Why do we buy what they are selling
Our strategy should be not only to confront Empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling -their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.
Arundhati Roy The Ordinary Persons Guide to Empire
Making a killing
US Vice-President Dick Cheney's former emloyer, Halliburton, whose profits have risen 80% since the Iraqi war, describes the profit margins as "making a killing in Iraq".
The above should be of no surprise to anyone who has taken a brief scan of the great men of wartime who have all become millionaires or quadrupled their profits in times of war. In the American Civil War, the sale of faulty weapons resulted in situations where weapons exploded in the faces of the troops who used them. Andrew Carnegie made his fortunes killing union members and supplying steel at vast profits to the war machine that was slaughtering the populations of ordinary people - all in the cause of profit. Even the Second World War and the rise of Hitler had its roots in making men rich.
"Peer Pressure"
We hear much today about the pressure of peers. Parents blame "peer pressure" for why their children want, but don't need, all that they see before them. We are producing a society of children who see failure in anything short of becoming a famous pop star. I say we, because it is we, the parents of the children who are the guardians of our childrens' educations and futures - and it is us who should be instilling in them the freedom to think in a free world - not a world of MTV. Our present economy is designed to set the targets, or meaning of success so high or meaningless that very few will attain them. This makes the transition to failure and the fate of the boring, rote workplace much easier. Surely it is important to instill in our children the value of creativity, and enjoyment of useful work, if this is what they may spend their adult life doing. If this is so, we will not achieve it for most, in an economy that works against these very values.
We need to remember this economy is not instigated by children and their peers, but by adults who feed on the weakness of children's culpability and vulnerability, in order to accrue wealth. We, as adults, need to encourage an economy that offers a future of hope, reward and enjoyment in ordinary peoples lives, because that's who most of us are.
They need us more than we need them. There is absolutely no need for us to buy what they are selling.
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Halliburton Makes a Killing on Iraq War