Newmedia on Mon, 5 Apr 1999 23:55:46 +0200 (CEST)


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<nettime> Re: <.nettime> Genocide: what's in a word? (By Mick Hume)


Ted (a nettime "moderator") says:

<< as i see it, is quite simple: the senile apparatuses of the Cold War are 
finally having a go at it, with horrendous results. if you find that to be 
completely unacceptable, as i do, then we need to find ways to dismember them 
>>

Er, Ted, you might consider that we're in a completely new era and that what 
we're dealing with is hardly "senile" but surprisingly youthful and robust.  
This ain't the "Cold War" at all.  This is far worse.  This is the 
"good-guys" flexing their muscles and doing a very "bad" thing -- while 
trying to run the world.  

Simple?  How about allowing some real historical analysis to get some 
air-time on nettime?  Then, we'll see how simple it is.  How about that long 
foretold total "trans-valuation of all values"?  When what you thought was 
"good" suddenly becomes very "bad"?  Can nettime handle it?

This is the baby-boomer, technocratic, social-democrats running this very hot 
war.  This is the Greens and the Socialists.  This is New Labour.  This is 
New Democrats.  These are the people who protested against the war in 
Vietnam.  They're dropping the bombs now.  They're wrapping themselves in the 
cynical/fraudulent cloak of "human rights" and using transparent propaganda 
ploys like "genocide" to justify their aggression. This is no clash of 
political-economic systems.  This is the "Hippie-Trilateraloids" (as 
arch-greenie Bruce Sterling once put it) building their own institutions of 
dominant WORLD GOVERNMENT.  

And, it's official.  It was reported today in the NYTimes, that anyone who 
"faithfully served the United States" from Japan's surrender to Gorbachev 
resignation can apply for a "Cold War Recognition Certificate."  This isn't 
the old Cold War version of NATO, this is a new, "friendlier", long-haired, 
rock-'n-roll, gender-neutral NATO.  Rebuilt, re-tooled and, now, thanks to 
Kosovo, battle-tested.

Exactly whom would you like to "dismember"?  All the Labour/Green/Socialist 
parties in Western Europe (and don't forget their pals in 
Poland/Hungary/Czech) who re-approve this war day after day?  The closest 
thing to true Cold-Warriors, the communists in Russia and the bullet-head 
"patriots" in the U.S. are very often *not* supporters of this conflict.  Go 
figure!

Someone should bring nettime up-to-date on world-events and at least try to 
ask WHY? this is all taking place.  Ted, you might benefit from the 
discussion along with the rest of us.  

We deserve to know WHY? not just WHAT!  Or, are we all too post-post-modern 
to even try to think any more?

Best,

Mark Stahlman

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