After the Future

Word of the Day: 'Endo-colonialism'

. . . Virilio suggests that political economy cannot be subsumed under the political economy of wealth, with a comprehension of the management of the economy of the state being its general aim. Indeed, for him, the histories of socio-political institutions such as the military and artistic movements like Futurism show that war and the need for speed, rather than commerce and the urge for wealth, were the foundations of human society. . . .

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, then, Virilio's cultural theory is concerned with what he calls the third, or, the transplant revolution — the almost total collapse of the distinction between the human body and technology. Intimately linked to the technological enhancement and substitution of body-parts through the miniaturisation of technological objects, the third revolution is a revolution conducted by militarized technoscience against the human body through the promotion of what the Virilio calls 'neo-eugenics'. Such developments range across Virilio's criticisms of the work of Stelarc, the Australian cybernetic performance artist, to his concerns about the eventual fate of the jet-pilots in the Kosovo war. This is because, for Virilio, both Stelarc and the jet-pilot represent much the same thing: "the last man before automation takes command".  Nevertheless, it should be stressed that Virilio's criticisms of automation are closely connected to the development of his concept of endo-colonization — what takes place when a political power like the state turns against its own people, or, as in the case of militarized technoscience, the human body.

I've had Paul Virilio's Information Bomb on my shelf for several years and finally got around to reading it.  It's not a book you can enter into easily, so I started hunting around for articles to provide some context.  The best I found was the one quoted from above by Brit John Armitage.

Virilio is in that world of 'French Theory' with Baudrillard, Lyotard and other French postmodernist cultural theorists, but rejects 'postmondern' as a word that describes his work.  He's a Christian, probably with more in common with guys like Jacques Ellul and Rene Girard--or even Marshall McLuhan--than the academic postmodernists. He's all about defending the 'human' against what appears to be an inevitable mechanomorphic transformation. In an interview Virilio says,

People agree to say that it is rationality and science which have eliminated what is called magic and religion. But ultimately, the ironic outcome of this techno-scientific development is a renewed need for the idea of God. Many people question their religious identity today, not necessarily by thinking of converting to Judaism or to Islam: it's just that technologies seriously challenge the status of the human being. All technologies converge toward the same spot, they all lead to a Deus ex Machina, a machine-God. In a way, technologies have negated the transcendental God in order to invent the machine-God. However, these two gods raise similar questions.

The machine God, to use a wobbly Star Wars analogy (since I've been rewatching those films recently), is the dark side of the force, and so it's a question whether there will be any kind of robust opposition from those who have any feel for the light side. In other words, the only stance from which human resistance to the machine God and its project to dominate the human is in some embrace of that which transcends the machine.  We will have to chose at some point--if not already--between the seductiveness of the machine God and the freedom offered by the transcendent God.

But that's an issue for another day.  I'm more interested today to discuss his idea of 'endo-colonialism', which formulates more precisely what in a more inchoate form I've been groping to articulate here in this blog, particularly when it comes to the disappointments I feel about the Obama administration. 

We're seeing in Egypt now what happens when the people revolt against an endo-colonialist regime. But that kind of revolt could never take place in the U.S. because America has already in place the technologies and legal infrastructure that would enable the state to nip any such revolt in the bud. Those kinds of revolts are still only possible where governmental control is still rather primitive. It has become abundantly clear since Obama has taken over that he has no intention of retarding America's long-term trend toward becoming a tightly sealed cage, a surveillance state in which traditional civil liberties will be easily and legally disregarded in the name of national security.

The U.S. does not have currently an intolerably repressive endo-colonialist regime--and so no one except militia types on the far right are thinking about violent resistance. But here's the point: Should such a repressive regime assume power and with it control of these sophisticated technological surveillance and control tools, there's nothing the rest of us could do about it. This is where the anti-statists on the Right have a point. The rest of us are just hoping that the power elites in control are committed to a more enlightened despotic style that won't lead in twenty or thirty years to what we're currently witnessing in Egypt.

Virilio, of course, is not concerned about what happening in America, except insofar as it seems to be the society in which this technologically driven endo-colonialist impulse appears to be most advanced. As such it will be model to be emulated by those who can afford to do so. His concern rather is broader focused more on what is happening to us without our really being aware of it, how we are losing our grip on what the 'real' means, how we are slowly losing our grip on what 'human' means. His diagnosis of the disease is power lust rather than greed. His big picture narrative is that power-and control obsessed militarism is the real evil to be feared, and in its name--national security--the greatest evils ever committed and yet to be committed are justified.

Sorry, Wall Street, you're just the second string. Your greed is prodigious, but cannot come close to the destructive and dehumanizing impacts foisted on us by the paranoid, powermad folks over in the military-technology sector. And remember that those folks are obsessed with command and control, and the logic of their technologies is simply to increase their capacity for command and control.  And it can be used--most especially on the nano-technological level--against American citizens who resist them as well as anybody abroad who resists them. Even ways now invade and colonize our bodies.

We all, if we're sane, are repulsed by the brutality and massive destructive power of chemical warfare--wait until they start dispersing nanobots for us all to inhale. It will be so much more humane, it will be argued.  People won't even know why they've been turned into docile wetware obedient servants of the machine.

In the same  interview quoted from above  Virilio says,

Technologies first equipped the territorial body with bridges, aqueducts, railways, highways, airports, etc. Now that the most powerful technologies are becoming tiny--microtechnologies, all technologies can invade the body. These micro-machines will feed the body. Research is being conducted in order to create additional memory for instance. For the time being, technologies are colonizing our body through implants. We started with human implants, but research leads us to microtechnological implants.

The territorial body has been polluted by roads, elevators, etc. Similarly, our animal body starts being polluted. Ecology no longer deals with water, flora, wildlife and air only. It deals with the body itself as well. It is comparable with an invasion: technology is invading our body because of miniaturisation. (Referring to the interviewer's microphone: "next time you come you won't even ask - you'll just throw a bit of dust on the table!")

There is a great science-fiction short story, it's too bad I can't remember the name of its author, in which a camera has been invented which can be carried by flakes of snow. Cameras are inseminated into artificial snow which is dropped by planes, and when the snow falls, there are eyes everywhere. There is no blind spot left.

Lieberman: Faithful Servant of Empire

Lest we forget . . .

. . . the number one rule of Washington is that high-level political officials should not be held accountable, even reputationally, for anything they do (Look Forward, Good Citizens, Not Backwards).

But the blood on Joe Lieberman's hands is accounted for by far more than support for the Iraq War.  He's long been one of Washington's most indiscriminate, toxic and deceitful supporters of aggressive war generally.  Even as the two wars he cheered on were spiraling out of control, he was repeatedly urging new American attacks against Iran, Syria and, most recently, Yemen.  Lieberman -- who, needless to say, never served in the military nor have any of his children -- devoted his entire career to attempting to send other Americans' children to fight war after war after war.  In sum, as The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch put it when examining the muddled history of Lieberman's opposition to the war in Vietnam:  "the only war he ever opposed was the only war he might actually have had to fight in."  But, of course, being a relentless warmonger while cowardly hiding yourself and your family far away from the wars you cheer on is not remotely inconsistent with being a Man of Decency and Conscience, as David Brooks and his many Beltway admirers will be the first to tell you.

Then there's Lieberman's vaunted "civility."  He was not only one of the most vocal war supporters, but was responsible for some of the most toxic and McCarthyite efforts to stigmatize war opposition as illegitimate and even treasonous.  In 2005, he infamously lectured Democratic war critics that "in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril," and in 2007 used the language of treason to pose leading questions to Gen. David Petraeus to induce the General's agreement that war opposition "would give the enemy some comfort."  Worse, Lieberman often bolstered these smears with outright lies, such as when he claimed on Meet the Press that we were "attacked on 9/11 by the same enemy we're fighting in Iraq today."  Behold his grand civility.

And then there's the leading role Lieberman played in lending Democratic support to the whole litany of Bush/Cheney assaults on basic liberties.  He defended the "Bush interrogation program" and even waterboarding, and was one of only two Democrats to vote against banning it.  He led the way -- along with his close friends John McCain and Lindsey Graham -- in enacting the Military Commissions Act, which explicitly denied all detainees the right to contest their detention in a court of law:  a measure so repressive that the Supreme Court in Boumediene struck it down as unconstitutional, citing Alexander Hamilton's warning that "the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, in all ages, is the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny."  Once the Court re-established the habeas right which Lieberman and his comrades snuffed out, it turned out, as federal courts found, that there was no credible evidence to justify the detention of a huge percentage of remaining detainees at Guantanamo:  innocent people who would have been imprisoned indefinitely to this day -- without a shred of due process --  if Lieberman had his way. . . .

Then there's the bill introduced last year by Lieberman and McCain -- the so-called "Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act" -- which is probably the single most extremist, tyrannical and dangerous bill introduced in the U.S. Senate in the last several decades, far beyond the horrific, habeas-abolishing Military Commissions Act. It would literally empower the President to imprison anyone he wants in his sole discretion by simply decreeing them a Terrorist suspect -- including American citizens arrested on U.S. soil.  The bill requires that all such individuals be placed in military custody, and explicitly says that they "may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners," which everyone expects to last decades, at least.  It's basically a bill designed to formally authorize what the Bush administration did to American citizen Jose Padilla or what was done to Japanese-Americans during World War II -- arrest them on U.S. soil and imprison them for years in military custody with no charges. (Greenwald--see original for more to set the record straight on Lieberman and for links to sources.)

And let's not forget how he put the final nail in the public-option and medicare buy-in coffin. But hey, give the guy a break--he voted to repeal DADT.

Greenwald's on a roll with this one.  Here's how he closes the post out:

Even more significant is how this Democratic praise for Lieberman reveals just how bipartisan the Washington consensus on most issues truly is.  When Lieberman ran for re-election in 2006, his most vocal support came from places like The Weekly Standard, National Review, and Commentary Magazine; Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol and right-wing radio hosts cheered for his victory.  But a mere four years later, he's branded in The Washington Post as a "Democratic hero" and leading Democrats rush forward to praise him.  As happens so often, the two sides who -- in our political theater -- are endlessly presented as being polar opposites, intractably hostile to one another, in fact find common ground with amazing frequency.  The extremely bipartisan and quite genuine love for Joe Lieberman in Washington circles (notwithstanding the contempt of his own constituents) illustrates that as well as anything else. . .

Blood-stained hands are far too common to be bothersome (it's part of the D.C. uniform); servitude to lobbyists and corporations is the central Article of Faith, not a ground for embarrassment or disgrace; assaults on core liberties is how Strength and Seriousness are demonstrated; and "centrism" and "principled independence" are the glorifying names given to status quo perpetuation and loyalty to the factions who run Washington.  Lieberman isn't widely admired across the Washington spectrum and in both parties despite his aberrational acts; he's admired precisely because he's the perfect face of what that culture is and what it values.

It's the culture of Empire, a culture that shapes the minds of both parties within the Beltway. Liebermann was its faithful servant--a model of imperial virtue, and that's why all the Beltway encomiums to Lieberman are so apt, so decorous.

Public opinion no longer matters; only the will of the Empire does. It's good that the people of Connecticut are sick of Lieberman's act, that they finally figured out that he was fighting for the state's insurance and defense industries but not for them. But the Empire will find others to replace him.  He is, in fact, a dime a dozen.

Bush Lite

As early as May, 2009, former Bush OLC lawyer Jack Goldsmith wrote in The New Republic that Obama was not only continuing Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies, but was strengthening them -- both because he was causing them to be codified in law and, more important, converting those policies from right-wing dogma into harmonious bipartisan consensus.  Obama's decision "to continue core Bush terrorism policies is like Nixon going to China," Goldsmith wrote.  Last October, former Bush NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden -- one of the most ideological Bush officials, whose confirmation as CIA chief was opposed by then-Sen. Obama on the ground he had overseen the illegal NSA spying program -- gushed with praise for Obama: "there's been a powerful continuity between the 43rd and the 44th president."  James Jay Carafano, a homeland-security expert at the Heritage Foundation, told The New York Times' Peter Baker last January: "I don’t think it's even fair to call it Bush Lite.  It's Bush.  It's really, really hard to find a difference that's meaningful and not atmospheric." Greenwald

Does it make a difference that Obama is in the White House and not John McCain--or Dick Cheney?  Yes, of course it does.  Am I glad that Obama's numbers are up?  Yes, of course I am.  But let's not lose perspective. Obama represents the more moderate faction of the American power elite, and it serves the spirit of empire just as faithfully as Bush/Cheney did.  His faction just puts a more "reasonable" face on it.

Obama gave a nice speech last week. I'm using it in my class as a model of demonstrative rhetoric--one of the best by anyone in recent history. But that's what ceremonial presidents, like ceremonial kings and queens do.  Like George VI as depicted in The King's Speech, they are trotted out on these occasions to unify the nation in a time of trouble.  And that's fine, but nothing changes that really matters.  Greenwald's post is entitled "The Vindication of Dick Cheney."  In matters of style no in matters of substance, alas, yes.

Quote of the Day: Erick Erickson

Out there somewhere is someone who would love to kill Governor Palin. God forbid they do it. But you and I both know there is some crazy MSNBC watcher and Media Matters reader who even now is dreaming of doing so.

And should they try, we can be equally sure of something else. The left will be divided into two camps: (1) bitch deserved it and (2) not my fault.

It is unfortunate. I hope it never happens. But you and I both know the reality in which we live. (from Red State, h/t Balloon Juice)

The prodigious capacity for projection by people on the Right would be comical if it weren't potentially so dangerous.  What should frighten us is the vast number of wingers like Erickson who in their paranoidal "reality" decide they must defend themselves pre-emptively by taking out their "victimizers" before their victimizers take them out. 

Isn't that the thinking that justified the invasion of Iraq?

The Corporate Empire State 2

Michael Lind has an interesting piece he posted yesteday in Salon that supplements the piece I posted the other day about the corporate state.

Lind does a typology that comprises five American political worldviews: Neoliberal Globalism, Social Democratic Liberalism, Populist Nationalism, Libertarian Isolationism, and Green Malthusianism. It's similar to what I made an attempt to do here in which my focus was more cultural worldviews, which overlap with but are different from political worldviews.  Read Lind's entire article for more background, but what I write here should be clear enough without your doing so.

The Corporate Empire State 1

I've just started rewatching the Star Wars trilogy. I can't say that I was ever much of a fan--I could never get past the dreadful acting, stilted dialogue, and the cheesy costumes.  And I have always been surprised when people I respect praised it. Joseph Campbell was a fan, and I respect a guy like cultural historian/philosopher John Ebert--and he loves Star Wars:

George Lucas's Star Wars epic is the closest thing that we possess to a modern equivalent of the Ring cycle.for just as Wagner created for the Germans a national mythology of the Industrial Age, Lucas has given us a modern celluloid epic for the Electronic Society, in which the industrial nation state is giving way to an emerging planetary culture.  The Romantic movement of the nineteenth century was a reaction to the industrial system, and the various nationalist movements with their retrieval of ancient myth were, at least partially, an attempt to combat the encroachments of the machine world which was already beginning the process of eroding culture, authenticity, and individuality wherever it went. Thus, the very mechanical Umwelt that was born out of the European nation state arose only to destroy its local, geographically based boundaries with an electronic latticework of metantational corporations. . . .

It seems fitting, then, that the plot of George Lucas's Star Wars prequels is modeled on the decline of the Roman Republic and its transition to the Empire under the Caesars, for that is exactly what is happening to our democracy right now.  In fact, if you pay close enough attention to Lucas's films, you will learn everything you need to know about what is going on in our society, for despite their opening disclaimer, the Star Wars films are not about another world in outer space a long time ago, but about what is happening on the planet right now.  For Lucas is not only a modern Wagner, but a sort of Virgil as well, forging for the Empire--although in this case he is decidedly against it--a national American epic in the time of Caesar. (Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons - Film as the Mythology of Electronic Society, pp. 155-57)