Thursday, November 18, 2004

Let us prey

Arundhati Roy -
Between 2001 and 2002, nine out of 30 members of the US Defence Policy Group were connected to companies that were awarded Defence contracts worth $US76 billion. Time was when weapons were manufactured in order to fight wars. Now wars are manufactured in order to sell weapons. (...)

So, all you young management graduates don't bother with Harvard and Wharton - here's the Lazy Manager's Guide to Corporate Success: First, stock your Board with senior government servants. Next, stock the government with members of your board. Add oil and stir. (...)

We know very well who benefits from war in the age of Empire. But we must also ask ourselves honestly who benefits from peace in the age of Empire? War mongering is criminal. But talking of peace without talking of justice could easily become advocacy for a kind of capitulation. And talking of justice without unmasking the
institutions and the systems that perpetrate injustice, is beyond hypocritical.

::Peace and the New Corporate Liberation Theology.
Why does it seem to take someone with literary gifts to see what journalism misses?

3 Comments:

Blogger Brian said...

Perspective. Time and Distance.

Oh, wait. That was a rhetorical question.

11/19/2004 12:39 PM  
Blogger Tom Matrullo said...

Was it?

11/19/2004 11:47 PM  
Blogger Brian said...

Wasn't it?

The ability to see the the big picture, at the metaphoric level: the role of the artist; while journalists check the details, trained as they are, following orders in the service of the forces of power, and big c Civilization; each artist a commander of a single unit, her own, in the service of the immeasurable and immutable forces of Humanity; meeting on a chess board, a lone queen being chased by a full board of pawns, and knights, and bishops, and rooks, and a king, their own queen, mute and still behind the activity.

I don't know why I see journalists as knights - it might have something to do with the movement - one, two, three, and then one lateral square, much like the movement in a rote piece of journo...you know, point, point, point, and then twist at the the end; fact, fact, fact, left/right turn conclusion.

It's one's approach to abstraction, really. It's either a tool to reveal or suppress.

Stuff like that.

It's like The Sopranos. You can see it as a show about the travails of a low rent New Jersey mafioso/mobster or a show about the ruthless 'American Business Man' in crisis. It works both ways.

11/26/2004 2:01 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home