~Domestic & International~

Massaging the fatigue of a Democratic primary that has gone on forever, we’ve come to the worrisome conclusion that Joe Biden’s the most likely person to face off against DJT. Let me preface this essay by saying I’m going to vote for Biden, or Bernie–any one other than Trump–but I deeply fear Biden is actually the weakest Democratic candidate of everyone we’ve seen…except maybe Marianne Williamson.

Let’s start by taking an abbreviated glance at who was on the field, and how things have changed as the season have browned the grass, leaves and fallen and frost snuck in. In the summer of 2019, we saw so many candidates on the state that we were reminded of the 2015 Republican primaries–too many names to remember, too many biographies to examine. Obama was in his last term and I guess Conservatives thought there’s finally a chance for someone new. In the 2019 Detroit debates, there were 20 candidates, all with the idea that America was so sick of Donald J. Trump that we’d vote for anyone other than the sitting President. Anyone running could garner a few million dollars in contributions, just for not being Trump. The family separation at the border was going on, and America hated Trump as an affront to family, which was the historical domain of the conservative politicians. It was hot, humid, in the upper 80s in New York and there was a sense of pride that so many intelligent and accomplished people could come from the Democratic Party and get up there on stage and be moderated by Fox News. The debates took place in two nights and the three front runners of each night–Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg; Biden, Harri, Booker–would all continue on.

There were some stunts going on in August, September, but it was more or less the usual onslaught of tiresome headlines of America’s biggest persona non-grata. Stupid remarks, fake maps of hurricanes, typical bullshit that we’ve come to accept from the stupidest person to enter American politics.

But eyes really turned away from the primaries to the impeachment preceding in late September. The House. Then the delay. He said, she said, holidays looming, finally gets to the Senate for their evisceration of logic and constitutional protection. By February casualties of the impeachment included John Delaney, Cory Booker, the mystic Marianna Williamson, Julian Castro. The field narrowed.

There wasn’t much to see at the impeachment trial hearings, because everyone knew the outcome they wanted before he was even tried. And politicians are exceptionally bad actors, so watching them try to deliver lines was just painful. The biggest injustice to reasoning were the president’s own personal lawyers who’s central defense was “the impeachment aimed to reverse the outcome of the 2016 election.” That was a multi-million dollar argument, rehashed from something Lindsay Graham said in passing in the hallway, muttering to a person from the press. What’s particularly infuriating and an assault on basic reasoning is that, to reverse the 2016 election results would mean Hillary Clinton would become President if Trump were removed, but in fact the Vice President would become the President. This sort of non-nonsensical shorthand is not new in the Republican Party, but it’s surprising that the mercenaries that Trump brought into Washington to defend him couldn’t come up with a better explanation about Trump’s call to the Ukraine.

The Iowa Caucuses held on Feb 3, 2020 showed Buttigieg in first place, Sanders in second, Warren in third, Biden fourth and Klobuchar fifth, Gabbard sixth, or last.

February 5, 2020 Trump is acquitted from the Senate Impeachment trial. It was the outcome that pretty much anyone who could count to 100 expected. What wasn’t explicit was what the acquittal actually meant.

With the exception of the Biden, most of the Democratic candidates have faded out of the public until the impeachment hearings were over. Biden’s campaign tried to swing the whole thing as exemplary of the fear Trump had for Biden. Yes, Trump was so fearful of Biden, that I needed Ukraine to investigate Biden so Biden wouldn’t run for President. It’s a good narrative, except the Burisma conspiracy began in 2015.

What was overlooked in the impeachment of Trump is that his acquittal equates to the vilification of Joe Biden, in terms of corrupt practices between the United States and Ukraine. By not finding Trump guilty–remember, this is guilt corruptly engaging Ukraine, forget the articles of impeachment that the House actually approved–the message is essentially that Trump was vindicated in his pursuit to get to the bottom of Ukrainian corruption, i.e. Biden’s involvement in Ukrainian corruption. Yes, no one’s mind was changed in the impeachment trail, but those siding with Trump will have the sense that, not only was Trump unfairly treated by Democrats, but that his actions were warranted to undo the corruption of Joe Biden. It’s reverse logic, but if Trump’s not the villain in American/Ukrainian corruption, Biden is guilty.

Not only does the Democratic party hope this isn’t the interpretation, the Biden campaign crosses its fingers that everyone will just forget about that whole impeachment thing, and the side notes about Ukraine, and Joe’s own implicated corruption.

Billionaire Tom Steyer was in until a bigger billionaire, Mike Bloomberg came in and actually spent money. Bloomberg’s campaign hinged on the lackluster of the centrists, which may have suggested that Democrats weren’t comfortable with Biden and maybe even Biden understood he wasn’t the strongest candidate. Then Elizabeth Warren kicked Michael Bloomberg in the balls so hard, the stock market felt it. He dropped out and then she drops out.

A repeated, unifying slogan during the Democratic primaries was beat Donald Trump. Each candidate would extol his or her record of winning, unique strategy, or ability to reach his base. The debates shared headlines with the Corona Virus.

But is the real way to beat Donald Trump? Remind America about how he tried to rig the election, the second time: Remind America of the impeachment. You don’t need to go into details, you don’t need to remind the public about the arguments for against, but you do need to be able to mention the country that he aimed to coerce Ukraine, and that he’s a cheater. In the last four years, there has been a non-stop barrage of transgressions by the President, ranging from cringe-worthy idiocracy, to down-right blatant corruption and heresy, were I to believe in a higher power. But it’s impossible to mention the impeachment in a debate, or even as a political platform for Biden. The impeachment was supposed to be summary of all of Trump’s illegalities, wrapped up into a nice sound bite, something like this: “You tried to undermine our democracy by coercing Ukraine. And that’s just one example of your blatant corruption.” That’s it. Just repeat that, after every point on the stage, nail the topic home. That’s all you have to do. You don’t need policy, you don’t need wit, looks aren’t necessary. You don’t need a track record or proof you’re a better candidate. The impeachment proceeding already divided the country with those who wanted him gone–those who’ll vote for anyone other than Trump–and those who’d side with him even if he were trying to make the Internet illegal. Anyone could beat him in a debate by mentioning Ukraine, anyone except for Joe Biden.

Why not Joe Biden? Because when he mentions “Ukraine,” Trump is going to dive into the conspiracy theory about Ukraine, Hunter Biden being on the board of Burisma, a natural gas company, and point the finger of corruption at Joe. In a debate, Biden isn’t going to have time to respond to the myriad of nuances which purport no-foul play. It’s 90 seconds. And Trump’s going to interrupt by saying “corrupt, corrupt, corrupt.” And that’s all that going to happen.

For those who have been living in a cave for the last four years, those who don’t watch the news, or follow politics, i.e. “swing voters,” they might actually try to figure out what the hell is Trump talking about. But let’s be realistic: No one has time to read the various reputable articles by the New Yorker [1], New York Times, or the Washington Post, which explains the nuances of the Hunter Biden/Burisma world and how he was allegedly working against corruption. In a country of 350 million people, catch phrases like Lock Her Up, or Fake News penetrate more deeply than hour-long interviews on the Council on Foreign Affairs.

What the undecided are left with is three variations of conspiracy theory:

1) Some Biden supporters think that the entire Hunter Biden narrative is a conspiracy, including the fact that he was a board member of Burisma. Sorry, he was. That’s a fact. [2]

2) Some right-wing conspiracy theory that Joe Biden interfered with the investigation of Shokin to protect Hunter. Sorry, he didn’t. It was the opposite.

3) Whether any conspiracy theory is true. That is, whether anyone was conspiring at all.

What all of this amazing journalism by the New York Times, New Yorker, and Washington Post fail to cover is why Hunter was on the board of a Ukrainian company in the first place. What’s implied is he was trying to uproot corruption. He was trained as lawyer and worked as a lobbyist. But seriously, there’ a question why does a Ukrainian natural gas company need an American on their board of directors? Is it legal counsel? Right, no lawyers in Ukraine. Is it his expertise in working in natural gas that garnered him $50,000/week for months? There’s something fishy and even the staunchest Biden supporters concede that, while Joe wasn’t involved, his son shouldn’t have been on that board.

I’m happy to suspend any suspicion of Hunter, or even concede “that’s the way the world works.” If you’re the son of a politician, you get on board of natural gas companies in foreign countries and get huge sums of money and nothing illegal is going on. But it’s patently irresponsible for Democrats to expect that Fox News watchers will be so generous and unrealistic that undecided voters will come to my conclusion.

If we can estimate the creativity and cleaver strategies of the Trump campaign for 2020, we can rest assured it will be similar to the 2016 campaign: repeat a singular, simple, unexplained narrative until seeds of doubt sow into a conspiracy theory. For Hillary R. Clinton it was the missing emails. Yes, there were emails missing. She apologized for it. [3] 2020 will be Trump repeating again and again, Burisma. Hunter Biden. He’s going to say that in every debate and on every interview. And it’s even worse because the story already circulates on Fox News and Hill thanks to John Solomon. Like the missing emails, there is no explanation as to why Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma. Surprisingly, Democrats seem oblivious to the massive, Trump strategy, right in plain sight.

Out of plain sight is Rudy Giuliani. Where the fuck has he been since September? I’m guessing he lurking around Ukraine, digging up dirt. You can bet the day after Sanders concedes to Biden, Rudy will be back on Fox and Friends talking up the corruption of the Bidens and Burisma.

But even if you forget about Burisma, there’s something troubling about a Vice President or President whose son’s job title includes lobbyist. Are you fucking serious? In an era when people are trying to reduce the influence of money and special interest groups in American democracy, you’re going to elect a person whose son’s profession is to influence democracy with special interest?

Going back to the 2016 election results, we saw a clear trend among millenials voting for Democrats. The writing was on the wall: the days of the Republican party are numbered. Fortunately, the Democrats too advantage of this ground swell and put in place a candidate who reflected…wait…the values of our grandparents? Are you serious? If either Biden or Sanders gets elected, they’ll be oldest elected sitting President in history?

But we’ll get some reprieve to know that the states that went to Obama in 2012, but to Trump in 2016 are still up for grabs. Many people have wondered, how could this ideological flip occur? How could people who voted for Obama in a landslide, either stay home or vote for Trump four years later? Well, fortunately, Biden is a bet because nothing brings out black voters like a guy who voted…wait, he voted against the Civil Rights Act?

Well, surely, if such a complicated candidate as Biden is compared to Trump, Americans will choose the lesser of the two evils. Yeah, uh, have you googled “Clinton lesser of two evils”? They didn’t vote against the lesser, even though the explicit comparison of two people to evil in a country that is purported separated by church and state makes one wonder how this could be case.

It’s almost as if the centrist (dare I call them “establishment”) Democrats went down the list of everything that people hated about Clinton and came up with Joe Biden. Except, of course, the fact that Clinton was a woman and mobilized female voters. Again: Biden falls short. Not only does he awkwardly hug too long, or say inappropriate things to women, there’s the whole the prequel Brett Kavanaugh trial, aka the Clarence Thomas Affair, in which Biden silenced Anita Hill.

Now it seems we’re faced with candidates: Bernie Sanders, who isn’t even a Democratic, and Joe Biden. The issue with Sanders is his entire platform would be impossible to get passed by the Senate, as not even members of his own party would vote for health care for all. But the problem with Biden is even worse. It’s not clear why even Democrats would choose a candidate with the suspicion of corruption. Is it that hope no one will mention the root of the impeachment of Trump? Is it that they think Trump being re-elected is less detrimental than Sanders getting elected?

[1] “The Invention of the Conspiracy Theory on Biden and Ukraine,” Jane Mayer, New Yorker, Oct. 4, 2019.

[2] “Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies,” Kenneth P. Vogel and Iuliia Mendel, New York Times, June 1, 2019

[3] “Hillary Clinton apologizes for e-mail system: I take responsibility,” Anne Gearan, Washington Post, September 8, 2015

[4] “Joe Biden’s 2020 Ukrainian nightmare: A closed probe is revived,” John Solomon, The Hill, February 19, 2020.

Ai Weiwei’s collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron’s Hansel and Gretel at the Park Ave Armory (June 7–August 6, 2017) raises unintended questions about surveillance, it’s limits, applications and interrelation with consumerism. Justifiably, we anticipate the merger of an infamous political dissident and big-budget cultural complex architects to forge an insight into one of Western society’s most prescient questions, and be able to inhabit that insight and see it from the perspective of dissident on whom surveillance has been exercised. But instead we encounter an obtuse approach to the predictable power structures of observation laid in a path to techno-aesthetics that feel as dated as the Patriot Act I. But there’s more. (If only it were intentional.)  

The two part installation buttresses an archimedean point–a door–at which the visitor occupies the role of the prison guard in Bentham’s panopticon model, on a staircase landing, a peeping-hole. I’m starting at the end of the journey, rather than the entrance. Performing the critique we expect from the designers, we look back at the prior point of the installation in the Wade Thomson Drill hall, see our past selves in the innocent and unaware visitors, experiencing the previous stage of the journey. We had entered the dark room with hovering drones and projections of image-capture and one part control-station part research-space. We had walked from Lexington Avenue, down a dim, black velvet corridor, the exit of which into the Drill hall felt expansive: the unlit void located gray rectangles lain over the subtle arc of the floor. We had looked. Seen. Moved around. Exited. Re-entering on Park Ave, we had paused at the camera, then journey up the staircase and from the peeping hole, the those places of contemplation and play, look to float in an ether. Platforms of light with shadow dancers. I saw people sort of dancing, walking, pausing, contemplation. Each area within this nowhere space varied by intensity of brightness; some were entirely dark. Red rectangles within these platforms of light freeze images of your movement. This became a choreography of surveillance, an exchange of image for movement, interacting with your own captured, flattened representation.

There’s a level of theatricality in the installation at the Park Ave. Amory. Like a Grotowski play in which even the audience has been removed, visitors move around dimly lit rectangles, gazing at their own image projection that is being captured and encapsulated with an enigmatic red box as drones hover above creating a refreshing current of cool air amidst the otherwise stagnant darkness.

But on the floor of the drill hall, the buzzing of drones swaying on cables like an invisible chandelier, stirring up a cooling summer breeze vertiginously against the gaze to the floor onto which one’s image captured from above is projected, seems partial, incomplete, wanting. There was the persistent sense that this wasn’t all there was supposed to be, and, in fact one was under surveillance. Upon entering, a text printed in large, bold typeface was pasted on the wall, bracketed by a partially-hidden but obviously working camera above and below the paper set up a, “Ok, when are you going to show me enjoying this moment that I’ve almost forgot is about surveillance.” Exit through the blue light in the corner, walk around the building. Re-enter on Park Ave, have your ticket scanned, pause in front of a red light as instructed and see your face in nightvision displayed on the wall. The hallway diverts right and left. To the right, sure enough, you see those cameras of the entrance on Lexington, streaming on a wall. Boring. A series of tables with iPad invites you to find your face, i.e. the accuracy of facial recognition, and look over a website showing (one) history of surveillance. Ok, but why am I here? I mean, I can see the website anywhere, right? (Why pay $17 to look at an iPad webpage?). Conjoining these two spaces is a flight of stairs up to the peeping hole. Next to the hole is a symbol of a eye printed on 8.5 x 11” paper, calling those below to come, peer. Please.

When you’re interacting with the drones, you know you’re being watched–that’s the point–but you don’t know you’re being watched from the staircase. And as you enter at Lexington Avenue, and read the blunt text that’s been Flex Taped® on, you see the small camera’s recording you. When you re-enter on Park Avenue, you’re asked to stop at the camera.

From the peep hole, the supposed end of the route of surveillance. The title alludes to the trail of breadcrumbs left by the children as they were led into the woods to die, the trail which leads them back home. In the digital world, particularly online but increasingly in the physical world, we leave sorts of breadcrumbs that can be traced back to our individual, our person, our identity. The second section is demonstrates the basic facial recognition technology by capturing visitors’ upon entrance, pushing their image onto large wall monitors and inviting one to search their own face through the aid of an iPad. Your face, like a fingerprint, can be a breadcrumb.

The immediate recollection of Laura Poitras’s installation in Astro Noise at the Whitney Museum in which the visitors are invited to lay down and gaze at ceiling projection of stars and later, upon exiting, have the curtain pulled off their head to reveal, ta-da! You were being surveilled! Thematically, Poitras’s surveillance work, specifically the mobile phone scraping piece in the same show, recalled Trevor Paglen’s show at Metro pictures in 2015, in which he presented Autonomy Cube (2015), which is a wi-fi hotspot that sends all traffic through Tor browser relays. The gesture offers a semi-anonymous browsing experience, lacking only a VPN for further anonymity, but really smartly conveys the existence of Tor to the fine art world crowd, as Poitras’s mobile scraper displayed the technology of capturing telecommunications data, as Weiwei, Herzog and de Meuron demonstrated the surveillance application in the consumer grade drones. But again, surveillance technologies within the safe space of art institutions are distinct from how those same technologies are implemented by a government on a campaign against “terror” and  with the exception of a few art world players like Ai Weiwei, Poitras, and Paglen, the governmental surveillance largely omits members of our socioeconomic class, occasionally deviating along racial and religious lines. And its in this elision and inconsistency that the facade of surveillance comes to light. The technology and infrastructure may reach all, but is applied directly to few. A simple test is to search how to make a bomb on Google. Go ahead, do it. You won’t be folded into the NSA nor FBI nor CIA database to have a sting operation rendered. You won’t be stopped at an airport. Practically speaking, it’s this inconsistency through which we as a majority continue to allow the Patriot Act’s sunset to extend and parts of the expired act to be reinstated USA Freedom Act. Most don’t feel the direct consequences of being surveilled because the demonstration of power has a preconceived recipient in mind. As a predominantly white, middle to upper class crowd, the art world are more like voyeurs of surveillance than subjects of its protocol.

Weiwei, Herzog & de Meuron aren’t trying to trick you indefinitely. They want to give you the experience of switching roles, being the children who ultimately shoves the old hag in the oven and escape from her dinner clutches. They seem bound by the unspoken ethical chains that dictate in order to critique surveillance one can’t recapitulate its hierarchy upon the artworld visitors to the show. Here, the question of how to persuade us of the existence of tools of surveillance is answered by a strategy of deference, role switching. But there’s a lack of control in this shape shifting when one realizes surveillance with a capital S doesn’t apply in the world of art as it does outside the rarified walls of the museum. In fact, the art world–its patrons, artifacts–have been using tools of surveillance not only since the beginning of photography when subjects we aligned with the exceptionality of the artistic class—the proprietors of art, the creators, portraits and art reproductions—which weren’t surveilled in the sense of be disempowered or controlled by image conveyance but empowered by it. The art world has willingly adapted CCTV systems in museums, galleries and fairs.

Surveillance tools in the museums are not constructing the criminal from the social body of members of the artworld, as in the criminal is constructed in the social body more widely, through the aid of cameras that offer “proof” to the person’s criminality. Surveillance is not a person in relation to a technology, but a relationship of power whose reach is extended through the confluence of lens glass and sensor and screen and imputed into a judicial system. And so here in the armory of Park Avenue, one of the wealthiest streets in North America, we can’t say that these cameras are subjugating us in the prisoners in the Panopticon. These are not peering for the minority who’s jumped the subway turnstyle, or shoplifted. These are not police body cams. No one is using the footage or purview to exorcise their domination over us; we, the good patrons of the artworld, self monitor and self regulate. We play all roles here. Sure, we’ll switch, but it’s weightless. And it is this tradition of near-horizontal power that informs the ethics of this space.

As a demonstration of the technologies that can be used for surveillance like drones with motion tracking, face recognition, and pinhole cameras, the trio of Weiwei, Herzog & de Meuron show us what they found at last year’s Black Friday sale. All of this is pretty tepid until you enter the gift shop. In fact, the gift shop really explodes what’s absent in this turgid critique of surveillance, which is not a demonstration of a technology, but how these socioscientific principals are weaving their way through a consumer society. The gift shop has the expected memorabilia of books and posters of the show, but the cell phone case, thermal signature blocking cape and blankets, glasses with reflective lenses that block face recognition, Faraday bags and RFID wallet to protect your financial data from being maliciously intercepted. There are shield hats that block all the electromagnetic frequencies that are bombarding us. Aluminum helmets, anyone? At first glance, all this seems to hint at a subtle acceptance of daily, integrated paranoia. But we should be more attentive to why a consumer product is a solution legal reality. Nothing is new, novel, nor interesting. In fact, it’s banal. It’s banal, literally. It’s banal to the extent that all the technologies that are exhibited have consumer-grade products that can foil them, all for sale, right there in the gift shop. What’s more banal than a technology that’s already reached a level of having mass consumer-level defense? Inadvertently, the gift shop is the most interesting aspect of the exhibition because it shows us the relationship between surveillance at consumerism.

Although unintended, this is the real conclusion to the exhibition journey. You’ve descended down the stairs from the peephole, you’ve checked out the iPads, you’ve seen your facial recognition, you’ve seen people entering on Lexington and like hungover, hungry Sunday morning you start rummaging through the remaining doors of the Armory, looking for something to justify your $17 entrance ticket. The gift shop. Holy shit.

Ai Weiwei. (Is there on Hello Kitty-esque Ai Weiwei shirt? I get the monographs, sure, but the throw pillows? Seriously? Remember, this exhibition isn’t a critique of consumer society. It’s about drones. Wait. And architecture? The website’s good, check out the website. On Herzog & de Meuron’s site there’s a sort of promo video that aligns the project to closed circuit TV tradition by dividing the screen area into four separate feeds, which at once show the armory’s programming and decoration. It’s okay. ) In the wake of Edward Snowden messing up all the NSA Thanksgiving plans in 2013, we saw Silent Circle’s Blackphone roll out, Protonmail, with servers based in Switzerland, addressed the problem of email un-encryption, and the list continues. Go on Amazon and search “encrypted” to see the plethora of consumer electronics that are responding to the inculcated sense of privacy invaded. The gift shop brings us all these "necessities" to one place, situating them in the context of a political dissident who needs privacy. Compared with the website that shows the history of surveillance, this gift shop with its spiced up aluminum foil hats, now with a fashionable bill so you can blend it at the game, is much more meaningful in the history people watching out about being watched. Yet the nefarious reality is that consumer goods occupy an important role in surveillance, and military technologies more generally. In a hypothetical situation in which the developer of the IR-blocking wallet is the same person at MIT who developed the IR-reading technology that the wallet aims to block, we see the game that the defense industry plays, even if the biographical data of the developers isn't accurate.

So many modern luxuries and worthless junk lying around, all of which makes our lives as easy as they are come from military developments. GPS. Telegraphs. Wristwatches. Computers. Camouflage. Fully-automatic machine guns. But what was once a trickle-down to consumer goods have now become a subsidy by consumer to trickle up. The amount of consumer electronic spending far surpasses the amount of the Defense budget that’s earmarked for development. A billion smartphones sell per year, a staggering ledger on how much these companies can poor in R&D. Soldiers in Iraq are using Apple devices for translation, rather than wading through years of bureaucracy for bespoke design. How about a supercomputer made of PlayStation 3? Financially, many of these technologies could not maintain the pace of development without a consumer-base of street versions of these military grade defense weapons. The flow of tools between consumer and soldier is troubling not only because it appears that civilians are subsidizing killing that we may not condone through the use of technologies wrapped in gadget that we deeply covet, but also because our gadgets are getting imbued with tools that don’t necessarily reflect our needs. In the world of software, this is called “bloatware,” the apps included on a device, apps you didn't ask for, don't use, and don't need. The facial recognition capabilities of the iPhone and iPad, as seen in the Hansel and Gretel has nothing to do with a smartphone. We have 4-digit encryption, we have 7-digit encryption. We have fingerprint recognition, now facial recognition? How about scrotal recognition? How about test my DNA to make sure it’s really me and whether the user is biologically predisposed to drop this fucking phone in the toilet. VPN, NFC, most accessibility features have little use to consumers but readily align with the State Department needs.

Perhaps the most relevant of techno-trash that shines light on this incestuous holiday at the Park Ave Armory are drones themselves. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, UAVs, those friendly consumer-grade gadgets that guys are using to make every crane shot in every indie movie, or fly around on the beach or park, are ramping up. They're reaching commercial grade, now able to carry and deliver goods. Meanwhile, UAS, unmanned Aerial Systems, like the Reaper, which were used by the military for first surveillance and now to drop bombs, are  getting smaller. 2.8 million UAVs have been sold already, while more and more militaries around the world are buying UAS. LOCUST, Low-cost UAV Swarming Technology says it all: they're taking the consumer scaled UAVs and making them useful in the battlefield, a hybrid between UAV and UAS.

Weaponry wouldn't be complete without defense. Police and hired defense contractors are putting UAVs to use in crowd surveillance. Then there's the weapon against UAVs: The Dronegun, used to scramble the communication between the UAV and controller. Developed by John M. Franklin and Dr. Brian P. Hearing at Johns Hopkins Air and Missile Defense Sector, the technology is framed as protection for politicians, the military and the rich and famous. Dronegun's technology reveals growing use of UAVs by insurgency, fringe consumers who may want to assassinate someone, and technologically-endowed perverts.  

UAS are a testament for the casualization of conflict, both in terms of policy and mortalities. Termed as "targeted killings" by the U.S., the questionable exodus from traditional realm of warfare dodges into a civilian context. The Authorization for the Use of Military Force, passed after September 11, 2001, is a carte blanche to kill anyone really anywhere at basically anytime. 93,547 bombs have been dropped as of August 23, 2017.  Hypothetically limited to al-Qaeda, the Taliban and their buddies, the open door is whoever these buddies turn out to be, become, emerge or evolve. ISIS. ISIL. And anyone who lives in the neighborhood, city, country, or region where they may be found, or thought to be. (Death by Drone, pp. 27) Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia. Let's not forget that killing civilians is a war crime.

Drone strikes have increased under Trump, which increased under Obama. Civilian casualties have also increased. And it's not just the U.S. Saudi Arabia continues drone strikes on Yemeni rebels, as unmanned hunt and kill missions increasingly become the lingua franca of absentee diplomacy. Blocked by an international Arms Trade Treaty, Saudi Arabia has turned to Chinese military technology to continue their campaign against the Houthis, while Iranian produced drones given the rebels fire to return to Saudi Arabia, ostensibly turning Yemen into the stage for testing international weapon capabilities, a role Spain played prior to World War II.

Drone strikes are more secretive than manned attacks, presumably because the threat of a depressed parent of an fallen American soldier is less likely. And because the domain of the War on Terror is not limited to national boundaries, the attack by drones doesn't require the usual Congressional approval that a military act of aggression requires. Drones are the casual way of killing. We can see that, like most military weaponry that is applied to the foreign domain, it's soon applied to the domestic market, often without the regulation of historical courts of war. Hollow-tipped bullets, introduced by the British during the colonial wars in India, were outlawed by the Hague due to their excessive brutality. They are still lawfully used by U.S. police against civilians. So while technology is now trickling from the consumer up to the military, weaponry continues to trickle back down.

Notes

Airwars.org https://airwars.org/

"Civilian Drones," The Economist, July 8, 2017 http://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2017-06-08/civilian-drones

"China's Saudi Drone Factory Compensates for US Ban," Middle East Eye, March 29, 2017 http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/china-build-factory-saudi-arabia-fill-drone-shortage-1200657135

Death by Drone, Open Society Foundations, New York, NY, 2015

"GPS, Drones, Microwaves and Other Everyday Technologies Born on the Battlefield," Les Shu, Digital Trends, May 26, 2014 https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/modern-civilian-tech-made-possible-wartime-research-development/

"Key Staff," Droneshield, August 23, 20217 https://www.droneshield.com/key-staff

"LOCUST: Autonomous, swarming UAVs fly into the future," David Smalley, Office of Naval Research,April 14, 2015 https://www.onr.navy.mil/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2015/LOCUST-low-cost-UAV-swarm-ONR.aspx

"The Military Consumer Complex," The Economist, December 10, 2009 http://www.economist.com/node/15065709

"Military Tech Versus Street Tech: Who's Got the Edge?" James Vlahos, Popular Science, August 15, 2004 http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-08/military-tech-versus-street-tech-whoacutes-got-edge

"The (Not-So) Peaceful Transition of Power: Trump's Drone Strikes Outpace Obama," Micah Zenko, Council on Foreign Affairs, March 2, 2017 https://www.cfr.org/blog/not-so-peaceful-transition-power-trumps-drone-strikes-outpace-obama

"US Air Force Connects 1,760 PlayStation 3's to Build Supercomputer," Lisa Zyga, Physics, December 2, 2010 https://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomputer.html

To what extent must rationality persevere in order to distinguish itself from faith?  Is a seminal intention sufficient, or must rationality be subject to its own self critique at any stage in order to remain a faithful non-believer? 

I don’t think about faith or religion much because the manifestation of organized religion isn’t a predominant part of my life or community. I live a secular life and for the most part the people around me have agreed to participate in this secular experience; we don’t talk about faith in a higher being or an organized religion with the exception of when those two things intersect with politics, e.g. when religious fanatics try to swing the political debate into the influence of the Bible or when Islamophobia rears its head. More subtly, faith is present as a characteristic of a culture, usually as the explanation a friend or colleague’s personal formation--he grew up Jewish, she grew up Catholic, etc. So my musing about rationality in comparison to faith is a question about the status of these differing thought practices and points more toward unorganized religion, rather than the elements of institutionalized belief practices. My concern about these two paths of thinking about the world is based on the semblance of secular thinking and suppositions I see today, one that is rooted in the reliance on consumer technological advances and salvation through technology, rather than a belief that in the All Might. However, I’m not attempting a history of automatons or avatars.Only when necessary will I distinguish what I mean when referring to “technology.” Rather, I’m aiming to write a marriage certificate of our society’s preference to violent domination, ecological suicide and the life preservers believe are in store. 

Here’s my working baseline for what is rational: making decisions based on testable truths that may cultivate an expected, desired end, which is somehow beneficial to the decision maker. This isn’t intended to be a watertight definition, but enough to get off the ground in comparing ‘rational’ with ‘faith.’ Really, the crux of the distinction pertains to the testability of the information that motivates the decision, i.e. whether it’s a theory that can be proven or disproven. Rationality, in this sense, in a blending of logic in the philosophical or mathematical sense and elements the scientific method. There is also the anthropocentric element that what is rational can be conveyed and understood by other people.

Faith is based on an idea that can’t be proven nor disproven. Inherently, it’s something that could be suspect but isn’t; it’s accepted in trusting and explanatory in nature.

Still, very quickly from the point of defining ‘faith’ and ‘rational’ the meager gap  allotted almost vanishes immediately. The distance diminishes both within and between terms. Between terms, I’m wondering whether I should have faith in the model of faith or if I should I have faith in the model of rationality. Within the model of rationality, the foundations on which any testable information is built becomes a faith for heuristic purposes. For example, I’m not an engineer, but I have faith that when I turn the key of a cars ignition, the system of engineering principles are going to lead to combustion and I’ll be able to drive away.

Like many liberals, I’m chipping away on my home-study American political science degree; this chapter is on governmental budgets. The President introduces his “dream budget,” which can be summarized as the potentially most awkward elephant in the room, should Trump ever have to personally meet chairman Jane Chu or any other staff from the department that he zero-ed out. Trump’s using budget like a threat, a political surgical knife that reveals how deep he pierce a government, country and society, given he’s taken no Hippocratic Oath.

So I visited arts.gov to see if the NEA was still around. I was pleasantly surprised that not only did a 404 error elude me, but a considerate pop-up windowed guided me to a FAQ page, answered all my questions and hearsay about the fallout of Trump’s nightmare budget. Here I share what I learned therein with you, kind reader, and include with it my thoughts, concerns and crass conclusions that comprise my first of many diatribes on how our miserly billionaire Warmonger in Chief plans to spend our monies.

The NEA’s FAQ page begins/began with “Is the NEA closed?”

Social media has been buzzing about everything Sunburnt Combover has been proposing, particularly cutting the arts, environmental protection agency and giving all the money to infrastructure, outfrastructure (wall), war, Mar-a-Lago and Trump International. People are concerned. Infuriated is a better word. And the coveted National Endowment for the Arts strikes a sore spot in those of us Americans who look to more peaceful countries and societies that not only fund arts but communicate to the creative class that they’re valuable for their imagination (not just how well they can make a smart phone app UI), and how enjoy creative culture, museums, the arts, et al. So how has the U.S. compared to other developed countries? This 2005 report may be dated but still sheds light and is regularly referenced in how each country fairs in terms of cultural funding.

But why communicate to the creative class that they’re valued? Uh, well, for one reason is that (according to the NEA) we are one the largest labor classes in the U.S. Filmmakers, actors, graphic designer, musicians, singers, artists, fashion designer, photographers--the arts sector in the United States more than 2 million worker, according to the NEA. And on this note, the value of the NEA is frequently weighed by its distribution of funds toward creativity, but the reports it generates are equally important, particularly in looking at how the marginal disutility of labor occurs within these informal industries. There reports are usefully predictive of how people are working, spending free time, applying their education, generating money (and taxes), and where this is happening.

So where is this cut coming from? What’s the rationale? What’s the history of controversy in NEA funding? One long-held belief is that the arts serve one (small) percent of the population. Why should tax-payer money be used for the arts, which are appreciated along class lines? The NEA’s FAQ does a great job to clarify that one of its goals and achieved missions to deliver the arts to “underserved areas...especially rural and inner-city communities.” Cutting funding to the NEA will only increase the inequity of access to the arts.

One of the benefits of propinquity are the encounters with the detritus of your neighbors and the capacity of these objects to take your focus away from what’s been preoccupying your mind. ADHD as urban design. The other day a modest pile of 1990s Playboys came into my possession after a routine trip to the laundry room. For me the decade marked my sexual awakening: Pamela Anderson Baywatch, the patience of a Buddhist for dial-up Internet, Adam & Eve mail-order catalogues that tattooed the postal delivery schedule into my mind, and of course those bunny ear head dresses. How could I not delve, at least for an afternoon, into my physiological nostalgia?

For the most part, I got exactly what I expected: monotonous dated texts, consumer electronic ads, Columbia House artist listings, cigarette promos, and busty girls with bad hair. But two issues stood out: May 1991 and June 1992.

May 1991 is the Tweed sisters issue: two long-legged, smiling women whose skin perfectly matches the pantone A7 studio backdrop. It’s a few shades from cosmic latte, giving one the impression that we as banana jerkers are either in a super closeup on the perfect skin of these goddesses or we’re at an intergalactic vantage point of how the solar system is structured: Tweeds all the way down. Competing with the Tweeds for your attention is a Steinbrenner interview, in which he attest his hatred for baseball. But at page 83 a dapper, two dimensional air brushed Asian gangster pinching a cigarette accompanies the title “big TROUBLE IN LITTLE SAIGON” (title capitalization [it was the 90s]) passes the finish line for the most intriguing time capsule of Americana found therein. Jim Goad’s two-and-a-half page article recounts the crime and depravity that has bubbled up in the Vietnamese refugee community in Orange County since the war.

To read the full, pictorial version visit donalddaedalus.com

During the entire experience of watching Hell or High Water I couldn’t help but suspect  that this is probably how Trump supporters view the world. To a liberal New Yorker, it’s almost a horror story; the footnote explanation for the current political climate. The writer of Hell or High Water, Taylor Sheridan, has made a career out of cop shows and movies, which, in the context of this story that’s empathetic for the criminal as well as law enforcement, makes me realize how the genre is parasitically dependent on gun rights. In a parallel reality in which Clinton would have won, this film would be read as a question of gun rights and bank wrongs.

Although having been nominated for four Academy Awards--Best Picture, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Original Screenplay and Best Achievement in Film Editing--it won none of them. The productions that dominated the awards this year were La La Land and Moonlight. Again, with the spectre of the Trump Presidency shading the interpretation of films we watch and the speeches we hear from the award ceremony, I couldn’t help accusing the bandit Howard brothers of Hell or High Water as Turmp voters. This is who they are, what they look like, the values they have--not simply to break the law, but a sense of justice that is resolutely immediate, applicable on the individual scale and in a landscape that is essentially empty. Rural America. In this light, the film’s potential as a lasting historical document is more compelling as a dying view of the world partially explicated by the story it puts forward, than its status as a well made film or well written script. Bluntly, the fiction put forward is that the rugged individual can solve macro economic problems by singularly addressing the problem with direct,(maybe illegal maybe gun maybe violent) action. The roles of pro- and antagonist is blurred by the two pairs of hetero white men who understand ethical behavior through tribal dynamics: the obligation to moral imperatives where natural laws must be exercised over legislated conditions. This both begins the film and ends the film. The first robbery is framed by the deathbed of the brother’s mother; the final farewell is bookends each survivor of the each pair agreeing to duel to the death.

Typically the Republican Party, the GOP, the Conservatives of this country propound the preservation and importance of religion. This last election was unique in that both parties--the religious right and liberal (sometime secular) left perceived the candidates on the poles of good and evil. Thus, the failure of the Democratic party and many Clinton supporters was not just an election, but the victory of evil over good. The question of civil society and civil rights is the domain of the liberal left, but why is the fight against Trump being framed as a right/wrong, good/bad concern? 

What are the dangers of viewing politics on a good/evil axis? I think it’s useful to look at two dissenting voices from the left of center and right of center to see how nimble the debate around Trump policies can be, whether seeing them as ethical or judicious makes sense strategically. 

A recent email exchange between Noam Chomsky and Sam Harris can serve as an example of how framing something in the context of good and bad (via good and evil, see Nietzsche “Beyond Good & Evil) can predetermine the sorts of answers that appear to force a concession of one moral value for another. (I didn’t follow the entire stunt of email bating/debating with Chomsky, but the entire discussion seemed to inappropriately concede to Harris’ desired framework, which is a binary between Western values and “non-Western values.” I should stipulate that I actually haven’t read any of the books, in their entirety, that these two authors have produced pertaining to politics. On one hand the dispute between them is an exchange of both referring the other to a book the former wrote, on the other hand the exchange comes off as a PR stunt on behalf of Harris to garner more attention to his platform from Chomsky fans and/but on a third, prosthetic hand that forces the hands of both of the other hands, and on which I’m qualifying my admitted lack of reading either of their books, both have an excess of non-literate media sharing their political perspectives, media that has communicated in the very least that it isn’t necessary to read their books because, if this media is purposeful, effective, and functional, it (the media--interviews, podcasts, speeches, et al.) can disseminate their political perspectives at least as sufficiently as their books. )

A Generalization of Chomsky & Harris Perspectives on American Foreign Policy as It Pertains to the Point of Trump Dropping Dead by Natural Causes

Noam Chomsky’s critique of American foreign policy is that it’s imperialistic. We uproot dissent in foreign countries through covert CIA and/or overt military operations for the goals of imperialist domination and subsequently economic benefit. The banner under which the U.S. government declares its violence against other people--Terrorism, Freedom, Democracy--as part of the manufacturing of the domestic population’s consent, may change but the motivation is constant. The inaccurate rhetoric of American foreign policy is found not only in the inconsistency of how these banner themes are applied across the globe--i.e. some Muslim countries being our enemies while other being our allies--but also in how our own country does not adhere to its own rallying dogma. While U.S. politicians wage war in the name of Democracy, the same politicians may be countering democratic processes at home. Chomsky’s repeated references abroad are to the CIA interventions in Nicaragua, military support of the genocide of East Timor by Indonesia, the invasion of Iraq under the guise of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and World War II. 

Sam Harris’ stance on U.S. foreign policy is that it’s the U.S.’s duty to police the world, to protect civil society and this can and may and at times must be done through militarization and tough love (i.e. secret missions, assassinations, et al.). To secure civil society, we must fight against those who oppose it, e.g. Putin. Because there are regimes that do not recognize human rights, its the duty of HR proponents to fight against the tyranny of the opposition in order to affirm women’s rights, create secular governance and end dictatorships. In the debate with Chomsky he emphasizes the “good intention” of the American foreign policy. His references abroad are much narrower than Noam’s, focusing on the Middle East and Russia since the Cold War until the present. 

Harris’ argument is pretty close to Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations,” which was the popular framework around the 9/11, Iraq War. It’s a world picture that appealed to George W. Bush. We, the West (Western Europe & North America), are culturally incompatible with the non-West, but really they mean Islam. Asia’s fine. They make our stuff. This clarification is the first of many. It’s not just Islam, but Middle East, and just Middle Eat but Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Egypt at times...who else...Yemen? Ok, it’s ad hoc. They could have said, “They’re in our way to drive to Kazakstan and must be destroyed,” and it would have been more accurate. You’ll notice, this is the basic road map for Trump’s “Muslim travel ban,” and it’s echoed by many European nationalists. But before I get to how this doesn’t float as a logical argument, I want to return to the fantasy of some good grace shining upon North America, just below the 48th parallel. 

Trump & the Grim Reaper

Ok, so with the context of these two interpretations--Chomsky & Harris--‘twer Trump to drop dead, flat out on the floor of the oval office, not resting but stone dead, deceased of natural causes the entire opposition, the rational center, the apprehensive Michiganders that cast no Presidential vote, the Left and Ultraleft would have no other alternative but to revive the idea and belief of Divine Intervention. There would be no room for secular belief. It would simply not be tenable to have the electoral college hand to leave this flaming paper bag on our doorstep and then, suddenly, not have to deal with it. It would be none other than “miraculous.” Thus, both the right and left in the U.S. would collide in religious fervor. The discord of U.S. politics since the mid 20th Century would simply evaporate, having reached a boiling point with in an orange burst of 5th Avenue egocentricity of smoke and mirrors. You think I’m kidding, but there would be no protection for civil society through/on the grounds of secular or non-belief; there would be only “believers.” Civil society would equate to Christian society in the U.S. The conservative right would simply continue their born-againing, and the left, well, they would born again also. The illogic would be...illogical. Here’s how. 

The claim that defending Muslims or Islam in America or the rest of the world by the liberal left while aspiring to secularism, human rights and equality, or at least separation of church and state, is contradictory, according to Harris. (More than Chomsky Harris engages in debate with the religious and spiritual communities as part of the New Atheist movement.) But first and foremost, this is a stereotype about any religious society, not just Islam. What about Buddhists? Are Confucians ‘ok’? Second, to view a society solely by their religious makeup is anti-intellectual, as it discards any other valuable assets of that society. I watched the first Sean Hannity interview with Trump, you know, the one where Sean basically tricks the old fart into agreeing to pardon some people he knows, and what’s more interesting than any of that hour rehearsed interview is that a youtube commercial by the Islamic society directly followed the video. It correctly explained the many contributions to the world that Islam has made. For example, the idea of zero. Where would be without zeros? But the point is that any society, regardless of their origin stories, afterlife beliefs or distinctions between “science” and “religion” (this is a Western distinction, BTW. See ‘China’) have great contributions to the world, knowledge, food, history, language. Third, can you secure secularism while securing a freedom of religion? *(And I should clarify that I’m an atheist, more over secular). The answer is ‘yes,’ and it’s possible only through example, at probably through law, which is what most of these countries that are worried about Muslims already have. They have a higher standard of living which sets the example for people in poorer countries to say, hey, maybe it would be a good idea to go there, or, ‘wait, no one is getting killed there, that’s an example of my kind of neighborhood.’ As for laws, you vote on them. It’s democracy. For those of us who cling to secular society just because we believe it’s superior than sharia law, well that’s is just as dogmatic as those who cling to another belief system. 

Having given the Harris-teria a few nods, it’s important to return to Islamophia directly, because it’s pertinent in not just the U.S. What is actually going on here? That is, what’s really at stake right now: is there an overtaking by Islam, or an ebb of civil rights? I’d say, ‘no.’ There is no coordinated effort for Islam to finish the job of the Crusades. In real numbers, no European country crosses 11% of Muslims.  What’s the bigger danger, some head garb or fascism turning against the civilian population. Fascism is alive and well in the U.S. and Europe. Why is this a bigger concern? Well, discriminating against 100% of society because you have 10% you don’t like is sad math. 

As pointed out during the Weapons of Mass Destruction campaign and Bush: Deux, Islam isn’t the enemy, as we have allies in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco...actually, most of them, at some time. If you’re worried about Islam, go make a friend who’s Muslim and you’ll be happier. If you’re worried about extremist--whether black, brown, or white--the answer is to improve their standard of living. In fact, for you Europeans who are thinking of protecting your country against the influence of refugees, just know that that’s exactly what George W. Bush would have said. You hated that guy. So did I. Don’t fall for him. You’re better than that. Use your creativity and innovation to deal with this in an un-Bush-ly manner. 

And when compared to our current and recent allies, the Clash of Civilizations model simply doesn’t hold water. I didn’t buy the rhetoric during Bush Deux and I don’t buy it via S. Harris. Reagan didn’t buy it either, as he sent weapons to Afghanistan to fight the clash with the other spectre: Communism. Not even Trump really buys it. Actually, most of the countries we are fighting in, have been fighting in, funding military conflict, or have special operations aren’t Muslim, they’re Christian. As of 2014, the U.S. had around 134 countries that SOCOM, SOF, training of foreign militaries that was going on. Central & South America. Southeast Asia. Pacific Islands. 

(Christian countries)

Apart from their selective cartographic interpretation, they (Bush, Harris, Huntington, but not CIA) also completely omit the civil rights issue pertaining to discriminating against Muslim Americans, which can be traced back to Civil Rights movement, Louis Farrakhan, Malcom X, et al. Discrimination against Muslims is not only illegal under Constitutional right to  the Freedom of Religion, but it savagely and disproportionately effects people of color. If Harris preferred a logical, historical continuity, the lines of discrimination are much more ardent than the clash between civilizations in this country and others. And so, calling it the BS that it is catalyzes the liberal left’s defense of Islam: that it’s a false pretense.