addendum to altar post

dumpfm-andrej-smallish-gifdumpfm-andrej-person-looking-bottom-left

The "text altar" in the previous post was part of a series of text posts andrej did on dump.fm last July, a friendly/sarcastic critique of previously not-terribly-closely examined conventions that had developed on dump--in that particular case, the trope of placing objects side by side in symmetric configurations. As andrej noted in an email, "I think altars are sometimes a pretty lazy alternative to deeper aesthetic considerations--symmetry being a such a pretty and strong device." True, and some of the best altars acknowledge this by accentuating, exaggerating, or problematizing (academic word, sorry) their own symmetry. It should also be noted that "altars" or shrines are a folk-like adaptation or response to the dump software that were identified and called "altars" months (weeks? days?) after the fact. As designed by the dump founders, each "dump" is a horizontal line, like a line of chat text, that can accommodate "sentences" consisting of words, photos, webcam shots, glitter text, or gifs in any combination or size (up to 400 x 400 pixels per element). When a line reaches the right side of the browser frame it "wraps" to the next line. HTML is disabled so it is impossible to make grids such as this one, you have to work with the limitations of the line. One convention that developed early were concise symmetrical arrangements of elements that don't wrap. (They are a specialty for some dumpers such as jeanette, illalli, mirrrroring, and many others I ask not to be shot for not naming.)

R.I.P., Chalmers Johnson

Steve Clemons writes:

The rape of a 12 year-old girl by three American servicemen in Okinawa, Japan in September 1995 and the statement by a US military commander that they should have just picked up a prostitute became the pivot moving Johnson who had once been a supporter of the Vietnam War and railed against UC Berkeley's anti-Vietnam protesters into a powerful critic of US foreign policy and US empire.

Johnson argued that there was no logic that existed any longer for the US to maintain a global network of bases and to continue the occupation of other countries like Japan. Johnson noted that there were over 39 US military installations on Okinawa alone. The military industrial complex that Eisenhower had warned against had become a fixed reality in Johnson's mind and essays after the Cold War ended.

In four powerful books, all written not in the corridors of power in New York or Washington -- but in his small home office at Cardiff-by-the-Sea in California, Johnson became one of the most successful chroniclers and critics of America's foreign policy designs around the world.

Before 9/11, Johnson wrote the book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. After the terrorist attacks in 2001 in New York and Washington, Blowback became the hottest book in the market. The publishers could not keep up with demand and it became the most difficult to get, most wanted book among those in national security topics.

He then wrote Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, and most recently Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope. Johnson, who used to be a net assessments adviser to the CIA's Allen Dulles, had become such a critic of Washington and the national security establishment that this hard-right conservative had become adopted as one of the political left's greatest icons.

Johnson was one of the few writers saying that the US's 700 military bases around the world no longer serve a purpose. The conventional wisdom in Washington is that we need them, apparently to stop a few guys with boxcutters.

"Stay Limp"

Raisinets, "Stay Limp" (1979) [YouTube]

possibly the first true feminist punk song (with up-to-date YouTube-era visuals). From Washington DC. Let's see if we can get the page views for this classic up above 45.