Obama, Nobel & Hope

“With your feet on the air
And your head on the ground,
Try this trick, and spin it. Yeah. YEAH!”

Pixies – Where Is My Mind?



We are truly living in the age of Newspeak. In the novel 1984, Orwell’s Big Brother reinforced his message that “War is Peace.” Throughout the War on Terrorism the American population has been continually reminded that the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq are being waged so as to assure peace in the Homeland. War is Peace. It is no different in the UK; Brown habitually speaks of “the security of our country” in relation to the ongoing hostilities in both theatres.
When announcing the deployment of 30,000 extra troops to fight in Afghanistan, at the Military Academy at West Point, that nursery of belligerents, President Barack Obama gave us a Newspeak twist on a familiar phrase. He stated,
“We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might, and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure, and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes."
Right makes might. He was quoting the closing lines of Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 Cooper Union Address concerning the abolition of slavery. It is a clever reference point, Lincoln went on to take the presidency and abolish slavery, now, 149 years later, the first black president uses his words to strengthen the morality of his decision to deploy troops.
“Might makes right” was first used by the American abolitionist Adin Ballou in 1846 to deride the warmongering of politicians. Ballou was a pacifist. His distillation of human nature into a three-word sound bite has now been contorted so as to reinforce the message of war. This is spin at its most devious, take a well-known sentiment and twist it so that its sense is reversed. But, what is truly impressive about this piece of spin is the fact it gives the audience the illusion that the government’s course of action has been morally sanctioned. We all know that “might makes right” is wrong, but “right makes might” gives the casual listener the impression that the use of force has been justified. We are in the right. This is a just war.

It is no longer just words that are being spun; events are contorted so as to buttress the new world order. Obama has accepted the Nobel Prize for Peace. The surge was officially confirmed in the weeks between the announcement of his winning, and his receiving of the award today. Not an auspicious beginning to this laureate’s record. Ostensibly we are told that the Nobel committee chose Obama in recognition of his agenda, believing that to award him the prize now will anticipate the realisation of his intentions. It is an award of hope, the very idea that carried Obama’s election campaign. Hope, all that remains in the jar after the evils and ills have already been released.

The Cuckoo's Post

I have always wanted two passports but for now I content myself with my many email addresses. Four at the last count. And then there are the sites I manage, a blog, a myspace page, the authonomy profile. For each of these locations an avatar, a screen name, a password. It gets difficult to keep track of all this information, perhaps our children are already adapting, but I began with pen and paper – and it wasn’t that long ago.
Now, what are the odds that one of my sign in names and another of my passwords, to me unrelated, in fact correspond to those chosen by a different web user? Highly improbable perhaps, but not impossible.
Let us for the moment imagine that I mistakenly enter these corresponding units of information and arrive at someone else’s page. Would I click back and try again, or would I snoop? Would I tinker? What would you do?
Of course I haven’t actually written this entry, not the “I” you think I am. The owner of this page is in for a surprise.
Maybe he will like it.

From an email I have just received:

“Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog.
“Blogs engaged in this behaviour are called spam blogs and can be recognised by their irrelevant, repetitive or nonsensical text."

Oh dear. I read on.

“Spam blogs cause various problems beyond simply wasting a few seconds of your time when you happen to come across one. They can clog up search engines making it difficult to find real content on the subjects that interest you. They may scrape content from other sites on the web, using other people's writing to make it look as though they have useful information of their own.

“You won't be able to publish posts to your blog until one of our humans reviews it and verifies that it is not a spam blog”


This communiqué has given me some food for thought. As it says – spam blogs can be recognised by their irrelevant, repetitive or nonsensical text. I must await judgement from one of the systems “humans”. My writing is to be assessed but, for better or worse, my writing often employs “irrelevant, repetitive or nonsensical text”. And what, in the end, is any kind of writing but the scraping of others ideas, “using other people's writing to make it look as though they have useful information of their own?”

In Dreams

Once I set my laundry upon a clothes horse to dry next to the radiator in my room. From time to time I caught it with the corner of my eye and I imagined that someone was stood in the room with me, watching me, waiting for me to write something of worth. Since then I often I wake up in the middle of the night with the sense that someone is observing me. It only takes a few seconds for this apparition to vanish into the dark, or to resolve itself into a jumper on the back of the chair, but these few seconds are time enough for me to recognise the non-existent entity. Over the years I have come to be familiar with this vision, to the point now where I don't even have to look up to know that it is there, watching me, ready to dissolve should I lift my head from the pillow. And so, because I no longer need to look up, the entity remains for longer, it has begun to take on a reality - a reality of its own which is paradoxically dependent upon my not looking at it. I believe that it is grateful for my choosing not to stare it into nothingness. I have allowed it to form a rudimentary consciousness of its own. This consciousness is a reversal of the awareness that you or I experience (one in which recognition of the other is enough to formulate self-awareness). I want to talk to this creature, to ask it how it feels, ask what it is like to exist so precariously. Once I did voice a question. I asked for its name. It did not reply of course. I did not expect it to. Vocal chords are made of flesh and blood. I worry sometimes that if it were to answer me then I would be struck with the awful realisation that I am not the human in the equation, merely the phantom of a waking person and that to be noticed would be my undoing. Perhaps this is why I no longer look up at the apparition. Perhaps I avoid eye contact so that I may go on existing.

Those Dancers

I am convinced that it is the song of cicadas that regulate temperature and not the other way around.
I say, those dancers remind me of Buenos Aires, and they say, they’re not dancers, granddad, they’re statues.
But I see them dance.
In the shimmer of siesta I see their angles and elbows move, counter clockwise, and from between them, flanked by an ocho and a quebrada, come the men in grey coats, defined not so much by the colour of their clothes, but by their bodies ignorance of the music, the clumsy shape of their walking as they approach.
The music stops, the dancers break the embrace. Strong hands on my arms. The band is applauded and I know that Teresa is dead.
Windowless rooms, screams, the taste of blood.
Nothing they did to me could hurt as much as the hands upon my arms that day in the Milonga. The realisation that you were gone. My dear sweet Teresa, you knew the risk, but you were not afraid.
Are you okay granddad?
What? Yes. I am fine. It’s the heat. It reminds me of home.


Polaroid Art - Donald Ng

The ALL NEW Samaritan

Three robots were walking down a street one day when they came across a human lying in the gutter, there was blood on its head and it was unconscious.

The first robot said, “I am a StreetClean IV, model 5342. I was designed by the council to keep the neighbourhood free of rubbish. I shall remove this unsightly object.” It moved forward to lift the human.

The second robot stepped in front of it and said, “I am a Law Enforcer, serial number 4636291. I was designed by the government to uphold the law. I shall execute the legislature and remove this vagrant.” It moved forwards to lift the human.

The third robot pushed it aside and said, “I am a Gr8 M8 9-90. I was designed by the private sector to provide satisfaction and relief for humans. I see a human being in need. I shall revive it, care for it and increase its happiness.”

And so saying it bent down and treated the human, debiting its bank account accordingly.