The Final Protocol...Finally (5/5/11)

At 11:05pm Ahmed, Heidi, Jordan, Hallie, Sophie, Emily, Hong Fa, Gina, and were already in class. Then Ben entered dragging lots of paper and a garbage bag of paper into the center of the room. After throwing his pile of archives into the center of the room everyone sat quietly. Ben threw more paper into the center of the “archives”, and it looked like a bonfire waiting to be lit. Ben looked pretty happy while he was throwing various yellow and purple squares from a previous Difficultation. Ben then played a song on the computer. Then he placed a photo on the whiteboard. It looked like a bird with a human face. Mandi entered the classroom, took one look at the “archives” pile and Ben tossing more squares into it and said “Oh my God”, before taking her usual seat next to Heidi. Ben told us to listen to the lyrics of the song and look at thesis 9 of the Benjamin reading. He pointed to the photo on the projector and said it was a painting of an “angel”. Ben began calling out attendance then turned off the projector and music. Almost everyone showed up to class. Ben announces that the “archives” have been sitting in his office. He said he has been looking at it as a pile of rubble like thesis 9. He asked, “This is how history presents itself…progress? Of a sort. What progress have we made? What have you learned? Was this an utter waste of your time? He thinks having a nice day as a finale of the class would be too right wing. Ben had no idea where the “Beck Sex” picture went. Hegel was the only face photo we had left in class. Alyssa then entered the room. Ben wanted everyone to arrive at class next Thursday on time at 1:30 and he wants to have a tea party. “Bring what you can.” He said. Ben is really excited to see the projects. He said that trick with projects is the crazier the better. Paige has now arrived. Ben then started muttering into his attendance sheet. “Paige’s last name means ‘enemy of the peasants.’” He wanted to know where her family came from. The class quietly chuckled. “You get a lot of history from last names.” Ben said. He then gave some more directions for our projects: no power points, they give him rashes. Mandi wanted to know how long they were supposed to be. Ben said 10 minutes. Ben also wants everyone to talk at some point during their presentation. Marika then arrived to class. After the projects he said that wants to talk and ask questions about them. Ben was still talking about Housekeeping until 11:23pm. Ben asked if there were any questions. Ahmed wanted to know how much percent the final is worth. It is worth ten percent. Ben and Tom discussed doing illegal things. Ben said that we shouldn’t get hurt. Then Ben had us get back into our groups from Tuesday. The groups then circled around each other. There were three groups. Rachel wanted us to make connections to the articles. The room became pretty quiet. Hallie read an interesting article about Bin Laden being killed, and whether it will make stereotypes of Arab-American’s go away or get worse. Rachel then talked about one state of emergency against another state of emergency in group 2. “We got him, we are happy.” Who are “we”? Hallie and Rachel asked. Group 1 was discussing a Martin Luther quote about dying. Ben was saying that it may not be true. Group 2 was not really saying anything and they seem confused as to what they were supposed to be talking about. They were not saying anything. Ben gave the groups two more minutes. Ben then kneeled in Group 2’s circle and scanned it. Hallie brought up Thesis 7. Then he moved around the room and began listening to Group 3. He said that a Benjamin question about the Martin Luther King quote is why is it important? And why is it important that Martin Luther King said it? “Make sure the person who is talking is not the same person who talked on Tuesday.” Ben said. Group 1 did not want to move closer to Group 2 and 3. Eventually everyone started moving into a wide circle. Ben pointed at the pile and pointed to his shoe to show that the purple square “family” is stuck to his shoe. He was allowing “family” to stay stuck on his shoe. The class then formed a squiggly circle reminiscent of a kindergartner drawing. Ben began dramatizing the fact that no one wanted to move. He then asked Group 1 to discuss what they talked about. They turned to Page 256. “Read the sentence a little slower…This is Benjamin talking as a dialectic thinker. We need to question and deal with that.” Ben said. Alyssa was reading the barbarism part. Then “Brushing against the grain” was brought up. Kate talked about the barbarism in the joy and happiness of Bin Laden dying. Mandi brought up the point about people being sad about it too. Hallie talked about listening to the “black people” radio station. The station asked the people if they wanted to see the photos of Bin Laden being shot. “We had to see pictures of people jumping out of buildings, chaos and death. We should get to see the photos as payback.” One caller responded. Another caller said no because people just want to see it as entertainment. Alyssa was arguing that seeing the photos because of “revenge” is barbarism. Mandi brought the fact up that some people want to see the photos as proof. “The people who are paranoid of the government: how does are last fifteen weeks help with this question?” Ben asked. Liz said it doesn’t matter because the government could use photo shop. Ahmed agreed and thought that the government probably had an even more advanced version of it. Hallie was saying that anybody in a turban and beard the people will say looks like Bin Laden. Everyone laughed at that. Then Shukri wanted to know why we dumped his body in the ocean. Rachel responded saying that no country wanted to claim his body. (24 hour burial Islamic tradition) Ben wanted us to keep this discussion in mind when we write stuff down. Hallie said that when we killed Hussein we didn’t give him Islamic burial. Ben asked if everyone agrees with the government actions as “we”. Jordan doubts the story too, but thinks it was sad that everyone was disagreeing with this only a day after it happened. Ben wonders if it wouldn’t be sadder if everyone agreed. Liz brought up Obama’s approval rating which had been raised. How this would affect Obama politically? In regards to the variables of Bin Laden and Hitler supposedly being killed on the same day, Ben thinks any day on the calendar could be Hitler related. That is a part of the popular Hitler fetish. You could always find something. Marika kind of believes that he is dead, but wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t. She that Tu Pac was dead for ten years and then they found him in Barbados. Then Ben had everyone raise their hands if they believed Bin laden was dead. Hong Fa, Shukri and Ahmed did not raise their hands. Ben wanted to know what would convince Hong Fa. Rachel wanted to know if everyone had read the live tweets about the raid that some guy in Islamabad had tweeted. Ben then wanted to be a “good teacher” and wanted to discuss the Benjamin reading and it’s relation to the articles. Group 3 (Heidi) used Thesis 12: Discussing who, from the killing of Bin Laden, who is it redeeming? Or is it trying to create a better future for our grandchildren. Ben thought redeeming was a good word and a good question. Sophie was struggling about how it makes the article dangerous. Ben asked the question to what extent was that a redeeming act? Free from space and the past or about the past existing in the eternal present. Mandi said it was kind of related to that (Thesis 6) if the enemy wins even the dead….there is more than just him now. Terrorism is not going to die with him like the death of Hitler and the Nazis. Ben and Hallie said that Nazis are still around, just smaller. But terrorism is not going to stop just with him she pointed out. It’s not really a safer world, we just knocked down a bigger player, and terrorism is still there. Ben said that to most people the truth is that he is dead (the classroom). Bury at sea means there is no place that he is fixed. They want to make a clean break from the past. (Obama administration) At the same time: they want to make him “deader”. Ben said. He also said that if no country claimed him he could exist through all time, in no way past but ever present. Alyssa wanted to know if anyone Muslim had done this in the past. Ahmed said ignorant people had, but not the norm. Liz asked if by us killing him, if it was going to piss al-Qaida off more. Kate said that news shots of everyone celebrating made her confused. “Yeah his death is kind of exciting, but terrorism is not dead because of him.” She said. She didn’t feel safer. Mandi that she didn’t either, she is just happy he is dead. Kate brought up the fact that 18-25 year olds disagreed the most about whether Bin Laden was dead. But, everyone screaming in the streets was mostly 18-25 year olds. How were they disapproving the most but partying in the street? Ben said that Alyssa and him talking about intertextuality. They brought up how a lot people on Facebook and Twitter were making comments along the lines of Team America: F-yeah. Ben wanted to go back to redemption. He said Benjamin was this weird messianic Jew. In Thesis 2 it says that our image is bound up with the…redemption. He asked if when we are redeemed the past will finally make sense. Is the sense that in this death of Bin Laden, a whole lot of things have been redeemed? He asked. Ben wondered about Obama say that we are united in killing one guy. Mandi said that Bush’s reputation was redeemed through this. Ben said that the past changes constantly. Hallie brought up Obama’s top priority changing from first the economy to Bin Laden. Mandi thinks that charmers are bad. Her dad told her to avoid people like that. Ben brought up charismatic truth. Liz had an issue with how many times Obama used the word “I”. Alyssa said that he can talk like a sovereign, because he took responsibility for stuff he may not have done. Kate said that he has to be the head because the CIA can’t be. Marika said that Obama had to take credit for it. Ben said that he is the great man, the sovereign. The more legitimacy he gets as a leader the better. Liz said that from a more conservative background it sounded very …odd. Hallie agreed from an opposite background. Then Heidi asked about an inflatable Bush in the mall? Ben knew the guy as a friend: he does it to prompt conversation. Ahmed thought that Obama needs a break. Marika brought up that Obama is black, so he is being treated differently from previous Presidents. Alyssa said that it just comes from being President. Marika thinks that negative commentators on Obama are nitpicking. Hallie said that she was reading an interesting article on the mythos on the names of Osama and Obama. Ben said that Limbaugh kept “confusing” Osama and Obama. Again, he asks what truth is. Then Ben had everyone stand up. Then he had everyone put their hand on the shoulder of someone who they have learned a lot from this semester. Then he had everyone do various shoulder touching exercises like: the person we most learned from, the person we wanted to talk to more, and then get into partners and pick up something from the archives that resonated with us. Then the class went around the circle and explained what they had picked and why. Then we did evaluations and everyone left.