September 14, 2001, 11:31 p.m.
also checking: http://www.zmag.org/ZNET.htm, http://www.fair.org
We sprawled on couches and
chairs and wondered what response we might expect from punk rock, which
rose to the challenge during the Reagan adminstration with its
Cold War hysteria, nuclear threats, pro-apartheid politics and
illegal Latin American coups. I jokingly suggested we print an all-black
cover and personally stencil CRASS slogans, like "Fight war, not wars," on
each copy. Mike worried that the backlash climate would have repercussions
for the independent press, nevermind that dissent is supposedly
a hallmark of a democracy, and Arwen had no answer to the implicit
question: how far will this go?
September 13, 2001, 5:08 p.m.
This was posted by Lauren of Soapbox Girls:
Bizarrely, the Backstreet Boys have spoken out against going to war.
Here's Kevin's take on things: "I just think we're a little bit of an
arrogant nation, and maybe this is a bit of a humbling experience... it
raises the question in my mind, what has our government done to evoke or
provoke this action, that maybe we don't know about?" Who knew the BSB
could be more thoughtful than your average TV reporter?
The excerpt that can be viewed online doesn't include the bit about
war vs. peace, but in the interview I saw on television, they
unanimously agreed that they did not want the US to go to war.
9:55 a.m.
still checking: http://www.commondreams.org
This file was getting enormous, so I've archived the excerpt from
Edward Herman and the political uses and representations of "terrorism"
as well as the links and excerpts from other media sources. While I was
at it, I decided to upload my next Punk Planet column about
The Legend of Billie Jean and the politics of popular culture.
On an "interesting" note, the latest Arnold
Schwarzenegger action film, called (of all things) Collateral
Damage, has been shelved by the studios. No doubt it featured
a terrorist attack of some sort, and Arnold saving the free world single-handedly.
9:33 a.m. (re-edited entry)
I spent much of yesterday firing off
letters and messages in sometimes heated exchanges, and I'm too
frustrated and worn out to do much more analysis. I'm heartily sick of
the jingoistic refrains and calls for immediate and brutal retaliation,
and sick at heart that so many persons who are or merely seem
to be Arabic or Muslim have
already been subject to physical and verbal violence
.
None of what I've written (or excerpted) about the
political uses of the term and practices
of "terrorism" is meant to downplay what has happened. As a colleague wrote: "To forestall misreadings, I
just want to clarify that I am not arguing that the legacy of US foreign policy justifies Tuesday's horror, but rather
that addressing this legacy is a crucial component of dealing with
the longterm consequences not just of Tuesday's events, but of the US's
inescapable interconnectedness with the rest of the world." These are not abstractions (and certainly
not for those who have been directly or indirectly affected by U.S. foreign policy), nor
attempts to minimize the horror, but rather attempts to understand the mechanisms and
social forces which led to this moment.
Just because I am not engaged in a public display of anxiety or
grief does not mean that I have not been moved. As I have said before,
the website is not a "complete picture" of myself or my life and to draw
assumptions from the site about myself or my life is naive.
And
because there are so many voices expressing
"compassion" for the victims of the NYC/WDC attacks, and yet in
the next breath calling for the deaths of other innocents,
I wanted to make this contradiction obvious, and to expose
the ideological underpinnings of such statements and other "natural" sentiments. That is,
the concern for "innocent life," "freedom," or "justice," is selective and therefore
political. To ignore this aspect of these events --an aspect which is too often
hidden beneath the naturalization of sentiments of revenge and retribution-- is to
our detriment.
(See the entries about national sentimentality and the
will to punish.)