Arthur and Marieluise Kroker

[clement Thomas - pavu.com]

http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=296

Arthur and Marieluise Kroker
The 20th century took place under the sign of nuclear superpower: a cold 
war with bloc to bloc political confrontations; a military rhetoric of 
graduated escalating respnses; a strangely comforting illusion of
"mutually 
assured destruction." Deterrence was everywhere. Dissuasion was the
code. A 
bored culture living in the shadowland of apocalypse now.
That ended September 11th. The field of power flipped. The triumphant
era 
of the last superpower suddenly gave way to the contagious logic of
viral 
power. In place of the certainty principle of nuclear stalemate, there 
emerges now the radical uncertainty of the terrorism of micro-power. The 
always suspended fantaticism of technological holocaust is challenged by 
the fanaticism of religious zealotry.
The logic of deterrence no longer functions. Deterrrence only works in a 
deadly game in which adversaries have a primary interest in preserving 
their own lives. Sacrificing one's own life is the first gambit, and
real 
psychological fuel of suicide commandos.
Dissuasion is inoperative. Again, the code of dissuasion is intimately 
linked to a politics founded on preserving territory. However, viral
power 
is terroristic precisely because it occupies only the imaginary
territory 
of symbolic exchange. The religious ecstasy of a sudden, unexpected, 
devastating strike against the symbolic capital of the American empire:
the 
trinity of the World Trade Center, Pentagon and the airlines of America.
The terrorism of the new age of viral power has these symbolic qualities:
It is a micro-power, not a superpower.
It is low tech, not high tech--and thus invisible to the optical
scanners 
of the ruling technological regime. Paradoxically, the (technological) 
weakness of viral power is its strength.
It is subterranean, secretive--driven by a crusading spirit equal to the 
religious zeal of the Middle Ages. Breaking the rules of publicity
culture, 
it claims no responsibility and thus speaks clearly to the cultural 
imagination of the suppressed and powerless everywhere.
It is a matter of biological violence, not physics. Flowing invisibly 
through the rhetorical screen of the 'anti-ballistic missile system,'
viral 
power adopts the strategy of the attacking parasite: invading the body
of 
the host (the American homeland), bleeding its tactical intelligence
(those 
flight schools in Florida), circulating in its commercial bloodstream 
(American airlines), and imploding in a violent fatal metastasis that
has 
as its aim the infiltration of the mediascape through its apocalyptic 
effects. Viral power avoids conflict with the real military assests of
the 
host nation because its actual intention is a strategic media strike.
Viral 
power is understandable only in the language of the media: the twin 
spectacles of sadness and terror; the doubled language of fascination
and 
dread. In the days ahead, the media spectacle will shift to the viral 
language of rage and revenge.
Tragically, the real missiles were those American people taken hostage
in 
the air. The real targets were not hardened missile silos, but the
dominant 
symbols of American power. The real terrorism was the destabilization of 
the American government. The real war is the coming war on civil
liberties 
as the price for combating terrorism. The real 'ground zero' was
provoking 
America to acts of vengeance that will only fast-feed the future rage of 
viral power. The scenario of terrorism, then, as a mutating virus that 
copies itself to American rage on its way to revenge against the 
host-scapegoat.
Viral power goes into the sea, the sky, the earth. It cannot be defeated
by 
the normal methods of nuclear warfare. It can only be copied.
The virus of terrorism is about to enter the American bloodstream,
taking 
democracy hostage. Listen to House of Representatives Minority Leader 
Richard Gephardt:
"We are in a new world. We have to rebalance freedom and security. We
can't 
take away people's civil liberties. But we're not going to have all the 
openness and freedom we have had."
The implosion of American democracy, then, as the ultimate objective of
the 
suicide commandos. The 'war on terrorism' may have finally begun, but
the 
first casualty may well be American freedom as it was envisioned before 
September 11, 2001.