In domestic politics, it's sometimes necessary to redirect growing popular tension and discontent into a spectacle. Because the people demand that something happen after a certain amount of attention has been committed to an issue, a ritual that reaffirms the status quo can be substituted for a genuinely disruptive climax. French politics has had a lot of these ritualistic repetitions of "barricades in the streets" which look real but in fact maintain the status quo. The moment of crisis can "sterilized" by placing it inside the magic circle of play, sticking to traditional roles, etc.
America has invented something similar in foreign affairs: a ritual blend of Hollywood logic and airshows which, provided the target also wants to maintain the status quo, can be staged for the benefit of a world audience. People immediately forget the details because, at an unconscious level, they understand that the status quo has been stabilized, that the details were part of a ritual and not a dangerous situation that activates the hypothalamus. Genuinely dangerous situations burn themselves into the memory, like the first few weeks of coronavirus before that crisis also transitioned into spectacle and play (nobody remembers when exactly coronavirus "ended" or whether they still have to hang onto their vaccination card!)
I can't stand the airshows myself. Yeah, we get stealth bombers at american sporting events all the time. I've even seen special forces guys do a parachute landing into a football stadium. It's really too much.
All of this make sense when you realized that the world political economy is (about to) irreversibly change. The status quo that this hyperreality desperately maintains is about the Virtual Economy that practically runs as a Gestalt Field Economy. This is why "Nothing Ever Happens" in a dialectical twists becomes even "stronger" as more things "happened" but status quo seemingly "stabilized".
But such state of affairs couldn't be held in perpetuity. Reality will catch up. Amerikanets said SMO supposed to be like this until Boris Johnson got airdropped to Kiev. Seems like it hinges on Boris Johnson's sole action, but actually it was reality catching to the untenable further virtualization of Post-Soviet conflict.
The vortex of hyperreality that obscures the Post-Pax America will rotates even faster until it's implode.
Whatever the details, so far Venezuelan forces have refrained from actively fighting US aggression, and the US forces are trying to avoid escalating to that scenario - which is actually one of the most intelligent things I can think of that they've done in a long time.
Unfortunately there's some degree of success by the neocon imperialists installing a terribly destructive proxies without a meaningful fight - with Syria and Argentina as prime examples. Postwar Iraq is another place where the situation is confused, the US is unequivocally hated (and justifiably), but the government avoids conflict. Here they're going to want another Milei, I imagine. Hopefully people around the world become educated to how costly and destructive such scenarios are.
Americans are a populace who interact with the world through virtuality. Their phones act as secondary endocrine systems. They are glands, or secondary systems to their glands.
News drops: they receive adrenaline. They immediately check social media timelines: more adrenaline. They check all their groupchats: more adrenaline. They run through their heads what they are going to post: more adrenaline. These cycles of pseudo-events, virtual wars, hyperreality, or psyops, are necessary now for the economy to run.
There will be a withdrawal when things calm down, and they will forget this ever happened.
The jail they have Maduro and his wife in has real bars that keep him within their walls, and last I knew Brooklyn ain't in Venezuela, but.... nevertheless your point stands....maybe twas a double triple quadruple cross deal gone bad, or I also read trumplestilskin didn't like Maduro dancing....he was jealous....
If he's lucky Nicholas Maduro can move in to the building Bassar Assad resides in. In Russia....
They can dance together, like when I saw John Horner dance with another man at the Dolphin club....before they kicked me out for my bad piana playing....forget the other dude's name....
Noticeably, the only side to endure actual casualties was Maduro's bodyguard, a team of 40 or so cuban mercenaries.
If I were Maduro, I would be thanking Trump for freeing me from a group of psychopaths like that. Even if he wanted to step down from power, which he almost certainly does, there is no way a Cuban bodyguard would ever let him do that.
In domestic politics, it's sometimes necessary to redirect growing popular tension and discontent into a spectacle. Because the people demand that something happen after a certain amount of attention has been committed to an issue, a ritual that reaffirms the status quo can be substituted for a genuinely disruptive climax. French politics has had a lot of these ritualistic repetitions of "barricades in the streets" which look real but in fact maintain the status quo. The moment of crisis can "sterilized" by placing it inside the magic circle of play, sticking to traditional roles, etc.
America has invented something similar in foreign affairs: a ritual blend of Hollywood logic and airshows which, provided the target also wants to maintain the status quo, can be staged for the benefit of a world audience. People immediately forget the details because, at an unconscious level, they understand that the status quo has been stabilized, that the details were part of a ritual and not a dangerous situation that activates the hypothalamus. Genuinely dangerous situations burn themselves into the memory, like the first few weeks of coronavirus before that crisis also transitioned into spectacle and play (nobody remembers when exactly coronavirus "ended" or whether they still have to hang onto their vaccination card!)
I can't stand the airshows myself. Yeah, we get stealth bombers at american sporting events all the time. I've even seen special forces guys do a parachute landing into a football stadium. It's really too much.
All of this make sense when you realized that the world political economy is (about to) irreversibly change. The status quo that this hyperreality desperately maintains is about the Virtual Economy that practically runs as a Gestalt Field Economy. This is why "Nothing Ever Happens" in a dialectical twists becomes even "stronger" as more things "happened" but status quo seemingly "stabilized".
But such state of affairs couldn't be held in perpetuity. Reality will catch up. Amerikanets said SMO supposed to be like this until Boris Johnson got airdropped to Kiev. Seems like it hinges on Boris Johnson's sole action, but actually it was reality catching to the untenable further virtualization of Post-Soviet conflict.
The vortex of hyperreality that obscures the Post-Pax America will rotates even faster until it's implode.
this is a video essay on why movies today dont feel real and hence forgotten.
it boils down to the human mind understanding subconscious reality, physical reaction : "Indexicality"
its tangentially related to your comment https://youtu.be/tvwPKBXEOKE
"if we don't know what we are doing, neither does the enemy"
Every American General, ever
—Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead
It might be more properly attributed to the life and death of cnl Blimp. Although it's probably even older
Whatever the details, so far Venezuelan forces have refrained from actively fighting US aggression, and the US forces are trying to avoid escalating to that scenario - which is actually one of the most intelligent things I can think of that they've done in a long time.
Unfortunately there's some degree of success by the neocon imperialists installing a terribly destructive proxies without a meaningful fight - with Syria and Argentina as prime examples. Postwar Iraq is another place where the situation is confused, the US is unequivocally hated (and justifiably), but the government avoids conflict. Here they're going to want another Milei, I imagine. Hopefully people around the world become educated to how costly and destructive such scenarios are.
Americans are a populace who interact with the world through virtuality. Their phones act as secondary endocrine systems. They are glands, or secondary systems to their glands.
News drops: they receive adrenaline. They immediately check social media timelines: more adrenaline. They check all their groupchats: more adrenaline. They run through their heads what they are going to post: more adrenaline. These cycles of pseudo-events, virtual wars, hyperreality, or psyops, are necessary now for the economy to run.
There will be a withdrawal when things calm down, and they will forget this ever happened.
The jail they have Maduro and his wife in has real bars that keep him within their walls, and last I knew Brooklyn ain't in Venezuela, but.... nevertheless your point stands....maybe twas a double triple quadruple cross deal gone bad, or I also read trumplestilskin didn't like Maduro dancing....he was jealous....
If he's lucky Nicholas Maduro can move in to the building Bassar Assad resides in. In Russia....
They can dance together, like when I saw John Horner dance with another man at the Dolphin club....before they kicked me out for my bad piana playing....forget the other dude's name....
Noticeably, the only side to endure actual casualties was Maduro's bodyguard, a team of 40 or so cuban mercenaries.
If I were Maduro, I would be thanking Trump for freeing me from a group of psychopaths like that. Even if he wanted to step down from power, which he almost certainly does, there is no way a Cuban bodyguard would ever let him do that.
oh fuck off
It's a real erik prince-style move, making sure mobody dies except for the cuban mercenaries. Just like in angola.
Excellent overview of the chaos. Kudos.
In short: Nothing ever happens