Projecting Peace in the Balkans
first posted to
GEODESIC (listserv/newsgroup)
November 29, 1995
My feeling on the Bosnia situation is I'd be a lot happier if the
anti-nationalism thread, encapsulated in the Fuller
Projection, which I delight in describing as 'copy-protected against
showing political states', were given stronger currency in cyberspace.
Questioning the political solution to age-old survival issues is
not a strident, militant exercise, but a remixing of instruments,
more muting here, more amplification there. A lot of the most
unstable nations were drawn into existence, did not arise
organically from ethnic affiliations or other bonds of human
networking. Even some of the more organic states have a shallow and
artificial ring to them today.
Today, the topologies that bind human-to-human, even simple
ethnographic binding, is too complex to fit onto a two-dimensional
map. The nation-state jigsaw puzzle is not a solution, but is part
of the problem. Communities in many disparate parts of the world
feel common ties, and are integrated financially, culturally,
without having any geographical turf that puts them inside,
everyone else outside. It has gotten too mixed up for that now.
What I'd like to see is well-funded
World Game displays giving us lots of data about where all the
armaments are coming from. Where exactly are the manufacturers,
what are the brand names, the prices? Where do all these people get
weapons so easily to push this or that cause? Who makes money
selling weapons? This should not be arcane knowledge for the paid
analysts in cubicles someplace, but common knowledge accessible to
any 6th grader who wants to know.
Lots of people take their nation-states very seriously and never
question their integrity as human contrivances designed to solve
certain problems. This will continue to be the case. But some of us
do not see this theater as quality drama, and question the right of
political pundits to monopolize the world stage with their sage
lines and proposed scenarios, would like a greater mix and variety,
especially with a focus on possible near futures that would be too
interesting and intelligent and worth living in to make war seem
such an attractive alternative.
If history a few years from now is going to have a lot less
interest in nations and nationalism, then being a hero or martyr
for this or that nation maybe won't seem so attractive to the young
impressionables anxious to go out in a blaze of glory, taking as
many of the enemy with them as possible etc. Not a channel that's
going to get high ratings. Not a show we're going to waste much
time on in future. Maybe time to learn some new roles and get out
of the guns and coffins routine. Get this: a lot of us kids don't
see your nations on our maps, and we don't care to learn about them
as political entities.
We do not care for boundaries and wonder why you do. Not an
apathetic 'not caring' or ignorant laziness but a willful,
intentional, focused not-tuning-in, not recognizing, as an exercise
of personal freedom to not have history ram itself down our
throats. Again, this is just a thread, a bias, which is needed, in
my estimation, to balance a seriously off-balance focus on
nation-states as now and forever more.
We have so many nations facing exponentially increasing debt
loads (including the US, but I'm less concerned about that),
sacrificing the education of children, health care, to pay back
what in many cases was borrowed by political leaders to feather
their own nests, to finance ill-conceived projects contracted out
to political cronies. Now the children must pay with their
futures.
In Grunch of Giants, Fuller suggests a compassionate way
out, wherein we hit the reset button on the ruinous sovereign state
accounting system which from within is not suggesting any real
fixes, beyond short term bandaid bailouts. The compassionate
perspective is from without, seeing the Earth from space, as one,
whole, bathed in a generous energy income, but not blessed with
infinite time to make mistakes without learning from them.
So I circle the Fuller Projection and say I do not believe in
these nations, even as I pay taxes, vote sometimes, pay attention
to national affairs. I see drama, scripts, acting. I see theater. But I no
longer willingly suspend my disbelief. And what I propose in place
of political Great Tragedy is also drama, scripts, acting. Nothing
new -- but I'd suggest new plot lines, definitely.
The show must go on.
Kirby Urner
after tuning in a lot of Bosnia stuff via the media
For Further Reading
-
Evacuation of non-combatants -- circuit diagram (August 28,
1998)
-
AFSC Peacekeeper Pod scenario (Oct 16, 1998)
-
The Kosovo Storyboard (Jan 20, 1999) w/
followup
- More re NATO and Kosovo (Mar 17-25,
1999)
- Quaker Kosovo
Peace Page by Chuck Fager (note
re link)
-
Closer to Midnight (Editorial, Mar 30, 1999)
- NATO
Air Show (spoof poster)
-
Solving the Kosovo Crisis (Apr 1, 1999)
- Military Orwellianism (Apr 4,
1999)
- From the Russian viewpoint:
analysis and
cartoon (Apr 6, 1999)
-
More analysis (Apr 6, 1999)
-
More analysis re Eurowar (Apr 15, 1999)
-
Closer to Midnight 2 (Editorial, April 16, 1999)
-
More thinking re the Balkans (Apr 17, 1999)
-
Update from the Russia Desk (Apr 19, 1999)
- More pro-USA historical narrative
(Apr 20, 1999)
-
Summary: USA vs LAWCAP's NATO (Apr 21, 1999)
- More
re Peacekeeper Pods in the Balkans (Apr 22, 28, 1999 -- w/
links)
-
Make Peace, Simulate War (Apr 28, 1999)
-
NATO Uber Alles! (Editorial, May 21, 1999) with some
follow-up (Jun 22, 1999)
- General
Systems Theory: Brainstorming New Scenarios for our Global
University
- The Fuller Projection
- USA OS
- Desovereignization
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