THOUGHTS: 2013

Little bit of truth on voting from... http://darthnader.net
Truth is voting hasn’t changed anything. In the Democratic Party platform, the rank-and-file Democrats’ voices were drowned out by the elite consensus today. This same scenario is what happens everyday in American democracy. This episode was an emblematic microcosm of all the faults of our democratic system: even when the people can jump over the institutional hurdles preventing them from having their voices of protest heard, they still can’t accomplish anything, because their voices are ignored even in situations where we previously thought they could not be ignored. In the words of Emma Goldman, “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”

By: Mungbot

Human sacrifice and its representation

I picked up a wonderful pamphlet by "The Critical Art Ensemble" called Human Sacrifice and Its Representation. It certainly highlights points that I've talked about before, but what I really like about it is the title that says so much is such a succinct way. Human sacrifice; most premature deaths are caused not by any kind of real "accident" but by the functioning of the system itself. While death was a necessary part of certain primitive rituals, today it is a necessary part of the very existence of industrial society. Thus, human sacrifice is necessary. For instance, you cannot have cars without creating deaths caused by cars. Etc.

The second point is that in this title, they separate the human sacrifice itself from its representation - and that is HELLA important. Because we are animals that function on meaning alone - and how we conceive of the meaning of a particular death greatly colors how we feel about it. In other words, how it is represented to us means everything. For instance, take Hitler - he's dead. Most people would say "good". But why? Because there's a whole narrative behind the representation of his death. He was a violent tyrant who killed jews, etc. And that is true - representations can be more or less true - but it's still a representation. Alternatively, a young boy killed by gun violence. We certainly feel differently about that, because the representation of a kind, peaceful young boy falls into a category of "not worth sacrificing". Etc.

I've quoted some of these statistics on my blog before, but I really like how they lay them out in their pamphlet, so I'll copy their summary, verbatim:

2010: Motor Vehicles

Deaths: 33,687

Attitudinal Status: Acceptable

Remedy: Status Quo

2001 Terrorism:

Deaths: 2,995

Attitudinal Status: Unacceptable

Remedy: Wage 2 wars; radically narrow 5 amendments in the bill of rights

2007: Lead Paint Toys

Deaths: 0

Attitudinal Status: Unnaceptable

Remedy: Recall one million toys; ban distribution of children's books printed before 1985

2002: Recreational Water

Deaths: 4,174

Attitudinal Status: Acceptable

Remedy: Status Quo

2000: Medical Errors

Deaths: 44,000

Attitudinal Status: Acceptable

Remedy: Status Quo

2010: Hot Dogs

Deaths: 13

Attitudinal Status: Unnaceptable

Remedy: American Academy of Pediatrics calls for redesign of hot dogs

Clearly the representation of human sacrifice colors greatly the response to that sacrifice. And clearly the representation and subsequent reaction are frequently VASTLY out of proportion with the reality of the deaths. Of course, how those deaths are represented depend far more on vested economic and political interests than on an honest representation of the actual situation. Think about it: more than 10 times the number of people that died on 9/11 are killed EVERY YEAR on american roads ALONE; the number of worldwide yearly automobile deaths is around 1,000,000 - or the number of Iraqis that have been murdered by Americans since 2003. But of course the representation of human sacrifice through terrorism is a "great" narrative: you can sell wars with that, you can expand NSA power with that.. and even 12 years later the excuse works just as well as the day after the incident - as the NSA continues to justify its illegal worldwide and domestic surveillance with the same storyline. Because death is not just represented - it forms part of an overall narrative. It is an emotionally strong and tender link in that narrative, that is surprisingly efficient at turning the minds of the ignorant masses towards the desired goal. And when it isn't good for business? Advertise cars that have countless great "safety features"! In reality this is like advertising a bulletproof jacket for a game of russian roulette - it's stupid to play the game in the first place - but no one ever questions the underlying assumption, no matter how obvious or basic it is, even something as simple as owning a car. "I need to own a car; given that, I want a safe one".

One of my favorite statistics they offer is this:

2010: Workplace deaths

Deaths: 4,690

Attitudinal Status: Acceptable

Remedy: Status Quo

It is BY FAR statistically more likely to die simply showing up to work than it is to be attacked by "terrorists"; and that's not even including all of the workplace deaths that don't actually occur in the workplace, through diseases like black lung, through a sedentary lifestyle due to working at a computer, through stress, and through.. driving to work! In fact, the two most dangerous things people engage in every single day (besides eating fast food and smoking, which are both 10x more dangerous than driving!) is being at work, and going to work. Seriously: that is far more dangerous than any "terrorist" attack that has ever occurred inside or outside of the united states since its inception over 200 years ago. This is not an exaggeration.

And I want to emphasize that this IS all sacrifice. It's sacrifice because none of it is necessary, except in order to continue the economic religion we call "capitalism". Nobody needs to drive anywhere. At ANY POINT IN HISTORY people could have simply NOT BOUGHT CARS. Today, RIGHT NOW, people could simply STOP BUYING CARS. But they don't. They don't conceive of it as dangerous or pointless. The representation of human sacrifice with respect to the car is virtually absent; when it does occur, it almost always blames an outside factor OTHER THAN the car - drunk driving, driving too fast, the weather. How often do you hear about a deadly accident that has apparently NO CAUSE? You don't - because to admit that it has "no cause" would leave open the dangerous possibility that the car itself is the cause, and that is getting dangerously close to the truth. It leaves me speechless that something so dangerous could be conceived of in such a neutral way, when ALL OF OUR EXPERIENCE, not just statistics but the news reports and just the fact that everyone knows someone that has died, or has almost died, in a car crash. It is human sacrifice though - because it keeps the economic gears turning. 1 in 10 jobs in the United States are related to the auto industry. That's 10% of the economy. To do away with such pointless death is to do away with the human sacrifice required to keep the economy pumping out cars. How would CEO's get their paychecks? How would the current autoworkers put their american dream vehicle in their suburban driveway?! Our society has a vested interest in human sacrifice.

And of course it becomes even more egregious as it becomes more abstracted. It may not always be easy to turn a dangerous and violent object used daily - the car - into a positive, exciting, cool object to own. It is much, much easier to sacrifice those that are "not us" - Iraqis, for instance. Again, ONE MILLION iraqis have died in the american occupation. This is virtualy inconsequential to americans. Why? Because the human sacrifice is painted in such a patriotic light, of course. We are "spreading democracy", we are "saving" people from a violent regime. Etc. However, like all human sacrifice, the reality is that the system requires it in order to function. TRILLIONS of dollars have already been spent in Iraq - that's a lot of bullets, bombs and bodies. There must therefore be some kind of narrative to sustain such unfathomable levels of consmption - andconsumption it surely is. The american government, financed by american taxpayers, consumes military machines by purchasing them from private corporations - which, of course, boosts the economy and makes a small number of people incredibly wealthy.

The final point for tonight is to notice the link between the body count on american roads and the body count in the iraqi desert. In practice they are identical, and if that sounds absurd it is only absurd to the extent that you are brainwashed by their narratives and disconnected from reality. Both are kinds of human sacrifice required for the continuing functioning of the system. Yet, seriously! The contrast in the representation! Here are ignorant americans, buying cars under the narrative of "freedom", "individuality", "autonomy", "power", etc, while simultaneously backing the murder of abstract civilians on the other side of the world under the narratives of "spreading freedom and democracy", "fighting terrorism", or if you live in the south, simply "Killin dem sand niggers". Yet, AMAZING! AMAZING! Both the corpse on the american road and in the iraqi desert have suffered the exact same kind of death - a sacrificial death on the bloody altar of industrial capitalism - made possible by some kind of narrative that is 100%, completely, absolutely out of touch with reality. The dead redneck in a rolled over SUV with an "Attack Iraq" bumper sticker suffers the exact same kind of death as the iraqi he sickeningly dreamed of shooting himself. THE DISCONNECTION MOST PEOPLE HAVE WITH REALITY IS UNFATHOMABLE.

One final statistic to chew on: during the 11 year period since the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, while 6,519 have died fighting, over 72,000 american soldiers have committed suicide. SEVENTY TWO THOUSAND. That's bigger than my hometown. So much for being "greeted as liberators" - I find it hard to imagine that people who conceived of themselves as "heroes" would off themselves in such high numbers. In fact, you could even say that the gap between their mental representation of themselves as "heroes" (an image that got them to voluntarily sign up in the first place, as seen in any GoArmy commercial) and the dawning reality of what they are much more realistically called - "murderers", "mercenaries", etc - may be responsible for such high suicide numbers. But for the larger public, the covered up suicide problem is just another magical instance of representation - or lack thereof - completely obscuring reality. Maybe it's because we live in the society of the spectacle, where the image is always somehow more real than reality.. IT IS MIND BOGGLING TO ME THAT ANY OF THIS EXISTS. IT SHOULD BE TO YOU TOO.

Of course, you could extend this whole discussion to the infinitely broader field of Life and Its Representation.. and you'd probably come up with the same dynamics and disconnection from reality..