With the Mississippi flooding the Midwest, "water crisis" means too much of it in all the wrong places. But for much of the world, finding drinkable water is an all-day struggle, and threatens global stability in Asia, Africa and elsewhere - not to mention our brush with parched-earth over Atlanta. Besides climate change, we can thank corporate control of that priceless resource, without which life and liberty are out of the question, for many of the water-availability problems. And the Pentagon is getting into the act.
It's time to address this issue before mega-drought and extinction issues force our hand, and do something to protect this resource as the ultimate human right: right to water, to life.
In the four years leading up the Iraq War Exxon averaged a yearly net profit of $11.95 Billion. In the years since George Bush, started the Iraq War Exxon has averaged a yearly net profit of $32.6 Billion, an increase of 273% over the pre Iraq War average profit.
THis is a short film narrated by Naomi Klein and based on her book The Shock Doctrine, which is probably the most must-read book to come out in years.
I'm not going to comment on it too much. I'll let the video speak for itself. But I will say, Klein's book is not just another well crafted depiction of how screwed up things are. There are plenty of those. This book, however, is, as Tim Robbins says, "a revelation". I've yet to see another work so completely encapsulate the dark forces shaping our world, and their origins. This little movie, while shocking in itself, is just hint of what the book contains. It is required reading for any citizen who desires to be informed.
Naomi Klein wrote a troubling article in the June 30 Nation that calls out key Obama economic advisers who are steeeped in the disastrous Milt Friedman school of economics.
Obama--who taught law at the University of Chicago for a decade--is thoroughly embedded in the mind-set known as the Chicago School.
Klein points to Jason Furman, who Obama chose to head his economic policy team, Austan "Barack doesn't really plan to reform NAFTA" Goolsbee as a key advisor, and billionaire Kenneth Griffin. All of these folks espouse an approach of deregulation and "free markets" that has lead numerous economies to ruin while inflicting horrible punishments on their populations. Klein calls Obama's team a "mixed bag," but argues convincingly that...
Now is the time to worry about Obama's Chicago Boys and their commitment to fending off serious attempts at regulation.
What's up with these guys on Obama's economic team? It's one thing to collect a healthy variety of perspectives on the team, but quite worrisome to fill key posts with people steeped in the misguided doctrine of disaster capitalism.
Here is Part 1 and here is Part II for those of you who have been ditching or sleeping. Please sit up straight and keep your attention focused on the teacher. Thank you.
Today's lesson is going to take a closer look at the process of Disaster Capitalism as it relates to public schools.
But the fundamental problem with our country is that for decades we have come to believe that democracy is something that requires only that we vote.
Some of us don't even do that.
But this country was founded by people who knew they did so upon threat of death; the signatories of the Declaration of Independence knew it was their death warrant were they to be caught by British troops, hanged until dead, their families equally at risk for the flourish of their quill pen upon parchment.
Thankfully, they did not run away. They stood their tenuous, embattled ground.
Perhaps I'm a bit paranoid. But I just got done reading Naomi Klein's shock doctrine book, and Senator Hillary, and Senator MCCain's gas tax proposals contain elements that are clearly laid out in Naomi's book.
According to Naomi, the ruling elite have trouble passing the economic 'reforms' that they want when democratic societies are humming along normally. Common themes include less government spending, elimination of trade barriers, privatization of state owned wealth, eliminating price controls, corporate and financial deregulation, and bath-tub blah blah blah. You know what I'm talking about.
Since these 'reforms' cannot easily be implemented with normal democratic processes, other methods are employed. Naomi documents in her book the evolution of the shock therapy that is employed just before the Reaganomics are shoved down the throat of unsuspecting countries.
Yesterday I wrote a diary about how a school district is privatizing public education using the Disaster Capitalism method. I wrote about for-profit organizations contracting with school districts.
Today, instead of focusing on Capitalism, I will write about Disaster.
I recently bought Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine. Reading it has informed me and infuriated me to the point of action. This is the first action I am taking. I am going to spread the word. I believe every American citizen has the obligation to read and thoroughly digest this wonderful work of art. (ALthough, I'll settle for every kossack)
To begin with, corporatism is a political system designed to support corporations. It has its beginnings in the laissez-faire economic theory of Milton Friedman. A better term for this whole system would be disaster capitalism. The reason being that corporatism requires a disaster to exist and/or sustain itself. For example, in the US 9/11. Indeed, the Neocons
here in the US are the party which most promote these ideas of disaster capitalism.
Disaster capitalism is the economic theory that is the true ideological opposite to marxist economic theory. There is a middle road called Keynesianism(pronounced: canezeeinism), named after John Keynes. Disaster capitalists relish in the fact that they have taken the place of keynesianism as the predominant economic theory among politicians
From subprime loans, Black/African American borrowers will lose between $71 billion and $92 billion, while Latino borrowers will lose between $75 billion and $98 billion for the same period.
According to federal data, people of color are more than three times more
likely to have subprime loans: high-cost loans account for 55% of loans to
Blacks, but only 17% of loans to Whites.
NOLA and post-Katrina issues are not out of mind just because they might be out of sight. This diary is a reminder that these elections, at their heart, are about more than "my candidate can beat your candidate". There is a core of competence and fairness we want restored to government. And while at times it may seem to be tough to break through the primary hoopla (I note the frustration in the last paragraph), we all need to continue to ask questions, be aware and offer help where we can. - DemFromCT
Louisiana's frustrating Road Home program continues to give the shaft to people who've worked all their lives and owned their homes, to lose them in New Orleans' flooding and during Katrina and Rita. They're being treated as common criminals complete with mug shots and fingerprinting when all they want is to rebuild their homes.
And New Orleans' depleted health care system has been dealt another blow from BushCo-supported disaster capitalism.
So these stories need to get national attention, because they're about things that could strangle the comeback of a beautiful, historic city.
A while back, one of our best writers made a statement about what happened post-Katrina. So many of us were charging Bush and his fellow criminals with incompetence. Luckydog had a different, and I think, far more accurate take:
great article ... one point, tho' ...
...in order for the crony contracts to have come about as quickly as they did, it is indisputable to me that any and all discussions in the White House in the first days after Katrina were not "how can we help NOLA & the Gulf Coast", rather the discussions were "get our friends lined up".
In the whole White House, there never ever was a reaction of compassion and action.
On the other hand, there was no hesitation, none whatsoever. The White House was always, from the get-go, always...Cha-Ching!
It's not as though the White House stumbled upon ways to help cronies - they approached the whole situation from the outset as an opportunity.
And that's as fucking sick as it gets.
It's strange. Of all the recent happenings in Southern California and around the U.S., wildfire probably make the most sense.
While seven fires continue to tear through thousands of homes on the West Coast, Boston Red Sox fans are doing the "Papelbon Jig" on the helmets of riot police on the East Coast. That's O.K. though, because a columnist in this morning's Boston Metro writes "let it burn" of the California wildfires. Meanwhile, Governor Spitzer is back-pedaling on his heroic drivers' license stance and Tom Tancredo is retiring (tip JTD). Compared to all of this, wildfire is sanity.
There's three things I want to convey about the California wildfires: Fire knows no borders and neither do Mexican firefighters, forgotten migrants are the real victims of the wildfires, and anti-migrant hate has reared its head, yet again, in the form of a hurtful fake news article. I will, of course, finish the post with the best way to help out.
This is a review of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, a detailed, journalistic history of neoliberalism which emphasizes its connection to "shock therapy," torture, and other means of tearing down people and society so that they can be rebuilt along the lines of "perfect," ideological models. My review differs from others in that it focuses upon important themes and close analysis of key quotes within the book.
When I was in college majoring in Political Science during the Reagan years, one of my professors and I had a lengthy conversation about "privatization". We both agreed that it was coming and the results would not be desirable.
Over 10 years ago, I told my neo-con brother that nation-states were irrelevant. "Of course, nations are important!" He said to me when he finished laughing.
Patriotism is bullshit and wars only suit those in power. Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush have destroyed our country. Voting for Hillary is just more of the same. If we want to survive, we need a real agent of change. If we want an America we can be proud of, we need to act now.
Update: Forgive me for leaving Al Gore off the list. He would be my personal choice, however, I just heard his office say that he would not run for President. I have to take him at his word.
"The connections are daring in journalist Naomi Klein's new book, "The Shock Doctrine," but the result is convincing. With a bold and brilliantly conceived thesis, skillfully and cogently threaded through more than 500 pages of trenchant writing, Klein may well have revealed the master narrative of our time. And because the pattern she exposes could govern our future as well, "The Shock Doctrine" could turn out to be among the most important books of the decade."
This is what William S. Kowinski had to say about Naomi Klein's new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism in his September 23rd review for the San Francisco Chronicle. In this brilliant new book Klein deconstructs the unsavory methods that market fundamentalist use to subvert democracy and ram through unpopular "free market" reforms. Follow me below the fold for your free vaccination of knowledge that will protect you in times of crisis.
Garret Keizer in this month’s Harpers is calling for a general strike on November 6th, 2007 (that’s election day), while in the same issue an excerpt of Naomi Klein’s book “Disaster Capitalism” gives a new twist to what we already know about the system we’re living under.
A call for a general strike on September 11th appeared on the internet too late to make it happen, but hopefully with enough lead time, enough organizations will get on board this time. Demonstrations don’t seem to make a dent in either Bush’s determination or congress’s indetermination. Shutting down the country - no work, no school, no consumption - just might.
In Europe, when general strikes fail to produce results - which is rare - populations have been known to turn to violence. European civilians are not armed, so they overturn cars to form barricades and dig up cobblestones or find other things to throw.
