Re: <nettime> Debt Campaign Launch

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@neoscenes.net>]

that nails it, Mark --

> So, give up your plans for "radical change of the system we live
> under" and *just* STOP living under that system (at least for the
> better half of your life)!

I recall in the Reagan era, that every time someone would use his name
in a critical art work, or radio piece, or even in local conversation,
it ended up giving him and his ideology and the hands that so deftly
manipulated his puppet-likeness all the more power (I am even guilty
of this here, as I strive to make a point!). The best way to de-power
a techno-social system is to NOT PAY ATTENTION (in the form of
life-time and life-energy) to that system.

For those forsaking their loans -- do you still have a late-model
car? are you going to try to get a 'regular' teaching job? Do you own
a house? Do you shop for clothes? To you buy things from Amazon? Do
you watch cable TeeVee, Do you read 'regular' magazines, Do you read
books from 'big' vs 'small' publishers (versus sourcing and spending
un-mediated time with those humans who are immediately around you?),
etc etc ...

Participating in and propping-up a techno-social system is not
an all-or-nothing gig -- it is a sliding scale based on how many
protocols that are deployed by that system you utilize (or pay
attention to). Speak English? Well, although the global hegemony of
that protocol is quite fragmented, speaking English does have some
bearing on the propagation of the historical system of dominance that
was established by English (the English, and subsequently the US). Use
GPS on your phone? You are using a protocol established and defined
by the US DOD to monitor global movement. Use Windows, Apple? You
are using a system of technologies of which a large percentage are
originally sourced in the protocols and standards of Cold War US/UK.

When you 'speak' the language of the Master, you become his minion.
Look closely where you spend your time, and what systems and
sub-systems of protocol you participate in, THAT's where your support
lies.

But it is a sliding scale! So there can be no pointing fingers except
for the self-righteous. Turning attention away from the System is
an analogue act of continuous motion, as you slowly spin your body
away from screen to the face of the human nearby, things change, you
change. But it takes some deep self-looking and deep self-critique
devoted to the question: to what, and with what force do I pay
attention?

> Come up with something creative for your own life and those around
> you (as I suspect you already have).

The creative lies in how you are engaging an Other, Others, around
you.

> Changing the SYSTEM only leads to another *system* and that's not
> the way for HUMANS to live. In fact, the chances are nearly 100%
> that the new "system" will be a worse one.

yup, that's why diverting attention from The System, and instead
creating (localized) protocols and standards of human engagement
(certainly this is what Bey's TAZ is all about -- for example,
de-powering a dominant linguistic protocol through the poetry)

> Obama didn't "fix" anything -- he just made it worse by getting
> people's hopes up.

as my friend Frieder Nake, ever a radical, so pragmatically and
arightly observed bout the US on the eve of Obama's ascent "If
aelections were capable of changing nything, they would long have been
aforbidden."

http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/archives/11031
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/archives/424

> You want to be a RADICAL? Then act like one . . . F*CK THE SYSTEM!!

yup. and be willing to establish your own protocols, and pay attention
to those who are immediately around you (this is the core 'meaning'
of establishing a self-contained commune -- to create a localized
physically-based protocol of human engagement as a source of the
(fecund) creative!)

A metric for 'Radical-ness' might be how many degrees you turn away
from those protocols. None here, none, are more than 90-degrees turned
because we are HERE, using these protocols of engagement...

jh





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