Re: <nettime> Wisconsin report

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

From: <henrybrs@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Wisconsin report

after struggling to get back up to the keyboard under the weight WEIGHT of 
such a dark depiction, I ask: "and what are you advocating? strip everyone 
down to the same level of nakedness? a quickening of the pace in the race 
down?"

--------

From: "Tapas Ray [Gmail]" <tapasrayx@gmail.com>
To: nettime-l <nettime-l@kein.org>

Now, John Young (to distinguish you from John Hopkins, whose
Hopkinsness I am slightly doubtful about) - I suppose a lot of what
you say is true, but the overall argument is a little extreme, don't
you think? I mean, there has to be some good in, or coming from, these
demonstrations? Maybe those like you who can see through the charade
should take the lead? That way things might work better? Meaning, the
movement - if it can be called that - would be channeled in whatever
direction is the right one in your view?

--------

Protests all too often are showboating to induce a meeting between
leaders of the two sides. Then information goes dark, replaced with
periodic reports couched in language of dissimulation, with now
and then posturing by the leaders to appease their supporters.

The negotiations are never fully open, accounts never fully truthful,
based on claims of confidentiality needed to build trust among the
negotiators, to not be subject to the emotions of the crowd.

Standard bullshit wherever protests are used to tame and control
the crowd, to drain off more lethal energy which threatens leaders
of all sides. Promoting leaders as the way to move forward is
a ploy to exclude the raucous crowd and its unpredictability.

Protests were invented for the purpose of avoiding more serious 
conflict. Watch them unfold through the stages from long-simmering
anger to scattered outbreaks, to organized gatherings growing in
size, various police and/or military actions to inflame, a few killings
and woundings, to packing off the victims, to hospitals and funerals,
to resurgent calls for action, to increased official violence, to
either dimming of protest or to greater arousal, boths sides watching
to see which way the wind blows by avidly cultivating and feeding
the media, noting the opportunistic headline stories and obedient
op-eds and avaricious statements by celebrated heavy thinkers
and former dissidents now awaiting invites, shit, why go on, read
about them, they are unavoidably sappy as Wikileaks was a few 
weeks ago, now sputtering in an attempt to claim credit for leaderless
uprisings in accord with the rules of plagiarizing and exploiting suffering
and anger by relabeling it innocuous and all too civil dissent. "Dissent"
the name of neo-con rag that thinks dissent is dandy, what is terrifying
is riot and violent revolution, uh uh, de trop, call out the troops.

If all goes well in Wisconsin, the protest will get out of control of its
leaders and lion-tamers, go feral, go viral, go way beyond anything
seen in the US since unions were invented to control and exploit
the workers.

Same for North Africa and the Middle East where the fix is being 
arranged, led by the No. 1 fixer, backed by the union-built mightiest
war machine ever. Fuck protests, fuck dissent, they are milktoast

for law-abiding the working and middle classes -- coded language
for those within protected circles to be very afraid of outsiders
out to steal jobs and perqs.

Like guilds and the professions and other self-regulating religions, 
unions are not what they promise. The good things they do for their 
members should be offered to all comers. But members don't want 
that, they want privileges at the expense of outsiders, just like 
rigged-market capitalists and their manifold apologists (call them 
cowed and cosseted cash-courtier socialists) who much prefer orgs 
like themselves, that is bribeable, rather than the disorganized crowd
who are incomprehensible: who are these people and what do they
want, find a representative we can deal with, rationally. Heh, rationally,
the most godawful self-serving conceit of philosophy, amply codified
in law, that is, asymmetrical power for us insiders against those
law-breaking others.

Unions once broke laws and skulls and defied military and police
threats. No more, they know how to use nostalgic versions of unions 
to recruit, threaten toothlessly, maximize benefits, be reasonable.

Government contractors, infested with unionists, proclaim:
Protect the people's government against the anarchists, advises
HBGary, here's how to fabricate agents provocateurs.

To combat the brain-numbing effect of excessive protest and unionist
dealing with comfortable opposition, try a little bit of anarchism to clear 
adnoids. Oh, the dread word of all complict archisms, verily as 
unpleasant as irrationality. Word playing preamble to shooting
into the leaderless crowd.

Be revulsed by my word play, it is complicit in sitting on your ass.

Better to take a walk on the wild side, but be sure to wear a mask,
the rats are pervasive here and in the wild of Wisconsin protest,
OMG, there is op-idiocy of it going nationwide. Krugman today
shows the limit of tenured academicism. At least Kristoff risks being
sexually assaulted while getting a haircut. Time to shutdown the
NY Times op-ed bloviation -- all of them are so besotted with
self-vaunting stylistic literacy they cannot see beyond print.








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