Recession: Years of grasping and unbridled, gravy-sucking greed are finally making a slight dent in our unconscionable profits. On the plus side, It’s another good excuse to gut education, health care, and the arts.
Human Capital: The talents, abilities, and (of course, above all) work potential of the grimy, unruly masses. It is this intrinsic value which makes them slightly more useful to us than if we were to systematically club them to death, and reduce their remains to tradable chemical compounds.
Globalization: The carefully orchestrated flaying of other countries? cultural, spiritual, and economic values in order that we can continue to load our Voyagers and Hummers with cheap, worthless plastic and electronic crap, and year-round bananas and pineapples. (see Imperialism)
e-Commerce: The mall never closes. You can run, but you cannot hide.
Facebook: See ?Electronic Signature.?
Sustainable Development: Nobody really knows what this means, but it’ll give us a brief distraction?something to talk about while our air and water are filling up with poisons. In environmental terms, It’s probably analogous to someone saying, ?Here’s an idea! Let’s make a start on putting out that kitchen fire by turning down the thermostat a couple of degrees.?
National Security: Fall afoul of the machinery of status quo in any way, and we’ll pepper spray you, bring our shiny boots down on your ugly face, lock you up in a deep dark hole, incinerate your sorry ass, then think up a good rationalization for it afterwards.
Green Economy: Here’s another idea! Let’s sell them cheap, pointless crap with some kind of new-agey, socially conscious angle.
Information Society: A Brave New World in which the potentially destabilizing forces of literacy and social contact are cleverly undermined, the self-congratulatory ?educated middle class? are conned into working longer and longer hours without realizing it, and the concentration of news sources in the hands of the power elite continues unabated. And, as a delicious side benefit, we get to sell unprecedented amounts of cheap electronic crap.
Electronic Signature: So you, who always thought you were so ?clever and classless and free,? how long do you think It’s gonna be before we stick a silicon chip up your rear end and implant it firmly in your brain, the better to record and document every passing of wind, every stray thought that flickers across your dangerously unruly synapses?
Imperialism: Globalization. Imperialism. I say ?to-may-to,? you say ?to-mah-to.? The important thing is someone’s always picking the cotton.
