From Your Living Room to Your Lebensraum

Let's take another fun Interdome field trip to... the Headlines!

Well, what have we today? Some auto union is striking... ooh, Lindsay Lohan isn't going out this weekend... (guess I'll stay in too)... and, well, hmm... but what have we here:

BUSH URGES CONGRESS TO REJECT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

Color me a-news-ed.

"But wait," ask the doe-eyed children gathered 'round the Interdome, "What does this mean?"

Let's delve into it, shall we? From the International Herald Tribune's 690 words on the subject, we learn that this resolution to name the murder of 1,000,000 Armenians in 1914-1918 a "genocide" could hurt our political relationship with the modern Turkish state, and therefore we shouldn't do it. It appears that the resolution is simply a push from some "interest groups" whose interest is that considering their cultural heritage, they would have qualified for the death camps back then.

This isn't the only recent time that American government has struggled to figure out what the definition of "genocide" is. In fact, the American government seems to have lots of trouble with definitions of words. But, I digress.

If we only read the IHT's article on the vocabulary discussion, we might just move onto the next headline, because, frankly, "genocide" is not a very happy word of the day, and there certainly is a big Interdome out there to read. But, for some retarded reason, I guess we are going to dig a bit deeper.

Turkey, as the IHT tells us, is one of the main transit points for American war supplies heading to Iraq. Therefore, improving relations with Turkey allows the Americans (let's try and pay attention so we don't get "Armenian" and "American" confused, eh?) wage war in the Middle East.

However, the actual way of things is that American-Turkish relations have been declining. After the Truman Doctrine established that Turkey was seeking support of America against the USSR (and other pro-Communist groups like the PKK--remember this, we'll come back to it!), an American military base was established in Turkey in 1954, that is used to the present day. But, ever since the end of the Cold War, and the end of the nice balance between East and West to divide the world, relations have been strained. Turkey has continued to be pro-US in order to support their foray into the EU, among other things, and they have backed this up by supporting American wars in the Middle East and recognizing Israel as a state despite how this has hurt them in their Middle East/Islamic relations.

So, for a country through which "the bulk of U.S. air cargo and about one-third of the fuel headed for Iraq passes," quoth the IHT, it would be important to keep them happy. So would a resolution about the Armenian genocide really be a thorn in the Turkish thumb?

Well, Turkey is not only a convenient conveyor belt to the hole in the desert into which we're currently pouring money. Like most so-called "resolutions", the matter itself is less resolved than other, more important, "strategic" things are alluded. Turkey is also the primary target, and major operating base of a group called the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The PKK started in the 1970s as a Kurdish nationalist political group, and escalated to the level of a paramilitary organization. It's philosophy was Marxist-Leninist to begin with, but now has shifted to the Islamic hue post-Cold War.

These days, they are a "terrorist-organization"--a vocab word that was agreed upon by the US. The US has helped Turkey fight the PKK, allegedly with the CIA, and also through NATO paramilitary "stay-behind" forces that were placed in Turkey. The object of these forces was to remain hidden in the population so as to "stay behind" to conduct guerrilla operations in the event of a USSR invasion, but they were often utilized, at who-knows-who's behest to conduct paramilitary or domestic terrorism operations.

But, oh-so-surprisingly, in this crazy post-Cold War world things seem to have been getting confused. It seems that some of the weapons that the US has sent to Iraq (most likely through Turkey), you know, those weapons the US can't find, have ended up in the hands of the PKK.

And what's more, that very-lucrative-and-increasingly-popular contracting company Blackwater USA has been accused of directly smuggling weapons to the PKK! Horrors!

Now, why would the USA be smuggling weapons to a formerly Communist, avowedly terrorist, separatist group that they are simultaneously fighting in order to court their allies?

Why indeed!

Although I hardly claim to be in the neo-cons' brains, I would say that it is something along the lines of...

The PPK is a separatist nationalist group that while not having much of a positive effect for its own policy, is currently involved in destabilizing the ENTIRE Middle East region, and specifically the governments of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

Why would it help US policy to destabilize the region? Well, they've certainly done a good job of it so far, I don't see why they would not use any tool available to them to continue. Regardless of other positive and negative outcomes of the Iraq War for American interests, destabilization is an outcome that has only benefited the economic, political, and ideological status of the United States. And, if they didn't want to destabilize the region, there are certainly other ways they could be going about this project. Intimidation, fomenting armed conflict, and cross-border operations just speak so loudly, you know.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Congress is occupying its time with a history lesson on whether the killing of 1,000,000 or so constitutes a certain word, something that the New York Times had reported some 90 years ago. That's a pretty good way of avoiding a current problem.

It really boggles my mind that it so easy to hide the killing of millions in plain sight. I guess that the typical person, and by this, I mean the overwhelming majority of the population, just doesn't care about these sorts of deaths, especially if they occur on the other side of the globe.

It certainly never stops. Turks kill Armenians, Germans kill Jews, Poles, and others, Sudanese kill other Sudanese, Americans kill Iraqis, and others. You know what the estimated numbers are dead were for the Iraqi Economic Sanctions, even before the war started? The same as the Armenian Genocide, 500,000-1,500,000. It never stops.

I guess we'll conclude this field trip with a quote, from a guy of whom you may have heard, who goes by the name of Adolf Hitler. It was said during a military meeting in 1939, before the invasion of Poland.

"I have issued the command -- and I’ll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad -- that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formation in readiness -- for the present only in the East -- with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space [Lebensraum] which we need. Who, after all, speaks to-day of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

Where does American economic-lebensraum lie today? You can manifest that destiny for yourself, but one thing is certain, that were certainly have trouble to-day speaking of the annihilation of the Armenians.

A History of Violence

Just a short post today, linking to a much longer essay.

I got this link from Broshaq, who posted it on his blog, "Liquid Crack Repository." I'm just going to echo the link with a few comments of my own.

The link is to an article on Truthdig that is a quite long summation of a study conducted jointly with The Nation, entitled “The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness,” about the horrible atrocities perpetrated by American troops upon Iraqi civilians.

It's quite horrible, as one might expect. The gist of it is, there are many horrible killings, tortures, and violences that go uninvestigated or unreported, and are pretty much status quo for American troops in Iraq.

It is easy to say things regarding this report. "The war is awful, lost, and needs to be stopped now." "War is hell." "We are alienating the civilians rather than helping them, and training terrorists." "Colonialism, Colonialism, Colonialism." All of which are important things to say.

But what I want to say, because it was the particular conclusion that struck me first after the initial horror wore off is about how history will look at this. America looks like an oppressive, occupying power, and no amount of apologizing about how were were fighting for freedom or against terrorism or for democracy can balance this out. This shit looks like fucking Kristalnacht, and it is impossible to see it any other way.

After recounting one of the more benign stories about property invasion and unwarranted arrest, one of the soldiers said, “I just remember thinking to myself, I just brought terror to someone else under the American flag, and that’s just not what I joined the Army to do.” This is what we are going to see from this whenever we look back on this war. Americans flew halfway around the globe to terrorize people, purportedly for their ideals. We are the fascists now, pure and simple, no metaphor, no compare and contrast. Our soldiers, under some misconceived notion of promoting security, break into houses at night, destroy property, shoot innocent people for effect, scare children, and carry their parents away to be lost in prison. How is this a tactic of fighting terrorism? It is terrorism.

I only hope that the people who argued that this war was a good thing (which includes a large amount of people who are now so against it) have a hell to go to worse than the one that they caused. But I know they don't.

The War Against Terrorcons

So Joost has an entire channel of the Transformers: Energon storyline. Sweet.

But here's the plot (for those who haven't read every wikipedia article about the Transformers universe):

Autobots and Decipticons have signed a treaty and are working together.

But, a new evil has arisen in darkest space, called the Terrorcons. (huh?) They are trying to steal all the Energon, the mystical energy material that is the solution to Earth's energy problems (huh huh?). But unfortunately the conditions of the treaty, the symbol of which resembles the UN logo, do not allow the Transformers to preemptively attack any other mechanical life forms! (whoa...)

And Kicker (the hot-headed human character) sure is getting tired of speeches!

What is going to happen!?!?! The series was made in 2004-5, so I can't see any Tranformer surges occurring... maybe the Dinobots, winning more representation in midterm elections, will vote against continuing funding expeditionary energon mining. But do you think a commander-in-chief like Optimus Prime will let that stop him from saving Cybertron?

Why Haven't You Learned Anything Yet?

I'm watching Bill Moyers Journal on PBS right now. He's reviewing media coverage of the lead-up to the current war (don't you know there's a war on?) starting since 9/11. (That's 9/11/01, as opposed to the other 9/11's that happen every year. Also, it is different than 9-11, which is the number you call on your phone in an emergency, as I heard a Virginia Sheriff refer to it on the news recently.)

It's a wonderful program, going over a horrible thing. Bill Moyers rarely disappoints. He cites almost every single network, outlet, and paper in how they have stood up and lied along with the government in order to push the case for war. In addition he refers to pundits by name, numbering the times they have flat-out echoed lies.

The sad thing was, I knew all of this before the war even started. Not because I am smart, or because I had done a lot of research, but just because it seemed so obvious that the ideas proposed were full of shit. Neo-cons all of sudden deciding that a country that they had sought to control but had gotten out of hand was a threat and so why not spread a lil' bit of the ol' democracy over the area. I didn't know if there were WMDs or not, frankly, it didn't seem to matter, because Iraq didn't just decide to go out and pick them up in the "post 9/11 world" (that we were reminded so often that we were living in), they either already had them, or they never had them. Same thing with Al-Qaeda. Why would anyone believe that all of sudden "it was revealed" that there was a link. For anyone paying attention, we were tracking Al-Qaeda for years (ever since they stopped being our puppets, ours and the Iranians, that is...) so why, after 9/11 would we all of sudden find out (from people we were paying off no less) that "there the were!" hiding in Iraq. Ridiculous. Yet, presented as the "truth".

[find out more about the history of the United States and our so-called enemies' common causes at the excellent site, Cooperative Research; all sources are from the media; it is amazing that among the lies you can also find the truth, its just on the back pages and nobody connects the dots for you.]

I don't mean to be arrogant, and I don't want to say "I told you so." (Well, at least not very much.) I think the real point is that this idiocy is not going to stop, but just re-cycle. Iran is next. Again, it doesn't matter whether or not Iran has nuclear weapons. What matters is that we want to prevent them from forming an oil burse, we want the oil fields adjacent to Iraq, we want to continue to spread our influence in the Middle East, and we want to counter the influence of the SCO (see my recent post about the building war against Iran, and again, Cooperative Research.) But none of this is in the media, only the specter of the "threat to us". Whoa.

The media is full of tools, and that is why I never trust anything that I will ever read, hear, or watch to be fully ingenuous and conducted under the spirit of actual research and enlightenment; in other words, I expect the media to be completely devoid of truth. That doesn't mean that there are not facts. They are just hidden, watered down, misappropriated, countermanded, and obscured. It requires research of one's own to be able to actually piece them together.

Anyway, you should check out the Moyers piece. Here is the link to the transcript, but it is not up yet due to the show being so recent. I'll check back and make sure the link works tomorrow. And for goodness sake, think about what you are reading! Don't let them lie to you with a straight face! It's like the goddamn Ministry of Truth out there...

Reality Beyond Television

Here's an idea for a reality series.

Take 27 million ordinary people, put them all together in a country, and then organize a botched invasion followed by a civil war that utterly ravages what infrastructure was available and sets large segments of the population at violent odds with each other, and then see how they live their daily lives amid the drama of a destroyed nation!

The only question is, how do we decide who wins?

Well, come to think of it, it's a horrible idea for a show. Let alone a horrible idea for reality. No one is winning.

But unfortunately, this is reality. More real than what passes for reality in most of the media, even the news.

One thing that I've felt now for a long time is how isolated I feel from what is going on over there. Where is it? What is it? All the war is is statistics and tallies and tickers. Wherever he is, Baudrillard is crying. There are 27 million people there! Where are they? Why is the only Iraq I can see American newscasters, American troops, American politicians and maybe a burned out car?

As it says on the website of the video blog, Hometown Baghdad:

"The everyday life of the Iraqi citizen has been the great untold story of the Iraq war."

But now it being told, in English and with quality production, available on the internet for everyone, in any country. A series of roughly two-minute long episodes follow the lives of Adel, Ausama, and Saif, "20-somethings trying to survive in Baghdad." They are, we find through a revelation remarkable in its obviousness, just like middle class 20-somethings anywhere. They like music, sports, and women; they go to college (when breaks in the violence permits it) and they have career aspirations (except when these aspirations are forbidden by politics).

The difference is that they are attempting to live normally while their surrounding reality is anything but normal. Maybe this is what reality really is, and why we find it so dramatic and try to capture it on TV. Except that reality, when captured, becomes entertainment, and is no longer reality. Yet it still is real for those who are living it. You can see that here; no matter what happens in the episodes there is no arguing, no dramatic posturing, because there really is a war on, and they don't need to be reminded of that, because that is what their reality is. And that is the problem with the war, with Baudrillard, with entertainment, and with reality. No matter how much you abstract something that is actually real, it still remains real.

And this is why I think that Hometown Baghdad is so powerful. The production value is high; it is produced by veterans of broadcast television both in the Middle East and New York. It has the abstraction of false reality: the cuts, the short episode length, and the character vignettes of a "reality" series. But that doesn't stop the reality of the people, the place, and the footage from finding their way through the internet and to the viewer. This "show" has something that media can never abstract, and that is a subject matter who is real: crucially, absurdly, unbelievably real. Reality is something that you can never not believe; you can feel this streaming through the internet all the way across the world, and that is what makes this actual, reality television.

Everytime I see the crap on our TV, it makes me want to puke. I may be somewhat entertained, but I still want to vomit. These clips don't make me want to do that; they don't make me want to lie on the couch all day; they don't make me want to lash out the members of my species. This reality makes me want to live.

Forgive this lavish review: I know its not really my regular style, but this show deserves to be reviewed again and again until everyone watches it. I'm glad that they are making this show, and I hope that they continue to do, because it is making a reality real in a way that it hardly ever is.

These two episodes are, in my opinion, the most memorable so far:

Adel - "Brains on Campus"

"Symphony of Bullets"