G20 in Pittsburgh

[Ed Jewett]

G20 Post Mortem / Open Thread

September 27th, 2009 A few people seem surprised that the U.S. is a police state.
Oh the cops. Oh the poor students. Oh boo hoo, we just want to wave our signs.
The don’t taze me bro generation is obviously going to have to figure this one out the hard way.
My position has always been that people who wave signs at fascists are clinically nuts; holy roller, speaking in tongues, batshit crazy nuts.
Sign waving is not resistance. Sign waving is part of the problem in the same way that voting is part of the problem. How’s that Change working out for the Obama supporters? (Some of those bozos are already talking about how they’re going to get it right in 2012…)
In the few video clips of the G20 protests that I watched, I saw a bunch of zombies with iPhones, running around like chickens with their heads cut off, as the Legion of Doom tested out its new sonic weapons and tear gas lobbing skills.
WTF is the matter with these people? Where does someone get the idea that the way to deal with Darth Vader is to wave a sign at him? Maybe a few, “Fuck the police” tweets will do the trick? Send out invites to join revolutionary sign waving groups on Facebook?!
The Twitbook aspect of this is, frankly, bizarre. Maybe I’ve been out here in the bush too long, but it looks like powerlessness is manifesting itself into a sort of flaccid, me-too technophelia, crossbred with a hamster wheel. This is more embarrassing than anything else.
The U.S. is no longer a country. It’s a company town. If waving signs at the company’s goon squad just makes people look stupid, what does twitbooking about it amount to?
Here are some other ideas:
Eliminate your debt. Take your money off the table. Stop buying stuff that you don’t need. Live well on very little. Grow your own food. Participate in alternative and/or outlawed food economies for what you don’t produce yourself. Barter, or use cash. Support people who do good work. Finally, draw a line in the sand. Don’t tell anyone where that line is, or what the consequences will be if it’s crossed. Don’t wave a sign about it. Don’t twitbook about it. Let the fascists figure it out the hard way.


9 Responses to “G20 Post Mortem / Open Thread”

1. sevee Says:
   September 27th, 2009 at 6:26 am ..that’s a good word right there~
   spot on Kev.
   
2. Miraculix Says:
   September 27th, 2009 at 10:29 am Kev said: “WTF is the matter with these people? Where does someone get the idea that the way to deal with Darth Vader is to wave a sign at him?”
   That’s about as succinct a description of the phenomenon as I’ve read. As another US ex-pat who’s spent the bulk of his life avoiding blind faith-based affiliations, my wife and I didn’t wait for the door to hit us on the arse on the way out when departing the USSA a few years back.
   Nothing is more frustrating than attempting to communicate with what you’d otherwise assume are intelligent and reasonable people still addicted to their favorite flavor of Kool-Aid.
   And yes, as the gloves come off, there seems to be an equally brutal flavor of denial taking root among the faithful, still clinging to the oh-so-comforting triumphal American mythology hammered into them literally from birth to death.
   As for “Twitbook”, that’s a f**king brilliant conglomeration. Yours Kev, or sourced elsewhere? Need to know who to credit, as I intend to adopt it as part of my own vocabulary — and it’s 100% certain to raise such questions… =)
   
3. jburke6000 Says:
   September 27th, 2009 at 11:17 am I went to school there. On any Friday night, there was that many students hanging out all around those streets. No protests, just kids haning around.
   Those kids didn’t really seem to get the idea of what protesting was all about. It was pretty strange to watch.
   Fakebook and Twitbook are just another form of masturbation, but it makes more money for the Corp. State.
   
4. FRLVX Says:
   September 27th, 2009 at 11:27 am Love the twitbook term…hope it sticks. You really have to wonder, who is behind organizing these protests…who makes the signs, specifies what they say, where they will be. Could it all be a engineered fiasco by an outsourced provocateur services consultancy to honeypot and psycho engineer the whole scene? See who the sheeps are and who else pops up, that may be a real threat. Twitbooks indeed.
   
5. Kevin Says:
   September 27th, 2009 at 11:30 am @Miraculix
   As I went to type “Facebook,” “Twitbook” just appeared on the screen. I think apoplexy and touch typing combined to form a bit of automatic writing.
   I’m definitely not the originator of the term. It’s in use out there on the interwebs already. I don’t know who originally came up with that one.
   This abandoned Twitter page was last used in 2007:
   http://twitter.com/TwitBook
   
6. Kevin Says:
   September 27th, 2009 at 12:52 pm @FRLVX
   From The Crowd by Gustave LeBon (free ebook online):
   …all the world’s masters, all the founders of religions or empires, the apostles of all beliefs, eminent statesmen, and, in a more modest sphere, the mere chiefs of small groups of men have always been unconscious psychologists, possessed of an instinctive and often very sure knowledge of the character of crowds, and it is their accurate knowledge of this character that has enabled them to so easily establish their mastery.
   A knowledge of the psychology of crowds is today the last resource of the statesman who wishes not to govern them – that is becoming a very difficult matter — but at any rate not to be too much governed by them.
   
7. ltcolonelnemo Says:
   September 27th, 2009 at 1:25 pm What the media call “protests” used to be called “demonstrations.” One rarely reads or hears the terms “demonstrators” or “demonstrations” these days. I wonder why. Could it be that the media do not want people to make a few semantic connections in their heads? When one protests, one merely espouses disagreement, but one DOES nothing. When one demonstrates, on the other hand, well, what does one demonstrate? What is meant by the term? To show, to display, and so on and so forth. But what does an organized crowd of agitated people demonstrate? That they are numerous, organized, angry, and willing to show up somewhere.
   In my opinion, the purpose of demonstrations has always been to threaten force to lawmakers. Demonstrations always precede an escalation in tactics. Groups demonstrate first, then they resort to more drastic measures. In the past, demonstrating crowds and their organizers have been more than willing to escalate to violence, although with mixed results.
   By contrast, the people who demonstrate today do not really understand what is it at stake. They may also labor under the belief that policies are undertaken out of moral ignorance when the opposite is often the case. They think they are demonstrating primarily to inform, or to shame, to protest. The state has a longer memory, hence it sends the police, who are always prepared for violence, whether to receive or inflict it.
   With all due respect, I must say that individually drawing lines in the sand can prove as worthless as flaccidly waving a sign with no intent to escalate beyond that. If Darth Vader is really after you, it doesn’t matter that you hide out, or don’t seek attention, or passively avoid his debt-slavery tactics. If Darth Vader wants to kill or enslave you, he’ll come find you and do it to you, at which point you have to run or fight. If you fight, you’ll be made an example of, in which case, Darth Vader wins; if you run, well, with globalization, running holds less and less appeal. People could run from Nazi Germany because it was relatively local; resisting it any form, even passively, proved so risky that one may as well have engaged in the most violent acts, as opposed to merely hiding people or circulating dissenting pamphlets, in which case you were painted as a terrorist. The point is, you cannot “resist” Darth Vader, you have to incapacitate or eliminate him, or else die or be enslaved.
   The answer of what do is not easy because it does not provide instant gratification. What is the point of winning a few temporary battles if one loses the war? The people who wield power over our lives did not get their overnight. They got their over a period of hundreds of years. It is difficult for most people to think in terms of one year, let alone several hundred, or even several thousand, yet the groups who wield the most power, such as religious groups, often do so because they take the long view. Any real gains made in terms of civil liberties took place over hundreds of years, and costs millions of lives, whether martyrs, or in wars.
   One possible solution on how to handle the issue of police repression is to co-opt, infiltrate, or become the police. The so-called right wing always seems to understand this better than the so-called left wing, at least in recent history. Acts of violence don’t seem to “succeed” politically without tacit police support, such as with the JFK assassination or the 9/11 bombings. Part of what ended the Vietnam War was the fact that elements of the antiwar movement infiltrated the military to the extent that officers were fragged and equipment was destroyed, something rarely discussed publicly. Other solutions would fall under the category of organizing to send a more effective message than merely gathering to wave signs. The people that rule do so through a variety of organizational strategies and tactics; one can readily research them and have one’s group adopt them.
   
8. Zuma Says:
   September 27th, 2009 at 2:01 pm hitler analogy in doonesbury
   one key point that terence mckenna repeatedly hammered home was ‘culture is not your friend’. (i daresay he wouldn’t have objected to anyone taking him on his word and stop listening to his opinions and go off and do something.)
   dave letterman caught my attention in the past year when it seemed he actually might have gotten a tad riled at all what was going on, as if his bank balance somehow took a hit from the ‘recession’. seemed he suggested as much. he was mad as heck and wasn’t gonna take it for a few shows, and so on. i was curious to see how far he’d go. seeing him pally pally with obama recently though curdled my bile enough to push me to stop watching his insipid show even idly.
   doonesbury likewise was something i’d long to come to see as having a line of it’s own vested existence it wouldn’t cross and so neutered blatantly while still trying fill it’s niche market of accepted mainstream ‘edginess’.
   has american culture, that tip of the spear of the age-old drive of global westernization/americanization, finally fully begun to unravel? sure. imho. traditional offline culture anyway. mayhap simply the public’s present lack of time and money has as much to do with it (or more) than disgust. i imagine too though that a tipping point’s approaching when they’ve gotten enough online of huffpo, C&L, DN!, alternet, et al as well. self-vested interests are getting publicly stodgy. imho…
   doonesbury *has* managed to maintain some of my attention of late, but this latest installment (that i catch online via livejournal) said it all and is enough for me.
   i’m at the point that the only entertainment i’m interested in is by private folks online that i’ve known for years and enjoyably and comfortably converse with. about art mostly at that. i’ve my own endeavors to preoccupy me and those again of art mostly as i’ve ’said’ enough and fully and bore myself in repetition. bantering in the comments of such sites as mentioned above is fruitless and does amount to sign-waving…
   i’ve ceased supporting and contributing to fruitless endeavors (sorry, sean-paul) and have come to viewing only my livejournal friends page (i love the russian artists output), cryptogon, cryptome, and matrixmasters. issue-wise, cognitive liberty concentrates it all for me. (i submit that the fate of south america determines much of the nut of the future. of earth herself. that it is her mouth…) the only real honest effort i see online is here. -in all this big planet.
   every month is financially worse than tight for my wife and i but we have a higher quality of life than we’ve ever known before. even a token financial contribution here is gallingly tough but in all conscience *must* be made. hopefully before the dollar must give way to the amero or whatever.
   i miss comic books, books, newspapers et al but oh well. but this, here, *must* *must* *must* be supported by me even tokenly. (lorenzo’s work at matrixmasters likewise.)
   i won’t miss doonesbury. or dave. or even bob dylan for that matter…
   
9. prov6yahoo Says:
   September 27th, 2009 at 3:51 pm I see the question as “how do we get away from the people who join the military or the police, or work for a defense contractor?”