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65

Chapter 3: Th e Economic Consequences of the Perpetual Peace

4
terms
2
notes

Dienst, R. (2017). Chapter 3: Th e Economic Consequences of the Perpetual Peace. In Dienst, R. The Bonds of Debt. Verso, pp. 65-94

66

This lesson seems especially apt for the good citizens of the West, many of whom tend to mistake their own moments of private repose for the final realization of peace on earth. Against those who assume that the planet has been working its way toward an eventual state of tranquil prosperity—except for some final pieces of humanitarian business to be tidied up, a few cases of unresolved ethnic unrest, some shocking atrocities, and an occasional multinational police action—one should point out that the fault lines of conflict keep spreading all over the place. The front lines of warfare may not be visible all at once, but they cut everywhere, across households and workplaces, down streets and over countrysides, around patches of urban turf and rural tracts, through overlapping jurisdictions and spheres of influence; they weave back and forth through forced migrations and acts of exodus, erased and overwritten by territorial seizures, armed threats, surgical strikes, and grand strategic zones. What was advertised as an era of peace, when war was finally confined to the hinterlands or carefully administered in calibrated doses, should instead be recognized as a generalized system of violence long in the making, a fraught world where peace remains a precarious and elusive exception—and that only by virtue of careful stagecraft . In the name of keeping the global peace, the strongest combatants have claimed permanent emergency powers with monopoly privileges.

man this aligns so well with some of my ideas (on the prevailing attitude being that things are fine, the system is working, there are no more big battles to fight, now all we have to do is live in peace etc)

—p.66 by Richard Dienst 6 years, 7 months ago

This lesson seems especially apt for the good citizens of the West, many of whom tend to mistake their own moments of private repose for the final realization of peace on earth. Against those who assume that the planet has been working its way toward an eventual state of tranquil prosperity—except for some final pieces of humanitarian business to be tidied up, a few cases of unresolved ethnic unrest, some shocking atrocities, and an occasional multinational police action—one should point out that the fault lines of conflict keep spreading all over the place. The front lines of warfare may not be visible all at once, but they cut everywhere, across households and workplaces, down streets and over countrysides, around patches of urban turf and rural tracts, through overlapping jurisdictions and spheres of influence; they weave back and forth through forced migrations and acts of exodus, erased and overwritten by territorial seizures, armed threats, surgical strikes, and grand strategic zones. What was advertised as an era of peace, when war was finally confined to the hinterlands or carefully administered in calibrated doses, should instead be recognized as a generalized system of violence long in the making, a fraught world where peace remains a precarious and elusive exception—and that only by virtue of careful stagecraft . In the name of keeping the global peace, the strongest combatants have claimed permanent emergency powers with monopoly privileges.

man this aligns so well with some of my ideas (on the prevailing attitude being that things are fine, the system is working, there are no more big battles to fight, now all we have to do is live in peace etc)

—p.66 by Richard Dienst 6 years, 7 months ago

the opposite or counterpart of a fact or truth; the side of a coin or medal bearing the head or principal design

76

Th e second link between war and debt is really just the obverse of the first: alongside debts imposed in order to make war, there are debts imposed in order to keep the peace.

—p.76 by Richard Dienst
notable
6 years, 7 months ago

Th e second link between war and debt is really just the obverse of the first: alongside debts imposed in order to make war, there are debts imposed in order to keep the peace.

—p.76 by Richard Dienst
notable
6 years, 7 months ago

(noun) a judicial decision or sentence / (noun) a decree in bankruptcy / (verb) to settle judicially / (verb) to act as judge

82

the only arena in which “moral and legal” justifications can be adjudicated is a “public sphere” emptied of all effective mechanisms of answerability

—p.82 by Richard Dienst
notable
6 years, 7 months ago

the only arena in which “moral and legal” justifications can be adjudicated is a “public sphere” emptied of all effective mechanisms of answerability

—p.82 by Richard Dienst
notable
6 years, 7 months ago

(noun) the governor of a province in ancient Persia / (noun) ruler / (noun) a subordinate official; henchman (world leaders or governors who are heavily influenced by larger world superpowers or hegemonies and act as their surrogates)

82

the dimension of spectacle has never before interfered so palpably, so insistently, with the business of keeping one’s satrapies in order

citing "the radical group Retort" on the situation after 9/11

—p.82 missing author
unknown
6 years, 7 months ago

the dimension of spectacle has never before interfered so palpably, so insistently, with the business of keeping one’s satrapies in order

citing "the radical group Retort" on the situation after 9/11

—p.82 missing author
unknown
6 years, 7 months ago

(noun) the art or practice of pushing a dangerous situation or confrontation to the limit of safety especially to force a desired outcome

83

it seemed like a case of old-fashioned brinksmanship, warning “partisans of the deed” that the state itself can match their boldness and ferocity

on the Iraq War

—p.83 by Richard Dienst
confirm
6 years, 7 months ago

it seemed like a case of old-fashioned brinksmanship, warning “partisans of the deed” that the state itself can match their boldness and ferocity

on the Iraq War

—p.83 by Richard Dienst
confirm
6 years, 7 months ago
90

[...] She tries to outsmart the bombers. But, Kluge notes, it is too late. Her only chance to develop an effective strategy against the bombers did not occur that morning or even the night before, or in 1939, or in 1933 . . . but in 1918, at the end of the previous war, when she would have had to join with thousands of other teachers, to organize and teach “hard,” in order to build lasting social relationships that might have blocked the rise of the Nazis. But Gerda learns the lesson of November 1918 in April 1945: Once upon a time, it would have been possible to turn history around.

from the short story “Strategy from Below” by Alexander Kluge, about a German schoolteacher during an air raid in 1945

—p.90 by Richard Dienst 6 years, 7 months ago

[...] She tries to outsmart the bombers. But, Kluge notes, it is too late. Her only chance to develop an effective strategy against the bombers did not occur that morning or even the night before, or in 1939, or in 1933 . . . but in 1918, at the end of the previous war, when she would have had to join with thousands of other teachers, to organize and teach “hard,” in order to build lasting social relationships that might have blocked the rise of the Nazis. But Gerda learns the lesson of November 1918 in April 1945: Once upon a time, it would have been possible to turn history around.

from the short story “Strategy from Below” by Alexander Kluge, about a German schoolteacher during an air raid in 1945

—p.90 by Richard Dienst 6 years, 7 months ago