Just about anywhere these days it seems is within reach of a package flight company. There are guides to every destination that hype up all the cute cultural ideosyncrasies whilst not failing to mention the location of the nearest Amex, McDonald's or store to buy the latest Gucci designs.
Fashion worldwide is almost exclusively western now, with people abbandoning their traditional clothes to wear western trousers and shirts, there's a common global celebrity vocabulary (Shakira, Mariah Crey, David Beckham) and even the fucking tv shows (big brother) spread like a virus with media collaboration.
The same products are on the shelves worldwide (Mars, Heinz, Sony) and if you can't speak English then you're unlikely to earn much money.
The airwaves, newspapers and tv channels across the planet are owned by the same 7 or 8 families, the same companies are employing people across the world on the same shit contracts (McDonald's is the single largest employer in Brazil for instance) and there are only a handful of currencies that mean anything.
And every year a whole new generation of bright eyed travelers are off to discover what the world has to offer. Sadly, thanks to television the the economic policies of the West, the world is becoming increasingly the same.
Yeah, there is the neoliberal global-economic march...but... there are some strnage and unique things out there still. I'm headed to bolivia in a little bit and apparently there are wide swathes of terrain out there where you can't even get a reliable map. That to me gives some hope that there still is something left to explore. Yeah, cities all look the same, but if you want to get away from mcdonalds and nike, there's always a third world slum to live in... Hey, the only solution that I can see is to decapitate the leadership in the USA and cause a civil war here. Then, the entire global system will fall in the ensuing anarchy. Imagine if whole American aircraft carrier fleets went rogue and started fighting it out amongst each other on european and asian waters. It'd be amazing. Then there'd be all those nukes laying around, too. Holy shit.
Anyway, the point is that if we could collapse the American government (or if it could destroy itself), we could destroy the neoliberal world order and possibly curb globalism. That would also help the environment in alot of ways. Something to think about if there are any terrorists out there... or any more assassins (but they'd need to kill ALOT of the major politicians so the military could formally take control...). Oh, if all that shit was going down there'd be no way I'd leave the USA. I'd just sit on the porch and smoke joints and watch all this shit burn down around me.
It's already begun, Ohio, sit back and wait.
The US majorly shot itself in the foot with this War Of Terror and now the West is really going to have the chickens coming home to roost.
There are also a lot more movements now towards decentralisting economies and getting free of the US Franchise yoke.
But then the Chinese happily use slave labour to destroy the world too, check out beijing, surrounded by a million factories to every horizon, puffing out black smoke.
yeah, but if nobody could buy all that shit that china's making, their economy would collapse, too. That's what I'm talking about. We're all so damn dependent on one another that if one part were to completely spiral out of control the whole thing would collapse. Imagine if the US dollar would collapse the way Argentina's currency did a few years back. Imagine the affect that would have on the global markets, and the banks, and the oil companies, and EVERYBODY who deals in US dollars and the ALL the currencies that align themselves with it, including the Chinese Yuan. Imagine if that was combined with starvation, and floods, and water shortages, and disease, and possibly a coup d etat or a civil war or both here in the USA. HAHAHA! All these suburbanite assholes with their SUV's digging through dumpsters and hunting stray cats. I'm laughing right now, seriously. I can't fucking wait. Call me an anarchist, whatever, I know how to hunt, fish, and dumpsterdive. I can make my own hooch and grow fields of ganja and walk around on the freeway with my donkey, contemplating the burned out remnants of Lincoln Towncars and Chevy Suburbans. It's a beautiful fantasy....
"walk around on the freeway with my donkey, contemplating the burned out remnants of Lincoln Towncars..."
Haha ohio i love it. this was the best thing i read all day.
Yeah, fantastic stuff man. Reminds me of that fight club quote
"In the world I see -- you're stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You will wear leather clothes that last you the rest of your life. You will climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. You will see tiny figures pounding corn and laying-strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of
the ruins of a superhighway."
I cant wait! Better go sharpen my spear..
Howard Kunstler - The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophies of the 21st Century
not the greatest motivation to stay in uni.
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however, as far as the western globe, it really is a shame. even at the source, the US, the impact of big name players in small rural towns is alarming. burger kings and taco bells steal business from family owned joints.
last summer i noticed that most airports and rail stations i stepped in across europe, asia, and africa, were plastered with HSBC advertisements. The Worlds Local Bank, it is, and as i stood in hong kong staring at its exoskeleton headquarters, i couldnt help but think of how much better this world must have been centuries ago before flashy corporates and globalisation.
There're alot of fucking people in this world that are starting to see where globalization is taking us. The environmental, cultural, and in alot of ways economic impact has been hugely negative. Alot of people are seeing this and maybe alot of us really want to change it back somehow, but how do we stop globalization? War? or is it a symptom of globalization that powers like the US and UK can bomb and invade countries all over the globe. But, maybe everything is just getting over-extended, maybe the new corporate-state is going to try too hard to fully conquer the world, and come crumbling down before it can succeed. Global Climate Change, drinking water shortages, wars for water, disease, floods, hurricanes destroying cities and the government of the richest country in the world being too fucking corrupt to do anything about it! Obviously, this is all gonna collapse pretty soon. We're due for a major population decline. Major. Thank god. More open space...
well, there are still some corners of the planet where is a meaningless word: I'm talking about places with no train or coach connection, with no facilities (not even the filthiest) at all, where you must be self reliant in terms of transportation, food, water, everything. Have you ever been to the Equateur Province of Congo DRC, or to South-Western Ethiopia, or to Southern Angola? Places where you don't find not only any tourist, but any backpacker 'cause there is no public transport, no hostel, no cafè for their milk shakes, no backery, places where people don't know Bush, Bin Laden, KFC, MD's and follow the same lifestyle of thousands years ago, with no form of integration with the outside world.
my dream is to see the entire world just like that, rocco.