Personal Hypocrisy --- Puke on Me

Go and buy Cds for the third time in two months and end up bitching the next day about materialism's foreign policy

Walking around the mall on wednesday to update my bi-weekly beats, I decided to take a sted into the local bookapalooza Chapters to see if I could find a must read, even though I am in the middle of three books right now, non of which however, have gripped as much as I would of liked.

So after pondering for a ghastly long of a time about whether or not to jump into the fifth Harry Potter while the million and a half, Half blood prince copies stare me down magically taunting from their pages "you know you want to skip ahead" I decided to verge away from Potter mania and wait until the jacket price is either not 40 bucks, or until the adult soft covers come out a few months from now. I directed my attention to the other front display of scriptures of dissent that are starting to overwhelm some of the main floor locations at Chapters.

On a side note before I go on, though I haven't read it, or read the gossip news, my verdict for the eternal question of WHO THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE IS, is that it is actually Hermione, and Rowling takes a modern turn for the creatively disfunctional and writes in that Hermione all this time is a man, and that both him (formerly her) and Ron are going to run off to Canada to take advantage of new marriage laws and a less competitive quidditch league.
Anyways, back to shopping for dissent at Chapters. So I come across a new read by Naomi Klein as well as a few guest authors. Its called No War and in the spirited remembrance of Klein's "movement bible" (that quote still makes me larph even though I support her and her writing) No Logo. The guest authors include Bryan Mealer of Harpers Magazine, Sue Watkins of the New Left Review, and Walter Laqueur, a leading thinker on terrorism.

*sidenote two of this post: what makes you a leading thinker. Were you there in the midst of it, do you simply think about it ALOT, or did a publishing house say we like your words on terror more than that guy, so you get the lead? I want to be a leading thinker on lead thinking.

Back to the book. So Im not far into the just under 100 pages, but already there are some ideas that are just too delinquent and subversive yummy not to throw up on this for those to read or for me to remember and write about. As I go through this book I will highlight some other of Klein's and company's thoughts on "America's real business in Iraq" because damnit 11 bucks for 100 pages is pretty expensive. Isn't that like 10 cents a page, Id pick up Raymi's book instead, I hunt value baby.

The book is based out of a visit Klein took to Iraq just after the war began and upon landing, within the first ten minutes of her drive into Baghdad she noticed a large crane which at first thought led to an inspiring thought that redevelopment might indeed have begun in new democratic yet war torn Iraq. Upon rounding the bend she realized that the crane was simply posting a billboard for a local honey (like the syrup) company out of Baghdad, and it is then, with no doubt many further discussions and tossed pages that she realized the true mission of America moving into Iraq.

Never before in the history of modern capitalism has a region rested so free and untouched to practice true and unhindered capitalism upon a fresh new market of socially mind molding individuals. America's true purpose in Iraq, is not solely oil, but for the entire market that is opened by the imposition of market capital driven democracy. The move is based out of the theory that greed is good, and that with greed comes supply, demand, profit, growth, with the only pains being the loss of small local market shareholders, small run family local business, and a general destruction of embedded heritage that will be weaned away in the face of a new and unpracticed hyper-capitalism. Klein lays it out like this,

"In one place on earth, the theory (that greed is good) would finally be put into practice in its most perfect and uncompromised form. A country of 25 million would not be rebuilt as it was before the war; it would be erased, disappeared. In its place would spring forth a gleaming showroom for laissez-fair economics, a utopia such as the world had never seen" (Klein 2005, 7).

Now one is possibly easily aware of this goal of America's Iraqi presence but it is Klein's comment on the use of war as a distraction to embed the economics of the Western state that is grotesque to ponder in the face of the times we are currently engaged in on a global scale. A second theory raised is stated as so:

" The theory is that in painful economic "adjustments" are brought in rapidly and in the aftermath of a seismic social disruption like a war, a coup, or a government collapse, the population will be so stunned, and so preoccupied with the daily pressures of survival, that it to will go into suspended animation, unable to resist" (Klein, 2005).
Is it possible to be as disgusted by a human motive than by the underlying meaning that this has towards middle east war right now. Purge the region of a governance, a religion, and a way of life, through acceptable civil casualties, and the destruction of an entire social network, and its environment, while lying to the people who you claim to back you on a global scale. All in the face of wanting to discover new capital growth possibilities for your material shit and a constant need to grow and be greater than others at the cost of other supposed equals even though those individuals will never threaten your personal status at any point in either of your existences.I just threw up a little in my mouth.
Ill let you know how the rest of the book goes.

posted by mr. tomas ubik @ Friday, July 22, 2005