The Shock Doctrine Rage

Two things have been preventing me from achieving the calm, relaxed state of "oneness" that Buddhism promises. Actually, make that three things if you take into account that I'm not actually a Buddhist. I like to think of myself as a neo-Buddhist atheist; I'm completely zen about my disbelief in God. But I digress. Those two things have been my steady diet of "revolutionary" media over the past couple of weeks, namely: Naomi Klein's newest book, The Shock Doctrine and the musical stylings of Rage Against The Machine. Not only am I decidedly non-zen lately, I'm ready to start a Che Guevara-style uprising.

Before the local thought police come busting down my door, let me explain. I was a huge fan of Naomi Klein's first book "No Logo" which blew the whistle on out-of-control corporate branding and free-market exploitation. So when I heard that she had a new book hitting the shelves, one that had taken her four years to research and write, I gave it the full J.K. Rowling treatment and camped outside my local bookstore on the day of its release. I snatched the first copy out of the box, rushed home and began reading the intimidating 600-page colossus. This is where things start getting a little scary....

The subject matter of this book and the essence of Ms Klein's argument is what she calls "The Rise of Disaster Capitalism". It is, essentially, the idea that sweeping and unpopular economic and free-market reforms, such as the selling-off of state-run industry to private foreign corporations, can only be imposed on a population following a "shock" such as a natural disaster, terrorist act or bloody military coup. The book treats us to a "behind the scenes" re-telling of modern history, from Pinochet's 1974 iron-fisted military junta in Chile all the way to the current Iraq quagmire. We see the strong-arm extortion tactics used by the IMF and World Bank after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the Asian economic crisis a few years later. We see the "selling off" of housing projects to real estate developers intent on building seaside resorts after hurricane Katrina. We see the privatization of modern warfare. All the while the rich and powerful gain more wealth and power and the poor and disenfranchised sink even deeper into the free-market abyss. It's terrifying stuff, and I decided, somewhere towards the mid-point of the book that it would be complimented wonderfully by a little Rage Against The Machine. Songs like "Bombtrack", "Guerrilla Radio" and "Renegades of Funk" became the soundtrack to my reading experience.

In retrospect, perhaps this was a bad idea.

I experienced, and am still suffering from, what I call "SDR" or "Shock Doctrine Rage". A state of extreme passive-aggressive behavior complimented by feelings of global insignificance. My ears also hurt a little bit from all the loud music.

Don't worry, I'm sure I'll be okay. Oddly enough, watching O.J. Simpson take the fall for armed robbery and kidnapping is extremely therapeutic. Now all I need to see is Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld charged with crimes against humanity and my optimism will be fully restored. Or I could just whip up some pancakes. I loves me the pancakes.

The Virtue Of The Vicious

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious" -Oscar Wilde

As a product of the e-mail generation I've become accustomed to deleting "chain" e-mails. They used to piss me off, but now I just view them as one of the little annoying prices we pay for our modern conveniences. Until today that is, when I received one from someone on my "friend's" list (soon to be amended) that made me very, very angry. I'll attempt to reconstruct it here:

I HOPE I DO NOT HEAR OF ANYONE BREAKING THIS ONE OR SEE DELETED...

SLEEP LAST NIGHT?
Bed a little lumpy...Toss and turn any...Wish the heat was higher...Maybe the a/c wasn't on...Had to go to the john..Need a drink of water...???Scroll down...

Yes.... It is like that!Count your blessings, pray for them,Talk to your Creator and the next time when...the other car cuts you off and you must hit the brakes, or you have to park a little further from Walmart than you want to be, or you're served slightly warm food at the restaurant, or you're sitting and cursing the traffic in front of you,or the shower runs out of hot water!, Think of them...Protecting your freedom!

Aside from the obvious punctuation and grammatical errors, the above infuriates me so much because it is a great example of this new brand of patriotic bullying and neo-christian guilt. I can't drive two blocks without seeing ten car magnets that demand I support the troops. I can't turn on the television without seeing an American flag waving or grief-stricken families crying beside the ground-zero monument in New York. It's emotional arm-twisting and it has to stop. Why? Because it's bullshit, that's why.

The troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are ALL VOLUNTEERS. There was no draft. They chose to do this. It sickens me to think about all the young lives being thrown away, but don't demand that I support it. I don't. I never will. A lot of people are becoming very rich as a result of these conflicts, and guess what...Not a single one of them is pictured above. They are all tucked safely behind desks at the corporate offices of Haliburton and Blackwater. These poor kids are not protecting your freedom, they are protecting your governments financial investments.

Who the hell is my "Creator" and why should I be talking to him/her/it about this? The only creators I have are my parents and they can't really provide me with too much insight on these matters (although they can provide me with a free, delicious meal once in a while). So don't try and scare me into falling in line with your superstitious bogey-men either. Besides, if there really is a god (there isn't) do you really think he/she/it would approve of our war-for-profit scheme?

To those of you that have been perpetuating this particular chain mail I just wanted to let you know that yes I "broke" it and yes I deleted it. I also slept just fine last night. Thanks for asking.

All Hope Abandon, Ye Who Enter Here

People who shop at Walmart Supercentres scare the hell out of me. They push, shove and jockey for position amongst rows of Spongebob Squarepants spiral notebooks. They yell at their crying children to try on three different pairs of sweatshop-produced shoes. They all posses the same furtive, desperate look made worse by the sickly fluorescent light and recycled air. They cannot possibly conceive of a better place to spend a Saturday afternoon.

There is only one other place on Earth that comes close to this level of depravity. One other place where this unique brand of human sadness is dealt daily. That place is called Tim Hortons (aka: the "Walmart" of coffee shops). Thousands of poor, tired souls choke the drive-thru and counter area every morning, waiting for their turn to buy an overpriced, second-rate cup of coffee. The garish plastic tables are full of loud, obnoxious businessmen holding "meetings" and senior citizens who have grown tired of the community centre and need an alternative place to complain that it isn't 1957 anymore.

Well my friends, I have some "good" news. There is no longer any need to go to two different places to have your spirit crushed and your will to live stolen by a faceless corporation. In the interest of providing one stop shopping for soul destruction Walmart and Tim Hortons are JOINING FORCES. You can read the complete, apocalyptic story here. That's right, now you can be jacked-up on caffeine as you fight your way to the electronics section to grab up the half-priced Pauly Shore DVDs.

Now if they only offered liquor and assisted suicides there would never be any reason to go anywhere else. Ever.

You Say Goodbye, And I Say Hell-no

It seems that all good things must indeed come to an end....

Mediocre and half-assed things, therefore, can go on forever. So it looks like you're stuck with me.

You didn't actually think I was going to pack up and ride off into the wan light of some virtual sunset did you? Harry Potter?!? Did you really think that the legacy I was prepared to leave was some stupid post about the final Harry Potter novel!?! Oh ye of little faith. The cold, hard, ugly truth is that I simply took the summer off to pursue other "interests" (read: "lying on the beach, drinking Corona and working on my novel about an evil, spacefaring race of ninja monkeys).

By the way, I am currently undergoing some renovations to the site so if you happen to notice some glitches, ugly-ass blobs of stray code or are simply unable to view the damn thing then....ummmm....you wouldn't be able to read this, would you? Uh....Nevermind.

That's it for now, chumps. The monkey-man is back. Leaner, meaner and more repulsive than ever. So slide into a nice dress and slop on some lipstick 'cause I'm about to make you my bitch. Again.