| Han Speckens on Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:01:07 +0200 (CEST) |
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THE CHALLENGE OF INSTABILITY IN THE NEW MILLENIUM. In the time of chaos, uncertainty and misleading declarations new challenges and paradigms come clearly on the foreground. New York City, September 11. This is the time and place where as many political analysts agree the war was declared by …the anonymous force. Around 10 am this morning we saw two American airliners gliding into the World Trade Center towers within 20 minutes interval. 35 min after that another plane crashed into the Pentagon building in Washington, then yet another one near by Pittsburgh. Immediate results included thousands of civilian victims, 30 % decrease in U.S. economic activity, as well as federal and legislative disruptions. Most interpretations use terrorism as an explanation of what occurred to be precisely orchestrated disruptive economic action against U.S. If we abstract from political ideologies and look at this event in the context of the emerging global processes we will see the message underlying the act of destruction of American symbols of power. Considered to be the number one power in the world both economically and military, U.S. was unable to prevent a deadly strike in the heart of its economic and legislative system and left clueless as to the subject of this action. No country or political group declared responsibility. The names like Osama Bin Laden, radical Lumah groups, Saddam Hussein were widely used across the reports pointing to the Middle East as the source of what many called the ultimate evil. Regardless of who directed the suicide pilots and positioned trucks and boats full of explosives and (as it was stated in 2 of NYC TV reports) potentially even used biological weapons the fact that the global system is out of balance comes out into the open. The American dollar is falling down on every market and all it took to achieve this was redirecting 4 in land flights. The resources necessary to organize this barbaric act and the damage, which it caused, are incomparable which by itself is an indication of instability. It is also a clear display of the dissemination of political subjectivity in the global context. Augmented by the technology political subjectivity as a complex system of power and knowledge triggered chaotic geo-political and economic processes, which as the attack on the U.S. shows lead to its technological and economic disintegration. Disruptions in electronic communication systems from cellular networks to internet services which we experienced in this critical moment today in NYC when lives were on the line were not caused by terrorists but by the overwhelming amount of traffic which these networks aren't designed to handle. Suddenly the magic of comfort and safety was wiped out on so many levels that many of us are waking up from the superficial mass marketed idea of piece. It is not panic which leads us, it is the reality of being inside the system, which has no more resources to maintain internal balance. As we enter the new millennium we find ourselves in the middle of the war field, which this world has become conditioned by excessive socio-economic practices and trans-mutations of the lines of power. We understand that American national crisis is merely a representation of the global dissipation in which all of the countries, corporations and populations are involved willingly or against their will. I have no doubt that U.S. will respond to this action but it is also clear that whatever military actions will be taken against the imaginary subject of evil this framework is not going to reinstate global balance. The death of power symbols is the beginning of a confusing and painful but vital process of reorientation and enlightenment. It is a call for new progressive mentalities to enter the global scene and replace what Bataill called restricted economies. Without an exegeration this challenge is critical to our survival and prosperity. Vlad Muzhesky BASICRAY, NYC September 11, 2001 THE UPDATED VIDEO VERSION OF THIS STATEMENT WILL BE AVAILABLE IN 24 HOURS AT HTTP://WWW.BASICRAY.COM =========================== BASICRAY [(+)] = ]=======[ = = = [] [] http://www.basicray.com ============================ # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net |