Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

Featured book review on Monsters and Critics :

 

Positing his belief that the integrated spectacle — his IS writ large — comprises the material reconstruction of "the religious illusion," Debord condemned its dictatorial freedom to proclaim "the predominance of appearances" while concealing its essential character "as a visible negation of life – and as a negation of life that has invented a visual form of itself . . . For what the spectacle expresses is the total practice of one particular economic and social formation; it is, so to speak, the formation's agenda. It is also the historical moment by which we happen to be governed . . . The spectacle is self-generated, and it makes up its own rules: It is a specious form of the sacred... . The spectator feels at home nowhere, for the spectacle is everywhere . . . The spectacle's function in society is the concrete manufacture of alienation . . . The spectacle is capital accumulated to the point where it becomes image."

Look no further than the ostentatious whoopla surrounding the AOL-Time-Warner megadeal last week, a nice bit of bizthness pundits predict will engender copy-cat conglomerates greedy for the greatest gains at the expense of the greatest good. Merger-mania is afoot; God is dead; no doubt, with the Western world's accelerated state of disgrace, what can only be described as cultureless utilitarianism (CU) will — IS willing — outlast us all.

Everybody knows we've been universally flattened by the commodification of absolutely everything; nobody quite recalls when the remote took control of our lives. But, like it or not, we've all become the contemporary anybody, the chronically frustrated voyeur of the ubiquitously visible, the itsy-bitsy teenie-weenie chip off the ol' integrated block.

"Ed Sanders invented everything"

From The American Bard in New Orleans :

In his youth, Sanders had the vision of the social movement that both cheerleaders and detractors refer to when they conjure the 1960s. While most people may be unaware of the bigness of Ed Sanders' work, they've not missed his colorful feathers that have graced our landscape for decades. "Ed Sanders invented everything," our mutual friend John Sinclair once told me. He's a Renaissance hyphenate and one of the first public figures of his generation to live seamlessly within the realms of politics, art and fun. In the process of self-reinvention, he became the first cousin to Che Guevara's paradigmatic New Man -- albeit thoroughly American and anti-authoritarian. To list all of Ed's prodigious accomplishments, we'd need more space than is available to us, given the reason I write these words: to praise the man's contemporary recordings.

In particular, his latest: the masterful Poems For New Orleans . He read and recorded his history of the Crescent City and Hurricane Katrina with musical accompaniment over four months in 2007 and has released it on Paris Records, a label on which proprietor Michael Minzer has also released spoken word by Ginsberg, Kathy Acker, Robert Creeley and a collab twixt Corso and Marianne Faithfull. Ed creates a people's history in the Zinn tradition and his own American verse histories by tracing the story of New Orleans through the eyes of the fictitious Lebage family, from Lemoine to his great great great great granddaughter Grace.

Russian reporter who authored book critical of Kremlin granted asylum in Britain

A Russian reporter who wrote a book critical of the Kremlin and later escaped injury in a bomb explosion said today that Britain has given her political asylum.

Thirty-four-year-old Yelena Tregubova said her life was in grave danger in Russia.

Tregubova's 2003 book "Tales of a Kremlin Digger," accused President Vladimir Putin of stifling freedom of speech and turning Russian media into a propaganda machine for the Kremlin.

Tregubova, who wrote for the influential Russian daily Kommersant, also suggested that Putin tried to seduce her when he headed the country's top security agency.

~ full article ~

 

Top Green Beret Discusses Implications of Modern American Way of War

From Civilian Casualties Minimized by Overwhelming Force, Information Dominance (2003) :

 

Today, Lambert declared, with the threat from the Soviet Union removed, compounded by the mounting reliance on information dominance and an increasingly proactive American foreign policy (most recently demonstrated in the preemptive attack on Iraq), the United States is not only changing the way it conducts war but also how it plans war. During the Cold War, U.S. strategic doctrine viewed war in terms of national survival. As such, war planners emphasized winning a war with the Soviet bloc by any means necessary leaving few resources devoted to planning for the post war environment.

The advent of American military supremacy, however, allows today's war planner to shape military campaigns to achieve a predetermined and preferable post war environment. Indeed, unlike the days of the Cold War, there is little question as to whether the United States is capable of defeating likely adversaries. As a result, wars are increasingly being planned backwards to forwards and provide U.S. military capabilities with different "options" for achieving success. Such luxuries also enable the U.S. more than ever before to prevent armed conflict in the first place and stabilize regional instabilities before they can escalate into major crises.

[ ... ]

 

Information has also benefited psychological operations (PSYOP). While PSYOP methodology remains relatively unchanged, operations now are surgical as well as strategic, operational and tactical. PSYOPS can now target specific military and political commanders via personal cell phones, faxes, or email accounts. According to Lambert, preliminary results from Operation Iraqi Freedom have proven the increase in effectiveness of psychological operations.

In a world where achieving military victories is no longer a question for the United States military, humanitarian relief and the minimization of civilian casualties can now be placed at the forefront. Such capabilities fortuitously arrive at a time of a decrease in the public's tolerance for collateral damage and civilian suffering. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld referred to this when he discussed "compassion" as a key ingredient to the most recent campaign in Iraq along with power, precision, speed and flexibility.

 

Freedom Next Time - Japanese Neonationalists Silence Yasukuni Film

Neo-nationalists have shut down a Chinese-directed movie about Japan's controversial war memorial Yasukuni, the latest in a string of incidents threatening freedom of expression in Japan.

Its name translates as "peaceful country," millions have silently prayed there for an end to wars, and for much of the year the loudest sound is the buzzing of insects and the shuffle of old footsteps to the hushed main hall. Yet Yasukuni Shrine, which occupies a single square kilometer of central Tokyo, is one of the most controversial pieces of real estate in Asia, resented by millions who consider it a monument to war, empire, and Japan's unrepentant and undigested militarism.

 

A decade ago when Chinese director Li Ying began filming there he didn't know what to make of his mysterious subject either. Today, as he watches the official Tokyo launch of his two-hour movie "Yasukuni" go down in flames amid death threats and cancelled screenings, he says the shrine symbolizes a "disease of the spirit" in Japan. "That I haven't been able to leave this issue alone for the last ten years means that I too am suffering," explained the 44-year-old Guangdong native.

"I didn't really want to make such a difficult film…so I must be sick to do it. The point is to look directly at the disease."

Li's point appears to have been lost by Japanese conservatives, who have branded the movie "Chinese propaganda," and condemned a decision by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan to award Li a 7.5 million yen (approx. $75,000) grant. In March, the film's distributors were forced to give a private preview to 80 lawmakers after weekly tabloids launched a campaign against the decision to fund it. With criticism growing along with the threat of ultra-right-wing violence, four Tokyo cinemas have pulled out of an official launch on April 12. The documentary is unlikely to ever flicker on Japan's movie screens.

 

~ read on... ~