Another One Bites the Dust

"We hope Qhadafhi will be killed or captured soon so that you don't have to fear him anymore." -- Hillary Clinton

When talking about the "new" style of totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt said, "...terror is no longer used as a means to frighten and exterminate opponents, but as an instrument to rule masses of people who are perfectly obedient."

What we see happening in Libya now is the end of the old style of totalitarianism, where one man rises through the ranks to rule with an iron fist and an example of the new kind of global totalitarianism, where powerful Western nations police the "third world" and make political choices for the weaker nations, while keeping their own people subjugated through terror. The neo-Cons most blatantly did this with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. They did it with orange threat levels read over the radio daily, along with the weather and UV index. We saw it when our troops found the once dangerous Saddam Hussein (we helped it become dangerous) buried up to his neck in a ditch in back of his family home. And in his televised hanging. And today we saw it recorded on a cell phone, as the bloody body of the leader of Libya for over 40 years, Muammar Gaddafi, was beaten and possibly shot in the head. The UN is investigating.

Okay, Gaddafi was a bad guy, one of the worst. He oppressed masses of his own people. He may have used chemical weapons on them (I'm still researching). Like Hussein, he was a glorified gangster who killed people routinely. He was also almost certainly very nasty to women and fathered this douchebag (hey, what's he doing talking to Hillary Clinton, huh?).

He financed all of this by selling oil to Saudi Arabia, not really know for their strong history of civil rights. Of course Saudi Arabia sells oil to, uh, well if I'm not mistaken, US the United States of America. So, I guess that means oil taken from Libya (sold by an oppressive regime run by a sociopath, then sold to the Saudi gang, then sold to us) ends up in our cars. That means we've been involved, however peripherally, in Gaddafi's oppression.

Certainly, our government and industries have been involved in the Middle East for decades. For better or worse. We pay the consequences of that involvement. One interesting fact is knowing where Gaddafi's guns and bombs and tear gas came from. In this case, the answer is: Europe. Private companies in Italy, France and the UK sold lots of weapons to Gaddafi over the years. Ah, the never-ending intricacies of the Military Industrial Complex.

To paraphrase Charlie Chaplin, death to dictators and all those who make themselves strong at the expense of others.

New York City

[note: I wrote this a few months back in my notebook. I was no doubt responding to some of the pressures that we now see taking center stage in downtown Manhattan.]

New York City has lied to us all.

Early on a Monday morning, as I walk to work, I feel her creaking and groaning beneath my feet, the machinery slowly clicking into gear. When you are on the streets, you feel the rumble under your feet, the buzz in the air. New York City is happening. All day, every day, wave after wave of people going about their routines. From the Guatemalan immigrant who is on his way to work for two dollars an hour in the back of a deli to the self-possessed Wall Street type with his pin stripes and fuck-you grin, NY has it's own morning feel.

However pleasant or unpleasant, grey or sun-filled the day might be. And whether I am filled with purpose or ambling confusedly in search of caffeine, the beginning of each city day fills me with the same dread and wonder -- as if anything could happen, from the dangerous to the banal.

In my country-bred mind, I think of NYC as "a failed experiment." Maybe I'm just jealous of all the people with more money and connections, the beautiful shiny-faced couples, the VIPs. Or maybe it's just that I see the goings on from a different perspective than those raised here. But to my mind, it's an endlessly exploitative loop that illustrates exactly how liberal, Western capitalism has failed to protect its laborers. To my ears, it sounds like the death bell of American democracy. Oh sure, all the appearances are in place: gung-ho cops and firemen who will bravely lay down their lives for their fellow Americans, patriotic Union members with "Never Forget" sewn into their uniforms. The language too gets it just right. Bloomberg talks endlessly about how immigrants make us strong, about how inclusive NYC is, and the ability of anyone to make it here, the American Dream, yada-yada.

But to me, it feels empty. The appearances manufactured. The rhetoric recycled from "what worked before" and cheesy movies. The face of New York has changed much in 100 years, but the underlying structure is the same: the rich few (aka the 1%) exploit the poor many (the 99%). How they do this is so intrinsic to New York culture as to be invisible to those outside. While it may be said that Los Angeles is the city of empty appearances, NYC, the city of Madison Avenue and television, has its own smoke and mirrors in place. Its own mythology.

One of the things I would like to explore on this blog is this mythology of New York City (and by extension, America) and how it is being challenged by economic recession and angry masses of people without jobs. It seems the once fresh and attractive face of NY (as portrayed in movies and television) has a few wrinkles now, the makeup needs a touching up -- and, are those bags under her eyes?

I believe the experience of working hard and "making it" in NYC offers very little for most of us. Except for the experience of working and belonging to this city, and, more beneficially, to each other. That in itself is the reward offered. The ability to say to outsiders, "I'm a New Yorker. I'm tough and resilient. I can make it there! Even after the 9/11 attacks, I'm still here." There is some spiritual camaraderie in that, I suppose. What gives New York its power, its essence, is not the culture industry or the fashion industry or the endless production of money and beauty for others to consume -- rather, it is the human experience that has imprinted itself on this city. All of us living, working and dying in the City have given it its soul.

Not what is made here. (What real thing is made here?) Not the ephemeral "culture" we export throughout the world. That seems meaningless to me, it withers and dies and more grows up to replace it. It serves for a while to be bought and sold -- and then forgotten. In this culture that reproduces and devalues its own cultural products, what is left for the human soul?

The only meaningful answer, I feel, is to be found in the struggle itself. The fight for the human soul rages on, whether political or personal -- or both. While we may have been devalued, made into interchangeable parts by the crushing force of the market, the struggle for humanity remains the only truly worthwhile struggle left to us.

The trick will be to reclaim public spaces for us -- all of us. To reclaim NY for New Yorkers. It will take a sea change in the way we think about ourselves and our city. It will take a peaceful revolution.

A Rockefeller Square where, instead of Atlas, we see the immigrants who truly hold this city on their shoulders. If they shrug, all of this edifice will come tumbling down. And even Mayor Bloomberg and all his cops and cronies, will not be able to put it together again.

The March is On!!!

Archimedes once said, “Give me a place to stand and I will move the world.” Today he would have pointed to our electric media and said, “I will stand on your eyes, your ears, your nerves, and your brain, and the world will move in any tempo or pattern I choose.” We have leased these “places to stand” to private corporations.

Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980)
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964

I support the protesters in Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. Why? Because they are right? Yes, but more importantly because they are there. Because they have demanded the right to take a stand for what they believe in. The words they use are important.

"Money for Jobs"

"We are the 99%"

"No More Wall $treet Greed", etc.

But the actions are far more important. The right to assemble is being demanded. The right to free speech is being used, actively, with strength and compassion. Old Hippies and angry, Guy Fawkes mask wearing kids are joining in the streets of NYC to protest the fact that while 1% of us worry about profit margins, the other 99% are scared of not being able to feed our families, of living in a world where the near future could very well look like "RoboCop." A world where a few corporations run the world, a lucky few have jobs, and the government exists to facilitate smooth functioning of business models. A place where cops beat people with sticks, spray them with pepper spray and arrest grandmothers. Think I'm exaggerating? Well, I got two words for you. Open your fucking eyes! And then maybe take a look at yesterday's NY Times.

McLuhan spoke about "private corporations" taking over our "places to stand." In a city as corrupt of New York, where we are ruled, I mean, governed, by one of the Oldboys himself, where the name Bloomberg is itself synonymous with Trading and the Trading Floor technology (see the "Bloomberg Keyboard") where the mayor is someone who made his money serving Wall Street and now maintains his power by sucking up to Wall Street -- in this city, the home of Wall Street, is the escalating police violence really a surprise? The private corporations have taken the city over to the point where the only public space safe for the protesters, Zuccotti Park, is not owned by the city at all, but by the relatively small, Canadian company Brookfield Office Properties. Can you imagine these people camping overnight in Washington Square or Central Park? I can't. Bloomberg would have had them out of there so fast, it would have made our heads spin.

Zuccotti Park has become the Tiananman Square for a movement that is all about American greed, but, also, all about the core American values of Free Speech, Free Assembly and Free Press (the last one pointed out by its absence). The Owners are in control of the Press. A few private corporations have swallowed up an appalling majority of American news outlets. I don't have the figures in front of me, but I will add them when I have the time. I am going to write in the coming days about how the Mass Media is handling this event, now that it has become too big to contain and cover up.