Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 05:50:40 -0500 From: Don Socha <socha1de-AT-cmich.edu> Subject: Re: para-military Geof/ all, Language is, I suppose, all we can hope individually to address with regard to war or perhaps any correspondence between any signifier and signified? Correspondence with ourselves [read Elvis or ‘coolness'] is impossible. So, what do we do? Problematize representation? Restate all questions in a representational framework, as you, Geof, seem to suggest? Though we can never hope to overthrow its primacy? And doesn't this get to the heart of how silent we (and even Elvis/Tupac is) all are, if not, more properly, how silence is more precisely what we are? If anything, pointing out that both the "thugs" of Iraq and Tupac are "para-military" (which I believe we both see in the case of Iraq as simply a more face-saving term for Bush than any other that might suggest these folks are nothing more than ‘embattled' plain-clothes citizens) reminds us of how trapped we are within a linguistic prison. Yes, there's "something cool" about resistance. What difference does it make if it's derived from the totalitarian threat of global capitalism or any other authority figure? But you, Geof, seem to be arguing that knowing this would somehow alleviate or ameliorate the will of the Iraqi people to resist HomeDe(s)pot and Disnification? Of course you don't think it's up to us to ‘articulate what motivates' their resistance, but you will acknowledge that it needs to be respected, if not verbalized, do you not? Well, how? Personally, I'm with Nietzsche and Lacan when I voice my fear that "we are not getting rid of God [Bush/Saddam/Disnification/coolness] because we still believe in grammar." One question might be: are we (ourselves) ‘silent' because we believe in this hobgoblin? But you hit the nail: how is anyone ever to affirm NONIDENTITY and NONADEQUACY? By being of good courage? Don Socha Geof writes: > >All, > >Over the past few week, since my return from NYC where I stood in Times Square >two hours before Operation Decapitation commenced, I have followed this thread >and another on Hardt and Negri's Empire w/ much interest. Silence, Zizek, and >Baudrillard's many prophecies both from his book The Gulf War Did Not Take >Place and his Harper's essay, "The Spirit of Terrorism." > >For me, the language of concerning the war is invested in a curious middle- >ground: Iraq's "para-military." Neither regular army, nor quite "terrorists" >for the American media, the "para-military" represent the "thugs" who keep the >Iraqi populace from embracing the U.S. troops...or at least that's the >impression given by the media. > >"Thugs." That term has an interesting connotation in hip-hop. Tupac, for >example, sings about being 14 year who wants to be a thug. There's something >cool about the appeal--something the establishment can't quite touch--and the >narrative does not extend much beyond the 30yr mark. > >Do we write Tupac's songs off as something derivative of Empire-Global- >Capitalism? Is the Iraqi para-military far beyond such hip-hop seduction into >some deeper form of brainwash? Is it cool for the Iraqi para-military to be a >thug? If so, might we consider the para-military as seperate from Saddam? >An "insurgency" that is not so different from "gang bangers," though one >certainly would have trouble articulating what motivates that desire? > >If so, recent reports about how the US military has under-estimated the >resistance might be seriously under-estimationed. That is, the Iraqi para- >military is not regular army, but inner city gang crime. They might not so >much be following orders or acting as "brainwashed drones"; instead, they might >be operating within Baudrillard's cool memory. > >Pan-Arabian sentiment = the new hip-hop generation > >A para-military that says ALREADY, "Who cares about Saddam? He's not cool." > >A para-military comprised of teens that can't be convinced otherwise squaring >off against teens who also would sooner say "whatever," if wearing shades >didn't look "tuff" in head-to-toe military gear. > >Best, > >Geof >
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