© the other press The Resurrection of lrony. Editorial on the second anniversary of 9/11 continued from page 7 O of the good example” legend. If Chomsky holds a monop- oly on the truth, and the “mainstream” media ignores him, then surely this must be the result of some sort of massive capitalist conspiracy to hide the gullible public from Chomsky’s brilliance. The problem with _ this hypothesis is that it is simply not true. Stories, reviews, and even praise of Chomsky repeatedly appear in main- stream press outlets such as the New York Times, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, the BBC, National Public Radio, and numerous others. The evil corporate New York Times even once praised Chomsky as being “the most important intellec- tual alive.” Though Chomsky professes to be speaking for “ordinary, | working-class” people (as opposed to the wealthy intellectual snobs whom actually compose his audience), he apparently finds it quite infuriating that the majority of such people do not support his radical, socialist-anarchist agenda. Thus he and his supporters churn out elaborate and unproveable conspiracy theo- ries, involving a secret right- wing network that “brain- washes” the vast unwashed masses and keep them from buying dozens of Chomsky books. In other words, as one online critic put it, “if Chomsky loses an argument, there must be dark forces at work.” Chomsky has lived his entire adult life in the shel- tered halls of universities, sur- rounded by fawning toadies and suck-ups. He has grown wealthy and complacent from his success, despite the fact that his career has been built on a foundation of lies and deception. Today Chomsky is an old man. He is experiencing some health problems, and is no longer the energetic speak- er he once was. But as long as he is able to bring a pen to paper, his ideas will continue to be followed by all who are careless enough to read them. Chomsky does not write to inform, he writes to validate the opinions of those who have closed their minds long ago. Macdonald Stainsby OP Contributor The day the Irony died. Remember that? Perhaps not, it was a rather bleak piece that ran on a few column inches here and there, mostly in New York City. That was almost two years ago, “after the world changed.” It was a prediction then that the solemnity that had been initiated by the attack on the United States by “people who hate freedom” would prevent us from ever living in a state of humour, of blasphemous mockery; never again could we make light of even the obscene as a means of taking back a personal sense of power in the face of senselessness and inhumanity. Well, that’s over. It’s time not to bite our tongues: I am tired of 9/11. I don’t want to hear why the potholes exist in the street explained away as a result of 9/11. I don’t think tuition increases have anything to do with the “new reality we all live in.” I never thought for a minute that they hated me. I did think they hated someone. I wonder why. I declare that I am sick of the wholesale abuse of the minds of good people with the whole “War on Terror,” fought increasing- ly in a world of utter doublespeak that must shake the good judgment of even the strongest, most ardent defender of American Enterprise and what it produces. I do not care to see those buildings burn and collapse and fall again. Don't ask me to feel some special remorse. Every day I mourn the loss of three thousand. Or more. The thousands of AIDS victims being killed by pharmaceuti- cal companies who sell drugs to the highest bidder, rather than cure the sick. Thousands? I meant millions. The thousands who have been killed so far in Afghanistan, Iraq, The Philippines, Palestine, and Colombia so far this year alone by a modern day crusade to bring liberty, freedom, Big Macs, and horrid television to every home. They still say they deliver, so it isn’t all-different, evidently. Today September 11 is the anniversary numbering 30 for an act that still lives on the sidelines of history. The wanton murder of thousands of political opponents and civilians in Chile, all to install an anti-communist dictator and save the ignorant masses who elected socialism from redistributing food and spending independent wealth educating small children. Yes, any who dare this must be demonstrated, as I heard George W. Bush state it last night to a platoon of troops about to be forever perverted by humanities most ugly club and worst kept secret fraternity. He let those who would defy the US know that they will all get their real-politic-termination-notices for heresy of the global ten com- mandments. Why will this continue? “Because we love freedom. And they hate freedom. We love freedom and we're not going to change.” But people do change. And irony thrives well. Irony is well placed in the mouths of the administration that stole power by racist voter purges. That shredded the constitution. That has tampered with voting mechanisms and declared the result col- lecting technology can not be declared public knowledge or domain, because it is intellectual property! Ah, don’t you love the concept of intellectual property? It’s illegal for you to know something. It only belongs to some rich white guy and whomev- er he licenses. Copyrights on the election itself! Yes, I really love the Empire. It saved us from a world where irony dies. And now, it is time for us to invent a world where ideas reign. I got four commandments. Commandment One: We will no longer be a part of the racist worldview that says killing three thousand Americans is wrong, but killing millions of non-Americans is complicated, justifiable, for security measures, to free women, to save lives (there’s that irony!) or to bring about democracy. Democracy doesn’t get ee Page 8 hittp://www.otherpress.ca September 10, 2003 dropped from an F-16 or handed out at a checkpoint. Commandment Two: We will point out just how bizarre it is having a known cokehead who says “God talks to me” running the planet. How convenient it is that all his friends work for oil companies. How lucky he is that NY got hit by planes and that the American defence apparatus did nothing but watch it burn. He’s so damn fortunate that no one noticed them take away your constitutional rights. That no one saw thousands of blacks thrown off the voter roles in Florida, where he still needed the court to steal it. Commandment Three: We will not allow the kind of world fit for all people of all races, genders, and sexual orientations to be attacked by anti-Islamic bigotry. The new white supremacy is deeply promoted, though some would have us “invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them all to Christianity,” we will invade the corridors of power and transform us all not through forced conversions, but the highly potent threat of the good idea. Ideas are true nerve gas. Commandment four: We will begin to assess new means of challenging the norms. In other words, in order to make certain creativity thrives we must live it as we stop the madness and drea- riness. Nothing kills more inspiration than laziness. But let’s do new things, shall we? Here’s an idea. Just think on it for a minute. It’s about a little mix and match. In cities from Calgary to Yellowknife and Prince George to Whitehorse, there is one unifying new feature: Wal-Mart Recreational Vehicle Campers. Wal-Mart has created the ulti- mate camping experience: You can park in a Wal-Mart parking lot overnight, and get cheap shopping too! Yes, this is now a full- blown subculture for thousands of trailer-dragging American and Canadian SUV drivers. The full Wal-Mart experience can include them bringing your products to the camper, McDonald’s and other fast food outlets are included onsite, and they will sometimes put this giant store that attracts campers like a moth to a burning RV right downtown where you can take in being in the vast open untouched wilderness that is only on the other side of several miles of small subdivisions belching out the waste of freedom in action. Take the idea of the tent city in Vancouver, where homeless people put it all on the line to protest homelessness and govern- ment inactivity. However, twist it to take on Wal-Mart. They allow camping in their parking lots. No problem. We got fifty people with tents lined up to plant them, one to a parking stall. Then we hand out our literature on what the products of the place do in this world. What the conditions in the workplace of the restaurant are, what the conditions are for the coffee planters who raised the beans and whether the chocolate bars are also out there, using money and mercenaries helping the American nightmare continue to kill while talking about freedom, some- where in bleeding Africa. We could talk about the companies that fund governments such as the Israeli, where Caterpillar develops bulldozers as a per- sonal contract of the Zionist state, in order to destroy the homes of more of freedoms’ enemies. Freedom has many enemies. Those who believe that wealth cannot be placed as the highest order. Freedom is opposed by resistance. By dignity and rebel- lion. Freedom is also in danger when attacked by Irony, creativi- ty, and the outrageous. Perhaps most importantly, freedom is destroyed by ridicule. Poke a finger in the eye of the world with- out blasphemy. Throw a brick for peace. I am sick of a world where intelligent people feel a need to say the stupidest things. No, Muslims are not the enemy. Look in the corridors of power, where freedom is most spoken of, for those who will further crush and kill what little is left of it. Irony is not at all dead.