<nettime> fwd: Network Experiment #1

[brian carroll <human@electronetwork.org>]

(images cannot be directly linked to via google, and
nettime does not allow attachements, so please view
at: <http://groups.google.com/group/electronetwork-l/browse_thread/ 
thread/4f167a8a25a830b7/> -bc)
---

in contrast to conducting a TAXSTRIKE which would
seek to influence the hardware of machines of state,
it is proposed that a 'softer' approach would provide
an appropriate and responsible path for testing ideas
of a panopticon in terms of its representing a shared
experience, or in keeping ideas in and outside of it.

today the 'mass media' of radio television and news-
papers could be considered the default panopticon for
private representation on behalf of the public citizenry.
it is in this 'privatization' of a larger reality, in a smaller
and contained 'reality, inc' that issues can be distorted
from a less-controlled versions of events, which today
may be seen as contrasting between public and private
views (or representations) - which ultimately break be-
tween democratic representation and that of dictatorship.

the 'mass media panopticon' is thus the default way in
which 'reality' is supposedly mirrored between various
peoples, both internally and externally to other cultures.
(e.g. relations between Islam and 'the West' are seen to
be mediated in relations between Al Jazeera and CNN).

the problem with all of this is that the mass media limit
what is actually going on, for a very specific, controlled
version of events which oftentimes serves a given point-
of-view or ideology which tends to distort what is going on.

it is through this controlling of language by its privatization
of discourse, and the default modes of binary reasoning,
in addition to the overarching psychological identity that
is employed as the perspective of a common viewpoint
(such as religion, ethnicity, income, status, even politics)
that the 'reality, inc' that is reportedly presented, is, in fact
infused with bias of observers, which effects observations.

to the point that, by fiat of appearing within the mass media
panopticon, something is presumed to be legitimate as a
reality, no matter the truth-value of what is being broadcast.
(cf. the recent scandals in plagiarizing peeling off the veneer).

thus, while the mid-east war at world-scale may be what is
actually causing the dynamics of the present day, instead it
can be presented as a global 'war of terrorism' in ideological
terms which have no need for public checks and balance,
as this critical function of public democracy has been short-
circuited by private mass media, which route around this, by
validating "public" views outside of democratic processes. it
is by the expert manipulation of this Rube Goldberg machine
of mass media, that the Iraq war was launched on autopilot.

it is by this same process which bypasses representation of
the public, using private mass media and its panopticon, to
say that prisoners of this 'terror war' are not afforded human
rights under international law, the Geneva Convention, etc.
to the point where this process has transformed itself, which
now implicitly condones torture in the name of democracy.
and leaders can go on television and in the mass media to
preach of Democracy as a liberating force in the homeland,
while oppressing those elsewhere, as tyrannical governance.

http://groups.google.com/group/electronetwork-l/attach/ 
7dcf1652fc0e719e/MEDIATERROR.gif?part=2
<http://groups.google.com/group/electronetwork-l/browse_thread/thread/ 
4f167a8a25a830b7/>

it not only becomes a question of 'reality', but of who controls
'reality' as it is represented. and it is by way of mass media
and its panoptic perspective that a situation now exists, in
the .US in the year 2006 CE, that torture has been instituted
on behalf of .US democracy, at the same time 'democracy' is
said to be the major export of the .US for others in the world.
would it not appear, from another perspective, itself Tyranny?

the human reality which would balance out the facts versus
the fictive misrepresentations which twist distortions to serve
a political agenda at odds with the rule of law, is contained in
the mass media panopticon and helpless in representing itself
other than by servile obedience to aristocratic mass media. it
becomes an issue of how to have human representation that
is not limited by corporate representation, of issues and ideas
involved in this supposedly endless 'war of terror' campaign.

lucky for humanity, there now exist networks by which people
can share ideas and information outside of the mass media
panopticon, and which are tentatively beyond the total control
of existing forces, by which to predetermine the flow of ideas.
this networking of computers, mobile phones, and people, in
addition to the open conduits leading into mass media markets
enables and allows a new exchange of ideas and information,
which provides cybernetic feedback to the existing organism
of state and its governance via the mass media panopticon.

and this becomes an opportunity to leverage this relationship,
to define and represent views shared among public citizens
in this larger networked panopticon, which can begin to mirror
the reality that exists in common among peoples which runs
counter to official propangandistic viewpoints of mass media,
which can equate torture with democracy without any blinking.

thus, while the .US National Security Strategy may promote
freedom, justice, and human dignity while leading a growing
community of democracies -- it is now doing so by using the
torturing of human beings and eternal warfare as the path by
which to achieve these goals. counterintuitive? not to any in
the mass media who repeat these messages without checks-
and-balances upon their 'reality' outside of a proscribed and
circumscribed interaction, which is being exploited by those
now in charge, as the methodology by which to wield power.

"Though tyranny has few advocates, it needs more adversaries. In  
today's world no tyrant's rule can survive without the support or at  
least the tolerance of other nations," (NSS).

likewise, in the mass media, tyranny on behalf of democracy
is ignored, and its propagation by mass media implicates and
makes it culpable in not providing public checks-and-balances
for such policies, beyond the limits of private corporate citizens.
so too, those countries who interact with the .US to export the
'terrorists' through renditions and secret prisons, and to other
countries for outsourcing torture- are extending this tyranny,
and are doing no service to the principles of democracy- and
instead are discrediting whatever legitimacy it may have had,
as an ideal, apart from its total corruption as witnessed today.

not one citizen of sane mind would believe a bureaucracy in
which it is agreed by protocol that no such torture is nor has
occurred on behalf of the .US war of terror, either in Europe
or other countries-- it is a bald-faced lie and destroys truth
of the means by which this global democratic crusade has
been waged-- and why its practices are against the ideals
supposedly being pursued under the guise of 'terror war.'

the .US constitution is and has been and continues to be
VIOLATED on behalf of this misguided 'war of terrorism',
and the end-result is the destruction of 'democracy' itself,
as a principle of self-government which is meant to protect
citizens against such misguided wielding of private power.

so too, this situation of HUMAN TORTURE against human
citizens, is being done for the benefit of a machine of state
that is detached from its own citizens, as if it is on autopilot.

to justify such actions the Neoconservative ideologues are
able to utilize these distortions to dehumanize their enemies
both in the .US and mid-east (and worldwide) by which to
pursue their narrow agenda, against 'terrorists' they define.

to be against these neoconservatives is not to be anti-Israeli,
nor anti-Semitic, it is at this point to be ANTI-FASCIST, and
in opposition to .US government under this tyrannical control.

this is not a question of 'losing one's nerve' -- it is a question
of 'losing one's mind' in the single-minded pursuit of an idea
which simplifies things to the point of inverting reality itself. to
make tyranny and democracy into synonyms, to make torture
and human rights equated -- this is a Neoconservative legacy.

it is an issue of a pure materialism and survival of the fittest
of some who direct the machinery of state, which ultimately
is now a competition between human citizens and those who
govern these machines, who have turned against the original
principles of human democracy in pursuit of machine goals,
such as empire building, world domination, and pure ideology.

consider the force-feeding of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
Prison, in which hunger strikers are protesting the inhumane
conditions held off-limits to international inspectors and the
Red Cross, while having feeding tubes forcibly stuck down
their throats in restraining chairs, so to pump energy into
the prisoners (beyond the reach of any courts and public
representation, human rights, fair trial) -- is this not directly
related to the issue of a machinery of state which pursues
a policy, which has dehumanized the people which it uses
to pursue its agenda, and this is ultimately a moral question
of humans and machines, and how we relate and govern
ourselves, as humans, as machines- and that the prisoners,
no matter their crimes-- are not treated as human beings--
and for the benefit of a democracy - and its 'war of terror'?

something is missing here- the humanity involved. there is
a moral conscience that is obviously absent, and so too,
in the mass media panopticon such a reality is not found.
it is accepted, as due-course, of automated governance.
the dehumanization of citizens and human beings, as the
machinery-of-state goes on a global campaign of endless
war 'of terrorism', by which to eradicate evil from the planet.
it would seem there are some very big problems with this,
which are evident to anyone with eyes to see them, if it is
represented in such terms that torture is being conducted
on behalf of democracy, -- and this is evident to those all
around the world, outside of the .US, this total hypocrisy,
and corruption of basic democratic principles and ideas is
now being 'sold' in mass media as the main foreign policy
tool by which to enact global change, by democratization.

this is an untenable situation, in terms of that it can stay
this way, without the lies and untruths being revealed for
what they are. and the Bush Administration knows this too,
as now Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has discussed
closing the prison, as has .UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
the problem though is not simply the prison- it is the torture.
the torture networks- the renditions, the outsourcing of the
torture to the countries supposedly to become democracies.
as some bureaucrat might say: this sends the wrong signal.

yet it illuminates a reality that is not represented in mass
media, and provides an opportunity to enact changes by
way of engaging this situation in advance, so to seek to
check-and-balance this situation with democratic ideals...

thus, having given the Neoconservatives enough rope...

					*


> this is to say, that if there were to be an oppressive and
> rogue ideology which held sway over the truth and reality
> itself, its democratic representation and accurate modeling-
> that it is possible to reprogram the rules of engagement by
> interacting with this binary system using paradoxical logic,
> reasoning, and empirical argument based in empirical fact,
> in which the scale of truth and reasoning engulf the falsity
> of lies, deceit, and disregard for sharing common humanity.


the Network Experiment that is proposed is based on
the panopticon as a model by which to consider events.
if one takes the situation at Guantanamo Bay Prison and
were to place it within the panopticon of the 'War of Terror'
as it exists today, it would be to consider the prisoners in
the terms of the neoconservative position, which has now
effectively dehumanized them and taken away all rights,
and these people are held outside of any observation not
in-line with the .US administration. internationally, doctors
and others have protested, along with the .UN and other
governments, to change this situation -- all to no avail..

http://groups.google.com/group/electronetwork-l/attach/ 
7dcf1652fc0e719e/GWOTinversion.gif?part=4&view=1
<http://groups.google.com/group/electronetwork-l/browse_thread/thread/ 
4f167a8a25a830b7/>

if one were to instead place the prisoners at Guantanamo
in the center of the panopticon, and not Neoconservatives,
it would be that their view of this situation is only one view,
of which there are very many others (v) in this panopticon.
and that the distortion of the 'War of Terror' still does not
legitimate human torture and nullifying of human rights on
behalf of democracy, beyond any constitutional safeguards.


Network Experiment #1 is to create this second panopticon
using networks of people, institutions, organizations, ideas,
government, mass media, to reflect a larger reality than that
of the Neoconsevative point of view, to drown its subjective
views in a larger and more accurate reality that takes each
and every facet and argues it to its core, about how torture
and democracy are not equivalent in the .US constitution.

this is to say, that a coordinated worldwide campaign that
focuses on this situation at Guantanamo Bay Prison, as it
has been previously stated in the 'long-term truce' as an
action of public human citizens, on behalf of a sharing of
humanity, in opposition to a dehumanized and automated
machinery of state which exploits people for its agenda, is
a way of 'mirroring' what is held in common between all of
those who participate, whether worldwide mass media or
a single citizen, to voice a shared principle of human rights,
human representation, rule of law, and checks-and-balances
upon what is said and done in the name of .US democracy.
as it is now functioning as a tyranny and it is unmistakable.

this could be considered a 'correction' yet it is more than
this. it is an indictment of core Neoconservative ideology
which is based on racist, xenophobia and war-mongering
by what amounts to fascist tendencies of those governing.
and it must be called to account-- and thus it is proposed
that this begins with a network-wide campaign which is to
focus on Guantanamo Bay Prison, for starters, and which
will employ "public service announcements" in a variety of
ways, anonymously or not, to convey a very basic idea:


OPEN Guantanamo Bay Prison for human rights inspectors

CLOSE Guantanamo Bay Prison for violating human rights


this could be presented in many ways, such as simply to
say OPEN and CLOSE Guantanamo Bay Prison, as part
of any excerpt in communications. or any varients of any
issues to do with Guantanamo Bay Prison as part of the
larger campaign, if lawyers, if doctors, if governments, if
citizens, if mass media, -- the important point is that all
speak as one, at the same time, with a deafening clarity
that this cannot and must not and will no longer stand...

OPEN + CLOSE   G U A N T A N A M O   B A Y   P R I S O N

GUANTANAMO BAY PRISON // public service announcement
OPEN for international human rights & Red Cross inspections
CLOSE for violating human rights in the name of democracy


whether the issue is torturing of prisoners, or renditions to
other countries, the issue of torturing on behalf of democracy
is not a secret, and it is total hypocrisy as a policy by which to
consider spreading the greatness of democracy, worldwide.
it is irrational, even insane and beyond any reasoning, and
any law which could justify it, based upon the .US constitution.
and any such angle as this can be tied into this panoptic view.
yet it is a concentrated and sustained effort- until this prison
is not only shut down-- but that the prisoners are afforded
their due human rights -- and a light is shone onto what is
going on in the 'name of democracy' -- in this 'war of terror'
that this will be the beginning by which to invert this miasmic
situation, so as to achieve an accurate public representation
of what is going on, and continues to go on, beyond the law,
beyond human rights, beyond inspectors, beyond conscience.

what happened at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, in Policharki
Prison in Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay Prison are
all related-- they are not anomalies-- they are a concerted
action by feasibly fascist Neoconservatives to dehumanize
those they oppose, so much as to equate their own human
rights with the ability to take away rights of other humans.

the person in charge, not only for this, but also for failures
of policy which have led to tens of thousands dead and a
total fiasco of international chaos, on behalf of such ideology,
is also the head of this prisoner network which tortures on
behalf of democracy while trying to sell this democracy to
others: how insane is that? it is nonsensical and illogical,
and dangerous. provably so. yet it justified by this endless
'war of terror' so spectacularly misguided, curiously sinister.

the utlimate goal of this campaign is a symbolic sacrifice to
this reality, and that is: RUMSFELD immediately resigns.

this is to say that under no terms and no longer can the
.US be directed by someone who cannot tell the difference
between constitutional democracy and systematized torture,
and that they should not be allowed to further such a vision
as democracy for one more hour in the .US government.
they are not only a failure- they have failed their humanity
by forgetting it on their path to power-- and this Network
Panopticon is going to be a mirror by which to reflect to
those beyond the narcissism of aristocratic mass media,
that public checks and balances will be restored in the .US,
and such anti-constitutional policies are not acceptable--
and if you cannot tell the difference, you'd better leave now.


http://groups.google.com/group/electronetwork-l/attach/ 
7dcf1652fc0e719e/humanPANOPTICON.gif?part=6&view=1
<http://groups.google.com/group/electronetwork-l/browse_thread/thread/ 
4f167a8a25a830b7/>

by speaking with one voice, in a single panoptic observation,
as human beings, this 'war of terror' can be 'surrounded' on
all sides, by all peoples who seek peace and freedom in the
world, based on reasoning more advanced than warfaring.
and that to deny this possibility is to deny a human right to
peaceful co-existence, which Neoconservatives cannot allow.

this is a basic precondition for a long-term truce, whether or
not it will be possible to do is up to people to start banging
the drum, in unison, and worldwide. as this is what will split
up the 'war of terror' ideology, through a shared resonance,
a shared rhythm, and a sharing of purpose, goals, intention.

if there ever was a chance to enact public changes upon
the direction of .US policies, now is the time. it is not only
to shut down Guantanamo Bay Prison, it is to stop hidden
torture networks which are themselves terrorizing humans
caught in such a machinic trap. it could be you, if it goes on.
and unfortunately, too many are already innocently suffering.
this is the chance to attempt to do something about it. if it is
only a SIG file or a if it is to place a keyframe in the media or
an advertisement or to speak words on a radio talkshow, or
to protest, or to organize and campaign-- this is where the
'war of terror' becomes itself terrorism, against democracy
itself and reflects everything that is wrong with .US policies
today, which run counter to the very goals being pursued.
it is .US constitutional democracy which affords the rights
to protest and demand changes. and this is our chance...

please activate total panopticon for Network Experiment #1:

OPEN + CLOSE   G U A N T A N A M O   B A Y   P R I S O N

let them know you're watching: http://www.whitehouse.gov/


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