Disaster Capitalism

Why do we refer to Richard Perle merely as an ideologue -- rather than an arms dealer with an impressive vocabulary?
-Naomi Klein

The HuffPost has a great video and transcript of John Cusack interviewing Naomi Klein about her new book The Shock Doctrine.

Klein explains to Lloyd how people with more connections than scruples use the chaos of disasters as a way to push for government policies that, under normal conditions, would be anathema to the American people. The two examples she gives are privatization in New-New Orleans and, of course, the half trillion dollars that has been lifted out of our pockets to blowup and rebuild Iraq.




In the transcript of their further discussion she details how companies that have made windfall profits from war contracts directly or indirectly paid public figures to push for the invasion of Iraq after 9/11. She mentions Henry Kissinger, George Shultz and others, but my favorite is her above description of how the media mischaracterizes Richard Perle. In fairness, he is very articulate for someone so totally shameless.

I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.

-Perle, 2003


Klein and Cusack's brief discussion drives home the point that the Iraq War is not the disaster for which most Americans see it, but actually a huge success - for certain people. Defense contractors and oil companies have made an unprecedented killing.

Facebook

A brief posting here. GCNOF just joined facebook. He checked out the site and was reminded of why he was hesitant to join, but also impressed with what it could do. I dislike that I interact with people over the computer. it's not satisfying, almost comparable to the difference between looking at porn versus going to a strip club and getting a lap dance... or for those lucky blogs, actually having sex.

Of course it's great to be in touch with everyone I've ever known. But I'm also well aware now of exactly how many of my old acquaintances still consider me a friend. I like imagining that everyone I still consider a friend, but haven't heard from in awhile is just busy and lost touch, but still considers me a friend. Before joining facebook, I could lie to myself. With facebook you find out who just doesn't want you in your life anymore, when they post pictures about the party or event which they went to without you.

On the bright side, someone did invite me to join facebook, and I have, I think, five friends on the site. Maybe I just need to invite more people to be friends and face my fear of rejection. Does that happen? You ask someone to be your Facebook friend and then they decline? I guess I'll have to find out the hard way. Because I keep my facebook life and my blog life separate, there will be no link to my facebook page on this site.

Who knows...after I face my fear of rejection over the internet, perhaps I can muster enough courage to ask out that hottie at the swimming pool.

Amanda Peet or Jessica Biel? I always get them confused...

I just got back from Bloomington, IN. Visiting family always treats me well, whether it is in Bloomington, New Haven or Philly. Family always gives me the extra spark, that battery recharge to add spice to my otherwise somewhat-stale-but-getting-better living-at-home existence in Cali.

Something else that Indiana has going for it. It always seems easier to talk to people in bars in Indiana; not only that but IU attracts some hotties, including one I talked to named Amanda. "Amandas" are always hot. What (or should I say why) do only hot moms name their daughters “Amanda”? It’s gotten to the point that even when an Amanda is not that hot, which is very rare, I look to find the hotness that must be hidden somewhere in her that I’m just missing. Usually it’s not very hard to find.

Every visit, every experience always provides some unexpected surprise, and now that the Captain has relocated here, my visit began with high expectations. And no, the surprise wasn't that I enjoyed watching "The Princess Diaries" (I had already watched "Alfie", the only other DVD at my aunt’s house and didn't feel like reading. It was that or watching PBS). I guess I'm not much of an intellectual; more of a romantic, kinda of pathetic sentimentalist apparently. Anne Hathaway looks really hot (after the whole princess makeover). I know in the movie her character is 15, but I checked her IMDB page and she was 18 when the film was released.

The unexpected surprise was.... No, no, I'm waiting till Evil Spock blogs about the "surprise" first. It did involve crashing parties, getting free drinks and even (better) getting freaked by hot college girls, but it was much more than that. There is a link to his evil, evil blog on our blog roll. I’m getting impatient, but it's his thing to blog about, at least, first. Check his blog daily. You won't be disappointed.

From the Ranted Files of Dr. G, brought to you at great cost...

ENCINO - Many times, in ostensibly enlightened company, I have been berated for suggesting that it is somehow unnatural for women to get boob jobs. This kind of neo-philistinism is rampant in our socio-culture, but nowhere is it more apparent than in the systematic marginalization of the films of Jenna Jameson.

Just recently, in the pages of a purportedly progressive blog, when yours truly mentioned her body of work in an artistic context, her films were dismissed as the butt of a crass wanking joke. Is this all we have for the artist who gave us “Where the Boys Aren’t 7”, a radical meditation on modern psycho-sexual identity politics that is almost completely overlooked by the feminist-academic community. Or “Up and Cummers”, in which, judging by the first 7 minutes, she seems to be some sort of naughty librarian. In the tradition of Joyce and Goddard, these texts turn ideas of conventional cause-and-effect narrative and character development on their heads.

In fact, according to her inaptly titled autobiography that my book club read last year, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, Jameson is now the producer and a distributor of the movies in which her naughty bits star. In taking a lead role in her own degradation she has turned the tables: The peddled becomes the peddler, the exploited becomes the enriched. Of course the obvious question, the “800 pound gorilla in the room”, so to speak, is what exactly happens on the casting couch now? Before she decides to give herself the lead in her studio's next film, does she just give herself a good going over? Sadly, her otherwise very thorough, and often highly-autobiographical, memoir remains silent on this subject. However, such minor philosophical inconsistencies must be forgiven in light of the vital and necessary critique that is spewed forth in her cinematic works like a string of pearls. For clarification I turn to the writings of the deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida:

...the entire history of the concept of structure, before the rupture of which we are speaking, must be thought of as a series of substitutions of centre for centre, as a linked chain of determinations of the centre…The history of metaphysics, like the history of the West, is the history of these metaphors and metonymies. -"Structuralism Destructured Structurally"

Clearly, viewed under the unapologetic light that French literary criticism allows into the darkened theater of bourgeoise aesthetics, we can no longer sit back and conveniently view Jameson’s films exclusively as young-adult fiction. In fact, her proto-neo-feminist protagonists are sympathetic actors, not mere objectified, non-agent receptors of the male gaze.

Stated simply, in the post-media-globo-corporato-neo-fasco-meta-iCulture, it is inevitable that all of us are going to get f&#%ed, but if we act with courage and ironic self-awareness then maybe, like Jenna, we can at least choose which hole.

That is all this American has to say on the subject. Good night...and good luck.

It Gives You A Warm Feeling, But No One Else Notices

You probably think the above is a reference to the troubling events in Myanmar. Well, it’s not.

A smart person once told me that the secret to a good blog is self-deprecation. And Google has plenty to say on the connection between blogging and self-deprecating humor as well. Apparently people love to hear you go into painful detail about your own humiliating life. Apparently self-immolation or “roasting yourself” (hence the photo up top) is the highest form of bloggery.

My coauthor, GeorgeCostanza’s#1Fan, has consistently made an eloquent show of publicly baring his soul on these pages from the get go so, in the interest of making up lost time quickly and efficiently, I present here an annotated catalog of my personal failures to date:


1. Ate glue. ¹

2. Cheated on spelling test (and still got word wrong). ²

3. Locked my brother in dark basement. ³

4. Ate the last slice of pie. ⁴

5. Stole food from supermarket. ⁵

6. Broke up with girlfriend by acting distant until she decided to break up with me. ⁶

7. Didn’t stand up for myself at a frat bar when drunk guy was being a jerk. ⁷

8. Did a little before I got to the party and then acted surprised when bag looked light. ⁸

9. Ripped someone off for 35 dollars in purchase of used stereo. ⁹

10. When I was drinking too much at a work party and started to make an ass of myself, my supervisor convinced me to go home before I did any lasting damage, but I was too embarrassed to thank him the next day. ¹⁰

11. Left the state with outstanding speeding tickets and/or bench warrants three different times. ¹¹

12. Cheated at Trivial Pursuit by making up fake question on the final round. ¹²

13. Lied to one of my students to cover up a paperwork error that lowered their semester grade. ¹³

14. Didn’t take out the trash when I promised I would. ¹⁴

Footnotes:
¹ 1st grade, bottle claims it’s non-toxic
² Lesson: only cheat off people smarter than you
³ Only for like 5 minutes
⁴ 1,397 times as of last Tuesday
⁵ More than just a handful of bulk candy (although I do that all the time too).
⁶ She wasn’t really a good person anyway
⁷ He was a ~250lb Division 1 hockey player
⁸ Note: after this happens a few times, even your close friends start to get suspicious
⁹ Actually, I have no excuse. He was a friendly, honest guy and I totally Jewed¹⁵ him.
¹⁰ No real excuse here either
¹¹ One of the states was New Jersey
¹² Frankly, that takes more brains than just knowing a bunch of trivial crap
¹³ If they were really so smart they would have known I was lying and gone to the principal
¹⁴ 10,462 times as of this morning
¹⁵ I can say that because I am Jewish on my mom’s side

I hope this has been a cathartic peak into the dark reaches of my petty, cowardly, thieving, little soul. Please come back soon.

It's Hard Out There For a Pimp

Actually, I doubt that. Watch American Pimp for substantiation, the central premise of which seems to be that The Game is in fact incredibly easy. You gotta wonder though, would the struggling pimps agree to an interview? If they did, would they admit their hardships? The question casts more than a shadow of doubt. Do pimps, maybe even the successful ones, ever wake up in the middle of the night and wonder what might have been?

For all of us, even the L7s, the big existential questions loom. Our choices about friendship, education, love, career, family, all the big stuff, are spilling over with personal meaning, but the decisions can also feel weighed down by a lack of moral purpose. Do I do these things solely for my benefit? If it is just about me, what is the point of personal sacrificc, and what will it all mean when I am gone? Do I do the way my family wants me too? How God tells me too? Do I just do what seems to work for my friends? Putting your shoes on in the morning for those reasons seems like the definition of Socrates’ “unexplored life”. So how do you operate with integrity in a seemingly hollow world? These capital-B-Big concerns can definitely lose you some sleep, but they have also inspired a lot of great writing. Many times I have thought about how my life choices stack up against the problems faced by the characters in Shakespeare, Faulkner, Hemingway, Joyce, Schulz, etc.

But really a writer doesn’t know anything more about the truths of human existence than you. They are just better able to pry their own opinions and prejudices into a pleasing narrative. So in a way, writing fiction is a little like being a pimp. Whether the fantasy is packaged in fake fur and plastic pumps or realistic dialogue and surprising plot twists, both are false and fleeting constructions. The reader gets a cheap thrill as the story builds and then the last page turns, she reapplies her lipstick, and you don’t really know anything more about the world or yourself than you did before. Or even worse, you think you do. I guess, to stretch the metaphor, that is like believing a working girl when she says she really likes you. So if even the classics are starting feel as fake as a stripper’s D cups, what is left? Paul Krassner once said, “irreverence is my only sacred cow,” but you gotta wonder, just where then does the man get his milk?

While we’re on the topic of prostitution, watching the news, even reading the NY Times, is starting feel like a trip to opposite-world, where borrowing more money than you could ever even intend to pay back is fiscally responsible and sending other peoples’ children to die takes courage. The politicians' and pundits' only real ability is to pull themselves into a a miniskirt and smile like it isn’t 35 degrees in the DC night air. At least this go around there is Obama, who seems like a relatively straight shooter. Plus he is like Rocky Marciano in negative: the great black hope. Wouldn’t it be crazy if a black man was president?

Well, not if he is compromised by corporate money, professional handlers and his own burning desire to triangulate to the middle of opinion polls. Is he just Hillary in black face? Probably, but either one will seem like a savior. Obama is definitely a thoughtful, articulate speaker and he has some genuine policies, like health care that you or your employer could afford, and not nuking countries that we aren’t at war with. What a nutcase-liberal that guy is huh?

But at the end of the day Obama is a politician. He gets ahead by telling us whatever it is we want to hear. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my father a few years back when I was doing volunteer work for Ralph Nader. HeMy dad smirked at my idealism, blaming it on my youth. “You young people think you’re so special, looking for a political candidate that has real integrity. Just hold your nose and pick the best looking whore, like the rest of us”. Not the worst advice I have ever heard.

Training

Lots of different threads in this post... take a deep breathe between each paragraph, so you can fully enjoy my post.

I started training for the Princeton Review tonight. The big question for me at the moment is will I be able to wake up at 7 in the morning? after going to bed at 3 a.m. the last few nights. We will see. could be a very short training for the Princeton Review if I don't get up in time. I can even make it to Oakwood for some swimming if I can... This is my first job in months... so it would kind of suck if I lost it in one day. but then I would be able to go to services at the Mission Minyan next week. The hip places where I plan to meet my future wife.

If that wasn't my intention in going to pray in SF to, at least meet girls, I would probably pray at the synagogue I grew up in. Wouldn't it be ironic if my (future) wife, was praying there? No, she won't be, because she would use the same logic I did. There aren't that many young people living in Lafayette, unless they are unemployed and sad and pathetic and living with their parents.

If this job thing works out, I should have some money for jdate and some interesting stories... otherwise...(make sure to take a deep breathe, it starts getting jumping here)

I will always have this.... a quote from a SAT essay: The question: Is it always "you don't know what you got till it's gone?" I wrote: "Yeah, no one was saying woo hoo after boarding a plane with a full regular tube of toothpaste and a full bottle of drinking water before 9/11". You don't miss those things you take for granted until they are gone....(remember to breathe)

speaking of 9/11, when the number of troop casualties double the number of deaths in 9/11 will we call it even? (what do they think there are too many patriotic, brave men around and if they weren't in a war, they might lead a revolution and (gasp) impeach the president? (you know the drill, hold it in for at least five seconds, maybe take a couple of deep ones here.)

News flash, on impeachment and why it has been taken off the table. I just talked to my mom, and she told me the party line. The democrats are afraid of messing things up for 2008. I would bet money that is exactly why they don't win in 2008. Leadership takes balls and the democrats have none (or at least less than GOPers). If they felt that the president didn't deserve to be impeached that would be one thing, but to not impeach him, because it makes our life harder, will come back to haunt them. He deserves it. The democrats aren't doing anything anyways. ITMFA, close to Savage's DTMFA, read Savage Love if you don't get the acronym. (you might want to count to ten before continuing, I get a little preachy here).

We, as a country, have gotten so fat (figuratively... well figuratively and literally) that we are afraid to mess up what we have. and therefore we will soon find ourselves with nothing, or maybe just empty lives, like the Romans before their civilization collapsed, bypassed by people and countries that are willing to put it all on the line.