A memory

During the early 2000’s i remember having a talk with friends about the upcoming war on Iraq. I didn’t like Saddam Hussein, i remember saying. Like, i thought it was a good thing if he was removed. My friends were very much against the war. I didn’t know.

Reading The Shock Doctrine i am changing my mind. Right now. There were no good sides. There was no evil versus good side. It was all murky. Drab. Terrible.

The last three days i have been watching The Lord of The Rings trilogy. The good people are kind, friendly. They look human, the elfs, hobbits. The evil people have bad teeth, terrible skin. It is immediately clear who are the good ones and who are the bad ones. Sort of anyway. This world we live is not like that.

Reading The Shock Doctrine does shed new lights on past events. Many things i didn’t know anything about. Other things i was thinking differently about at the time.

It is staggering to see how influenced we all are by the news. By what other people say, write. Think and talk about.

Something to think about. Deeply.