faced (and those that
are needing to be censored, for they would be in
contradiction to the ideologues) -- that humanity
and human values may be secondary in hurried
and fervent development of 'the past' into some
false-utopic future which disenfranchises people
to such a degree that what is true, internally to
the unspoken awareness of connection between
place and sense, of mind, of state, of existence-
is threatened by this advancement of machinery
and is out-of-control-- so to strike out at beastly
heresies in the name of god or of religious belief-
yet in doing so, to fall into the depths of deception
which detaches the truth at the heart of matters,
with the power which accrues upon harnessing
of the forces of nature for individual ends- which
are based on a control beyond a normal human
realm, which can wreak havoc upon humanity,
itself now as a machinery of death, terror-forming
the planet under the false-guise of religious truth.
of holy missions. killing children, women, babies.
that exists beyond the realm of architecture: evil.
architecture can build structures, in many ways it
is possible many kinds of architects can build a
policy or retrofit existing ones to allow changes
which will not detonate a building without saving
what is its value-- a problem shared by all, and it
is a world question: China and others are dealing
with these issues as remarked recently by a well-
known architect. As is Russia. As is the Middle-
east. it is a shared question and questioning. as
a common question it is related to thought, and
to a freedom to think. to consider things within a
range that may be uncomfortably undecided yet
that is the suspension between the past and the
future, the present moment, tense and exciting.
structures may be visible and invisible, it may be
a book that was previously banned, or it may be
dialogues about issues, a protection of equality
of consideration, of a fairness, --- if relating prior
experiences in the .US to ongoing developments
in the world, 'electrification' and other issues do
re-arrive or re-occur in new contexts, within a
changed environment and context, yet still with
an applicability (yet, necessarily, adaptability) to
address known structural issues. this is, it could
be argued, part of a democratic structure or one
could just say some public-private representative
government in which humans are treated equally,
or so it would seem that 'democracy' is too vague.
for instance, when fighting in the first half of the
20th century, other economic issues included a
deep depression in the .US preceding it which is
also indicated in many factors in the present day,
with high-levels of corruption, huge inequalities
in income distribution to the point it is unfair (some
get everything, some absolutely nothing, homeless).
the old excuses do not resolve the issues, for more
and more, until 'war becomes a business opportunity'
for people to afford to retire, they pick up a gun and
go to a far away place to fight for their paycheck--
war is not a viable business model, though this is
apparently not to be questioned: privatization is the
'sacred cow' as they say in the .US, in that its good-
ness is beyond question, with questions censored.
that may be why there is little/no reporting on this
'private' dimension. in any case, in the merging of
the past with the present, and a shared future with
whatever outcome-- one thing seems to be shared:
there is an economic dimension (and socials, too),
in this war context, and then the real threat of these
'terrorist ideologues ready to kill for their true beliefs'
which are privatized, hardened viewpoints which, if
they succeed in doing their job, they are not alive to
deal with the hell they create as a result, yet are to
be doubly-damned in that, one, they are the least of
holy warriors, and also, no virgin will lay with a man
who kills children-- it is simply not going to happen.
in the 1930s to the 1950s or so, with what is known as
the 'great depression' here, the 'grapes of wrath' story
of an increasing poverty and loss of ability to adapt to
changed circumstances (similar to climate change in
some respects, possibly) an issue at the time was an
advancement of new technologies and modernism as
the driver of this future growth-- new inventions and a
chaos of change would seem to accompany this if it
were added up to the spectacles of world's fairs and
historical accounts-- verging on mysticism and magic.
in any case, the economics did not make it to a rural
population, and the distribution was not able to reach
large geographies. at the same time, with the new
approaches and efficiencies, business changed and
automated assembly-line factories and other changes
were made. taken together, with the rural programs,
just as with computing today, it was necessary to get
these new structures in place for other things to be a
possibility. today it may be the internet, though it may
still be food, water, shelter, heat in many places. the
disparity could then be changed to alter the course
of the rural communities (where many live now today)
and during the world war, radio and other technologies
as phones, would seem to be possible in places, that
otherwise may have been locked outside of the new
culture that was evolving. one of the more interesting
aspects of this, one, is the historical role of northern
factories in relation to work for previously enslaved
people. another is the role of women who were able
to work outside the traditional old structures to help
advance the health of the society, to get jobs, skills,
and to bring equality into other structures, such as
legal and institutional and economic. all issues are
related to modernity's structures and laws. and guns
are not the way such changes can be made to occur.
in fact-- these are the changes the Taliban and others
despise-- they want to live in a world without music.
consider that in your heart: a world without music.
what kind of vision or thought or imagination does
that lend itself to, except a new enslavement of all
that is good, true, and real and worth living for, and
dying to protect-- music, dance, love, beauty, truth.
Lucretia may be democracy after its period of post-
democratic dictatorship-- where she is raped and
in response, kills herself to honor her family name.
though this is exactly that which is democracy, the
poor, downtrodden, those without voice are those
who people, fellow citizens, vow to protect both in
terms of the law and in terms of a common defense.
citizens were killed on 9/11, who are no different in
their complex cultural contexts than any others, it is
symbolic because everyone is represented in some
way, for better and worse, with things as they are--
which do need to change, but how will this happen?
there is a common enemy- it is those who are against
peace at any and all costs. it includes those in every
society who are unwilling to compromise and to make
decisions which go beyond self-interest, to serve the
larger goals of the place, of the minds, to bring a new
possibility, new options, to keep life and love alive. to
work for that day when things turn, when the tide is to
change, and everyone can celebrate in the victory, of
reclaiming the future from the ideological machinery
reliant upon the force of unquestioned, unwise power.
bridges everywhere, structures, changes, imaginations.
creativity, opportunities, voices, songs, and... dance.
everyone thus relates as both a leader and a follower.
brian
On Saturday, April 10, 2004, at 07:27 PM, patachon wrote:
--
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brain drain: how can 'democracy' be separated out from
its structures, as just a pure idea or ideology that can be
trans/planted elsewhere, to grow and be cultivated by way
of warfare and business intentions, if this is its basis, so as
to establish some foothold in another region under an aegis
or shielded by 'democracy', yet without the institutions, laws,
structures which would make 'the word' and 'ideas' even of
greater strength, ultimately, than a gun or violence as the
mechanisms would exist to protect the right to voice dissent
and protest without, say, getting shot or killed or tortured, etc.
from what i wished to have read, works recommended by
several people whose author recently passed into a better
realm, is Boornstein's 'Discoverers', and a series on history
of the .US which was well regarded by many, it seems. the
'place' is not without contradictions which remain today in
the .US with slavery, with Native Americans still living in a
context which was entombed in some constitution which,
structurally, may leave out certain realities or aspects of
true fairness, balance, which must, throughout time, find
some readjustment, resolution, peace, and transformation.
what happened that changed the .US from one world to
another-- it seemed issues of the gravest of inhumanity,
in the name of 'the good life' choose one future over an-
other, and maybe this complexity taints the ideology of
some pure democracy-- yet what was learned that may
not need to be repeated in the same way, and that, just
possibly, the .US may learn from 'newer' democracies
of how to better address transformations and justices?
has there ever really been a psychological 'peace' in
the .US with regard to its past? and are these structural,
now in place, ingrained in patterns by which programs
of the state's machinery develops further into the future,
in effect, deficiencies that 'displace' people for power of
some nature or kind, to keep conquering of place, of
time, space, of mind, 'the frontier spirit' that also kills...
that is, it is not benign, nor all-seeing and balanced--
the divinity invoked 'in god, we trust' on the money, is
it emblematic of a holding-pattern against inhumanity,
or some suspension of judgment that, in the end, this
will all actually work out, just trust the bureaucracies?
people in the .US, day in and day out, from beginning
to the present, work on every issue imaginable within
the scope of injustices, to less or more success, yet to
have the freedoms to challenge and change, a basis
for change and transformation does seem to exist in
even these, darkest of days. it could be comparable
to viewing in the galaxy somewhere the birth of stars,
something that may seem beautiful at a distance, a
spectacular vision, may be the most violent process
of annihilation and creative destruction in this scale.
maybe 'deconstruction' is a way to get towards a way
of seeing/saying a process that is both good and bad,
that is complex and contradictory, about a place and
ideas, settled upon, a basis for living, and existence.
maybe the .US, .CN, .RU, .IQ, .AF, .QT and others, in
experimenting with democratic changes in various
ways, go through some kind of similar yet uniquely
different processes to change, which may be a type
of self-suicide of the parts that do need to change, in
relation to those pangs and tensions and incredible
forces which exist to stabilize all situations, as what
is at stake is existence and improvement is required.
obvious devolution of 'a democratic system' seems to
be part of a cycle which could be related only to the
economic system, whatever it may be, though also
to the representation of people in the structures and
institutions said to represent a specific place or state.
the thing that has made sense to me was when the
thing that is said to be democracy is, as plato in the
republic seemed to say, goes beyond itself and is
then into a post-democratic state of dictatorship or
something similar. historians have remarked that it
is possible for serious subversions to occur in the
.US system, and still it can snap-back into a better-
for-all scenario (fingers crossed), where more are
represented and the bureaucracies serve a public
interest and not some hijacking by private policies.
i believe the pre-democratic, versus the despotic
post-democratic, realms were of authoritarian and
other types/forms of governments, which may be
an indication that it is possible to proceed through
some transformation rather predictably, structurally
changing based on how other very large structural
shifts have occurred previously, elsewhere, though
maybe without the need for the same detrimental
effects, say, total violence, genocide, civil war, etc.
the discussions on 'place' and psychology of mind
is hard to separate from ongoing events. one thing
that always amazes and fascinates me is to hear
of the sanity of what is presented to be a 'violent
irrationalism' which, if one believes the television
and mass media, is all that some are capable of--
yet to hear words spoken, by whomever, in states
of war or complex situations that are largely being
filtered out of their actual contexts, so as to appear
as a message in the violent storm driven seas of
the psychological mind-- that 'we do not have any
problem with citizens of country X, we just do not
want _______'. it is a message that has been of
consistent regularity throughout the decade or
more of similarly stated intentions-- 'we have a
problem with policies, not your people,' et cetera.
which, most would call reasonable, remarkably
generous given a situation, enlightened even.
yet, it may be portrayed as one-sided barbarism
for some political gain or gang, to exploit this. it
would seem to indicate there is something very
much different between such thinking and that
of 'terrorists' who are not in a local geographical
situation-- whose territory is the global map-- and
who _do want to kill citizens of countries XYZ. yet
to then here the .US call these same people as
being 'terrorists' shows the duplicity of binarism,
or too simple logic without complexity or paradox.
if one was living within a place that now is within
reach of a new future, yet also nearby the edge of
failure, to cast the future into an inescapable chaos-
what would 'terrorists' want to do? would they call a
truce? would they miss the chance to bring worlds
into total impossibility, no matter the human costs?
or, would they be directed by some primal urge to
avenge some primal, tribal acts of retribution? the
.US is using the language of force and retribution,
-- 'to save face' -- it is said to show the people of a
place said - to only understand violence - violence
to show the truth of the power, or the power of truth.
well, in a democratic structure it would seem to be
a very different situation, (paradoxical, too). in that,
usually laws, institutions, words replace the guns.
cops, national armies, constitute organized defense
of a place. the persons to defend and protect are to
attack and destroy in the name of 'democracy' -- it is
one-side of many possible sides that co-exist in a
place, in minds, it would seem. flipside, though, in
a democracy 'freedom' of the press or media does
not include the 'right' to call for the death of another.
at least, it is not something encountered often and
if so, it is probably necessarily dealt with, in most
any government good-bad-and-ugly, with limitation.
to hear .US media decry the padlocking of, what is
reported as a paper calling for the death of soldiers,
would go well beyond 'free speech' in this country,
yet the media here decry the 'lack of democracy' in
Iraq, for a padlocking which may try to contain what
may not be containable in terms of a processing of
all the complex factors involved in peoples minds,
in the interactions of place...
meaning: what if, in Saddam's land that was under
his knuckles and swords, 'free speech' was by the
sword and gun, and, without democratic institutions,
laws, structures, the insurance policy one has is that
which the NRA (national rifle association, here) is
said to protect with guns, freedom of defending the
constitution against its overtaking-- yet the political
party who is running the works and associated with
this lobbyist group at home would seem a very odd
combination given that, in its own way, this may be
what is happening in Iraq-- don't tread on me, again.
what if the truth of power were somehow to be able
to be bridged or transformed with the power of truth,
to keep communications, to build the needed and
necessary bridges across cross-purposes and aims,
to make possible shared-interests that are open to
review. This is not happening with .US policy in .IQ,
it is largely opaque what is happening there and it
is impossible to trust any statements from 'official'
sources as it is a spin-factory of political magicians.
how to see what what cannot see, to see beyond, it
is not a weakness to be realistic, it actually would be
a way to 'save face' by being upfront and honest of
what is going on, what the shared goals are, and to
put this 'private war' into its context of larger goals--
of place, of people. what the hell is going on with a
private sector in Iraq, in terms of democracy? in the
.US there could be said to be at dual-purposes by
default, one is after profit, the other is to regulate
these desires against more common denominators
which serve the larger, aggregation of purposes.
there is much greater strength in the truth of the
Iraqis who are reasoning their case, than in the
violence of power, as it shows a superior intention
to transcend the limits of violence, it appeals to an-
other, some-other interaction. democracy does not
seem to be equated with lighting hostages on fire,
or the indiscriminate killing of citizens, as terrorists
have been said to do. the flaws of 'private thinking'
may be too great to reason with, they may be bound
to a specificity that is not as large as the questions-
so in the case of 'what in the world is the world doing
in Iraq?' -- from what most, it is assumed, assumed,
was to help. was to stabilize, to open up a future in
what may have knowingly been a suicidal action in
terms of the human costs. what is the benefit, now?
from reading the news of a place, it is death, war,
insurgency, words that do not reflect the reasons
for being there, the hatreds, angst, horrors, tragedy,
loss, anguish, pain, inhumanity, insanity, chaos, the
grief and frightening prospects do not bode well for
any 'mission' related to democratic intentions being
accomplished-- it seemed to be a pre-text, rather, for
another agenda still largely out of view, privatizing of
place, 'the occupation' that may be happening in the
corporate sense, which also happens here, which is
known as 'corporate takeover' -- yet within war zoning.
the NRA would do what, exactly, in such a situation, if
their laws and structures and institutions were doing
this work, what would the gun lobbyists be doing? it
is likely, if the constitution was at stake, their right to
bear arms may also protect certain aspects of place,
of mind, that a place belongs to those who live there.
that Iraq is composed of Iraqis who will defend Iraq.
that seems to be nearer to the idea of 'place' in the
sense that it is being presented in the news, as a
situation without thought, logic, rationale, for why
things are out-of-control or people-hate-.US or the
many varieties of points of view on what could still
be the best chance to challenge and change, with
the greatest efforts of peaceful exchange, to bring
smaller oppositions into a larger question of future
coexistence and necessarily new relationships, in
terms of both internal and external states of affairs,
national and individual states, inter-, infra-, extra-,
and intra-. some may see 'saving face' more to be
a question of 'saving mind' in a mindlessness of a
situation rapidly losing itself, its grounding, in the
realities involved-- not that this description is that,
though surely it is not Dick Cheney's world vision
which is accurate, who acts himself as a warlord,
in his rhetoric. how to interact if at dual-purposes,
at home and abroad, here and there, if one may
be at risk for any and-or everything they do, think,
decide, act upon, .... in a 'democracy' at least there
is a belief, maybe the illusion at time, of an ability
to transcend the existing conditions by rights to
speak truth to power, to change structures of the
system of oppression, to air grievances in legal
and other systems (media)-- it is also possible to
forgo this and, as is also evident, to use force to
make one's point-- which is seen here as being
irrational-- such as the commonness of graduate
or other students going to school and shooting a
professor or teacher who may be at the edge of
the limitations of reason or at some junction in
which these forces of words are not enough to
communicate, and the power becomes a truth,
a type of writing upon the news page of events.
of place, of mind, what is said to be civil war may
be 'a blessing in disguise' - if opponents who are
feared afar for a blood-letting were to actually find
shared interests that transcend differences, to find
a commonality on their own terms, of new relations,
humanitarian assistance, as part of a storied land-
scape in which it may be critical to acknowledge a
context in which the last guns on the streets were
of a dictator, and distrust in guns and force may far
exceed any commercialized-broadcasting of good-
messages, in other words- trust-me propaganda of
a nature that is remembered, not far from a dictator
who tormented a nation and region and people, in
that to see the 'liberator' is to see a mirror-image of
a similar type of tactics, operations, and strategy.
what if transparency were brought into the affairs
of a place-- the beauty of a place and a culture to
be recognized, valued, respected, ... shared, loved.
what are the traditional artworks and artforms of the
Iraqi peoples? what are the types of dance? have
any appreciations of the place, the unique talents
and senses and awareness that always seems to
keep alive under the most brutal of oppressions,
have they seen the light of day in this new Iraq, in
this new environment? what are the artists doing?
what are the thinkers thinking? what are merchants
and artisans and craftspeople doing? what kind of
celebration ever happened, in re-establishing the
situation and autonomies? Is Iraq 'free' in the sense
of 'freedom of life' or is it free as in the consequence
of 'freedom' as its own value, a negative anarchy in
which the social-darwinists prefers the most vicious
predators upon which to hierarchicalize new power?
it is unknown, it is a question, all of it, here, for the
most part, 'over there', that place where all hearts
are focused who have hearts, and some do not--
even the baddest, meanest, toughest, most corrupt,
ungodly son ... may still have a heart -- and may still
be able to do the right thing at the right time for the
right reason. and for some greater purposes in life,
than just the immediate. 'terrorists' are not like this,
though, as they are set upon a way of interaction in
which, good or bad, everyone is a target to be killed.
it may not be someone who believes they are doing
something for the right reasons which may not be
the right reasons, or who cannot fathom some full
consequence of what is involved, who really can...
though there are some who no longer care-- they
do not fight for anyone but their own selfish needs
to be superior, in the name of religion, as prophets.
that is the thing that differentiates, to me, at least,
the loose-lipping of 'terrorism' with everything that
moves, in comparison to an entirely different threat
in which everyone, Iraqis and Americans, and all
others, are on the same side, or, in the same place,
geographically in the land, and in the mindscapes.
should Iraq fail, 'terrorism' may be at fault, as might
a too-simple 'freedom' -- an ideological malaise in
which 'the terrorists' do not even need to be there,
after the fact, though the only benefit is theirs, as it
hurts both Iraqis and the world with better dreams.
ideologies function based on reactions, 'freedom
is good' is unquestionable to a true-believer who
has never seen the ugly wrath which they censor,
and like a private profit, ask for tithing and prayers
to bring them their holy land, even if armageddon.
ideas, thinking, reason in public realms have been
able to work throughout these conditions to find a
balance, which does have limits upon roles of the
private minds/places and also the public minds/
places, in interactions, so one does not need to
annihilate the other to co-exist, unless it is binary
logic and a standardized test of multiple choices
which is more the work of machines than of any
human imagination to transcend limits of ballots
and butterflies voting for a conquering kingdom,
which the .US constitution was in response to,
so deja-vu, flip the switch, either-or, flipflopping
of some machine of state currently on auto-pilot.
that the state of the world is the individual, that
the state of the individual may also be a nation,
that there are many states and many peoples,
how to bring all of these together-- if dividing?
if realism is added to place, it would help, yet
this is the crucial function of censorship to stop
that which contradicts itself, that is, brings views
into question that are based on top-down types
of authority in which there are 'no safe questions'.
there may not be safe questions, though it is a
possibility there is a responsible questioning in
that, to not do so is to lose the right to question.
if one follows bin Laden's logic, and Atta's, it is
not a reactionary response in the sense they
may have desired it would seem. imagine that
an architectural critique of 'modernism' in the
realms of the Arab and Islamic worlds is to be
in the form of suicidal hijacking of airplanes
into two of the world's tallest towers in the .US
under the guise of revolutionary aims-- that is
an architectural critique certainly well outside
the realm of protected speech -- attacking the
symbols of 'modernity' -- and -- get this:
bin Laden was the architectural modernizer
of both Mecca and Medina.
imagine what that means in terms of architecture.
the refurbisher of the world's largest religion, its
most holy of places, is built (with great skill and
insight into blending of tradition and modernity, in
terms of aesthetics and technology, for instance)
decides to kill 3,000 people in NYC and all over
the world, in the name of these holy places and
their religion, representing a few billion people--
in the name of the religion, no less. The beauty
of these places, from what has been seen in the
imagery that is rarely seen here-- is to mediate
-- a common question shared the world over--
not just in the Middle-east , and that is how to
deal with the universality of science and of the
technologies with respect to public and private
place, belief, traditions, cultures. What does bin
Laden do? he hates skyscrapers in the Middle-
East and instead of blowing those up, he attacks
what is ideologically mistaken from the reality of
the situation-- the ideological 'root cause' which
is a private agenda well- and horrifically-executed
on 9/11, 4/11 and so many other places and times,
including diplomatic embassies around the world.
this is not in the name of peace, it is in the name
of war, and it is in the name of religion-- yet is it
really this? it would seem to be a highly-biased
and self-important criticism-- hypocritical in the
extreme-- in terms of the architectural situation.
what would an ideologically reactionary monster
of a modern-machinery of the 'west' do? is there
any chance that bin Laden was planning on the
.US hitting Mecca and Medina, as a result of 9/11?
architecturally, it would make a lot of sense that
such a wager of the architectural critique is part
of the equation-- as the WTC was a profanity in
bin Laden's terms. usually architectural critiques
here in the .US involve someone acting out the
social mores and values and if it is any good, a
little theater may enter into the equation once in
awhile. yet, suicidal airplane hijackings are not
the way to resolve the situation: it is a Howard
Roark of the Fountainhead in reverse, or in a
some subversion to raise property (mental and
physical) values of certain ideas or ideologies,
of place and mind. as a result, 'Mecca' must be
a better architectural model of the future in how
to deal with modernity, that would seem to be
involved somehow, as it is a driving part of this
'critique by pure violence' that may be bred as
part of the inability to act 'out' inside a place, to
hit outward, not inward, at the situations as the
abilities to do so may not structurally exist. this
is to say-- it makes no sense if bin Laden is to
be hitting the .US skyscrapers as a critique of
those going up in local landscapes and minds.
is it possible that bin Laden so identifies with
the rebuilding or restoration of holy places that
in a sense, these became 'privatized' by a very
similar capitalistic business sense of the wicked
entrepreneur with plans to (literally) take-over the
world by waging a campaign (of violence) against
opponents in a bid for a (hostile) takeover of the
direction of events, from this modern machinery
that has puzzled everyone, yet casts it into terms
unrealistic to the questions faced (and those that
are needing to be censored, for they would be in
contradiction to the ideologues) -- that humanity
and human values may be secondary in hurried
and fervent development of 'the past' into some
false-utopic future which disenfranchises people
to such a degree that what is true, internally to
the unspoken awareness of connection between
place and sense, of mind, of state, of existence-
is threatened by this advancement of machinery
and is out-of-control-- so to strike out at beastly
heresies in the name of god or of religious belief-
yet in doing so, to fall into the depths of deception
which detaches the truth at the heart of matters,
with the power which accrues upon harnessing
of the forces of nature for individual ends- which
are based on a control beyond a normal human
realm, which can wreak havoc upon humanity,
itself now as a machinery of death, terror-forming
the planet under the false-guise of religious truth.
of holy missions. killing children, women, babies.
that exists beyond the realm of architecture: evil.
architecture can build structures, in many ways it
is possible many kinds of architects can build a
policy or retrofit existing ones to allow changes
which will not detonate a building without saving
what is its value-- a problem shared by all, and it
is a world question: China and others are dealing
with these issues as remarked recently by a well-
known architect. As is Russia. As is the Middle-
east. it is a shared question and questioning. as
a common question it is related to thought, and
to a freedom to think. to consider things within a
range that may be uncomfortably undecided yet
that is the suspension between the past and the
future, the present moment, tense and exciting.
structures may be visible and invisible, it may be
a book that was previously banned, or it may be
dialogues about issues, a protection of equality
of consideration, of a fairness, --- if relating prior
experiences in the .US to ongoing developments
in the world, 'electrification' and other issues do
re-arrive or re-occur in new contexts, within a
changed environment and context, yet still with
an applicability (yet, necessarily, adaptability) to
address known structural issues. this is, it could
be argued, part of a democratic structure or one
could just say some public-private representative
government in which humans are treated equally,
or so it would seem that 'democracy' is too vague.
for instance, when fighting in the first half of the
20th century, other economic issues included a
deep depression in the .US preceding it which is
also indicated in many factors in the present day,
with high-levels of corruption, huge inequalities
in income distribution to the point it is unfair (some
get everything, some absolutely nothing, homeless).
the old excuses do not resolve the issues, for more
and more, until 'war becomes a business opportunity'
for people to afford to retire, they pick up a gun and
go to a far away place to fight for their paycheck--
war is not a viable business model, though this is
apparently not to be questioned: privatization is the
'sacred cow' as they say in the .US, in that its good-
ness is beyond question, with questions censored.
that may be why there is little/no reporting on this
'private' dimension. in any case, in the merging of
the past with the present, and a shared future with
whatever outcome-- one thing seems to be shared:
there is an economic dimension (and socials, too),
in this war context, and then the real threat of these
'terrorist ideologues ready to kill for their true beliefs'
which are privatized, hardened viewpoints which, if
they succeed in doing their job, they are not alive to
deal with the hell they create as a result, yet are to
be doubly-damned in that, one, they are the least of
holy warriors, and also, no virgin will lay with a man
who kills children-- it is simply not going to happen.
in the 1930s to the 1950s or so, with what is known as
the 'great depression' here, the 'grapes of wrath' story
of an increasing poverty and loss of ability to adapt to
changed circumstances (similar to climate change in
some respects, possibly) an issue at the time was an
advancement of new technologies and modernism as
the driver of this future growth-- new inventions and a
chaos of change would seem to accompany this if it
were added up to the spectacles of world's fairs and
historical accounts-- verging on mysticism and magic.
in any case, the economics did not make it to a rural
population, and the distribution was not able to reach
large geographies. at the same time, with the new
approaches and efficiencies, business changed and
automated assembly-line factories and other changes
were made. taken together, with the rural programs,
just as with computing today, it was necessary to get
these new structures in place for other things to be a
possibility. today it may be the internet, though it may
still be food, water, shelter, heat in many places. the
disparity could then be changed to alter the course
of the rural communities (where many live now today)
and during the world war, radio and other technologies
as phones, would seem to be possible in places, that
otherwise may have been locked outside of the new
culture that was evolving. one of the more interesting
aspects of this, one, is the historical role of northern
factories in relation to work for previously enslaved
people. another is the role of women who were able
to work outside the traditional old structures to help
advance the health of the society, to get jobs, skills,
and to bring equality into other structures, such as
legal and institutional and economic. all issues are
related to modernity's structures and laws. and guns
are not the way such changes can be made to occur.
in fact-- these are the changes the Taliban and others
despise-- they want to live in a world without music.
consider that in your heart: a world without music.
what kind of vision or thought or imagination does
that lend itself to, except a new enslavement of all
that is good, true, and real and worth living for, and
dying to protect-- music, dance, love, beauty, truth.
Lucretia may be democracy after its period of post-
democratic dictatorship-- where she is raped and
in response, kills herself to honor her family name.
though this is exactly that which is democracy, the
poor, downtrodden, those without voice are those
who people, fellow citizens, vow to protect both in
terms of the law and in terms of a common defense.
citizens were killed on 9/11, who are no different in
their complex cultural contexts than any others, it is
symbolic because everyone is represented in some
way, for better and worse, with things as they are--
which do need to change, but how will this happen?
there is a common enemy- it is those who are against
peace at any and all costs. it includes those in every
society who are unwilling to compromise and to make
decisions which go beyond self-interest, to serve the
larger goals of the place, of the minds, to bring a new
possibility, new options, to keep life and love alive. to
work for that day when things turn, when the tide is to
change, and everyone can celebrate in the victory, of
reclaiming the future from the ideological machinery
reliant upon the force of unquestioned, unwise power.
bridges everywhere, structures, changes, imaginations.
creativity, opportunities, voices, songs, and... dance.
everyone thus relates as both a leader and a follower.
brian
On Saturday, April 10, 2004, at 07:27 PM, patachon wrote:
ron wrote :
> and interesting to hear on npr this morning a discussion about
eurabia, and
> the decline of christianity, the rise of islam, the clash of
cultures, all
> of which got me to thinking about religious faith, and how our
society, in
> its secularism, doesn't seem to have anything approaching the radical
> islamist's faith/zeal/passion.
so should we consider the presence of the west in irak as radicalism
or antiradicalism ?
should we (westerners-christians and alike) act radically in
religious, military or economic matters , like let's say Romans ,
Turks, or Crusaders did before?
is it time for the west to be "REACTIONARIES" even if to be later
considered fascists , like many thinkers in the 1930/44 era?
does democracy need a "reaction" phase to stay alive later ? (even
using mercenaries like Venetian did ?)
what woud have happened ,at planetary level ,in the late 1990 or now
if another kind of political/religious (or a-religious) strong
movement (like communism in the U.S.S.R.) instead of - or parrallel
to - islamic fundamentalism would still have been present ? Could
another new political set of values to balance the superpowered
"géant aux pieds d'argile" pumping oil he needs to stay upright ?
Is democracy suiciding herself by trying to be imposed to others -
by a capitalistic , liberal or (christian) religious set of rules
and beliefs if such imposition includes, in the democratic homes ,
the acceptance or imposition of some patriotic acts restraining basic
democratic rights ?
Patrice
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