[-empyre-] Cyberwar against St Louis / Ferguson

[Alan Sondheim]

On Tue, 25 Nov 2014, Ana Valdes wrote:


But it was what I wanted to adress the arrogance of a system which feel
itself as above any judgement and carry on making people unhappy and
frustrated. Why is the US endemic violent? Again compare Isis beheadings
with Columbine killed or with the lynched blacks I wrote about showed in 
the
postcards of "Without sanctuary".
The idea you are arrogant and nobody can judge your acts give you  a 
feeling
of total impunity.
The impunity is a cardinal sin is the Nazis in Europe or the Serbs in the
Balcony and Israel settlers torching olives or the Israeli army bombing
schools in Gaza or it's the white police in Ferguson and my own torturers
walking some streets I walk, unjudged, uncontested.
Ana

- All I can say, is being here, I don't think it's impunity or arrogance; 
I think it has a lot to do with deep racism and fear, and the reasons that 
the US is violent are much more complex. I've lived all over the U.S. and 
in all sorts of neighborhoods and made videos in many of them, and your 
analysis just doesn't resonate with me. You may be right, however. For me, 
I think there are issues of religious fundamentalism, the history of 
slavery, the notion of a mobile frontier, so-called 'rugged 
individualism,' mistrust of east-coast liberalism, the impunity (here) of 
the NRA and a right-wing supreme court that approves corporate PACs as the 
actions of individuals, the relative isolation of many parts of the U.S. 
from the coasts, deep paranoia on the part of the right, bad training for 
the police and the militarization of vigilante groups and the police, lack 
of money for social safety nets and the Republican destruction of what 
remnants there are of such, the collapse of the middle class - and this 
just touches the surface. I just can't run all these areas, U.S., 
ISIS/Columbine, Israel, Gaza, Nazi Germany, Serbs, together.

I'd rather not continue this particular thread, if you don't mind, I'm 
sitting here watching Ferguson burn and it's terrible however the 
analysis.

Apologies, Alan