<nettime> Clay Shirkey on a Manhattan "Peace Park" digest [hettinga vs back]

["nettime's_speculator" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

Clay Shirkey on a Manhattan "Peace Park"...
     "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com>
     Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>
     "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com>
     Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>

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Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 10:39:59 -0400
From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com>
Subject: Clay Shirkey on a Manhattan "Peace Park"...

--- begin forwarded text [headited @ nettime--mod]

from: Clay Shirky <clay@shirky.com>
subject: Re: Unconscionably Callous? New building proposal for WTC sight.
to: savamutt@hotmail.com (Tom Sweetnam)
date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 10:21:43 -0400 (EDT)
cc: fork@xent.com, savamutt@hotmail.com

> Larry Silverstein, the man who owns the leasehold on the former World Trade
> Center complex, has apparently been very busy with his architects in the 10
> days since the worst act of terror in America history.

Go Larry!

Every major city in the world has a big, invisible motto hanging
overhead -- "Dream Factory", "You'll Leave a Winner!", "Laissez le bon
temps roulez", "We're still pissed about Elian."

Over New York City hangs the motto 'Business is business.'

It may be hard to understand if you don't live here, but after 10 days
where we've been out of our minds with grief and shock and
disorientation, living in a world where there are military checkpoints
at Canal and Broadway and phone booths turn into xeroxed shrines, the
news that some asshole developer isn't gonna let a little terrorism
get in the way of his trying to grab a few extra simoleons just means
that we're back in business.

The sound of breathtaking unsentimentality is the sound of NYC.

> The New York City Port Authority was quick to respond that it is "far too
> early" to consider any future plans for the sight, perhaps entertaining the
> radical notion that an international peace park and memorial...

Peace Park? *Peace Park*! Are you out of your mind? Do you have any
idea what real estate in Lower Manhattan is worth? You wanna build a
park, go to Nebraska -- I hear land is cheap there. Out here, we
prefer to use our land for the living.

> So if Mr.  Silverstein gets his way, has he proved the terrorists
> correct?

The terrorists *are* correct -- never forget that.

We are not being unfairly targetted here, as if this was all some sort
of misunderstanding. We are being targetted because we do exactly what
they say we do.

We are freedom loving, secular, democratic creators of a world where
people are allowed to do as they like to an extent unheard of in the
history of the world. That is so completely corrosive of any attempt
to corral a populace into a single way of living that we are hated by
everyone for whom cultural stasis is more important than freedom.

> I had to wonder on hearing Mr. Silverstein's pronouncement, if there
> might be some mystical plateau [...] before no consideration of
> profit would ever again be factored into considerations of what to
> do with the former World Trade Center site.

God forbid. Not in my town.

If you want to let al-Quida freeze you into some sort of contemplative
aspic, go ahead, but my homeboys ain't going out like that -- we got
shit to do.

-clay



http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

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  [the following messages were CC: digital commerce society of boston 
   <dcsb@ai.mit.edu>, digital bearer settlement list <dbs@philodox.com>, 
   irregulars@tb.tf, and cryptography@wasabisystems.com--cheers, t]

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Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 20:49:24 +0100
From: Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>
Subject: Re: Clay Shirkey on a Manhattan "Peace Park"...


Err, are you sure the reason the US was attacked is isn't more to do
with the interventionist US foreign policy, and past military action
in, and sponsorship, arming, training etc. of Iran, Iraq, Israel, etc
than to do with the the US TV news favorite mantra of "because the
terrorists hate our freedom".

Adam

On Fri, Sep 21, 2001 at 10:39:59AM -0400, Clay wrote:
> We are not being unfairly targetted here, as if this was all some sort
> of misunderstanding. We are being targetted because we do exactly what
> they say we do.
> 
> We are freedom loving, secular, democratic creators of a world where
> people are allowed to do as they like to an extent unheard of in the
> history of the world. That is so completely corrosive of any attempt
> to corral a populace into a single way of living that we are hated by
> everyone for whom cultural stasis is more important than freedom.

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Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 09:18:46 -0400
From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com>
Subject: Re: Clay Shirkey on a Manhattan "Peace Park"...

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

At 8:49 PM +0100 on 9/21/01, Adam Back wrote:


> Err, are you sure the reason the US was attacked is isn't more to
> do with the interventionist US foreign policy, and past military
> action in, and sponsorship, arming, training etc. of Iran, Iraq,
> Israel, etc than to do with the the US TV news favorite mantra of
> "because the terrorists hate our freedom".


...and of course, it has *nothing* to do with the fact that countries
like Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Lybia, et. al., are run by
patriarchal xenophobic racist totalitarians who support
mass-destruction and violence against their people while trying to
export it to the rest of the world, right? Nope. Not at all.

Of course, that's not a problem if they don't export that shit here
to the US, frankly. Except that now that they've done it here, and
very well, thank you very much. And, in doing so, they've pissed off
almost the entire civilized world, meaning those countries who, for
the most part at least, *pretend* they're not patriarchal xenophobic
racist totalitarians. That includes, oddly enough, some of their
mostly co-religionist neighbors, who, until now, were so *frightened*
by these thugs that they permitted fundraising for those very
terrorist activities in the guise of humanitarian non-governmental
"organizations", most of which teach, guess what, patriarchal
xenophobic racist totalitarianism.


Sheesh, Adam.

I think, someday, we're going to have force without nation states,
and that it will be cheaper, safer, and more peaceful that what we
have now. More to the point, that it will enable more people to get
more stuff cheaper. To actually live better, longer, happier, than
they did before. That's progress.


Unfortunately, that's not what we have now. People like Bin Laden,
Hamas, et.al., are creatures of nation-states. *All* so-called
"non-governmental organizations", from the Red-Cross to Al Queida,
are creatures of nation-states. They're as much creatures of
nation-states as the modern corporation, including so-called
"multi-national" corporations. They're all permitted, legally,
*somewhere*, *allowed* to exist, legally, by a nation-state,
somewhere. That's the problem.

Someday, we'll have the ability to control assets and do finance
without laws. I think, like most people on these lists, that internet
financial cryptography will allow us to do exactly that. Until then,
however, we control assets with laws, and that means force,
monopolistic force in the form of a geographically bounded
nation-state, and that means that when someone uses force in a
fashion that pisses off the the entire planet -- except in places
where children, from birth, are indoctrinated in patriarchical
xenophobic racist totalitarianism -- some *nation-state* is
responsible. Period.

Cheers,
RAH

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-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 15:47:49 +0100
From: Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>
Subject: Re: Clay Shirkey on a Manhattan "Peace Park"...

On Sat, Sep 22, 2001 at 09:18:46AM -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
> At 8:49 PM +0100 on 9/21/01, Adam Back wrote:
> > Err, are you sure the reason the US was attacked is isn't more to
> > do with the interventionist US foreign policy, and past military
> > action in, and sponsorship, arming, training etc. of Iran, Iraq,
> > Israel, etc than to do with the the US TV news favorite mantra of
> > "because the terrorists hate our freedom".
> 
> ...and of course, it has *nothing* to do with the fact that countries
> like Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Lybia, et. al., are run by
> patriarchal xenophobic racist totalitarians who support
> mass-destruction and violence against their people while trying to
> export it to the rest of the world, right? Nope. Not at all.
> 
> Of course, that's not a problem if they don't export that shit here
> to the US, frankly. 

Exactly.  But I think they would not be exporting destruction and
violence to the US if the US hadn't been meddling in their affairs and
internal conflicts.

Contrary to US TV version of news, El Qaida had very specific demands
in connection with previous admitted terrorist attacks, it's just US
news is choosing not to air those, instead airing "because the
terrorists hate our freedom", which is bull.  The specific demands
included for the US to stop meddling with Islamic states affairs,
particularly Saudi, and Kuwait from when Iraq invaded Kuwait.  Bin
Laden wanted Saudi to let the Taleban suppress the Iraq invasion of
Kuwait and was incensed when the Saudis invited US troops into Saudi.
His argument with the Saudi royal family over this led to them
revoking his Saudi passport and led him to seek refuge in Afghanistan.

Right now the US seems to be gunning for the Talenban for harboring
Bin Laden, but the Taleban were US allies armed and funded by the CIA
until a few years back as they were fighting against the Russians in
Afghanistan.  As recently as may this year the US is reported to have
given 43 million to the Taleban government in exchange for cracking
down on opium production.  The US has switched sides in internal
conflicts in the area numerous times in recent history, US weapons and
finance making each side stronger, with more battle hardened troops at
each turn.

Worse, the historically US attacks seem to backfire.  Saddam Hussein
and Osama Bin Laden are both enjoying all time public popularity in
their own and other Islamic countries as it seems that US action when
spun in their news radicalizes the population against the US and
allows Hussein and Bin Laden to come out looking like heros.

I agree with the rest of what you wrote about nation states being the
root cause of conflict.

Adam

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