Perry's embedded (still!) with the 1st Marine Division somewhere on the outskirts of Falluja.
Norris asked Perry how 'the troops' were reacting to the photos of abuse and all that's followed. Mr. Perry assured Ms. Norris that although the Marines he spoke with were sickened that these "inhumane and un-American" acts were done what really bothered them was the damage this whole thing was doing to their "hearts and minds campaign". Perry went on to talk about the school rebuildings, power restorations and bread hand-out programs -- among many other friendly activities -- the Marines were eager to return to once this whole thing blew over.
The phrase, "hearts and minds" was repeated during this conversation several times and became almost a sort of accidental mantra -- we must do X "to win hearts and minds" Y was damaging our "campaign to win hearts and minds". If only we could return to "hearts and minds stuff".
I suppose every conquering power has claimed their conquests were for the betterment of those under the boot but it seems this official obsession with changing people's minds so their smiles are genuine and not just self-defensive psuedo friendliness as tank columns pass by is a peculiar American preoccupation.
"Let them hate me, so long as they fear me" wasn't this the formula the ancients applied? But the 21st century version of this appears to be 'let them fear me so long as they love me as they fear me and love me even as they fear'. The empire needs time on the therapeutic couch to work out its misunderstanding of how love rarely follows cluster bombs.
......
But maybe, just maybe, this is all of a piece -- a component of late-stage capitalist thinking which expects workers (or the occupied) to be both disposable and happy even as they're being tossed aside.
This occured to me as I sat in a meeting a few weeks back in which "resistance to change" was the theme, complete with the indispensible Powerpoint slide show (thank you Microsoft, now please die won't you?).
The corp where I'm presently consulting is in the midst of a now yawningly familiar 'restructuring' in which many are fired, managers are moved about and senseless discord, all for the enhancement of profitability, reigns.
Realizing that stress might follow such upheaval 'senior management' authorized a program to adapt workers to change. Managers throughout the company were given a slide show and talking point list to present to their staff about the "four stages of change" -- denial, resistance, acceptance and thriving.
Faux-mathematical formulas and impressive looking graphs were displayed on a plasma screen (only the best for today's high tech worker) as my manager read the clever script. "In the denial phase, you deny change..."
One of the less well indoctrinated workers raised a hand and said "isn't this just management trying to convince us that our natural reactions to being yanked around are the problem and NOT the yanking around itself." The manager squirmed for a bit as everyone nodded in agreement but quickly found his footing, "those are good talking points which we'll take offline." It's funny how 'offline' has become corporate jargon for 'um, never.'
Of course, that zero bullshit tolerance worker was right and echoed Jacques Ellul who wrote, somewhere (the book's not handy) in "The Technological Society" that "technique" (his term for the technosphere but really capital), having conquered time through clocks and space through telecommunications and transport technology now faced its greatest challenge in trying to change humanity which, although well disciplined, still retains much resistance to "techniques's" requirements.
Yes. Shiva knows I don't want to drive long distances to sit on my ass in an office all day only, after rocketing home along dangerous highways, to be too tired to make dinner or make love but this is the situation for many of us isn't it? But capital says, 'listen, you're not really unhappy, you're just in the first quadrant of the four stages of adaptation to change.'
And I think this is what that embedded wanker Tony Perry of the Los Angeles Times was saying, in a different context and with fear and weariness in his voice, to NPR nice-a-nista Michele Norris: 'listen, the Iraqis -- the good ones anyway -- are not really resisting occupation they're just in the first stage of the hearts and minds program.'
Is it possible to run an empire which denies cause and effect?
"Let them hate me, so long as they fear me" as terrible as it is, seems to be a somewhat more rational imperial program than "I know I killed your family with that 'errant' ground-effects blast but, even so, why don't you love me?'
.d.