I could sure go for a Pepsi right now. Not an actual Pepsi, of course, but the IDEA of a Pepsi.

I was thinking again of the discourse of national identity when I saw Vladimir Putin on t.v. the other day. He was saying there was “no going back,” or some such thing, when it came to Russian democracy. It’s trying to establish this line that Russia Is Democratic, so that any actions it undertakes cannot be anti-democratic, because we’ve already passed the point of no return.

I guess what I’ve found weird for a long time is the notion that democracy and capitalism are natural partners. There’s a good example in the film The Corporation that argues against this. There’s a town meeting about starting a Wal-Mart or some such thing, and somebody says – if you don’t want a Wal-Mart, then don’t shop there. You know, the old vote with your money thing. And somebody responded to it that voting with your money is not democracy – democracy is one vote per person, everyone having equal say. But with capitalism, the system is designed for some to accrue huge resources – especially the sort of oligarchical capitalism practiced in North America.

I saw a scary ad on a website recently. It was a Wal-Mart ad, which said that if you want The Facts about having a Wal-Mart open in your town then go to walmart.com/thefacts, or some such thing. I mean, first of all, if someone claims to have The Facts, I think you should be very suspicious. Noam Chomsky has this brilliant line in The Indispensable Chomsky (this might be the actual title, and then again, might not) where when asked why we should believe him he says we shouldn’t, that we should go check out the information for ourselves. I had a weird moment while reading that book where he was talking utter shit about the social sciences, and that made me think that the more I understood about the topic he was discussing, the more I didn’t like what he had to say. But his comment about process, about checking things for yourself, just seems indisputable to me.

Perhaps I’m on this line of thinking because I saw Motorcycle Diaries today. I find the fascination with Che Guevara interesting. I really know little more about him than I learned in the film. But around here, you see tons of people wearing Che Guevara t-shirts. In fact, this film, about Che’s discovery of social injustice, was being shown at this trendy little theatre where wine would be brought to your seat, on demand. It’s the medium that’s the message.

Now, for fun, let’s make a poem out of these four loosely connected paragraphs:

I know that my leader is Officially Good,
And just, and free, and young, and sexy.
I know because I was told,
By those I can trust more than myself.
I know to be afraid of the people.
That my neighbour’s dark nature,
Is held back only by Good Leadership,
And Great Men.
I take pride in knowing,
When love is wrong,
When hate is right,
When I am not afraid.