ICONOCLAST, n. A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are imperfectly gratified by the performance, and most strenuously protest that he unbuildeth but doth not reedify, that he pulleth down but pileth not up. For the poor things would have other idols in place of those he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth. But the iconoclast saith: "Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not; and if the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress the head of him and sit thereon till he squawk it."
-- Ambrose Bierce

Monday, October 31, 2011

Missing at the occupation? Mutual Aid is neither theoretical device, literary talking point, eutopean desire nor photo-op

... but it may well be, the excluded middle, a space emergeable, we're trained not to see, always behind safety-orange fencing:
I is the first letter of the alphabet, the first word of the language, the first thought of the mind, the first object of affection. In grammar it is a pronoun of the first person and singular number. Its plural is said to be We, but how there can be more than one myself is doubtless clearer to the grammarians than it is to the author of this incomparable dictionary. Conception of two myselfs is difficult, but fine. The frank yet graceful use of "I" distinguishes a good writer from a bad; the latter carries it with the manner of a thief trying to cloak his loot.
ME, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three.
The body, defined politically, is precisely organized by a perspective that is not one’s own and is, in that sense, already elsewhere, for another, and so in departure from oneself. On this account of the body in political space, how do we make sense of those who can never be part of that concerted action, who remain outside the plurality that acts? ...are the destitute outside of politics and power, or are they in fact living out a specific form of political destitution? ,,,if we claim that the destitute are outside of the sphere of politics – reduced to depoliticized forms of being – then we implicitly accept that the dominant ways of establishing the political are right....Such a view disregards and devalues those forms of political agency that emerge precisely in those domains deemed pre-political or extra-political. So one reason we cannot let the political body that produces such exclusions furnish the conception of politics itself, setting the parameters for what counts as political - is that within the purview established by the Polis those outside its defining plurality are considered as unreal or unrealized and, hence, outside the political as such.
"There’s also a clear picture of this nightmare-plain between the theorizing class and the theorized one. The rise of the tablet gives rise to a whole new kind of disfigurement, filth and procedure, a totally defaced face.

"These young women appear to be young women like many other young women. They wear their clothes like many other young women, like how I too have that gray tank top, how she, too, has that striped shirt, how my daughter, too, has that backpack. The fencing around them is the fencing used for snowdrifts. The young women are like weather; they are a kind of ubiquity; they are, on first appearance, a bland and not-very-particular thing. You can turn off the sound and see the young women like a drift behind the safety-orange fencing. They are the ordinary as it is merely obstructed, but not, beyond appearance, contained. There are cameras and cars and elaborately costumed figures of authority. There are people looking towards and people looking away. There are people walking past. If I suspend, for a second, my familiarity with plastic safety-orange fencing, I can think that maybe the safety-orange fencing used for holes in the ground and snow drifts in New York City is so powerful that no human can move past it. Perhaps, in New York City, the safety-orange plastic fencing has a unique power, some electric inviolability or steel-like strength, and that the young women who otherwise appear ordinary are, in fact, a hole through which the other citizens might plummet. This inviolability of New York City’s orange plastic fencing could be why no older woman rushes forward to be among the younger women and hold them like as I would hold my daughter (also a young woman like other young women) or like I, myself, would want at that moment to be held. It could be why no young man or no young woman their lovers would rush forward to shield these young women with their own lovers-bodies, or why no older men (like fathers or uncles) roar. There is fat, bald, middle-aged man like many other fat, bald, middle-aged men (dressed in an elaborate costume of authority), and he is staring at the young women as they fall. His face is turned toward them, but I do not think he is weeping. When he turns his face to the camera he is not weeping, but the young woman in the gray tank top (I have that tank top) is wailing; she is in pain and on her knees. No middle-aged man is crying. No middle-aged man rushes toward the other middle-aged men to stop them. Some man is yelling “police brutality” and “police brutality.” There are three people taking pictures, then four people taking pictures. There are the old and young people taking pictures. There are many cameras in many hands, but there are not hands on the young women to comfort them, and there are not hands on the men of the law."
– Anne Boyer, These Young Women
Unreasonably cheap energy is running out, climate conditions are changing radically, paradoxical economy of constant growth will bankrupt itself, governmental fascism will be declared, racial breeding is practiced to embryos, genetic manipulation will get out of hand, Coup d´état of racistic red necks will happen in the name of revolution, the language loses its meaning, virtual schizophrenia is getting pandemic among the Internet users, obsessed disciples of Tony Robins will get at each other´s throats in the search of lost childhood, fourth world war is waiting at the gates, psychedelic-communistic revolution will fly in the ring like a freshly whiten towel in a heavy weight boxing match while the master is beating the breath out of his competition, heavenly escalator is transporting Jesus down in between the supermarkets while aliens will return to planet earth to complete their work of creation, dystopies and utopies will shake hands, up and down will change the place, emerged birds will withdraw back to the shells. Shit is about to hit the fan, even though a good life needs just bearable conditions and a hand full of material mixed with a drop of good will. We are living strange times – are we? But why?

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