editor said:
That was ten fucking years ago, you stupid, stupid, deceitful fucking moron. And I didn't even work for Snickers - I was working for a small design company doing a football website which Snickers sponsored.
Oh it was 10 years ago. So that's alright then is it. The point is not that you are skulking around or plotting with corporate fucks. The point is that your kind of thinking, the rationalist mindset of which you are by no means in a minority here is part of a syatematic indoctrination that starts in school, goes on into university and then solidifies in the working world. In having to deal with a societal structure where everyone thinks in this way, it naturally becomes the common thought process for those who succeed. Indeed if someone does not display such thought processes you soon find yourself met with silence and suspicion. This is pervasive and very gradual, until you instinctively engage in "group think".
I have worked in several multi-national companies far worse than Mars I believe (Murdoch's little broadsheet for one). And believe me even though at first I was spouting my theories, in certain company, when the crowd said something like "do you know some people actually believe that the twin towers were destroyed by the USG...how mad" I just let it go, cos i knew to do anything different would inevitably lead to my causing disruption and eventually losing my job. But I always manage to lose the jobs in the end, cos I just can't button my lip.
I don't know if you've read "You Are Being Lied To: The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths" Edited by Russ Kick, but the introduction describes this form of unconscious control as well as I 've seen it written. I happened to flick through it last night at a book stall. It articulated exactly what I thought.
The point isn't when you worked for them or even if they are the only ones. The point is that you are not Swampy living on what the earth provides. You are a website designer working in London and so your views are compromised by this ( as are all of ours to one extent or another) and the more successful you are the more you have to deal with this pervasive mind set that only accepts complicity. They will allow you some room to breathe (the Telegraph seemed to relish terming you an anarchist) but you can never dictate the terms.
I'm not sure exactly what Asrael23 was getting at. But certainly I believe this Newtonian/Darwinian/Marxist paradigm that the left falls under makes it very hard, if not impossible, for anyone to be successful and retain their integrity.
I think you happen to do a better job than most at that. But in the really crunch subject, 9/11, you just cannot afford that rationalist mindset to slip even for a second, even if you wanted to, because, like Chomsky, your credibility would be damaged by those very forces of the dominant cultural hegemony and perhaps even some of the reputable companies you have worked for would run for cover.
But you have to admit that calling Snickers cool, maybe two years or so after Bill Hicks railed against America for eating the stuff, does look a bit...erm silly.
But then we've all done silly things when we were young, I suppose
Are you on crack or what?
