Kindred Messengers of Late
One supposes that neither would be thrilled to have their names and their causes linked by happenstance, but then who really knows? As fate sometimes demonstrates, the oddest, seemingly mismatched personalities and their agendas somehow mesh with a consanguinity of opinion that surprises the onlooker - or the reader as the case may be.So here we have Naomi Klein launching a new book, "The Shock Doctrine", wherein she describes a somewhat believable agenda, but takes it to wondrous extremes. Linking her inexorably (or so this reader/writer opines) with none other than Osama bin Laden whose conclusions recently aired handily echo hers.
Naomi Klein would have it that the occurrence of 9-11 enabled a backlash resulting in reconstruction exploitation, enriching the coffers of great international corporations who practise fealty to no nation, genuflecting only to the bottom line. Osama bin Laden isn't far off the same conclusion when he commiserates with the economic and social plight of Westerners in thrall to the Big Business Agenda.
"Shock and Awe" engendered economic shock therapy. Where there resulted material catastrophe, leaving people bereft of the comfort of the familiar, from their modestly functional homes to their municipalities' and states' capabilities to offer security and basic services, the idea was not to restore the familiar, the tried and true, but to completely erase what had been and replace it with a version that Corporate America approves of.
People, dragged kicking and screaming away from tradition, culture, social mores and the comfort of the familiar into a new world order that, in the end profits none but those with the corporate smarts and wherewithal to effect these new installations, rupturing life completely for those unfortunates who just happened to live in the way of tsunamis or foreign invasions.
And there is kindly old Osama bin Laden, cluck-clucking in sympathy over the plight of citizens of the Western world whose economic underpinnings have been rather strained of late. The answers are simple, staring one straight in the face, only we're too stupid to notice. Stop funding invasions and occupations, and pay more attention to the internally-governed needs of people.
Better yet, bin Laden invites fed-up Westerners to have done with liberal Democratic ideals that in the end profit none but business and corporate entities. Embrace Islam, and all will be well. Well, there's a caveat of course, not just Islam per se, but devoutly strict Islam - no other kind is worth a mention, and he should know.
The message inherent in each individual's posturing for cause and effect remains slightly ajar. Where there's a faint whiff of familiarity with one's own perceptions and latent disgruntlement with government and its tandem agenda with corporate interests, each protagonist raises the bar to reflect his/her message.
There is without doubt an unpleasant odour arising from World Trade Organization summits, the International Monetary Fund, arousing suspicion and doubt among the chattering classes. Privatization, government deregulation and social spending cuts have all served government and business well, while undermining the trust, variable at any time, that communities invest in their governments.
These do bespeak of a fundamentalist form of capitalization benefiting the few at the expense of the many. And what else is new, after all? How many nations aside from the Scandinavian countries seem to take the well being of their populace seriously? Seriously enough to give that issue primacy over the wealth of corporations.
Crisis exploitation has unleashed a backlash from various sources. But it's exceedingly quaint to find Osama bin Laden concernedly instructing disaffected Westerners on their options, and Naomi Klein schoolmarmishly lecturing about the skulduggery of governments and corporate interests.
Labels: Particularities/Peculiarities, That's Life, Viewpoint
posted by Pieface @ Friday, September 14, 2007
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