Tuesday, March 01, 2005

No Blood for Honey

Sometimes people really leave me flabbergasted. The latest is that excuse for a Canadienne Naomi Klien who is publicising her new book "No War - America's real business in Iraq".
No War, now there's a catchy title, one might even call it the Klien franchise. However the P.R. blurb is just mind-boggling in its mendaciousness.

"Visiting Iraq for the first time after the War ended, Naomi Klein was immediately struck by a billboard being hoisted into place: it was advertising honey; the billboard became a powerful metaphor to her of what she witnessed during her stay there. Contrary to what people are saying today, there always was a game plan for post-war Iraq. The War, which was supposed to liberate the Iraqis from Saddam, was really aimed at something quite different - to subject the population to a new belief (greed is good) and overthrow its existing cultural order. Like giant corporations, the British and American governments marketed the war like a product, cynically and dishonestly brandishing values like freedom and democracy, but aiming at the exploitation and impoverishment of workers and communities in the poorest parts of the world."

The "billboard became a powerful metaphor", too bloody right. No doubt if she had been their a couple of months earlier the billboard would have had the benign smiling face of Uncle Saddam. Instead of a murderous dictator it carried an advert for honey, something natural and sweet. What better metaphor for the freedom that that poor country is beggining to experience. Even Walid "Druze" Jumblatt has said that he now supports what is happening in Iraq, but not Naomi 'I hate the west and all it stands for' Klien.

Update
The title of this post has changed because some fellow I met in the pub came up with a far better one. Bloody critics

3 comments:

lemuel said...

No, no, she misunderstood; it was Icelandic Honey Week, probably.

JR said...

Am I missing something?
The virago's surname is "Klein" (Yiddish/German for "small"), not "Klien"

Gawain Towler said...

John,
Sloppy I admit, at least she is spelt properly in the quote.

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