<nettime> the World-Picture

[brian carroll <human@electronetwork.org>]

  something has been gnawing at my senses, beyond foreboding,
  gloom, and chaos. but order and its systematic control.

  was going to wait to write this until after the US response
  to last week's attacks, and the subsequent falling-into-line
  of many a divergent but now easily convergent thread of things
  to come. to bear down upon, home and abroad.

  a call to war is one thing. a call to peace, another. but it
  is equally ineffective, that is, silence, as the quieter that
  public thought gets, the less there is, of the public mind.

  it seems that instead, a call to education is needed, moreso
  than the abstraction that is peace, as is war. as it is able
  to deal with the psychological import and impact and theoret-
  ically, may enable action through peaceful means, to continue
  on with public ideas, public missions, public goals, side-
  stepping direct confrontation, and back into the reasoning,
  the way things are and are not, work and do not, etcetera.

  too simple, yea. yet, more complex than the immediate, looking
  at the tv representatives and representations, whether they
  are from academia, from government, from industry, from the
  common person and their probable cause, it is is re-presented.

  maybe it is or has been or could be called the 'second order'
  versus the first, of events. or third or fourth. while the
  things that move forward, predictable, forge ahead with a
  force growing beyond anyone's control, even that of the
  government or industry. thus, for whatever fears one has
  to say in public, their thoughts, that might appear to be
  disruptive to these larger goals, it is still possible that
  while things are the way they are now, that as things do
  unravel, with some prediction, that education, questioning,
  not knowing, will come back into the scene in this tragic play.

  it is that funny thing, truth, logic, and language, that is
  repeating in the constellation of synapses, depth-charged by
  worst-case scenarios on 9/11/01. yet, the direct connection,
  say, between internet artists or electronic this or that,
  including computer manufactures, may not desire war, as
  their computers are powered by nuclear plants and turbines
  run by gas and oil. the imports of the great world game.

  the thought is this. given the givens, very simple, that are
  war on or already over the horizon, an unstable geopolitical
  arena, use of massive force for the accounting books of 'his-
  story', and the Middle East area involved, as everywhere there
  is a terrorist, never defined, what a terrorist is. it could
  be you and me, who knows, unless people begin asking outloud...

  one, every nation-state will be able to attack its opponents,
  to liquidize them, vaporize them, get rid of them, with what is
  or may be called 'the moral majority', whose morality but that
  of what exists today, the status quo, or moreso. ie, no change.

  second, any chaos into the complexity of the Middle East will
  in one way or the other effect the oil industry. over time.
  that is, at the other end of the production-consumption model,
  the electronic internetwork that is the Internet, Cyberspace,
  whatnot. it is probable that institutions will act as they
  have, and will act predictably, and thus have weak-points
  in the same old areas. for the West, as for the rest of the
  world, it is oil, its import from exporting nations, and the
  controlling of land, through some means, the production process.

  if this should get undone, out of control of the predictable
  tit-for-tat, but in worst-case scenarios, then it may be worth-
  while considering something like education again, to debate this
  real possibility when given already solid policies, whether they
  are political, economic, or social.

  of many things stated, democracy is not an import in most countries
  exporting oil. there are prices to pay to keep things stable, and
  simple. but from the standpoint of war, and a machinery based upon
  oil to fight a war, to keep a civilization's knobs and levers in
  working condition, requires this oil. in many countries, it has
  been stated, there are 'terrorists' that threaten these non-
  democratic countries, to keep things flowing as is.

  the other side of this is that of policy, regarding oil, energy.
  if one looks at the impact of mega-structures, such as the world
  trade centers that are now an archaeological project of deepest
  pain, agony, and also the large-scale power plants, which it has
  been stated elsewhere have 'hit me' signs on them in times of
  terror, the fewer the better, well- the current US energy policy
  is based on this vulnerable model. one, conflict over oil and
  coal production at home, to buffer against world fluctuations,
  while not feasibly having enough oil to feed all the machines,
  thus, import reliant, given a traditional model. second, there
  is a lot of newsbytes about security around giant power plants,
  for a failure at one could cast a darkness not of an hour or
  two, but weeks or longer, should something occur on such a
  grand-scale, as grand as the plants are themselves. add a
  nuclear plant and the same scenario witnessed on 9/11/01 and
  one gets an idea that the nuclear issues, out of sight and
  out of mind, are not irrelevant in their potential impacts
  given chaos. and, surprisingly or not, the base of SUV owners
  in California, during the great power criss of 2001, which is
  no longer it is said from above, voted, er, were polled, and
  overwhelmingly support nuclear solutions to fix all problems.

  the US energy policy, if it were used in conjunction with the
  response the US will bring to lands and minds of all in the
  coming days, could offer changing the field of engagement,
  proactively, by changing the strategy that is so predictable
  in its current policy. really, given military terms, as an
  idea, (an old, very predictable idea), it is strategically
  very bad, for the government, for the military, for the
  people, and for the world.

  there is no way to stop what is coming. at least that is what
  it seems to me. one could put their body down, on the ground,
  and the steamroller would go right on over, at this point.
  no change. taking oil and energy into account, this action,
  or lack of action, is the grande Achilles Heel, the weakest
  point. and the US may be cherry-picking terrorists in the
  Middle East, or whatever it will do, but will not change in
  its course, like an old ship liner, biggest and best, which
  chugs through the cold ocean waters, as the iceburg waits,
  in the fog of mind, ahead, a relatively short distance away.

  one wish, only one, at this time, as all else seems futile
  for this person, is that, whatever the US does do, which it
  will do and likely should do something, and which few if any
  know what should be done, militarily, economically, politically,
  diplomatically, etc. is this: energy policy is deeply connected
  to the first-order impacts, medium-term they will be revealed,
  should things go further into chaos, in the war on terror. at
  that point, the remote control TV viewer may one day no longer
  have their TV due to the current US energy policy, unless it
  is changed to address the changed world view, as its enemies
  know it, as the world knows it, its behavior. else, if indeed
  the US is the child, or teenager, who will do what they do
  until they find the world does not conform to their will alone,
  that there will be impacts, likely in the energy sector. and
  if this was proactively addressed, that is, changed, that many
  more lives and much more stability and even freedom for those
  at home and abroad could be enacted, in this ongoing tragedy
  that is living a life unlived. dreaming, always in nightmares.

  everything is in suspension outside, this morning. something
  hangs in the air, a psyche or psychosis in the waiting, or
  in the beginning, to form, to parse, to bring itself into the
  world. but, as insane as it is to say or believe right now:

  there is opportunity in this tragedy, to change while also
  addressing the other means of war. to change energy policy,
  educational approaches, many things, but to question, to
  begin to think outside of the status quo, predictable view.

  my naive hope is that, given the givens, given the bombs that
  will indeed fall somewhere at some time, given the people, the
  soldiers, the representatives, the people, and the adminstration,
  here in the US and abroad, that change, changing the way 'we'
  live, is not an absolute, as in biology, no change is no change,
  no evolution, if all the mutations are killed off, one is going
  to kill off the future, all other options for survival of the
  whole, under the guidence of a small and predictable part.

  please, if anyone has within their conscience something remotely
  related, please consider how addressing the end-results of any
  actions, necessary as they may be, will impact everyone, surely,
  through mundane but critically infrastructural issues such as
  power procurement, production, and its consumption, as if no-
  thing has changed in the way things are, or are reenacted.

  to hear a US energy policy which is bold, and about freedoms
  and opportunities, in unison with the issues of terrorism and
  war 'abroad', is not a choice. but it may not be perceived this
  way if things are as they are, as they have been, as all roads
  lead one to believe they will stay in their present course.
  this course could lead not just to the disasters of war, but
  also the disaster of civilized, electrified living. a warning
  only maybe, but given time, it seems logical this is at stake.

  action, but also change. change in policy, energy policy which
  would bring 'progress and peace' that the US administration
  like to reassure the people is a priority. i hope, at some
  level, in some way, this weakest of points, in the weakest
  of strategies, is reviewed, and transformed. to help not only
  the US, but the world, by helping human beings by changing
  the rules of the game. as the rules are already figured out,
  and the bad people do not follow the rules. if one wants to
  protest, they face being a bad person in mob rule, where
  people more nuts than have ever existed have cell-phones
  and can act with immunity, potentially. else, there is the
  inside of the academy, where certainty could be replaced
  with questions. and the dots unconnected, could be posed
  as connected, and debate and discussion and suggestions,
  and thought beyond the status quo might bring, someday,
  another 'expert' on TV that does not agree things are so
  simple, effect's so short-term, and to discuss it in terms
  that respects people's intelligence, if they are given the
  chance to think, freely, not be told secondhandly how things
  really are.

  this is not meant to be a post of confrontation, against the
  US government, a direct-engagement. but a plea, a suggestion,
  but a plea of hope, of change. else, it is all so predictable.
  there is an opportunity here, in the best of the entrepreneurial
  ethos, to make change happen, to take risks, and to evolve the
  things that could work better. if this could be considered, this
  different strategy, besides that of a predictable development
  of large-scale plants, oil-reliant economies, questionable
  relations with the countries the US relies upon in order to
  keep things as they are, when they will no longer be... i plead
  that someone, somewhere, also has this hope, sees an opportunity
  to change, for the better.

  just some thoughts, a dream in the nightmare as it unfolds.
  but an old dream. that of freedom, relative peace, and human
  rights, in relation to the long chain-of-command between the
  way things were prior to 9/11/01, and the way they are for-
  everafter now changed, for the worse. but possibly, with
  change, for the better.

  thus, a call to education...


-- 
.. . . . .   .  ..  ..    . . . . ....  ..   ..  ... . . . . . . .
brian thomas carroll		the_electromagnetic_internetwork
electromagnetic researcher	matter, energy, and in-formation
human@electronetwork.org	http://www.electronetwork.org/

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