[ExI] Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps

[Natasha Vita-More]

Sorry - okay, this one, not the other:

At 06:19 PM 9/27/2007, PJ wrote:
>On 9/26/07, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This isn't new, but it is interesting, I thought some people mightn't
> > have seen it. It'll read as pretty strongly partisan, so get past that
> > if you can. Do you think things are really as bad as she describes?
>
>Naomi Wolf and Naomi Klein need to get together.  See Naomi Klein's
>The Shock Doctrine:
>
>http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine
>
>In a word, Emlyn, my answer is 'yes.'
>
>But remember this: even fascists believe they're doing the right
>thing.  They balance what they and the country gain by their actions
>against what they and the country might lose if they refrained.
>Hence, their behavior.

Naomi Wolf, in my opinion, built a persuasive thesis but I did not go 
for it.  I would have preferred she write about how elements of a 
hip-hop/gangster-rap subculture manipulate women into becoming sex 
slaves.  The idea of beauty and women wanting to be beautiful reaches 
far beyond the corner that Wolf paints it into.  I for one have 
always honored women who strive to be beautiful and groom themselves 
to look their best.  Yes, I have simplified her theory, but I didn't 
like it from the get-go and I don't like it now.  Again, she struck 
out at a segment of society that seems to want to be smacked down, 
relying on a woman's need to be punished and feel guilty for her 
pleasures, and thereby she lessened the historical value of beauty 
for beauty's sake.

Now, about this Naomi Klein.  I admire her on-camera presence and 
articulation.  Isn't she applying disaster engineering to combat 
disaster capitalism?  This is a technique used with Critical Art 
Ensemble which I deplore because it heightens information for 
effect.  In filmmaking, drama pulls in the audience and the more 
dramatic, the more the audience surrenders its individuality in being 
scooped up and driven by the filmic method of narrative and 
effect.  (I would like to see her go head to head with Virginia Prostrel.)

Natasha

<http://www.natasha.cc/>Natasha <http://www.natasha.cc/>Vita-More
PhD Candidate, Planetary Collegium -University of Plymouth - Faculty 
of Technology,
School of Computing, Communications and Electronics, Centre for 
Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts

If you draw a circle in the sand and study only what's inside the 
circle, then that is a closed-system perspective. If you study what 
is inside the circle and everything outside the circle, then that is 
an open system perspective. - Buckminster Fuller
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