My Journey Towards Sobriety
“At the close of “Society Must Be Defended,” Foucault opens up the possibility that populations who are precarious or abandoned are not yet constituted as subjects of rights, and that in order to understand who they are — that is to say, the way they are constituted within the political field — we need an alternative to the model of the subject.” ~Judith Butler, The Force of Non-Violence
It is now day 23 of sobriety for me. Yesterday I awoke with no electro-magnetic frequency, but I don’t believe it is because I am sober. I think it is because I have an appointment with an outpatient program in my journey towards recovery. So, if I complete the program, will the electronic targeting stop completely? Will I cease to be a T.I? I have never completed an outpatient program before. Are the gang stalking, electronic targeted assaults, and psychotronic torture part of a “program” that forces people into treatment? Because those who are addicted to drugs and alcohol lead “less grievable lives?” Is it because they constitute a group of people whose contributions to society are deemed “unvaluable?” Many famous masters of art were considered “drunks,” but they never the less contributed a great deal to the world of visual arts, enriching it with an array of various works.
However, according to Judith Butler’s thesis in “The Force of Non-Violence,” it would seem these marginalized groups are being targeted by a biopolitical power. By continuing the philosophical work of Michel Foucault and taken into consideration Fanon’s ideas as well Butler arms us with philosophical supply. Although her work focuses on racial discrimination, no doubt produced out of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, her thesis, although a racial schema, can be applied to those addicted to drugs and alcohol and, thus, enter into civil configurations of power dynamics and tell us what lives are “livable” and what lives are not. Thus, we become aware of biopolitical power, through a type of delusionary phantasm that informs the demographic valuation of whose life is deemed “grievable” and those lives that are not. Whose life ought to be preserved and whose can be expunged or left to die. It is no different for people who have suffered from long-term addiction or who are facing terminal illness. The next book worth reading, at least for me, will be “Bio-Citizenship: The politics of bodies, governance, and power.”
In a study investigating individual accounts of various people who are suffering electronic targeting, gang stalking, and psychotronic torture, one reason some people give is a belief they are being targeted to try and get them to commit to a treatment program for mental illness (Sheridan, James & Roth, 2020). This has been my experience as well. The question is, does this biopower violate an individual’s civil rights? I believe it does in particular my 1st and 4th amendment rights.
“Whenever and to whatever extent there is room for the use of arms or physical force or brute force, there and to that extent is there so much less possibility for soul force.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
Since alcohol and marijuana have been decriminalized, this opens up avenues for family members to target their loved ones based in a conflict of interest. The family members of T.I.s complain their family members are “mentally ill.” Historically, the mentally ill have been a vulnerable and precarious population often targeted by others.
The truth is, targeted individuals’ families may be sick of dealing with their family members' problems. As “addicts” or as “mentally ill” they go unacknowledged, dismissed as called “crazy,” and unrecognized for the even very small contributions they make because of bias and indifference. The dominant schemas by which the value of lives is allocated rely on a modulation of value and grievability, whether that metric is ever named. When a child is conceived as severely retarded or the fetus is diagnosed as having Down Syndrome some women terminate the pregnancy. And so too, what of the problematic homosexual? In past history, he was forced into treatment for his “mental illness.”
What I have just stated makes up a portion of the phenomenon of the Targeted Individuals. It only explains one facet of the phenomenon. Perceptions people have about other people’s differences and the contributions those differences make to the community and society itself can influence the effects of the bio-political power at work in society. When people are perceived as belonging to a group whose contributions are perceived as deviant then that group, according to Judith Butler, becomes “ungrievable” whether or not it gets recognized as such. For example, when the pandemic hit America the Department of Justice re-instated the death penalty and began executing those on death row. Inmates that had committed heinous murders against vulnerable and precarious groups such as women, children, and the elderly were executed. That is bio-political power at work. Everything I have stated, black lives, homosexuals, fetuses with Down Syndrome or unwanted fetuses (abortions), and death row inmates are a biopolitical power at work.
An Equality of Incalculable Value: Addicted Lives Are Not Equal
Historically speaking, the double standard and the dishing out of personal justice has been part of the “state racism schema” that bears upon the living and embodied life of populations and my experiences, as I am re-counted them in my medium posts, provides critical evidence to how “professionals” are involved in this biopolitical power. Historical racial schemas have long informed policies not only on health, hunger, refugees, migration, culture, occupation and other colonial practices, police violence, incarceration, the death penalty, intermittent bombardment and destruction, war, and but genocide as well. Michel Foucault, one of my favorite authors, identifies “state racism” at the end of his lectures as one of the central instruments for the management of the life and death of populations. Healthcare is clearly an established biopolitical power as I have already stated, and as such addicted individuals already make up one of a variety of targeted populations in the United States by their sheer simple lack of mental acuity in their addiction to drugs; they make easy targets. And, modes of sovereign power (professional administration and control of populations) which contributes to the “letting die” or cruel castrations orchestrated by the very biopolitical biopower authority possess, but how do we account for the differential ways in which lives matter or fail to matter in the philosophical sense to which Foucault was writing as it can be applied to the drug-addicted populations suffering from electronic targeting? In addition, Judith Butler has posed the question: how do such differentiated modes of perception enter into policy debates regarding targeted populations and incarcerated peoples?
Sources:
Butler, Judith. (2021). The Force of Non-Violence: An ethico-political bind. New York. Verso Press.
Sheridan, L., James, D., & Roth, J. (2020). The Phenomenology of Group Stalking (‘Gang-Stalking’): A Content Analysis of Subjective Experiences. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(7),
