Time Out of Joint:

Rubio, Water, and the House of Cards

 

When is a drink of water not just a drink of water?

Melissa and I have been burning through David Fincher's brilliant new political drama House of Cards over the past few days. If you don't know about it yet, be sure to listen to David Bianculli spot-on review here.

Needless to say, we were moved to watch some of the State of the Union last night, and, of course, Marco Rubio's Republican response ... And then it happened ... the drink of water. I sighed, shook my head, looked to Melissa, and we both shook our heads in collective incredulity, and we immediately agreed that this is destined to be a Saturday Night Live skit. In an age of hyperreality and manufactured pseudo-events, how can the Republican dream boy botch such a brief moment in the sun? Doesn't he know the Frank Underwood principle? That to control information is the power to create and shape reality, and when you abdicate that control, someone else usurps the storytelling power from you—to tell it about you.

This principle is one of the brilliant elements in House of Cards, for which the writer seems to have done his homework. Specifically, Daniel Boorstin's The Image: a Guide to Pseudo-Events in America and Jean Baudrillard's writing on Hyperreality permeate the fabric of the show's concerns. The power to control information is far more important than simply "making news."  

In HoC Chapter 2, we see Congressman and Majority Whip Frank Underwood use the advances of the young, hip, and hungry journalist Zoe Barnes to his own reality-shaping designs. He understands that creating/manufacturing news is more powerful than merely, passively, "being" the news. This sort of information warfare has been the cornerstone of the American political scene since the 1960 Presidential debate—the basis of Boorstin's meditation on image.

In HoC Chapter 6, this image is creatively executed when Frank Underwood goes to the CNN studios to debate with the head of the teacher's union. The set tells the story: A table and chairs are draped and dominated by the very icon of image manufacturing—the green screen. When we cut to the televised event, we see the sophisticated and somewhat chaotic horror vacui of the CNN backdrop bleeding information ... but it's all an illusion ... just as illusory as the manufactured issue that Frank Underwood is debating for his own designs of power—and he's not about to abdicate that control. 

So ... When is a drink of water not just a drink of water? When it's not calculated to look like a drink of water. Welcome to the age of hyperreality.

The times are certainly out of joint ...

Shock Doctrine

Be sure to check out Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein's short film Shock Doctrine  . . .

(i tried to embed the video on the blog but it's too long for video egg beta)

the nearsightedness of systemic ill

Nothing like accurate and thoughtful journalism to get the pulse pounding early in the morning. The United Nations --that bastion of international peace has just decided to send a 26,000 troop peacekeeing force to Darfur. A few years too late if you ask me. However, and somehow, the U.N. are seen as 'saviors' in this act of grace and peace --turning swords into ploughshares. Read the first line of Associated Press writer EDITH M. LEDERER's article:

"UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force for Darfur to help end four years of rape and slaughter in the vast Sudanese region that the world has failed to stop." (rest of article here)

'That the world has failed to stop'? Isn't the U.N. supposed to be the representive body of the world? Four years of "rape and slaughter" and the U.N. has just now sends a peacekeeping force?

While i'm no supporter of the Iraq war (nore have I ever been, although I do find the Afghan war justified) there is something to be said for decisive action. While the U.N. and like minded supporters were sitting on their own moral high horse about the virtues of 'sanctions' and 'peaceful negotiations', people like French President Jaques Chirac were making money off of the much maligned U.N. 'Oil for Food' scandal. Saddam Hussein made est. $21 billion on illigal deals from 1990-2003 . . . see key reports from BBC here on U.N. corruption. Meanwhile Saddam's prisons and torture/rape detention centers were full (the original 'gitmos' mind you which have now been forgotten).

Too bad the United States has spent all its moral capital on a damn fooled crusade. Maybe the people of Darfur would have had their suffering eased a couple hundered thousand rapes and slaughters sooner?

UN-clean water

"More than 2.6 billion people do not have access to proper sanitation and dirty water claims more lives than AIDS or conflicts, according to the UN's annual Human Development Report, released in South Africa." (source, emphasis mine)

how about having standards on --at the very least-- the bare minimum? Darfur, Iraq, Aids pandemic . . . the fight seems meaningless if we can't establish a global standard of living. This report is yet another example of how humanity dares to dream big but, in the end, is not detail oriented.

Justice? Equality? Peace?

How about an effing clean glass of water to start with?

we are a people plagued by our own 'homelessness' for the simple reason that we don't dwell --we don't fully inhabit this earth. we use our technology for power, speed and gain at the expense of life (of the living!) and ek-sistence. we are an alienated people in our own lands. we've gained the riches of the world and probed the secrets of the universe but lost our life . . . what a sad dilemma for the post-20th century West.

what will we do?

the aesthetics of Total War Pt. 2

"The reason I'm painting this way is becasue I want to be a machine" --Andy Warhol

In an age of Total War what becomes of the language of aesthetics? In the age of the machine we become the servants of the machine . . . our servitude is reflected with great pride in our plastic arts. this is what Virilio calls, Art Terrorism.

In the age of the machine representation is not enough: "The art of painting at the time was already busy trying to outdo mere REPRESENTATION by offering the very presence of the event, as instantaneous photography would do, followed by the PHOTO-FINISH and teh first cenematographic newsreeels of the Lumiere brothers and, ultimately, the LIVE COVERAGE offered by CNN." (21)

Drawing on Bonhoeffer, Virilio critiques this fetishism of immediacy (the cheap whore of forced materialization!!) as ultimately an attack on personhood. Our serventhood of the machine is reflected in the plastic arts whose Mengeleian (un)creators continue the scientific arts which were begun in the research labs of Auschwitz-Birkenau . . . Upon Pope Benedict Ratzinger's visit he lamented that the Nazi hope was to kill the God of Abraham, Isaac and David . . . if Nietzsche was right, Virilio laments, and God is dead then the coming victim is not the creator but the created!

"Avant-garde artists, like many political agitators, propagandists and demagogues, have long understood what TERRORISM would soon popularize: if you want a place in 'revolutionary history' there is nothing easier than provoking a riot, an assault on propriety, in the guise of art . . . the art of the twentieth century became 'monstative' in the sense that it is contemporary with the shattering effect of mass societies, subject as they are to the conditioning of opinion and MASS MEDIA propaganda - and this, with the same mounting extremism evident in terrorism or total war." (17-19)

The problem of the simulacra . . . the problem of representation is a question that must be addressed (theologically?) at the dawn of the 21st century. In an age of the machine what can the church offer as a response when it is a servant of the machine? when art -as an extention of 20th century mutilation- is the main commodity of a people then what becomes of the people? when the tools of Total War (the virtual) becomes the language of social interaction what is left, save the hyperreal?

what will we do?

the aesthetics of Total War Pt. 1

Israel's war against the Hezbollah (Army) is turning out to be a fascinating foil to the U.S. war in Iraq/Afghanistan . . .

Classic Liberal (read with great reverence and sincerity) appeals to 'peace', 'humanity', 'justice' simply break down in harsh reality of, what Paul Virilio calls, Total War. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has managed to make every 'civilian' target a legitimate military target by embedding their military machine in the fabric of everyday life. Hospitals (built by Iran?) double as military caches, Iranian rockets are fired (190 Katyushas today!) using neighborhoods as shelter (Qana), and Propaganda machines (TV and Radio stations) are nestled 'safely' in downtown neighborhoods.

Who is the victim of a blockade? How can attacking an ambulance be criticized when it's being used as a modified military personnel carrier? There is no one left to demonize / plea to / sanction because everyone and everything is an instrument of war! The "Geneva Convention" we so dearly appeal to in our disgust and disdain of innocent blood is a fantasy, a dream . . .

The idea of Total War goes back to Von Clausewitz but the failure that was the 20th century realized the concept in full. The firebombing of Dresden and London (although the first article of the Nuremburg Trials dictated that no Ally could be tried for war crimes) but an end to that dream quickly. Ah, to become the monster in order to destroy the monster!!! Now, information technology allows for its perfection in the 21st century. Propaganda about 'war on the homefront' makes the homefront the front lines. Train stations explode, business towers topple and buses shredded all because a people mobilized are a people militarized . . . targets.

This is truly the age of anti-christ when the gates of hell, opened by war, swallow playgrounds and fruit stands. War is terrorism. In the age of the machine we are the ones who are being transformed as servants of the machine and cannon fodder in an age of Total War.

what will we do?

the Image machine and the Middle East conflict(s)

The Middle East brings out the worst in media non-communication. While i can get behind the PCUSA statement/plea for an end to hostilities (believe it or not) in the current Hezbollah/Israel conflict because of its unusually balanced language, i have a lot of difficulty generating a theological response to the situation simply because theology has been hog-tied by the image machine . . .

If you haven't read Daniel Boorstin's book The Image do so now. Boorstin talks about the graphics revolutions of the 19th century and how a layer of 'unreality' is created by 'psuedo-events'. What are 'psuedo-events'? The 'psuedo-event' is driven by image . . . Take this picture for example:

This picture of Israeli children writing 'hate' messages on shells supposedly shows how dastardly and jaded the people of Israel are during this conflict. We know this picture is a setup. However . . . how the hell would we know that from a first viewing! And in the realm of half hour world news and yahoo headlines a first viewing and immediate opinion is all a picture like that is going to get.

Some people foolishly think (for God's sake look at the gross use of image!) that being "well informed" means running to Electronic Intifada, Al-Jazeera, or the Palestine News Network . . . i'll admit it's a start because it realizes that perspective is skiewed but it solves nothing . . . Free interpretation of events must be free from the imposition of meaning created by these systems of non-communication.

When it comes to 'psuedo-events' this is just the tip of the iceberg. Propoganda is not simply an us versus them scenario it is the very fabric that keeps us all warm at night. How is anyone supposed to drink the problems of this world to the dregs when we are daily being served a synthetic/light/caffeine-free substitute for reality?

I don't have the answers but in this case the question is even more important . . .

what will we do?

Iran links and 'mule' reporting

The BBC has posted the first mainstream report of the possible Iran link to the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict currently raging. What the hell are mainstream reporters doing in the field and who are they talking to? Why were blogs posting this information days ago?

Jean Baudrillard calls this effect "the imposition of models" and is why he calls 'media' a medium of non-communication . . .

This 'Mule effect' (from the disruptive and unaccountable character from Isaac Asimov's The Foundation Trilogy), however, is the beauty of blogs and the independent media circuit. We've seen how effective the blog has been in China to disrupt totalitarian media control in previous posts . . . but then again media control like that could never happen in the West. Right?

Check out the link here and read what the BBC is saying.

Israel, Hezbollah . . . and Iran?

Just back from Norway . . . brilliant trip. pics and post to follow.

In the meantime, maddness in the middle east.

Has Israel lost it? or does an excavation beyond the veil of media non-communication reveal something interesting?

Dig this excellent post from Mein Blogo Vault . . .

the Logical conclusion of Freedom and Diversity

This disturbing piece of news was passed along by friend and colleague.

The new 'oppressed' in Holland are . . . Pedophiles (which of course is a pejorative term). The new NVD party or The Charity, Freedom and Diversity party (still seeking legitimacy) is currently opposed by 82 percent of the Dutch but only 62 percent said promoting pedophilia should be illegal. I wonder how a generation of 'pedophile education' will change those numbers . . . since the only reason it is opposed is becasue we are closed minded.

You can read the Reuters article here.

It seems to me that the logical conclusion of 'progress' in the name of "Freedom and Diversity" is a place we may not want to go . . . we don't want to go.

what will we do?