<underfire> Response to Nigel Thrift

[Ryan Griffis]

On Dec 7, 2006, at 5:06 AM, Anahid Kassabian wrote:

> Finally, with Thrift, I worry about paranoia - a lot. I keep  
> wondering about the relationship between trauma and paranoia, which  
> perhaps comes from having lived in NY in 2001 and in the UK, though  
> not in London, since 2005. I can't help thinking that both the NY  
> and London attacks, however horrific, were basically one-offs; my  
> friends who have lived through decades of violence in Beirut are  
> less paranoid than many of my friends in NY, but I don't know  
> enough about political discourse in Lebanon to know how to think  
> this through. Still, I keep coming back to the question of the  
> relationship between power and political or national paranoia. Is  
> the kind of paranoia circulating now in the US and UK a consequence  
> of political privilege and power? Is there a parallel in the  
> absence of power? Despair? The absence of affect? or the appearance  
> thereof?

Regarding privilege and power, i'm reminded of a statement from  
Cornell West following the 1992 uprising in LA (used by the actor/ 
performer Anna Deavere Smith in her docu-performance "Twilight") , in  
which (i'm very roughly paraphrasing here) that:
white people couldn't go living the life they live if they felt black  
sadness. They have their own kind of sadness, related to the American  
Dream, but it's a wholly different kind of sadness.
i think the same may be for what's been called paranoia here.
This also takes me back to the infamous image of the house (one of  
many i've heard) labeled "Baghdad" following hurricane Katrina, and  
the subsequent "official" labeling by FEMA.
http://www.kcoyle.net/img/baghdad.jpg
Why i'm reminded of that image is because of the interpretations of  
it read by some of the, mostly white, press and others i've talked  
to, namely, only making the connection with the similar image of  
devastation seen in pictures of Baghdad. Of course, there was that,  
but more crucial to the comparison, i think, is the militarization of  
space where the inhabitants were the subjected to, rather than  
benefitting from, the occupation. That it IS an occupation.
Some of the most coherent thinking i've come across that pulled these  
thoughts together is Ruth Gilmore, who's done much work on prisons  
incidentally (to go back to Dan's post). I know these terms aren't  
necessarily the sole production of Gilmore, but her use of the  
concepts of "anti-state state," "inhuman human" and "organized  
abandonment" are extremely useful in thinking about these things, and  
making connections between US policy at home and abroad, which i  
think, is the responsibility of those of us working/living here,  
since those connections are deep and entrenched.
It's as important as every for those of us in the US to recognize and  
face that there is an occupation happening here, as well as abroad.  
This has all been said here before, but it seems to me that any (US  
based) resistance to Empire and US-led/backed/endorsed globalized  
violence needs to work from that assumption.
An interview with Gilmore is here for anyone interested:
http://www.yourblackeye.org/YBE_Interview_Gilmore_1Q05.html
And she has a new book out titled "Golden Gulag" about the political  
economy of prisons in California.
best,
ryan