[Nettime-bold] gravity hits the weightless economy...

["McKenzie Wark" <mckenziewark@hotmail.com>]

Index to This Fabulous World / 24th October 2001

A is for Anthrax
McKenzie Wark

It would seem that the powers that be really do believe that
we live in a weightless, frictionless, 'new economy', were
pure information circulates without the tiresome efforts of
mere blue collar workers. Even the dogs in the White House
were tested for Anthrax, but nobody bothered to test
Washington's postal workers, who actually have to sort
and shift the mountains of mail that passes through
Washington DC. Two postal workers died from exposure
to Anthrax. After only a few weeks on the job, Tom Ridge,
the Bush-appointed director of Homeland Insecurity
already has two preventable deaths for which to account.

The discovery of Anthrax in mail sent to Tom Daschle,
majority leader, led to a massive operation in which
Congress was shut down and searched by investigators in
those contamination suits so familiar to regular viewers of
the X-Files. The media responded approvingly to these
elaborate precautions, as well it might, given that media
outlets have also been targets for Anthrax attacks. But just
as it was the assistant, rather than celebrity news
spokesmodel Dan Rather who opened the ill-starred
envelope, it was the postal workers and political minions
who really faced danger. The assurances as to their own
safety offered by the talking heads of the military
entertainment complex are quite genuine, given that
neither Rather nor Bush or Dashle open their own
envelopes.

All the mail in Washington, including mail to Congress,
passes through the mail centre on Brentwood Road
Northeast, where the two real victims worked. Two more
mail workers are in hospital with Anthrax. Surprisingly,
mail requires workers to actually sort it and deliver it. Just
when the American ruling class has succeeded in making
workers invisible and irrelevant, they start to turn up dead
from neglect.

The free world can at least sleep safe in the knowledge that
no Congressional animals were harmed in the recent
attacks. American workers, on the other hand, have every
reason to think that the new-found aura of unity in
adversity radiating from the Anthrax-free person of
President Bush does not necessarily include them. "I'm
confident when I come to work tomorrow that I'll be safe,"
says President Bush. The same may not be true for the rank
and file of the 'information economy'.


NOTES
David E. Rosenbaum And Sheryl Gay Stolberg, '2 Postal
Workers Die and 2 Are Ill; Inhaled Anthrax Indicated', New
York Times, 23rd October 23, 2001; Francis X Clines, 'Early
Results Are Negative in White House Anthrax Tests', New
York Times, 24th October, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com

INDEX TO THIS FABULOUS WORLD
http://www.fineartforum.org/Backissues/Vol_15/faf_v15_n09/text/feature.html

See also: A HACKER MANIFESTO 2.0
http://www.feelergauge.net/projects/hackermanifesto/version_2.0/





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