Enter - ShadowHawk

While selling some books on Amazon, I came across an old 90s comic book that my cousin had collected, called ShadowHawk. I opened it and began reading...


It was New York City in the early 90s.

Crime was everywhere.

Police were either lazy or prevented from doing their jobs by the silly court rules and bullshit watchdog services.




Paul Johnstone, the protagonist, was a good kid. He stayed out of trouble even though he lived in Harlem. As a good black kid in a bad black neighborhood, he wanted to do something about the distraught social forces he saw around him. What can he do about it? He became a district attorney.

But one night a group of thugs beats him up, steals all his money, and then injects a syringe with HIV into his arm. That's so fucked up! What's he going to do about it?

In the early 90s people thought HIV was the most contagious disease on the planet. Hence Paul Johnstone looses his job after altercations with co-workers over the condition. The comic's creator, Jim Valentino, spread HIV myths and misconceptions throughout the illustrations. Some issues of ShadowHawk were aimed at dispelling the myth that HIV only affected gays and IV drug users. The 'progressive' point Valentino was making was that it affects "innocent" people too.

Needless to say there were more myths about HIV that needed dispelling, but given the level of hysteria at the time I suppose all Valentino could do was point out the differences between guilty and innocent victims of HIV. But there is another hidden "narrative" I am trying to expose within this comic.

Back to the story: the courts had become an impossible environment to be in; Paul becomes severely depressed. While walking the streets to clear up his mind one night, gang-members jump him and steal all of his shit again. How fucked up can it get for this guy? When has he had enough?

He ends up in the hospital, where a friend from the police force comes to visit him. Christina, who was fired that day for "excessive force", conspires with Paul about justice. They're both fed up with the system, they can't take it anymore. Driven by their desire to see justice prevail, they design a super exo-skeletal system that Paul wears at night when he becomes ... "ShadowHawk"...

"You used to believe in the system.

You can't anymore."

"It has failed you."

"You feel a certain amount of satisfaction as his spine breaks."




"No matter what the courts decide...

You're ShadowHawk.
And you're taking back the night."

Okay, okay, wait a second. What is the difference between superhero and vigilante, really? What is the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist? What's the difference between ShadowHawk and Rudy Guliani?

This was the same time-period in New York City history when a new paradigm for crime intervention grew in support, the "zero-tolerance" policing that exists still today. Civil liberties were suspended and still are as the New York Police Department began a new campaign inspired by the "broken windows policing" theory. This was done under the reign of mayor Rudy Guliani.

In theory, by cracking down on all forms of "criminal" activity, such as j-walking, spitting, graffiti, ordinance code violations, littering, loitering, and the like, you would significantly decrease violent crimes and property crimes. The economic results are generally in support of the thesis and - whether causally-related or not - NYC has seen a decrease in crime since the early-90s. Sociological authors have cast serious doubt on the theory and its merits.

At the same time Rudy Guliani increased the number of police on beat patrol, the number of those working on the civilian complaint board decreased or were replaced by former police officers. Thus, the number of complaints and the number of cases brought against the New York Police Department have seemingly dropped. The police now enjoy superhero vigilante status, and with fewer oppositional forces within the city government, and less criticism.

Such that, when the NYPD see something they do not like in their city today, this is how they respond:

In Oakland last week - a white police officer is caught on tape executing an innocent black man, Oscar Grant. Several video angles of the shooting available on Indybay make it impossible to deny that the police officer in fact shot the man execution style. He was not resisting and was lying flat on his face.

These are the ShadowHawks of today: the spine-breakers who patrol the streets and are above the law. The courts and the system have "failed them", and no matter what judges decide, they are ShadowHawks, and they don't give a damn about "excessive force". They enjoy, through widespread propagandistic media, a blanket of support from bourgeois society.

I have more comics to browse through. Batman is another example of a superhero rogue cop who, when the Joker and his bad guys do not admit the truth, tortures the lunatic criminals until they make a confession - with plenty of parallels to the War on Terror.

One thing the ShadowHawk comic was did brilliantly, however, was disguise a racist and anti-social tendency as something that looked at the time like racial and gender equality. By having crime-fighting ShadowHawk be a black man and by having his brutal sidekick be a woman who worked a traditional male job, it would seem to make criticism more difficult. As if having a Jew play the role of the SS would make Nazi Germany seem any more just. (There always has to be a Nazi analogy.)

Surely we have already seen parallels with this and the Barack Obama presidency.

Warrior ethos

Robert Fisk, British correspondent for the UK newspaper The Independent and credited by the phrase 'fisking', has in his new book "The Age of the Warrior" brought attention to two separate and very distinct US Armed Forces creeds. The first was originally created after the My Lai massacre in Vietnam to encourage 'professional' conduct in war. The original was scrapped in 2003 and replaced with what the military calls The Warrior Ethos to encourage an abject obedience to the mission of the armed forces.

The original text can be found in the older versions of the Soldier's Handbook and also this Field Artillery NCO Study Guide.

I am an American soldier.

I am a member of the United States Army - a protector of the greatest nation on earth.

Because I am proud of the uniform I wear, I will always act in ways creditable to the military service and the nation that it is sworn to guard.

I am proud of my own organization.

I will do all I can to make it the finest unit of the Army.

I will be loyal to those under whom I serve.

I will do my full part to carry out orders and instructions given me or my unit.

As a soldier I realize that I am a member of a time-honored Profession, that I am doing my share to keep alive the principles of freedom for which my country stands.

No matter what situation I am in, I will never do anything for pleasure, profit or personal safety, which will disgrace my uniform, my unit or my country.

I will use every means I have, even beyond the line of duty, to restrain my Army comrades from actions, disgraceful to themselves and the uniform.

I am proud of my country and it's flag.

I will try to make the people of this nation proud of the service I represent for I am an American soldier.

This is the version that Donald Rumsfeld created to be the new 'Warrior Ethos', via The Independent:

I am an American soldier.

I am a warrior and a member of a team.

I serve the people of the Unites States and live the Army values.

I will always place the mission first.

I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit.

I will never leave a fallen comrade.

I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.

I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.

I am an expert and I am a professional.

I stand ready to deploy, engage and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.

I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.

I am an American soldier.

The differences are obvious. The second version says nothing about disgraceful conduct. It says nothing about ethical standards. It emphasizes total obedience to the military chain of command. It lent itself to Abu Ghraib, to Guantanamo, and Bagram. It lent itself to war crimes.

The older version has problems too - the same problems are in the second version. In the My Lai version, for example, "greatest nation on earth" already shows signs of extreme nationalism. Both creeds reinforce subservience, domination, and unquestionable submission to hierarchy. Both appeal to professionalism, and easily give rise to the same problems that Hannah Arendt pointed out when it came to Nazi professionalism.

The second version certainly goes further than the first; Robert Fisk considers the first one acceptable, and the second one deplorable. But there is another creed that the Army has on hand, for civilians, called the Civilian Corps Creed. This creed is worse than the others in my opinion, because the civilian creed extends "Army values" onto civilian populations, and encourages the same hierarchical obedience to non-warriors. Perhaps in the wake of 9/11, everyone became an "Army civilian" and a member of the "Army team".

I am an Army Civilian - a member of the Army Team.

I am dedicated to the Army, its Soldiers and Civilians.

I will always support the mission.

I provide stability and continuity during war and peace.

I support and defend the Constitution of the United States and consider it an honor to serve the Nation and its Army.

I live the Army values of Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Professional Courage.

I am an Army Civilian.

Recorded speech - Robert Fisk in Seattle, September 2008.

Cathode Ray Mission

There is one short scene that I really like in Videodrome (1981). In David Cronenberg's alternate timeline universe there is a Catholic style inner-city "mission" called the Cathode Ray Mission. Its purpose is to help what looks like homeless people get reintegrated into normal, everyday working life. But you soon learn that the people go to the mission are not really without homes so much as without televisions. What possible reason could there be for that? In order to patch the "derelicts" back into the world of normalization, they must be treated by exposure to television. So they come to Cathode Ray for their TV "fix".

"You look like them, like one of father's derelicts," says Bianca O'blivion, the mission operator who is also the daughter of Videodrome's first victim.

"I think it's a style. It's coming back," says Max Wren, the main character.

"In that case, Mr. Wren, it's not a style. It's a disease forced upon them from lack of access to the Cathode Ray tube."


Wren - "You think a few doses of TV will help them?"

Bianca - "Watching TV will help patch them back into the world's mixing board."



"The world's mixing board" - what is that? A gigantic network of information and signals which inform the teeming masses with socially acceptable discourse. Getting patched back in is like reading up on the day's news in order to have everyday conversation with other people: what products are being consumed, what TV shows people are talking about, what political ideas should you be having, etc. The parallel today is like checking Facebook or Myspace in order to feel more connected to the drifting social discourse that takes place beyond real physical events. You can come back to the "real world" having felt as if you are completely informed, less naive about various aspects of social life.

But what is the real world? The "world's mixing board" is an arena that is more and more "realistic" everyday, and the video seers are saying that video reality is more real to them than reality in the flesh.

This Cathode Ray scene in the film is short, but provides a lot of background that helps you understand the hypothetical world that people live in, and David Cronenberg's social commentary. You notice that each derelict person in the mission is sitting alone in front of a television set, completely alienated from the rest of the world, detached from the other people who share the same class consciousness as they do. As an alienated force, they absorb a new form of 'classless' consciousness that imports the values and emotions they must have to survive in a rigorous environment. In Marx's term, an opiate of the masses.



Here's the other part. Massive doses of Videodrome's signal - a mind-altering television show that broadcasts unedited torture, and still being tested in a Pittsburgh laboratory - causes a tumor in the brain that brings about hallucinations when it receives the Videodrome signal. (This is the farfetched version of how the "society of the spectacle" works, but it isn't too far off.) These surreal hallucinations can be recorded, broadcast, and also controlled. It's the ultimate brainwashing machine.

Since the creators of Videodrome - a government-contractor - have 'benevolent' intentions they dreamed that Videodrome would supposedly bring about an ideal social situation for a new world order. And for the first time ever it is possible to exert political and social power over the proletariat without having to convince them by traditional means. The "disease" that is forced upon the proletariat by lack of access to television is their class consciousness, and the television, helping them consume imaginary commodities, is the cure. This will give them a false consciousness. In the mission Bianca remarks that Wren is beginning to "look like them." He is beginning to look more proletariat: someone who has no control over their own life.

The ability to exert the power is also, what I find interesting, a philanthropic mission with just one simple idea. Just as 19th Century philanthropist and philosopher Jeremy Bentham, convinced that his "simple idea in architecture", a panopticon, could solve the most vexing problems of Enlightenment social thought, so a Videodrome device could solve the most vexing problems of class struggle. By harmoniously coordinating self-interest with social duty in a capitalist system, Videodrome enforces as painlessly as possible a sense of social cohesion.

Video hallucination, and because the film has mild Cold War undertones, is the way to control the public mind away from the dangers of communism. "The battle for the mind of North America," says Brian O'blivion, a video prophet, "will be fought in the video arena." The company called Spectacular Optical - where Videodrome originates - also makes missile-guidance systems for NATO and products for use in the Third World. The interconnected interest between war with Soviet Russia, Third World dependence, and the need for greater public control in the liberal regimes is not something Cronenberg tries to disguise.

But Cronenberg's more obvious intention was to suggest something more along the lines of Baudrillard's simulacra. The transition of a society from industrialism to "hyperreality", marks a decisive turning point. Imagine, says Baudrillard, that a gigantic empire created a map of its own territory, and that map was so detailed that it was as big as the territory itself. When the empire eventually declined and disappeared, all that is left is the map. Baudrillard suggests that in the hyperreal transition, people merely live in the map. Beyond this horizon, value takes on a new meaning. In Baudrillard's object/value system - the sign value of an object can be considered more real than its functional, exchange, or use value. The real object, even if erased, is not as important as the sign.

Videodrome was designed to create this turning point in human history, to push us into the world of signs. The brain tumors caused by Videodrome would create a new outgrowth, a new evolutionary step in human history. Instead of being so enamored with reality in the flesh, humans will elevate their consciousness to a higher plane, the video arena. In Baudrillard's term, hyperrreality.

"Your reality is already half video hallucination," says Brian O'blivion in a video dispatch to Max Wren. "If you're not careful it will become total hallucination. You'll have to learn to live in a very strange new world."

This advice is not heeded. "Long live the new flesh!" is a slogan Max Wren starts saying once he is totally brainwashed by Videodrome. He is convinced, like others before him, that "public life on television" is more real than "private life in the flesh," in Bianca's words.

What I find the most creative on behalf of Cronenberg's vision was to use the Cathode Ray Mission as a way to explain the turning point from industrial to hyperreal forms of society. The fact that the derelicts in Videodrome's world are in need of objects that have greater sign value than functional values, describes with great surrealism the kind of warped and twisted place a late capitalist society is. Objects in the system of signs are fetishized to such an extent that they have more value than anything else.

Bamboo Garden

Probably one of the best vegan/vegetarian restaurants in Seattle is the Bamboo Garden. I was in that area eating with a friend not too long ago. When we first walked in and took a look at the menu, we get excited that literally everything on the menu is something we want to order. We're used to dismissing entres with words like "chicken" in them, and for at least the first minute we overlooked quite a bit. We had to remind ourselves that Bamboo Garden makes tofu imitations of everything: chicken, salmon, shark fin... it's very amazing and delicious.

Next time I go to Portland there are several vegan places I want to check out. Including the anarchist Red and Black Cafe.

Beneath the Pavement, the Beach

Three years after the 2005 riots in the suburbs of France post-Marxist sociologist, Slavoj Zizek, wrote that the rebellion was meaningless and without "any positive utopian vision."

Enter: a post-ideological era.

It's not that we no longer have ideologies, of course, but the dominating capitalist ideology has disguised itself so well that the ruling class can get away with unfounded impassés. We say "economy" instead of "capitalism"; we say "journalism" instead of "spectacle"; "community policing" instead of "racial profiling", etc.

Above all, what better proof is there of capitalism's triumph in the last three decades, Zizek asks, than the disappearance of the very term "capitalism"? Or perhaps the disappearance of an anti-capitalist narrative? And the disappearance of an "anti-social" narrative, where social unrest - especially 'violent' unrest - is "anti-social", and violent social stratification is ordinary.

"The fact that there was no program in the burning of Paris suburbs tells us that we inhabit a universe in which, though it celebrates itself as a society of choice, the only option available to the enforced democratic consensus is the explosion of (self-)destructive violence."

This is the most difficult task for us. To be able to explain why - what looks like "self-destructive violence" - is actually a tremendous breakthrough. There is a tendency, however, to see unplanned explosions of revolt as "without program". Zizek contrasts the suburb riots with May 1968's positive utopian vision in France. But it is true that even in 1968, the social rupture had no clear objectives most of the time either.

"The fact was that to anyone who asked rationally enough 'What do you want?' I had no answer," said a radical recalling the first Night of Barricades. "I couldn't say that I didn't even know who these comrades were, couldn't say that I was demonstrating for the sake of demonstrating."

In other words he couldn't say whether the outburst had any program, at least that he was aware of. The promise of a better world lying beneath the cobblestone street can seem like a surreal joke, once it failed to meet its objectives. Having expected nothing less than the overthrow of the dominant social order, the surreal then turned on itself.

Jacques Lacan was similarly pessimistic, though he and Foucault, too, befriended the '68 radicals - became themselves '68 radicals. Foucault threw the cobblestones at police from an occupied university building. Lacan's challenge to the spirit of '68 was this: "As revolutionaries, you are hysterics who demand a new master. You will get one."

That prediction came true. The Gaullist regime disappeared; postmodern times came after, and May '68 was not a revolution - at least not politically or economically. Now in the shadow of their failed expectation, we live in an age where revolt is supposedly not utopian, not positive, and is not articulated. We have a stronger master, and a more sophisticated super-structure.

A photograph from Greece this week:


Underneath the broken cobblestones there is still a beachhead, though for some the utopian vision seems a bit quaint. What is our program? It goes without saying that we want a world without presidents and prime ministers; we want worlds of our own constructed with directly democratic structures, not states. We start by breaking the spell. And then, piece by piece, regain control over our lives through cooperation.

We realize that surrealism is a success. - At least in the context of a world that has yet to be fundamentally transformed. We realize that for the most part we are playing this game, naturally, with our hands tied behind our backs.

An image from a Swedish newspaper:


Only in the context of a game where we are able to cooperate fully are we successful. The continuing delay of mass action devoted to cooperative activity, however, along with inadequacies in counter-culture, have reduced our vision to pitfalls, recuperations, and dead-ends.


Meanwhile there is a lot gossip about angry, raging youth. What do they want? We have seen tremendous increases in the amount of wealth accumulation, through trade, through the exploitation of Africa, etc. without any corresponding increase in the real possibilities of everyday life through deliberate forms of democracy. There is more stuff to fill the lives of Americans and Europeans, but less food elsewhere, and less democracy everywhere.

When tipped off, it results in outbursts without programs. We react cruelly against the cruel world we find ourselves stuck in, by burning down Christmas trees, by destroying police cars. Some riots may have lacked pretense to a particular kind of vision - one that requires privileged or experienced people to write communiques and press releases - but they still reflect the surrealist state of mind.

Underneath the police car, the pavement. And the beach? Not far away...

What happens in Athens...

... does not stay in Athens ...

And revolt is everywhere, even close to home.




A Greek interviewed with Crimethinc said that some of their best direct and indirect organizing methods included indymedia and word-of-mouth. Even though the aim of the media has been to downplay insurrection, indeed, to suppress it by all sophisticated means available, it has not succeeded. Even the most tolerant of the bourgeois media such as the BBC sees its role as protective. And while some resort to name-calling, others have adopted a policy of 'no coverage'.

Curiously, the Greek National Council of Radio and Television announced during the first week of the Greek uprising that its media networks needed to:

"avoid viewing scenes of extreme violence and incidents in a way that can be interpreted as an encouraging demonstration of extreme antisocial behavior."

It goes without saying the death of the author was somehow overlooked, and now they're just being obnoxious. Anti-social behavior, such as striving towards a non-hierarchical society, will not be televised. "... Journalism is not simply a matter of switching on the cameras and letting them roll. You have to think about what you're broadcasting," said Jean-Claude Dassier from the LCI news service in France - one of France's largest TV news networks. He said during the Autumn 2005 riots in France's suburbs that LCI would not "fan the flames of violence" by broadcasting the images. So they fanned the flames of obedience and viewed nothing.

That is not a novel idea, to encourage obedience, nor one that comes only from the newscasters. A document from France's Parliamentary Assembly called Riots in European Cities: lessons and the Council of Europe response echoes the same "concern". The assembly reported it needed to research the alleged link between media coverage and riots,

"...with a particular focus on the long-term consequences of limited or recurrent coverage of violent riots in the media and in some countries the no coverage as a policy of government."

The French Parliamentary Assembly admits that no coverage could lead to further human rights abuses in some places. But it seems open to the possibility of pursuing the policy in liberal democratic regimes.

In light of this tendency, the revolution will be blogged. During the revolution, you will be put in the driver's seat. Don't hate the media - be the media.

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[Edmund] Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.

- Thomas Carlyle, the Hero as Man of Letters