September11/R.A.Hettinga

Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 09:18:46 -0400 To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net From: "R. A. Hettinga" 

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At 8:49 PM +0100 on 9/21/01, Adam Back wrote:

> Err, are you sure the reason the US was attacked is isn't more to > do with the interventionist US foreign policy, and past military > action in, and sponsorship, arming, training etc. of Iran, Iraq, > Israel, etc than to do with the the US TV news favorite mantra of > "because the terrorists hate our freedom".

...and of course, it has *nothing* to do with the fact that countries like Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Lybia, et. al., are run by patriarchal xenophobic racist totalitarians who support mass-destruction and violence against their people while trying to export it to the rest of the world, right? Nope. Not at all.

Of course, that's not a problem if they don't export that shit here to the US, frankly. Except that now that they've done it here, and very well, thank you very much. And, in doing so, they've pissed off almost the entire civilized world, meaning those countries who, for the most part at least, *pretend* they're not patriarchal xenophobic racist totalitarians. That includes, oddly enough, some of their mostly co-religionist neighbors, who, until now, were so *frightened* by these thugs that they permitted fundraising for those very terrorist activities in the guise of humanitarian non-governmental "organizations", most of which teach, guess what, patriarchal xenophobic racist totalitarianism.

Sheesh, Adam.

I think, someday, we're going to have force without nation states, and that it will be cheaper, safer, and more peaceful that what we have now. More to the point, that it will enable more people to get more stuff cheaper. To actually live better, longer, happier, than they did before. That's progress.

Unfortunately, that's not what we have now. People like Bin Laden, Hamas, et.al., are creatures of nation-states. *All* so-called "non-governmental organizations", from the Red-Cross to Al Queida, are creatures of nation-states. They're as much creatures of nation-states as the modern corporation, including so-called "multi-national" corporations. They're all permitted, legally, somewhere. That's the problem.
 * somewhere*, *allowed* to exist, legally, by a nation-state,

Someday, we'll have the ability to control assets and do finance without laws. I think, like most people on these lists, that internet financial cryptography will allow us to do exactly that. Until then, however, we control assets with laws, and that means force, monopolistic force in the form of a geographically bounded nation-state, and that means that when someone uses force in a fashion that pisses off the the entire planet -- except in places where children, from birth, are indoctrinated in patriarchical xenophobic racist totalitarianism -- some *nation-state* is responsible. Period.

Cheers, RAH

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-- - R. A. Hettinga  The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation  44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'