Reykjavík Grapevine - 29.06.2007, Page 4

06_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 09_007_OPINION
Cappuccino + bagle + yoghurt = 650 kr.
Not all the dope this nation swallows is narcot-
ic. Nowadays, we are all relentlessly force-fed
an anaesthetic, the effects of which dwarf the
blunting influence of any opium; advertising is
the science of arresting the human intelligence
long enough to strip it of its sense and capital.
It is the fine art of making you think that all
your life you have longed for something which
you have never heard of before. It tells you
which luxuries you can not live without and
the drowsiness of its sensual-lullaby affects you
in such a way that if you listen to a bank com-
mercial long enough you will start to believe
you can borrow yourself out of debt.
Joseph Goebbels was the Minister for Pub-
lic Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi
Germany and played a large role in creating
new anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi material for
the party. He was in charge of a propaganda
machine which reached all the way down to
branch level and followed a simple guideline:
‘If you repeat a lie often enough, people will
start to believe it’. He knew that when people
believe something which has not sprung from
the lap of logic, no logical argument can rid
them of the dogma established; they will think
dogmatically, speak dogmatically, listen dog-
matically, see dogmatically, smell dogmatically
and taste dogmatically – and, sadly, it usually
takes a titanic social catastrophe to shatter
such a test-tube belief-system.
The American Edward Bernays is generally
regarded as the founder of Public Relations. In
describing the origin of the profession, Bernays
commented: ‘After the war […] ‘propaganda’
got to be a bad word because of the way the
Germans had used it. So I tried to find some
other words and found the words Council on
Public Relations.’
Every Public Relations Manager has mas-
tered Goebbels’ art of brain-washing – but
under a different title; just as you can pro-
gramme a nation to hate the Jewish race you
can make people believe that ‘Happiness’ can
be found inside a Pepsi-can, that ‘Safety’ can
be bought from an insurance-company, and
that a bank ‘Loves’ football. One day light
bulbs will hate watermelons and, who knows,
cardboard-boxes might acquire a prestigious
taste in South-American literature.
As a nation we suffer from a schizophrenic
double pull: Iceland fights for her life but busi-
ness must fight for profits. You can not open
a newspaper or magazine anymore without
seeing two contradictory processes happening
side by side. On the very same page, you will
see the government urging you to save and
the seller of some useless luxury urging you
to spend. Do you, dear reader, realize we are
living in a time when almost everybody reads
a newspaper and the only things they believe
are the advertisements? – and there is no ‘Ca-
veat Emptor’ anywhere to be seen or heard. A
few days ago, Iceland’s National Broadcasting
Company – which supposedly serves as the
national safeguard of culture and education
– aired the documentary The Truth About
Climate Change, by Sir David Attenborough,
which stressed that over-consumption is the
prime cause for our planet’s greatest social
and ecological problems. Moments after it
ended, there was a commercial break in which
the nation was urged to consume like never
before.
But what is to be done? Deleuze and Guat-
tari pointed out that as capitalism decodes and
deterritorializes, it reaches a limit at which point
it must artificially reterritorialize by expanding
the state apparatus and repressive bureau-
cratic and symbolic regimes. The nomad and
independent thinker, however, never reaches
such a limit and resists this reterritorialization.
Years earlier, Jack Kerouac had simplified the
same thought in an infamous declaration:
‘Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the reb-
els, the trouble-makers. The round heads in
the square holes. The ones who see things
differently. They’re not fond of the rules, and
they have no respect for the status-quo. You
can quote them, disagree with them, glorify
or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do
is ignore them, because they change things.
They push the human race forward. And while
some may see them as crazy ones. We see
genius, because the people who are crazy
enough to think they can change the world,
are the ones that do.’ Steve Jobs later made
use of this exact fragment in the ‘Think Differ-
ent’ Apple-computer propaganda campaign...
How about that Jack?
On Advertisement
Text by Magnús Björn Ólafsson
Just as you can programme a nation to hate the
Jewish race you can make people believe that ‘Hap-
piness’ can be found inside a Pepsi-can.
At the time of this writing, I have just wit-
nessed a weekend of utter beauty. My en-
thusiasm for the solstice is somewhat corny,
like a smooth morning’s breeze with Grieg’s
‘Peer Gynt’ playing under in the back ground.
However, my summertime groove has been
spoiled by this summer’s blockbuster hit, a
midnight version of the “Night of The Living
Dead”.
The actors are famous and various other
Icelanders, otherwise known as the hobos and
bums of downtown Reykjavík. Over a period
of time you not only get to recognise their
faces, but you also might become acquainted
with them, even on a first name basis. My
own experience has been somewhat fun:
I managed to meet a few. One is quite a
character, especially because of his fondness
for the ‘svastika’. Another friend of mine told
me recently he had become a morphine ad-
dict, while waiting for some ethanol to drink
(mainly used for cleaning wounds) from the
pharmacy. Sometimes you can even recognize
them by their own vomit. The downtrodden
denizens of Reykjavík’s unseemly underworld
are easily spotted. They often sit near the
benches near Austurvöllur and the Supreme
Court; they also spot fine tans and wobble in
the summer sun. More like Stravinsky, think
Rite of Spring, than Grieg.
Everybody seems to be talking about the
‘great dilemma;’ however, the supposed ‘ac-
tion taking’ right, as opposed to the ‘chatty
left’, seem to be at a loss as to what to do. The
hobos, in most people’s minds, are not lovable
like the tramps in Springfield, or Chaplin’s
version with the ambiguous ending, they are
perhaps even worse than any character by
W.C. Fields, at least to some. To me, the dis-
cussion makes these people seem more akin
to the ‘town whore’ in a puritanical society
sans the ‘Scarlet Letter.’ Although no action
has been taken to help these poor souls, there
has, however, been action taken against the
greater dilemma of Reykjavík, which is the
seagull dilemma.
The dilemma was solved, or is being
solved, by planting poisoned bread in nests
and then snapping the necks of this danger-
ous vermin that threatens our very existence.
Other ideas had been shopped around, e.g. a
free shoot-em up around Reykjavík’s outskirts.
Somehow it makes you feel all warm inside
to know that the mindset of some city offi-
cials seems to be emulating teenage school
shooters with hard-ons for Quake and Doom.
Maybe we could import some hillbillies and
rednecks to kill the cats as well.
However, I have a proposal to solve the
hobo dilemma, aspired by some fine verse:
“Under the wide and starry sky / dig the grave
... here he lies where he longed to be”. Or to
be less exacting, I am proposing that Iceland
(Reykjavík) solve this problem once and for
all. Because we are building, or planning to
build, aluminium smelter (heavy industry)
plants all around Iceland – in a vain attempt
to beat McDonald’s “over 6 billion served”
– we should simply plant poison in the hooch
of the downtrodden here in Reykjavík – and
then snap their necks. For example, we could
use their bodies for the supposed landfill in
Hafnarfjörður, or should I say the Alcan island
some want to erect. Even though you try and
say no to Alcan, Alcan then just turns that
no into a perverted yes. Alcan, like Reagan,
doesn’t take crap from no hippies, no matter
where they come from.
And instead of having to watch people
passed out and lying in their own piss, filth
and blood, these ‘Dead Souls’ could then be
put to quite good use. And even though “man
hands on misery to man / it deepens like a
coastal shelf”. You just have to take action.
This final solution, maybe inspired by Hitler or
Emperor Palpantine, would not only solve the
aesthetics of Reykjavík’s downtown area, but
it would also be a pre-emptive strike against
future problems. Because of our relentless
over fishing of cod and almost everything else
that moves in the ocean, we could stockpile
the meat of these ‘Dead Souls’. Imagine the
tenderness and spices of the meat. And those
who would not have their necks snapped
could possibly become the lobotomised work-
ers in the five hundred planned Alcoa and
Alcan plants, yes somewhat like in Cloud
Atlas – cheaper labour than anything from
Eastern Europe.
However, what saddens me the most is
that some people choose to ignore almost ev-
ery other problem that doesn’t directly relate
to them. Some even think they are superior
in some way, better than most because their
job defines them. Instead of being drunken
zombies they are more like the ‘living dead’
zombies, more dead inside than the bums. But
like the old saying goes ‘in vino veritas.’
Down and Out in
Alcoa(Alcan)land!
Text by Marvin Lee Dupree
The dilemma was solved, or is being solved, by plant-
ing poisoned bread in nests and then snapping the
necks of this dangerous vermin that threatens our
very existence.
Drífa ehf, Sudurhraun 12 C, 210 Gardabaer, Iceland, Tel +354-555 7400, Fax +354-555 7401, icewear@icewear.is
since 1972
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