> At an (admittedly) quick glance, looks to be the stupidest
> terrorism-related
> waste of ink I've ever seen. And it's a competitive field. Has this
> guy ever
> written anything worth reading?
Yes, his description of fat Americans in 'fatal strategies' is a pleasure. Having written some very angry things against Baudrillard in the past, I have mellowed, and think that as long as you don't take him too literally, then a lot of what he writes is kind of interesting.
For example, his description of the 'silent majority' that defeats political classes by its indolence is plainly wrong (there is no conscious strategy) but it is a comical reductio ad absurdem of the frustration of activists toward the apathetic mass. Similarly his description of the way that hostages tyrannize society is not literally true, but captures something of the elevated status of victims, that Elazar Barkan writes more seriously upon in The Guilt of Nations. -- James Heartfield