[Nettime-bold] Re: G2000Conf2000 Baffler #9, Dalai Lama, Police Brutality

[Eryk Salvaggio <fluxis@mediaone.net>]

> Eryk, you have said some things like "a convenient rationale 
> afforded to Soviet Communism and Genius 2000."  I don't think
> that's fair or kosher.  

What you think is fine and good, but meaningless if you 
can't tell me the difference between dictatorial ethics
of, say, Pol Pot, and the ethics of Max Herman. 

Maybe you aren't marching everyone into a field and 
checking their hands before you kill them- you're
just checking to see if they support Genius 2000 and 
think you are the reincarnation of christ. 

I, for one, do not think you are the reincarnation of 
Christ, and also consider this belief, which you, 
in fact, sincerely believe, to be a major alienating 
and self serving aspect of Genius 2000. 

 
> Also, let's talk about Peppermint and Bukoff. If by saying I 
> must stop attacking them you meant stop discussing them, I
> respectfully dissent.  I mean to discuss a great deal in my 
> book, including many people.  My future books will also discuss
> people and what they do.

If that's what you want. It's a fine and important 
part of the system, I suppose, to be "against" it. 
I just wonder why a book on Cary Peppermint's so-called
failures as a person is going to do more for the world 
than a book about people who you think have managed to 
achieve something positive. 

It's the same ethic of the commercialized news broadcasts
here in town. Talk a lot about murder and rape and mention
the youth group that put a garden up in the middle of 
Dorchester ["bad part of town"] that's been sustaining itself
and giving free food to the poor in the community for a few
summers- well, thats reserved as something to project the 
weather statistics over and never actually talk about.

Let's kill all the hope with debt and depression, lets 
go and convince everyone of what they already know, that the
world is a bad bad place and that they had better stay inside 
their bunkers with a television set until they are liberated 
by death. Sure, that's not what you intend but that's the 
result. People will get out and do something positive if you
convince them it will have an effect and if you convince them
that it is more fun than must see TV.

Hearing a self-proffessed messiah bitching about his college 
room mate isn't going to do that.


> The DL was asked if the treatment of Tibetans by the 
> Chinese government ever made him angry.  He replied, 
> "Sometimes, yes."

The Dalai Llama practices what is called "The Meditation of 
Loving Kindness," which I am mixed on. Part of me says he is 
too soft to accomplish anything, the other part of me says 
that by "accomplishing" anything he's end up with thousands 
more dead and there'd still be a maintained Chines Rule. 

The meditation concentrates on focusing your meditation on a 
single person who is very close to you, and extending outward,
in degrees, with the same love you have afforded that person, 
until it reaches all people. 


> The DL is believed to be the incarnation of Buddha.  I am 
> the incarnation of the Judeo-Christian Messiah or Savior, 
> the Son of Man.  

This is the stuff that any good PR man would tell you to drop
from your rhetoric. And if you play indignant about needing
PR, use it as a point of pride that you don't have it, then
you're lying.



> Maybe Cary isn't to blame for anything. All I asked him to 
> do was either contribute a statement or video footage to the 
> first edition; watch the first edition and comment on it; and 
> not plagiarize me. No on all counts.  

So that's what makes him the most important person you can 
concentrate your attention on? If people ignore me, I ignore
them. It's a good system. Lets you construct alternatives 
instead of deconstruct them.


> If any of the artworld had any guts or integrity, Genius 2000 
> would have been a major influence on the 2000 election.  

If anyone had guts and integrity, it would have been a major
influence on the 2000 election.



> We disagree on so much these days Eryk.  I am preparing a 
> lawsuit against the police for injuring me very severely 
> while in custody for drunkenness.

Do you think I disagree with you on this? 


> I am going to Dan Schneider's poetry group Friday.  

Why?

> Eryk, I would like you to do the same.  

No. If you're so concerned about fascists you should probably
avoid Schneider. He's gonna bite your ass in the long run. 



> I would also like to encourage Briggs in his attempt to 
> contact Timothy McVeigh before he is exterminated. The 
> attempt will fail but it will be a responsible, conscientious 
> statement against the death penalty.  

McVeigh has made it so that anyone not swayed by emotion will
see his execution as a means of the government indicting itself 
for its own acts of war. That was his intent all along. He
has refused to apologize for the children who were victims-
I forget the words, exactly, but they were exact military words,
something like "collateral damages." What he did is what the 
US does on a daily basis while at war. Blowing up the Chinese 
Embassy while in Yugoslavia, etc. [If you think Bush is pushing 
the new cold war, I'd have to implore you to consider it being 
carefully planned for quite some time by all sorts of military
men
who want bigger budgets and military contracts, even during the 
Clinton administration. Bush is probably accelerating the process
but remember- its not our country anymore. The actions of the 
government are no longer our actions and no longer represent its 
people. This will come to a head in 2004.]


> One day, there will be a category of law known offically as 
> "art crimes."  This day is already here.

Very well. Let's set up an authoritarian entity to determine
the acceptability of certain modes of conduct and have them 
punishable by law. Yes, this is a great thing for our democracy,
as are all authoritarian entities designed to regulate conduct
and behavior.

What's that line in "Schindlers List"? "This isn't good old 
fashioned jew hating talk anymore. Now it's the law." 


> William Blake said, "I saw no God in any finite organical 
> sense, but believing then as I do now that honest indignation 
> is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences but wrote."  
> I value this text.

Are you saying the ends justify the means? Because that's 
dangerous thinking. 


> I am also somewhat offended by your flip tone in announcing 
> the current issue of 1000 Ridiculous Tragedies, Eryk. 

Why? It was simply my attempt to get out the idea that Briggs
was talking about, concerning the widespread impact that 
advertising culture has on a daily basis. It also made a joke 
that 1KRT itself was a simple act of Viral marketing, the way
certain companies do bizarre websites with no linkage to 
their product for months at a time and then reveal their 
affiliations so that people are more or less "impressed" by
the product and "what it has done for them." 

If you don't like it, then tell it to Briggs, since its based 
on the ideas he put forward.

> Perhaps our political beliefs are too divergent in this 
> time of fascist annihilation to admit of a wholesome artistic 
> amity.  I do not hate you for this, but if it is true I prefer 
> the fact to be in the open.

I think this has the ring of McCarthyism. I am in dissent with 
G2K over their means and whether or not the aforementioned "ends"
justify them. I don't think they do. You can try to purge me
from the group if you want- just hit unsubscribe and I won't even
make a fuss about it, I'll just go. But in the meantime I
consider
the ideas here worth thinking about and am attempting, in my 
own way, to give them careful consideration. 

Most of the time I agree with you both, particularly with briggs'
latest anti-ad culture posts. I have just been trying to get it 
articulated solidly. Of course I know ad culture is insidious,
but my questions were more in line with why we attack Allen 
Bukoff who isn't even primarily an advertiser, instead of
attacking
an actual agency responsible for certain drivel? It seems like
we are attacking people and not structures. We should be 
liberating people from structures.

-e.

_______________________________________________
Nettime-bold mailing list
Nettime-bold@nettime.org
http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold