Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 22:57:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: oconnell-AT-oz.net (Mark O'Connell)
Subject: Re: Hello


>I've noticed a pronounced trend on this list...it seems as if ever
>since the events of 9-11, some have decided that everything that was
>done before, theorizing or whatnot, was a joke, and that they have
>"woken up" to the "true reality" and we need to give up our
>theorizing.  Why is this?  What has happened that requires this?  I
>am sorry, I just don't see it.  If anything, what happened just seems
>to underscore the need for theorizing.  Additionally, how can we
>create a distinction between theory and practice?  Theory IS
>practice!  The two are not separable!

I haven't noticed anyone suggesting that theorizing is a joke. I completely
missed the
"woken up" to the "true reality" post. That does sound more then a little
scary though. My own feeling would be that theory built on the poetic or
fanciful is in some ways an indulgence,
a sweet, a diversion that ceases to be an option when the shit really
starts to hit the fan.
When theory begins to diverge too far from what actually is it can't help
but become irrelevant, and its "practice" absurd, if what actually is poses
a (real or imagined) threat to one's own ass.

For instance, what am I supposed to make of this post?

>>Did it really happen? The supposed perpatrators all deny it! There
>>is no
>>fixed identity of the actors...even the most cunning of nomads
>>leaves some
>>trace of a war cry, but not this time. I am waiting for someone to
>>question
>>if the WTC or the pentagon ever existed; or that it was staged to
>>control
>>the masses because of the oncoming economic holocaust. The mass
>>media staged
>>this perhaps! I think I saw a movie like this once...maybe.

or your response to it?

>I've always had a nagging doubt in the back of my head that it was
>instigated by the government/corporate powers/whoever....     (etc.)

How am I supposed to take this? If I take it literally it's laughable, so I
give you the benefit of the doubt and think perhaps it's a metaphor of some
kind. But a metaphor for what? Do you really think that George W has the
wherewithal to put something like this together AND keep it quiet? You're
dreaming. Fuck man, maybe it was instigated by spacemen. I would agree that
it's necessary to be wary of official statements, but you seem to have
transcended that in a less then useful way.

Mark O'Connell
oconnell-AT-oz.net