Naomi Klein quotes economist Milton Friedman as saying "...Only a crisis actual or perceived causes real change". In her book The Shock Doctrine, the author describes major economic and political shifts taking place in the immediate aftermath of traumatic upheavals (war, natural disasters, etc.), an analytical record of the ideological exploitation of people's vulnerability and fear throughout our history that is enlightening and staggering.
But how can The Shock Doctrine work for you? Well, just look at yourself: boring, lazy, weak, flabby. Hair on your ears. Posture like a question mark. Tiny red dots scattered over the pocked landscape of your purulent body. In other words, PERFECT for a radical change in your life and in the lives of those around you, whether they want one or not. As long as you become a better, more profitable YOU, the world will have to benefit or get off the planet. YOU are the most important thing around. YOU and your happiness. YOU and your pleasure. YOU and your profit. That's a hard stance to take after years of being indoctrinated by tenets and slogans touting selflessness and humility and service to society. YOU with a capital "y", "o" or "u" is a burden for someone who has always been merely a small, crusty "i". Y? I will tell U.
Chapter 1: Got Gun?
"Going postal" is no longer a synonym for losing your mind, eating a urinal cake and murdering innocent co-workers with an assault weapon (and who is innocent, really?). It's hot. It's cool. It's the way to get what you want when you want it, why, how and who you want it from. "What?" you say? "Whoa!", say I. When those planes slammed into the WTC, when Hurricane Katrina ripped New Orleans a new one, disaster capitalism swooped down upon the misery-sodden masses and made lemonade from a shitload of lemons.
These triumphant moments (and many, many more), when clear thinking, driven individuals who had studied the probability factors of such events for years and waited patiently for events to transpire, are no longer the domain of mini-testicled racists who wear fishnet stockings and pleasure themselves to crinkled, yellow photos of Henry Ford. They can be YOURS. But first, YOU have to get mad! So mad that you lose all sense of perspective and reason and balance and humor! That's right: lose your sense of humor. I have and now I am a blogger.
Next, get a gun. It's easy: our aforementioned buddies in the fishnets over at the NRA have made it so. Roll into any sporting goods store, go up to the counter, turn your beaked cap backwards and say: "Gun, please, mister." You'll be packing heat in no time.
Then, plan plan plan. For the devil is in the details (and goddamn it, in my wife's derisive cackling every time I disrobe. But we'll get to her in a minute.). No real life altering opportunity ever fell from the heavens into the upturned palms of sweaty, bespectacled geeks who always wanted to rule the world but just didn't have the wardrobe. They studied history. They attended lectures by prominent dorks in tweed who espoused philosophies similar to their own. They watched The World at War repeatedly and could sing the words to its haunting theme music ("...we are in a world at war...guess that's what the world is for..."). And they hated all the progressive, hippie legislation that seemed to grow like toxic dandelions all around them, "love" this and "peace" that. It made them dyspeptic, dizzy with rage. Man had been robbed of the right to rule with an iron fist by long haired hippie-type pinko fags I bet you even have a commie flag tacked up on the wall inside of your garage.
And once you've planned and practiced and practiced and planned, go out there and git some. And then watch the changes take place, right before your eyes. It'll be just like television. And your life will now matter. YOU Will Matter! And YOU Will Profit!
That's The Shock Doctrine for use at home, my friend. Don't let those Neo-Condolleezza-Rice-A-Reaganomic-Oxy-Contin-poppin'-Podhoretz-worshippin' fat cats have all the fun! Why must misery and its attendant profiteering take place on a global scale when you can reap the benefits of chaos and despair right in your own garage? Study the past indeed!
Chapter 2: Where's My Wife, Goddammit??!!