I agree, Tom.
As for symbolism; well, the war of symbols is won and lost by PR consultants
and access to media. America holds all the aces there. And murdered innocents
provide the joker. Just as the murderers saw their terrified victims as
abstract symbols, so will the other side make symbols of them. Big Finance
was the enemy of freedom and democracy until yesterday. It is now undergoing
professional transubstantiation into the twin towers of freedom and democracy.
To oppose Big Finance and its version of 'globalisation' now is to put
yourself on the side of the murderers. I suspect this slaughter might just be
the worst thing that could have happened to the democratic resistance
movement, anyway ...
Seems to me this constant 'war' talk is a great force for social cohesion, too
- and, because the enemy is as perpetual as it is ill-defined, that public
support has the potential to last (in precisely the way his dad's did not). I
also note that cohesion among core economies has consciously been nourished
from the off. Europe is having a Day of Mourning on Friday, for instance (and
even insignificant but volubly supportive little Johnny Howard copped a
standing obvation in the House this morning). Has this business taken the
edge off inter-bloc tensions? Has it opened the way for a popular president
to assume war powers, with an eye to centralised political economic
coordination and perhaps even a military keynesian push in hard economic times?
And I wonder what Shrubya was getting at with that 'they think their harbours
are safe' flourish?
Cheers,
Rob.
> The twin towers ('freedom' and 'democracy')
> Zombies. Only zombies do such things. They didn't attack defenseless
> people per se; they attacked what were to them abstract symbols -- targets.
> Even the people were abstract symbols to the zombies. They performed the
> same kind of operation that other symbolic analysts do every day. Do we
> call T.V. news anchors cowards? Do we call downsizing CEO's cowards? Do we call
> welfare-to-work legislators cowards?
>
> Fighting back against cowards is easy. Call them names. Nothing hurts
> a coward more than calling him or her a coward to his or her face. This
> is why cowards prefer to remain faceless. For emphasis, try "fucking coward".
> That really hurts 'em. Better yet, scurry off to Nebraska until the coast
> is clear, then call them cowards. Remember, when they taunt you with that
> old 'sticks and stones' routine, that they're only fooling themselves.
>
> Fighting back against zombies is hard. Calling them names leaves no
> impression.
