Cognitive Dissonance – 10 Years Later

This was initially posted on Facebook in a civil discourse with a friend.

Out of context. Disembodied. Mutilated.

It appears to resemble some sort of complete thought. Concept.

If you pay attention to the world, our plight worsens daily.

Pollution. Famine. Violence. Societal malaise.

What will cure us of our collective trauma? 

 

Facebooking Discourse

Certainly a disconnection of a fabricated moral standard is a symptom of the American/Western hegemonic structure, as such those symptoms—9/11, profligacy, security—are the easiest-to-digest for invasion, preemption and occupation of a resource rich country.

9/11. An asymmetric rationalization of a moment embedded in the collective consumption of reactionary culture.

Falling Man >|< Fall in man

Reactions equate to rhetoric, i.e. “we have to fight the terrorists wherever they may hide,” or worse, apathy “It’s a fucked up world altogether.”

SO GIVE UP 

As a corporatocracy, America’s interests are purely profit: oil, private security contracts, construction etc, not to usurp the post-Soviet Islamist rule of the Taliban (yes they were awful, just look at the pictures of civilized Kabul! Some of the Afghans have blue eyes!). Record profits abound. The apparatus of control is gilded in perpetuity. Crisis’ increase exponentially even after public discovery of fraud “#nowmd” and manipulation of information. Still, as our warrior brothers and sisters return home from the global conflict, damaged and exposed to a domestic nightmare of ghost towns and economic decrepititude, we can be assured that somehow, enexplicably, the effort was worth the risk and sacrifice.

We exacted our revenge on the enemy who was living comfortably in a palatial estate miles from Islamabad, surrounded by Pakistani military elite. By using extrajudicial execution “while condemning the practice by other nations, we succumb to our own hubris. Of Afghans, disconnection from people suffering works much better (sells much better) on paper (or Facebook/Twitter/Huffpo/FauxNews/Obama&Bush teleprompters) to a public increasingly less interested in truth.

The difficult realization is that we’ve apparently succeeded and simultaneously failed.

“Mission Accomplished-ish”

[right, right, left, left, up, down, up, down, A, B, to start all over right?]

We can’t withdraw, pullout, mid-coitus, we’re vested in making the best of the situation, finish on the backs of main street and the shrinking middle class.

We can’t sustain the approach much longer either, unless Afghanistan will serve—and this is mere speculation—as our proxy staging area for a war with a nuclear armed Pakistan. More automated combat. Reliance on computers to determine hostiles.

America is indeed exceptional. In our military and security spending. In our continued pollution of third world countries via proxy manufacturing for cheaper labor and the unregulated environmental legislation of those countries and by extension, our governments massive military and budgetary support of an Israeli neo-apartheid.

This system enabled us to supplant democracy plant pliable leadership in North Africa and the Middle East for the past four decades. But as we’ve witnessed, through our mediated American perspective, people often tire of being served the same meal for too long. We are idle and conveniently diplomatic while Assad murders Syrian’s indiscriminately.

Perhaps, to “see it from both sides” detracts from the complexity. There isn’t necessarily a discernable side when faced with the ultimatum of “you’re either with us or with the terrorists.”

Post-Obama HOPE conspiracy election buzz, do we embrace the new normal?

Drones. Disposition Matrix. Targeted Killing and other euphemisms for the tactics used in our perpetual global war on terror.

A Time-Lapse of Every Nuclear Explosion since 1945

Sometimes I just need to post this kind of thing to my blog so I can come back to it again and again. 

Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998, beginning with the Manhattan Project’s “Trinity” test near Los Alamos and concluding with Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May of 1998. This leaves out North Korea’s two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade (the legitimacy of both of which is not 100% clear).

Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. Hashimoto, who began the project in 2003, says that he created it with the goal of showing”the fear and folly of nuclear weapons.” It starts really slow — if you want to see real action, skip ahead to 1962 or so — but the buildup becomes overwhelming.

http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/

Journal of Experimental Fiction: 39 (War Splicing)

I’m very happy to announce that my piece War Splicing has recently been published in the Journal of Experimental Fiction: 39. You can grab a copy on the old Amazon. I don’t get any cheddar or royalties for copies sold. JEF is published by Depth Charge and Civil Coping Mechanisms. Lots of great and innovative writers have appeared in the Journal. I’m thrilled to be part of it!

 

Wikileaks.org: Gov’t Transparency Truthiness Org.

Sometimes I think Wired gets too caught up in their own bullshit. Lots of advertising. Then sometimes Wired surprises me with an amazing observation or just some regular information. Today I stumbled on something that is exciting for cyber-activism and could have some amazing possibilities. A system called wikileaks.org whose stark black on white welcome page [flashes for 1.5 sec before resolving on their homepage] states; “News is what someone doesn’t want you to know. Everything else is advertising.”

It flashes so quickly that I had to go back and refresh about a dozen times to make sure I saw it correctly. Basically the system works similar to wikipedia

“Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable system for safe mass document leaking and public analysis. Our primary interests are in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we expect to be of assistance to peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources…

Its worth looking at. The particular Wired post I saw was specific about a leaked 238-page document, “Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures,” for the Guantanamo Bay war prison camp. A document that details procedures such as psychological warfare techniques, techniques borrowed by Abu Gharib authorities, which eventually led to the scandal there. Specifically about using MWD (Military Walking Dogs) to “demonstrate physical presence to detainees.”

While that is fascinating the real story is what something like Wikileaks.org means for cyber-activism. Of course there is always a dark side to new tech like this. Implications of evil can boggle the mind.

Alas, truthiness should be shared with everyone and what a faster way to accomplish this than digitally? What if the public knew everything there is to know about our practices? What if our enemies knew about our interrogation techniques?

Check this out, User Generated Smoking Guns!!!