happy to agree to disagree, but being called an ass for trying to bring another viewpoint to the conversation isn’t too cool. JFR and I know each other a long time and I realized I have been too personal and casual, using vernacular language we use on the phone or at a bar to kick around ideas. It’s why I am not commenting here anymore, but I am not going to let your comment be the last on me here.

I am not trying to confuse things, obviously. I am trying to resist what I see as a “tactic” that is getting a LOT of support, but which I think is fundamentally flawed – a 20th century tactic.

I can’t make my point well. I am not clear on it, but it is sound, to me. I think perhaps it is sound to others too who most certainly will NOT feel comfortable to comment after yours … so … nvm on this thread.

you should read JoeG’s link below, too. I am not the only one who finds this guy to be problematic.

Oh wait … I get it … “MTK. What an ass!” … why thank you.

keep up the good work,
yours is the best blog on many topics.
as of this one,
I am out.

As far as the literal reading/missing the point goes, No. I am not unclear on what Zizek is trying to do – I am not thick. Obviously he attempts to revisit defining terrorism – but the way he does it is so pathetically poorly crafted and late. These arguments about the definition of terrorism after 9/11 were being made by others in a vacuum when the “War on Terror” began. Amy wouldn’t even touch it then.

Ignacio Ramonet October 2001 Le Monde Diplo [A Diffuse Enemy] begged people to see that the word “terrorism” was a falsely generated tool of military interests.

Zizek may have done so also then, but I didn’t read or hear of it.

You write that his point is:

“to display the relativity of the concept, or more precisely the dialectical operations at work on it.
He is not *really* calling Gandhi a “terrorist” – that should be clear. There is a deeper point here (to borrow Zizek’s language) about the “role of ideology in a post-ideological age.”

(which I find to be extremely LATE a point to be making in 2011)

and

Zizek is not a journalist — “informing the masses” is not necessarily what he is up to. You seem to be afraid that “regular people” will walk away from this discussion thinking that it has somehow demonstrated that Assange and Gandhi are terrorists.”

(which isn’t what I am saying. only that it is idiotic to engage this way)

and then
“If they have, they have simply misunderstood what was said. Some ideas are worth expressing even at the expense of being misunderstood even by future “computers, machines and men.”

The last line of which I totally disagree with. and certainly concerning how we speak about Assange in the contemporary or Gandhi in revisionist history.

more about which I would say Zizek was the WRONG guy to have in a chair with Assange. stale, academic and late. and HE was the one missing the point.

We need real approaches to redefining the work of Assange, or for that matter Gandhi, as fundamentally RIGHT.

We should be emphasizing the power and importance of transparency, not AGAIN using THEIR language to frame our view. Transparency could achieve radical world change. But instead of focusing on that, we end up using terms like terrorist to do it?

as far as my nerves and so on, I am not offended or personally affected by any of this. I am, as I have said before, critical and ranty when I am disappointed in your approach because it surprises me coming from you, whom I normally love to read and for two other reasons – 1. to try to get SOMEbody else to comment, and 2. because if there are people who read it like me they can have another view.

We disagree, fine, but sometimes even you could be wrong.

And enough about Goodman, already — you’ve repeated that criticism several times in various comments. I get it, you think I rely on her too much. My only defense is that I think her team is among the quickest to the current stories relevant to “word problems”. But in any case, this post has very little to do with her or her work. The idea I tried to unpack in this post has been a theme of Zizek’s for a long time — the discussion Goodman moderated between Z. and Assange just seemed like a good opportunity to write about it.

He is not *really* calling Gandhi a “terrorist” – that should be clear. There is a deeper point here (to borrow Zizek’s language) about the “role of ideology in a post-ideological age.”

Zizek is not a journalist — “informing the masses” is not necessarily what he is up to. You seem to be afraid that “regular people” will walk away from this discussion thinking that it has somehow demonstrated that Assange and Gandhi are terrorists. If they have, they have simply misunderstood what was said. Some ideas are worth expressing even at the expense of being misunderstood even by future “computers, machines and men.”

And certain things you say about me personally I think are wrong as well. For example, I do not “know” that Goodman is an “idiot when it comes to context”. In fact, I think the opposite. And it doesn’t feel like any of my nerves have been hit. (Not so sure, judging from the emotion in your comments, that the same is true of your nerves.) And honestly I don’t know when I have been guilty of “defending mediocrity” when the “going gets tough”. (If you think now is an example, I disagree — I neither think that your criticisms in this instance are making the going particularly tough nor do I think I am defending mediocrity.)

You need to revisit all of this.

I like it better when you read a WHOLE BUNCH OF STUFF on the net and give us a comprehensive analysis – rehashing Amy’s program is LAME and doesn’t belong on TWGP.

I admit that I have only read Zizek’s “Violence” – which was filled with problematic paragraphs. So let me say in advance that perhaps my opinion will change when I read more of his stuff. BUT As per our phone call a few hours ago:

1. Anyone who knows he’s going to be seen by millions and that if he were to dress one way it would be billions and another way less than … is a 20th century idiot who hasn’t even understood the BASICS of media since 1968 and McCluhan. Zizek shows up looking like a slobby idiot and uses platitudes like the one you praise to create some weird, personal view of things.

2. His attempt to make the turn that Gandhi is a terrorist and Assange as well is misplaced, poorly worded in English, and inept. If he had said, “You’re exactly as much of a terrorist as Gandhi” and made every single point he makes WITHOUT SAYING THAT GANDHI AND THE OTHERS ARE TERRORISTS he would have been a better writer, thinker and presenter. Even I, a nobody, can see that, hence: he sucks.

3. Don’t be lame JFR and ask stupid questions like (did you mean to include Bush/Obama within this claim, btw?) … c’mon, really? seriously? You are just revealing how much of a nerve I hit by BEING RIGHT.

4. You even go so far as to HELP this jerkoff logic by adding MLK? really?

5. Such pseudo-ironic set-up of “terrorist” by Zizek here seems coy and funny to you today, but it’s lost on the majority and creates a cliquish aspect that regular people (the masses we are trying to inform, HELLO?!!) cannot grasp. They walk away going, “Uh, yeah, Assange and Gandhi are terrorists.” and years from now, computers, machines and men will say, “What do you mean? even the left defined Gandhi and Assange as terrorist.

6. Amy, while being a dedicated reporter and a committed social activist, is an idiot when it comes to context – you KNOW this is true. She’s really good at saying the word “thousands” loudly next to protesters or people or whatever, but is a figure now. She has NO real courage anymore and is a US American reporter when it comes to considering any topic, including the wars. She’ll NEVER go as far as we did in 2003 and 2004 (and you credit her for BS).

Of course, none of us ever say Amy really sucks out loud because we desperately need her to exist (that she exists as this, by the way, was a HUGE manipulation by Amy and monied interests). She has no clue how to mediate between these two men and showed it.

7. If anything, the show was Assange – the ultimate badass against POWER – being awesome sitting next to two idiots who perceive of the world from POWER’s POV.

8. I would have way rather had YOU interview Assange and have that kind of reach to millions, but you and I proved you will never get that kind of reach. Amy gets it because she is no threat – she’s too dumb to be a threat. she has what I call “soldier mentality”. Trained by a fucked up US American journalism model she proceeds with no real depth to ask all the wrong questions and touches on only the very edge of what is important.

9. Lately you defend mediocrity to me when the going gets tough. Every time I criticize some GRANDass view like this one by Amy, Frontline and co, you are lockstep with the “progressive liberal line”. cut that shit out, bra.

10. The progressive left in USA is a fucking joke to p[rogressives and soicialists and leftists everywhere else. Assange is in the community of the latter and Amy and Zizek in the community of the former.

fuck this shit.

want to go backwards? follow Zizek and Amy Goodman.

You say that terrorism “implies oppression of one by another” but it is precisely the definition — the definitions, rather — of “terrorism” that are being being analyzed here. Zizek’s point here is to throw into higher relief the (fundamental) “terrorism” that is not recognized as such because it functions as the background noise against which the the “terrorism” of Assange, Iraqi Insurgents, effective civil disobedience agents, etc., emerges as counter-force.

You say that “none of these people are terrorists” (did you mean to include Bush/Obama within this claim, btw?) — but again, that is precisely the point.

Also, I don’t understand how you can take shallow position that “Zizek sucks” — in my opinion his writing is too deep and too interesting to be dismissed so easily. Unless you offer a substantive criticism of his work, your dismissal sounds too cavalier, as if you have not really engaged or absorbed his arguments — especially since your assertion that “the SYSTEM is the terrorist because the SYSTEM oppresses” is not so far removed from what Zizek is actually saying here, although he says it less dogmatically to be sure.