It's not every month I read stuff which inspires me, keeps me glued. I've read enough expensive-but-uncontinuable books to know good writing is rare. But 2006 has been unusually kind to me.

So the first Book-of-the-Month (BOM) I'm blogging about is something I picked up in Trafalgar Square's Waterstone's which kept me hooked through the second half of January and a little into Feb, Naomi Klein's No Logo.

No Logo is capitalism deconstructed for the despair-disseminating and presence-negating machine few recognise it to be. Multi-national corporations and their brands are exposed as the latest power-mongers, usurping the imagination of society, controlling the public space, limiting choices. It is indeed, as one reviewer put it, the Das Kapital of the growing anti-corporate movement, a fascinating pre-emptive strike against the global larger-than-governments transcendent meaning machines (Klein's phrase).

Short aside: Why did I even bother buying the book? Main (though flimsy) reason is because it was quoted heavily in what was for me arguably the Book of the Year for 2005, Colossians Remixed.

I tell ya I can never think of Nike, McDonald's, Shell, Pepsi, Disney, Espirit and the other bought-without-thought logos the same way again. Not after reading (Klein's respectable though obviously not problem-free account of) how these companies have planted their symbols in all areas of life (in music, in toilets, in to youth culture, within imagination). Coke and Pepsi taste less refreshing when juxtaposed with the thought that in exchange for funds, schools and universities had to commission research on new ad campaigns for the drink giants. And each time the famous yellow shell image appears, I can't help being reminded of the petrol organisation's contribution (albeit indirect) to the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa, African Nobel Peace Prize nominee fighting for the Ogoni people, whose lives were threatened by oil-drilling in the Niger delta.

Most heart-wrenching of all were Klein's account of the utterly inhumane practices going on in Export Processing Zones (EPZs') in countries like the Phillipines and China. Imagine pee sessions restricted to a pre-specified 15-minute stretches during the 12- to 14-hour workdays. Or women workers passing out and giving birth on the factory floor, because they were hiding their pregnancy, because to show a belly was to lose their pittance-paying jobs.

If Klein, this "young funky heiress to Noam Chomsky", is even on target with her reporting then most of us consumers are sustaining an oppressive (though subtle hidden) system. As a Tom Peters fan, I swear I felt the guilt flowing through me. Fast. (Interestingly enough, I Googled Peters' - the ultimate prophet of postmodern brands if ever there was one - site for any discussion on Klein's book and guess what I found? Zilch.)

The 'solutions' discussed and paraded were interestingly fresh in their own right. You've got people redrawing poster-ads, hordes Reclaiming the Streets (think of thousands of people jamming up the streets, blocking traffic, creatively saying, "No more cars!" - that's RTS for you), mass boycotting of brands, and very public exposés (the McLibel in the U.K. story was a classic - McDonald sues couple for disseminating anti-McD leaflets, couple uses legal limelight to open up McD's negative practices even more!). We even read of street kids in the Bronx collectively dumping Nike shoes and attire at the nearest Nike retail store.

In Klein's own words:

"Ethical shareholders, culture jammers, street reclaimers, McUnion organisers, human-rights hacktivists, school-logo fighters and Internet corporate watchdogs are at the early stages of demanding a citizen-centered alternative to the international rule of the brands.

That demand, still sometimes in some areas of the world whispered for fear of a jinx, is to build a resistance - both high-tech and grassroots, both focused and fragmented (sounds like the Emergent movement, doesn't it?) -that is as global, and as capble of coordinated action, as the multinational corporations it seeks to subvert." (p.445-446) (insert mine, obviously)

Check out the website. Read the book.

Fight the brands.