Ms. Klein could well have sub-titled her work “Anatomy of a Global Rape and Pillage.”  What us surviving free wild natural Human Beings are watching to see is whether the captive hordes of domesticated peons (american ones prefer “pioneers”)who’ve provided all the blood-sweat-and-tears (and have virtually nothing to show) for it are in the end going to let their tormentors get away with it.

Ms. Klein says she’s “....optimistic.”  Our tame two-legged Sisters and Brothers better hope it’s for good and sufficient reasons….rather than just more mandatory whistling past the graveyard. 

This old Savage is neither dis- nor encouraged by the state of “current affairs.”  Looks like it’s all up-in-the-air right now, and might come down either way.  Anyhow, as she so wisely reminds us, “disaster” and “crisis” are definitely two-edged swords.  So maybe it’s the wannabe “masters-of-the-universe” who’re really the deepest in Bush “doo-doo” (or Reagan voodoo) these days.

Now that IS a happy thought.

HokaHey!

Max: Here are some additional comments on McCain from NARAL on issues that you apparently believe are not very important.  McCain voted 20 times to block a woman’s right to access to birth control; voted to eliminate Title X and deny millions of women basic health-care services ranging from birth control to breast cancer screening, voted against choice 125 times out of 130 opportunities since 1983 and said that Roe v Wade should be overturned.

Max, you can traipse back over the years and come up with McCain votes that might seem progressive for a Republican, but the question is which John McCain you are referring to.  Keith Olbermann examined McCain’s flip-flops on a wide array of issues, such as he was for McCain-Feingold before he was against it.  Olbermann refers to McCain’s as the “Double Talk Express.”  I prefer Orwell’s “Doublespeak” or even “Doublethink.”  Right now McCain is thoroughly embedded with the oil cartel.  His campaign is loaded with the industry’s lobbyists, and the policies he is advancing are those desired by Exxon-Mobil, the company that is probably the single greatest threat to the environment today.

I have had no problem telling you when and where I disagree with Obama or that he was my third choice.  I’m afraid, however, that you lack the intellectual ability (or integrity) to concede when you are in agreement with him.

For you to ignore the fundamental differences between Obama and McCain on so many issues that truly matter reflects not an objective assessment but instead the blind mumblings of a Nader partisan.

Ernest,
“No difference between Obama & McCain on anything important?  I suppose you do not feel climate change is important..”

Look I’m not here to make a case for either of these tired worn out cliches. Just look at McCain’s record in the Senate on climate change and compare to Obama’s.

I see absolutely no case for Obama other than the fear created by Dems for McCain. This is business as usual. Rather than offer real change; make a stand, Obama slides over to the right with the greatest of ease. (And I don’t think it’s purely to find a middle ground I think Obama really is a Repub-lite; it’s not just political manuevering.)

A real progressive agenda would stand four-square on all the major issues, not equivocate and more than lean right. The Dems regularly loose when they do this; but here I think they’ve got a genuine DLRer. Obama has received massive sums and his large donators - dollar-wise - aren’t small donars but large ones. He’s received significant dollars from Pharma, Defense (that alone is incredibly dependent on fossil), Insurance and a host of other major Corporate interests. The people giving small donations like the idea of Obama. It takes a while the public to get passed the hype to catch up but they are. Just look at Obama’s history on oil and PAC money:“PACs and lobbyists aided Obama’s rise
Data contrast with his theme”
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/08/09/ pacs_and_lobbyists_aided_obamas_rise/

How can you talk about where the money is coming from when it’s Obama who refused to take the public funding? Whether you believe he’s getting the money from small donars or not is irrelevant because it leaves the door wide-open for big money and influence to flow as never before.

I know this is for the CA PDA organization, but it includes information that any progressive Democrats may be interested in. (or I hope). In other words, if there is not already a local PDA chapter in your state, this will provide whatever you need to start one.

******

California PDA on Air America Tuesday July 1!
Tune in online here and listen to Mimi Kennedy co-hosting CLOUT with Richard Greene. “PDAir America” will welcome endorsed California Congressional Candidates Bill Durston and Steve Young, and PDA California Organizers including Dr. Bill Honigman and Marcy Winograd.

Richard Greene has been very supportive of PDA, and we hope to show our support for him by listening to “Clout” at 6:00 PM PDT daily.  Click here to listen to the live stream. We need to drive up the online listener numbers up to keep “Clout” on the air with PDA!

CLOUT is all about what PDA does. Richard focuses on what we as progressives have to do, like electing progressives to Congress to hold Obama and Pelosi’s feet to the fire, and keeping Congress working on the Progressive Agenda. Together, we have CLOUT!

Richard writes: “I reached out to PDA in hopes that Tuesday nights could become the Progressive Community’s 2 hours on radio—every week, same time, same Bat Station. If tomorrow we could show a serious bump in stream numbers, 2,000 or more PDA members who log on at the beginning at 6:06 Pacific and stay (I would love for them to also call in and jam the call lines—866-303-2270), this would give me enough CLOUT! to keep this kind of community radio on the air.”

California is the leader of the progressive movement, and PDA’s California team is counting on you to click in, tune in, and listen!
Listen, call in, support PDA on the Radio tomorrow evening, 6 PM Pacific!
Yours in the Movement,
Tim Carpenter
National Director

Leefeller,

Glad you saw the Naomi Wolf video. I wasn’t even aware of this recent one, which includes some extra stuff from when I attended a lecture she provided here, before her latest book. (which is excellent).

This was also posted, (if you want a list of these 10 steps – I got chills and had nighmares when I first read these steps) in the Guardian over a year ago. Since then, there’s a good collection of various articles on this, (we put them together for a course in the Winter term of this year) to tie it together. I believe they should all still be available.

Meantime, I really appreciate this video, because while I’ve been horrified by this stuff for some years now and screaming about it…most folks really have NOT found anything particularly fearful, and it seems like it’s because they aren’t aware that this stuff is even happening. My family has been thinking I’ve been over-exaggerating these major concerns, and I don’t have the same talent as Naomi has in explaining what all of this MEANS! And why they should be scared silly. (or in the case of the kids, sillier than they already are.)

Anyway, I said that to say that I’m grateful for the video, since not everybody has the time or opportunity to follow this stuff reading, or can attended these lectures. Seeing the video makes it easier than me trying to explain it. And, I wouldn’t have know that this lecture was available on video if you all hadn’t mentioned it here. So thanks.

Her book is worth the purchase as well. I don’t think it was that expensive. Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine was more, but it should be available in softcover soon, if not already.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps
Naomi Wolf
Tuesday April 24, 2007
http://w/ww.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329789179-110878,0 0.html

It Could Happen Here
Joe Conason
Feb 19, 2007

This is an excerpt from his book

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/02/19/conaso n/print.html

The Bill of Wrongs: The 10 most outrageous civil liberties violations of 2006
Dahlia Lithwick

http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id= 2156397

Max, your last post has got to be one of your most disingenuous.  First, from Webster’s, “partisan:  a firm adherent to a party, faction, cause or person.”  Nader didn’t display much in the way of party loyalty when he dumped the Greens but I believe his followers are adherents to Nader, the person, and his cause.

No difference between Obama & McCain on anything important?  I suppose you do not feel climate change is important, for McCain opposes Sen. Boxer’s Climate Security Act—Obama supports it.  McCain, who is the second largest recipient of campaign contributions from the oil, coal and gas industries (2d to Kay Bailey Hutchinson R.Tx) supports off shore drilling, opposes a windfall profits tax and has stated that he would be opposed to requiring the oil industry to invest their windfall profits into alternative energy.  (Obama precisely the opposite).

NARAL not only gave McCain a zero rating because he flip-flopped on Roe and now opposes a woman’s right to choose (Obama supports it) but McCain went so far as to even vote against a bill requiring insurance companies to pay for prescription birth control.

You may think the right to have a court determine the factual basis for executive detention (habeas corpus, a right dating back to the Magna Carta) is insignificant.  As an attorney, I, a majority of Justices on the Supreme Court, and Barack Obama, the Magna Cum Laude graduate of Harvard Law School think it is a very big deal—a fundamental shield against tyranny.  (I suspect if you asked Ralph Nader, he would agree).  McCain and the fundamentalists in robes who already occupy four seats on the Supreme Court feel otherwise.  McCain and the Federalist Societ subscribe to a “Unitary Executive” theory that is not merely radical but subversive in that it would spell an end to separation of powers and extend to an American president the power to rule as Hitler did, by executive fiat.

Your “no difference” propaganda does not gain credibility simply because you are fond of repeating it.

Klein says;

”“Friedman first learned how to exploit a large-scale shock or crisis in the mid-seventies, when he acted as an adviser to the Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet.”

BZZT! Wrong, Naomi, he FIRST learned to exploit a large-scale crisis when he and Beardsley Ruml, president of Macy’s, instituted income-tax witholding on behalf of the Roosevelt Administration at the start of World War II;

http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj14n3-1.html

(yes it’s from the Stato institute, but read it, it’s a good analysis.)

At the same time, with the New Deal, FDR had already pretty well organized the US economy, at least at the top level as a corporatist state following Mussolini’s pattern. This is on top of the creation of the Federal Reserve (which socialized the costs and privatized the profits of money and banking in the US) and the imposition of the income tax itself (which immorally enslaved the population to the federal government).

Though there was finally economic recovery after WWII, the free market died a slow, agonizing death and has never been resurrected.

What people like Naomi Klein, and the older Milton Friedman call capitalism is actually a tightly-regulated system of state corporatism. There is no more capitalism.

But “Disaster Capitalism” SOUNDS so much better than “Disaster State-Corporatism” and serves the socialist impulse better than “Disaster Fascism”.

BZZT! Wrong, Naomi, he FIRST learned to exploit a large-scale crisis when he and Beardsley Ruml, president of Macy’s, instituted income-tax witholding on behalf of the Roosevelt Administration at the start of World War II;

http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj14n3-1.html

(yes it’s from the Stato institute, but read it, it’s a good analysis.)

At the same time, with the New Deal, FDR had already pretty well organized the US economy, at least at the top level as a corporatist state following Mussolini’s pattern. This is on top of the creation of the Federal Reserve (which socialized the costs and privatized the profits of money and banking in the US) and the imposition of the income tax itself (which immorally enslaved the population to the federal government).

Though there was finally economic recovery after WWII, the free market died a quiet death and has never been resurrected.

What people like Naomi Klein, and the older Milton Friedman call capitalism is actually a tightly-regulated system of state corporatism. There is no more capitalism.

But “Disaster Capitalism” SOUNDS so much better than “Disaster State-Corporatism” and serves the socialist impulse better than “Disaster Fascism”.

Ernest,

Partisan is not synanomous with agenda. I don’t think you can make that case from the root of the word partisan: Etymology: Middle French partisan, from north Italian dialect partiźan, from part part, party, from Latin part-, pars part.

Nader certainly has a series of issues which he sees as root causes to our foundering system. These are not being addresssed by either Parties or Candidates. In other words he is meta-partisan if we want to play word games.

The existing two party system is dysfunctional. I think you’d be hard pressed to find real differences between Obama and McCain. Let’s take nuclear energy. McCain has recently said he’s for it. Obama says he’d consider it. Invading Iran. McCain seems to be more inclined. Obama has indicated that he wouldn’t hesitate to use force if he thought Israel was jeopardized or if “he” thought Iran was in the process of developing a nuclear weapon. McCain wants to keep health care private; so does Obama.

We can go right through the list and even include areas like same sex marriage. McCain is against; Obama doesn’t agree but wouldn’t oppose. And on and on and on.

Other than FDR - and his story is complicated by many factors - there’s little to put your hat on with one party vs the other; particularly with regards to war and foreign policies which are integral to domestic.

The problem, Ernest, isn’t that Dems and Repubs haven’t shimmied this way and that over the centuries. The problem is that it is all a game because they are not kept honest and they own the rules, lock stock and barrel. “You stand here, and I’ll stand there.” It’s as JG has said a rigged system. And it almost seems natural to have a rigged system after all of these years. It’s like two old fighters going at it for the thousanth time. They know each other’s every move, every muscle twitch and so it’s all mechanical. They can only fake the audience by giving them a show, because there is literally nothing for them to fight about….their old and tired (regardless of the age of their bodies).

It’s time for change!!!

Max, Nader may be running as an “independent” but that does not make his agenda non-partisan.  To the contrary, Nader’s overall agenda is quite partisan.  It is a progressive agenda with which, for the most part, I agree, but certainly a partisan agenda.  The areas in which I disagree with you and Nader are limited but significant.  First, I disagree with his and your continued insistence that there is “no difference” between Republicans and Democrats—I have repeatedly touched upon massive evidence to the contrary.  And I disagree with the “tactic” of a third party strategy and Nader’s role as the perennial footnote of U.S. presidential campaigns which is but a fool’s errand.

Ernest,

You’ve managed to contort/distort pretty much everything I’ve written and dwelled on the Kennedy statement. This may work in a courtroom, but it’s more transparent here. I said that Kennedy was in on the coup and that the result of the coup was the killing of Diem. End of story.

Not that clarification will help, but Nader is an Independent not a partisan. You’ve said you agree with Nader on the issues. So do I. So how does that make me a partisan - he doesn’t belong to a party.

Oh, just a brief addition, Max.  Your suggestion that you are simply trying to tease out history as opposed to partisan revisionism doesn’t measure against the Nader agenda you have carried out since you began posting at Truthdig—an agenda in which you repeatedly assert that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans; Obama and McCain, and you conveniently ignore each and every instance in which fundamental differences appear, such as the one I previously highlighted over appointments to the Supreme Court.

In this instance you stated the widely held belief that JFK ordered the assassination of Diem—a belief which is the product of a forged documents.  Rather than conceding that perhaps what you thought you knew was not so, your comeback was, well, he was the POTUS.

Max, the absurdity of your retort, after all he was the POTUS, can be exposed as follows.  If Lane is correct, and I believe he is, the CIA and anti-Castro Cubans plotted and carried out the assassination of JFK—something not only documented at length by Lane in “Plausible Denial” but later verified by way of E. Howard Hunt’s death bed confession.  Using your logic, since JFK was the POTUS at the time the plot was being hatched, JFK is the one ultimately responsible for his own death.  Hmmmm, not a very convincing retort, Max.

Ernest
“JFK did indeed accept the already existing plans for the Bay of Pigs and approved operation Mongoose, which included efforts to assassinate Castro, but Lane documents that he then underwent change—fundamental change that posed a threat to the imperial designs of the men in charge of the CIA and that is why he was killed.”

First, I NEVER SAID that JFK was in on the original plans for the Bay of Pigs; but there was a continued effort to “get” Castro during his (JFK’s) administration. You can blame it on renegade CIA all you want but HE was the POTUS. He was a relative hardliner regarding his world-view and intervention. His presidency was cut short and so much can be speculated on but he was no soft-power liberal from all accounts.

Was he changing his mind about Vietnam? Quite possibly but during his administration with his for-knowledge, the Diem government was toppled resuling in the death of Diem. We can bat this around but I’m not exaggerating nor putting undue blame on Kennedy. He is not alone in his stance. He was a cold warrior; as was Truman. I’ve got no dog in this fight regarding Dems/Repubs.

I’m trying to tease out the history rather than the partisanship revisionism that paints our Presidents as Great (Reagan, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, etc.). These were significantly flawed Presidencies in ways that cost the lives of many thousands of innocent human beings. FDR’s soft-power in Latin America was certainly a significant improvement but it was still based on a doctrine of Manifest Destiny only instead of guns it was through US Corporate dominance.

But you keep putting “words” in my “mouth”. Perhaps not intentially. What Kennedy may or may not have wanted to happen that happened under his administration can be debated. But it speaks to his sense of the world and his ability to signal that forceful intervention was not his agenda (I don’t think he was ever clear on that given his campaign leading up to his election.)

Kennedy was certainly not the most agregious. In many respects, Reagan takes that prize; but certainly 3 million Vietnamese dead as a result of the escalated war in Vietnam needs to be shared by both Johnson and Nixon. Vietnamese lives were cheap; such is the view held by imperial empires.

And, quite frankly, I see no real difference between the two candidates before us today. I’ve yet to hear an American leader (other than Kucinich) show any remorse for the slaughter of children in Iraq and Afganistan. Where’s Obama’s rhetoric on that?

Max, many of the things you claim are “quite clear” turn out not to be so clear after all.  Many things have occurred which have been beyond the knowledge and consent of the POTUS, and your “quite clear” link between the Diem assassination and Kennedy turns out to be a forgery.  JFK did indeed accept the already existing plans for the Bay of Pigs and approved operation Mongoose, which included efforts to assassinate Castro, but Lane documents that he then underwent change—fundamental change that posed a threat to the imperial designs of the men in charge of the CIA and that is why he was killed.

Just days before his death, JFK told the Inter-American Press Associates in Miami that the US would “not dictate to any nation how to organize its economic life.”  When French journalist Jean Daniel, conveyed to Castro JFK’s position, Castro not only told Daniel that he believed Kennedy was “sincere,” but that he believed Kennedy “still has the possibility of being, in the eyes of history, the greatest president of the United States, the leader who may at last understand that there can be coexistence between capitalists and socialists.”

As to RFK, the man at one time served as staff counsel for Senator Joseph McCarthy at a time when McCarthy was engaging in his red scare, but like his brother, RFK changed, and much to the better.

Ernest
It is quite clear that the Kennedy admin (exception, Bobby Kennedy) were responsible for the coup that led to Diem’s death.

Kennedy ran on a militaristic “platform” in 1960, running away from the Eisenhower desire to reduce military interventionism. So, I think it is you who are buying into the fanciful notion that JFK and LBJ were such wonderous administrations in this regard.

Kennedy was sideblinded with the Bay of Pigs, but persisted to go after Castro. The point, again, is that while some of this was botched or not entirely his direct doing, his administration was much more militaristic than the one that came before. And of course there’s our man Truman. Now when it come to military involvement and dropping A-bombs he takes the cake. Another D; or are you going to tell me that you have an author that refutes that it was really the Commander In Chief who decided to drop those horrific bombs on Japanese civilians?

I will say, that FDR was exceptional in many ways, not least of which was his Good Neighbor policy (something Hoover had raised, but clearly FDR deserves full credit for a significant, though momentary change in American approach; but still US always held the upper hand). But I would argue (and some would say his actions pushed the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor, but for now let’s pass on that) he is the exception (perhaps lonely exception.)

All of these things happens when a nation, its leadership intervene through a superior, many times racist attitude that belittles the life of others and so recklessly destroys and murders. You can pretty that up, but that’s the raw truth.

Who the hell were we to topple the Diem government? You’ve heard of Nuremburg no doubt. What does it say about the ultimate crime against humanity?

I rest my case.

trouble:  I know. That’s how they’ve arranged it. Funny how it’s always the least progressive candidates who get the nomination, huh?  It’s never a real populist.  Why do you think that is?

Max, I see that you have bought into the widespread but entirely erroneous belief that JFK ordered the assassination of former South Vietnamese President Ngo Dihn Diem. 

Mark Lane’s “Plausible Denial” includes excerpts from the sworn testimony of E. Howard Hunt, wherein Hunt admitted that, long after Kennedy’s death and at the behest of Charles Colsen, Hunt had undertaken to forge State Department cables in order to implicate Kennedy in the assassination.  Hunt accomplished this by drafting cables that could no longer be found in sequence in the State Department’s files because they had been transferred to the Kennedy library.  Hunt copied the forged cables, then forward copies to “Time” and “Life.”

JFK provides the perfect example of overstatement by Noam Chomsky.  Citing Ray Garthoff “Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis,” but no direct sources, Chomsky asserts a mere ten days before his assassination, JFK approved a CIA plan to target a Cuban oil refinery, power plant etc.

Lane, while acknowledging an initial JFK approval of Operation Mongoose, upon learning that Gen. Lansdale sent three teams into Cuba, a “furious” RFK cancelled all “sabotage and militant operations,” then abandoned Mongoose altogether.  Lane claims the CIA killed Kennedy because he intended to dismantle the CIA after an expected 1964 victory, had issued National Security Action memo 263 containing a blueprint for a total withdrawal from Vietnam and was seeking an accord with Castro, a point supported when Kennedy, thru Ambassador Wm. Atwood sent French journalist Jean Daniel to convey to Castro that he, Kennedy, accepted that “the ‘economic colonization, humiliation, and exploitation’ visted upon Cuba were at least in part due to” US policies; that the two countries could “coexist” despite different economic systems—a point reiterated by JFK during an 11/18/63 address to the Inter-American Press Ass. in Miami.

Lane’s position on the intent to dismantle CIA is bolstered by the fact that, after the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy fired its director, Allen Dulles, Dep. Director Charles Cabell and Richard Bissell, Dep. Director of Plans and issued a National Security Action memo which would have eliminated the CIAs ability to initiate operations which required anything beyond the use of handguns.

Both you and Chomsky have proven far too ready to accept anything negative about JFK because negative information fits your central thesis about the consistency of the imperial project, but, at least in this instance, the facts belie the thesis.

Outraged

He wrote at least 1/2 dozen books. P&P;is the best known and would be considered his opus.

But his focus is on common wealth. Those who “cannot” work are not excluded in any fashion. I’m not sure that any economics gives special attention to “non-work”. His claim is that all state income can and should come from the value on land - a term that is inclusive of all natural resources. If implemented as he presents it it would pay an annual stipend to all citizens regardless of whether they can work. Pension/social security would be replaced by this.

Land value (something we do not create, but which society provides value) would be rented and the rent would be returned to the community to pay for infrastructure, schools, social services and as I mentioned a stipend to all citizens. This is laid out in much detail and has been implemented in part in the USA, most extensively out-side the US. I will not go through the entire work, but it is just not accurate to talk about his thinking as if it did not consider all human beings regardless of ability to work.

Thank you for mentioning that it is on line, and I would encourage anyone interested to read it. It is a great work, some say he is one of 5 of the greatest thinkers of all time.

That said, I do not think a single thinker or book speaks to the entire set of human needs (limited though those are). So, I would say a complement to HG is the Chilean economist - Manfred Max-Neef.

Re: Max Shields

You mentioned the book “Progress and Poverty” by Henry George.  The book in its entirety is available on line (free) if any-one’s interested.  I’ve read chapters here and there, it’s definitely interesting.  A cursory look at Henry George’s position is that EVERYTHING is based on the “worker” and it appeared that he gives no thought or attention to those who cannot work (elderly, disabled) at least not in the portions I read.  So to me then one could not eradicate poverty.  However, I also did not read the full context….possibly he does address that very RELEVANT issue, I don’t know. 

Anyway, the link for anyone who’s interested:

http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm

And an excerpt (Chap. 3):

“In these cases, we see that wages in money are the same as wages in kind. Is this not true of all cases in which wages are paid for productive labor? Isn’t the fund created by labor really the fund from which wages are paid?

Now, the argument may be made that those working for themselves get nothing if some disaster spoils the work; but those working for an employer get their wages anyhow. This is not a real distinction, however. Generally, any disaster that prevents an employer from benefiting from labor also prevents the employer from paying wages. On the whole, labor done for fixed wages produces more than the amount of the wages. Otherwise, employers could not make any profit.

Production is the source of wages. Wages come from the fruits of labor—not the advance of capital. Labor always precedes wages. This is true whether wages are received from an employer, or wages are taken directly from the efforts of the workers. Wages paid by an employer imply the previous rendering of labor by the employee for the benefit of the employer. This is true whether paid by the day, week, or month, or even by the piece.

Though it is obvious the way I have explained it, many important deductions are based on the opposite position. How can it be considered plausible that wages are drawn from capital? It begins with the assertion that labor cannot operate unless capital supplies it with maintenance. The unwary reader agrees that labor must have food and clothing in order to work. Having been told that such items are capital, the reader then accepts the conclusion that capital is required before labor can be applied. From this misdirection, it appears to be an obvious deduction that industry is limited by capital. That is to say, that the demand for labor depends on the supply of capital. Hence, it appears to follow that wages are set by the ratio between the number of laborers looking for employment and the amount of capital available to hire them.

A fallacy exists in this reasoning that has entangled some of the brightest minds in a web of their own spinning. But I think our discussion in the previous chapter will enable us to spot the error. It is the use of the term capital in two different senses.”

JG,
I didn’t say Obama was going to change much, but he’s the lesser of two evils and that’s the only choice we ever get.  I know I contradict myself sometimes not having an airtight mind like some people here, but this political stuff begins to drive me mad.  I listened to an interview with Hemingway’s son today on NPR.  He said, “Literature is what smart people do instead of dope.”  There is a need to get away from this stuff and art does it.

By troublesum, June 29 at 3:37 pm #

”...They think voting is a big deal.  After they vote he’ll tell them to sit down and shut up.’

BINGO!!!

Trouble: “We didn’t give it to them if that’s what you’re getting at.  They took it”

Than who did?

Ernest,

I don’t think either JG or I meant that that is the only significant date; but it does connect with a very important moment and one that should be noted as pivotal.

Ernest, I’m not talking about “perfection” or “achieving egalitarian…”, I’m talking about what the US government has done over 2 hundred years and about one hundred years in partnership with corporations in the world around us. I’m not suggesting that it all began with Allende.

The history is long and consistent with Manifest Destiny. Of course Johnson followed this path; and so did Kennedy who had the elected leader of S. Vietnam assassinated and replaced. Check out Tim Weiner book on the CIA and Kennedy - Legacy Of Ashes.

The problem Ernest is you still think there’s a “santa claus” and he gets elected POTUS whenever there’s a D after his name. It aint so. So, equivocate all you will that’s what you’re trying to pass off here as if I’ve come along to rain on your parade.

There are books written by reputable historians and social critics who consistently paint a salient picture that you want to reduce to “less than perfect”.

But that’s the difference. If Kucinich were to swing and endorse Obama, than I would conclude he chose Party over Principles; you’d say, see, even Dennis had to support the Dem (‘cause by virtue of the D he’s better).

Btw, Jeff Faux has done some good work.

People like Obama come along every few decades to get people excited about elections.  He has apparently brought millions of new voters into “the political process.”  They think voting is a big deal.  After they vote he’ll tell them to sit down and shut up.

Max,
We didn’t give it to them if that’s what you’re getting at.  They took it.

trouble.. you posted “As the other wing of The Party, Democrats are complicit in 90% of what Bush has done which is why they won’t impeach him.  They voted almost unanimously for the patriot act twice.  They have approved of the illegal wiretapping.  They gave him a green light in Iraq and another in Iran”

NOW tell me how Obama will change things for the better?  Obama voted for every bill to fund the iraq war which he says he wouldn’t have voted for.  He voted for the patriot act.  He won’t vote against the fisa bill compromise though he said he would BEFORE he was the nominee..now he has NO problem compromising our civil liberties.  He’s talking terrorism just like the cowboy president and calling Iran a “threat”. He wants to reach across the aisle to the republicans instead of saying.. Oh HELL NO! We’re gonna do things differently now!

Now go and argue he’s using doublespeak to get elected and it’s all a ruse to get in office.  Yea right, that’s why his backers are the huge investment bankers, nuclear industry and his advisors are imperialists. To say nothing of him being an aipac appeaser. 

Damn, you screwed yourself to the wall with your own words and then you want us to believe Obama is really that much different than McCain?  And dont’ give me the supreme court nomination as an argument.  The dems let Roberts and Alito in.  Without their votes, they wouldn’t be sitting on the court.  And seeing Obama moving so quickly to the right, the odds are he will pick a moderate at best.  There is no indication he will choose a liberal judge. Even if he does, you think the republicans will gave like the dems did?  Ha!

“Its nice to think the powers that be would just cave if people started holding meetings isn’t it? “

Who said anything about “powers that be” caving in?

First, where do you think their power comes from?

Let’s hold up the mirror. But what’s more futile than marching off like lost lambs and voting for the same ol same ol?

Max,
Its nice to think the powers that be would just cave if people started holding meetings isn’t it?  In South America it has been a continuous struggle for a hundred years against facist dictators backed by Washington.  And then there are the right wing death squads.  Do you think that the military-corporate state would just fold if we start having meetings?  David Dellinger used to say in his public talks that the FBI has a list of people to round up at the first sign of trouble and that his name was on it.

Max & JG:  If you only date disaster capitalism to 1913, what term would you use to describe the imperial conquest of the Phillippines commencing in 1898.

The problem I see with both of you is that you are so Hell bent in asserting some perceived shortcoming in Klein’s analysis that you miss the core issue.  Klein never asserted that U.S. imperialism began with the 9/11/73 overthrow of Salvador Allende.  What she is describing is simply a new and more aggressive imperial strategy, the beginnings of which can be found in that event.

Jeff Sachs’s role is discussed by Jeff Faux in “The Global Class War” in which he describes a “colossal arrogance” in the neoliberal effort to remake the world in the American economic image, an effort which seeks to justify “uncompromising methods—the ‘shock therapy’ or the ‘big bang theory of social change.’  Lawrence Summers, the Clinton administration’s point man for the global makeover, along with…Jeffrey Sachs, demanded that the countries in debt to the U.S. Treasury, the IMF, and the World Bank transform their economies overnight, that they immediately decontrol their prices, privatize their state enterprises, create stock markets, and rip up their subsidies to food, medicine, housing and other basic necessities of life.”

If that sounds strikingly like Friedman, it is because it is—and it is precisely what the Clinton administration and the DLC embraced when they betrayed the working class base of the Democratic party by joining with Bush and Reagan in ramming NAFTA through on the fast track.

But, this was not the philosophy of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter or any other Democrats who had applied New Deal/Keynesian economics, and it is not the philosophy of the present day progressive wing of the Democratic Party. 

Yes, the ideal would be to rein in the military industrial complex, put an end to U.S. imperialism and replace the greed based capitalist system with democratic socialism, but are the two of you so blind that you cannot recognize the fundamental distinction between Keynesian economics and the radical form of capitalism advanced by the Chicago School?  Is everything in your narrow universe either black or white with no subtle gradations?

Max:  Good point.  I wasn’t aware the republicans had a monopoly on sending our sons and daughters off to war.

Leefeller,
I like the Wolf video too.  There are so many daily events which go unreported like Wolf finding her name on “The List” and then finding the letter from HLS in her suitcase.  Chilling.

trouble: No doubt McCain is unstable. There is no way he will win in November unless another election is stolen. Is there?

Troublsum

“He wants our children, our grandchildren and great grandchildren…..”

So, when haven’t we been at war (or major conflict or infiltrating and toppling governments)?

Just curious with your prognosis, it sounds like status quo.

Want change - get a hold of your local community, start town hall meetings (real ones with full participation, not questions to candidates) and start to create the world we and the rest of life deserves. The rest of this is lazy BS (pretend democracy between commercials).

Troublesome,

Checked out the Naomi Wolf video, many of us see the hand writing is on the wall she helps connect the dots,  her list of 10 things to the fall of a Democracy, (I say Republic)  we need be aware and help others be made aware.  She ended by saying we need to prosecute the criminals in office, makes sense to me.

We do need our Constitution back.

This election will matter.  McCain shows signs of mental confusion associated with aging.  That together with his love of war for the sake of war spells disaster.  He wants our children, our grandchildren and great grandchildren…..

JG, Good to “see” you again. The Greenwald piece is right on the money.

“Actually, the rise of disaster capitalism started with congress in 1913 with the founding the the federal reserve.”

Right again! That’s when local currency was displaced by Fed. legal tender. It was the beginning of the end for democracy because we lost the most vital part of local economy - the ability to monitor local economic health. Once we aggregated everything to the Feds we lost all connection to local civics and community. We were sucked into a blob and we’ve been playing by that tune ever since.

The severeing of that connection was the final dagger in the heart of any sort of meaningful democratic control over our destiny. Fed legal tender positioned us for the Great Depression and the roller coaster ride we’re on today.

I don’t know how, say, San Franscico’s balance of trade is, but I bet it has very little to do with the mess at the national level. There is no real national economy and all the the indices that follow are meaningless fabrications.

This is what neo-classical economics has given us. Classical economics has been ripped from all American University economic programs. That’s why no one knows one of the greatest American thinkers - Henry George. His whole economic around common wealth and land has been relegated to the academic trash bin. HG was the leading economist of his day, the widest selling book in economics of all times (Progress and Poverty), second to Mark Twain in World-wide recognition, considered a genius by Tolstoy, Einstein, Dewey and many more. Ran against T. Roosevelt for Mayor of NYC and won - except the Dem machine refused him the win. World traveler - his theories are implemented in Australia, New Zealand, Singapour, Denmark, South Africa and many other places including cities and towns in PA with incredible results. Delaware has several intentional towns using his common land theories.

Meanwhile, back in make believe, we’ve got the Friedmans and Sachs and the rest of the corporate global economist preaching capitalism to the world and intervening in the most horrific fashion. Their motto: got to get the “savages” to see the light of our superior “civilized liberalism”. And when they refuse (as in Iraq) T. Friedman has some chice racist words to ponder.

Naomi’s book is nothing new to those of us who have been paying attention for several years.  Actually, the rise of disaster capitalism started with congress in 1913 with the founding the the federal reserve.  That’s when the wealthiest of the elite took control of our republic.  It took them many decades to reach their final endgame but here we are. A one party system ruled by their corporations.  We the people are just pawns in their game of total domination.

Elections? They mean nothing. The game was rigged long ago my friends. We can’t win that way.  It’s a shell game.  When we all wake up to that fact, and only then, can we can seriously discuss what needs to be done to affect REAL change.

BTW:  Hey Max ! I understood what you meant by “acerbic”.  Sheesh, people get so hung up on the semantics of a word instead of reading the context of the sentence to get the gist of the author’s purpose in using it.

That other pinko-leftist Naomi - Wolf, that is, also has a shcking book out there THE END OF AMERICA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc

One point which Klein makes which I haven’t seen before is that the “shock and awe” bombing with which the assault on Iraq began was a clear violation of the Geneva conventions because its intent was to shock and terrorize the civilian population.  This is a crime against humanity on a much vaster scale than anything bin Laden has perpetrated.

Milton Friedman is an easy target. He’s neo-classical/Chicago school of economics has been a recent part of US manifest destiny wrapped in neo-liberal “shock therapy”, but he is hardly the first.

What’s interesting is not M. Friedman, but T. Friedman and Jeffrey Sachs. Here’s two guys who march around in sheep’s clothing. These are the guys who push one end and then the other. M. Friedman, Nixon, Bush are transparent in their arrogance. It’s the Tom Friedman’s who want to invade Iraq and create golden straight jackets for third world countries and then turn around and blame Bush for poor execution or become “proponents” of alternative energy. And then there’s Sachs, the shock therapist par excellance for Russia and else where. Countless died due to his little “experiment”. He than becomes the “good” doctor who wants to end world poverty.

The right-wing don’t hide, it’s this liberal brand of interventionism that has played as much (more?) havoc in the world than even the neocons (who’ve only recently known power). They are born off the same tree and infiltrate conservative and liberal administrations.

I do think Klein has some words for these jokers as well. The easy marks can be targeted, but if the progressives don’t get a bead on this type we’ll be in the quagmire of Sudan, or Somalia. American empire is about exceptionalism and it comes in a couple of deadly flavors.

a_hole79 - I’d venture to say that not a few people who comment on this site didn’t need Ms Klein to tell them what they already knew - if they’ve been even half awake for the last 40 years.

Criticizing Ms Klein’s arguments is easy whereas it’s impossible to deny the historical realities we’ve experienced.

a-hole 79.  You would have done well to actually read “The Shock Doctrine” before buying into a critique from a Libertarian, right-wing think tank that is devoted to the principles Milton Friedman espoused.  Norberg begins his critique by quoting statements from Friedman that suggest benign motives, but then one can traipse out statement after statement by the Bush regime that they were invading Iraq because of (a) WMD, (b) links to 9/11 & al Qaeda, (c) bring democracy and freedom to the Iraqi people.  None of these were valid reasons.

Here is an excerpt from Klein.

“Friedman first learned how to exploit a large-scale shock or crisis in the mid-seventies, when he acted as an adviser to the Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet.  Not only were Chileans in a state of shock following Pinochet’s violent coup, but the country was also traumatized by severe hyperinflation.  Friedman advised Pinochet to impose a rapid-fire transformation of the economy—tax cuts, free trade, privatized services, cuts to social spending and deregulation.  Eventually, Chileans even saw their public schools replaced with voucher-funded private ones.  It was the most extreme capitalist makeover anywhere, and it became known as the ‘Chicago School’ revolution, since so many of Pinochet’s economists had studied under Friedman….Friedman predicted that the speed, suddenness and scope of the economic shifts would provoke psychological reactions in the public that ‘facilitate the adjustment.’  He coined a phrase for this painful tactic:  economic ‘shock treatment.’  In the decades since, whenever governments have imposed sweeping free-market programs, the all-at-once shock treatment, or ‘shock therapy,’ has been the method of choice.

“Pinochet also facilitated the adjustment with his own shock treatments…performed in the regime’s many torture cells, inflicted on the writing bodies of those deemed most likely to stand in the way of capitalist transformation.  Many in Latin America saw a direct connection between the economic shocks that impoverished millions and the epidemic of torture that punished hundreds of thousands of people who believed in a different kind of society.”

cyrena,

How does one respond to you? I’m talking about real change and you read “Obama is real change, so what’s up with this guy?” You miss my points so completely as to indicate parallel universes on these topics where Obama is either the text or subtext of any discussion.

It sounds from your posts that your children/ grandchildren know best. It’s too bad that most of the young who support Obama haven’t been there for any of the anti-war marches or protests. They’re leaving that up to Obama (who has no intention of getting all our troops and closing the massive US military base.) If we do scaddle out of Iraq, it will be to go else where.

That’s the fundamental problem with American “democracy” - it doesn’t exist. Vote once every 2, 4, 6 years and go back to your I-Pod.

Ernest,

The so-called “progressive wing” of the Dem Party is powerless and few in number. I know your PDA is working to change that. In the meantime, Rome burns.

Ernest, you are right about who signed it but Nixon greatly expanded it. And Nixon enacted the EPA. And Lincoln (terribly flawed, but considered a great president) was a Repub. So WHAT?

My point is not to apologize for the criminal Richard M. Nixon. So let’s not venture down that red herring path.

Your case for American hegemony to pay for Dem domestic crumbs hardly wins the day. I don’t expect to change your mind because you’ve committed yourself to it. I say our horrific imperial history is bound tightly to our domestic policies. George W. Bush, the drunkard/dope addict is hardly a case to be made for Dems. He’s a strawman for what happens in a nation that has lost its connection to community civics and history.

To settle for the like of Obama is to see Bill Clinton part II to avoid the new demon McCain. These a trumped up msm differences that keep us pretty much where we’ve been. America needs to do what these two parties and their candidates are incapable of doing - begin the process of fundamental transformation of American policies to one which is economically and socally just. That will mean thinking outside of the traditional box. So far Obama and McCain are on the same page and no where near what we need.

DC cannot solve these problems - it is the problem.

I haven’t read this book, but the that Naomi Klein distorts the words and deeds of Milton Friedman isn’t encouraging.  Check out this CATO institute podcast get a glimpse of what I am talking about:

http://www.cato.org/dailypodcast/getfile.php?file=j ohannorberg_schlockdoctrine_20080625.mp3

The guy featured in this is Johan Norberg, who has also written a thorough debunking of Ms. Klein’s book “The Klein Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Polemics”, which can be found here:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp102.pdf

I realize that most of the readers of this site consider free-market think tanks such as The Cato Institute to be evil capitalist propaganda organs, but if you can put aside your emotions and consider the facts, you’ll realize that this book (The Shock Doctrine) isn’t so much based on a fair reporting of facts.

troublesum, I agree with your assessment, but your assessment highlights my disagreement with Max Shields and Ralph Nader.  You recognize that there are two wings of the Democratic Party—a progressive wing reflected by Dennis Kucinich, Robert Wexler and the out-of-Iraq caucus which stands on principles and the rule of law and the corporate wing which is constantly selling out on principles.

Max and Ralph Nader refuse to recognize the distinction.  He treats the matter as if Democrats were all a part of a single, all encompassing entity—The Party—as in George Orwell’s “1984.”

While on matters of substance, you will find me in complete agreement with Nader, whose analysis of corporate America is nothing short of brilliant, when it comes to strategy, Nader’s role as the perennial footnote of presidential campaigns is incredibly stupid.  Since the vast majority of working class Americans are members of the same Democratic Party which Nader consistently condemns, his would have proved a far more effective voice for meaningful change if, instead of starting at the top in 2000, he had targeted the Senate, running as a progressive Democrat in a Democratic primary.

The goal of PDA is to take back the reins of power inside the Democratic Party by challenging the corporatist sell outs during the primaries, one by one.  The fact that there are now 91 members of Congress supporting single payer healthcare is a reflection of the success of the PDA movement, though that success is still well below the numbers needed to capture control of the Democratic Party.  That success would be accelerated if the fractured left stopped spinning off into the futility of third parties and instead focused on the PDA goal.

Capture the Party, the country will follow.

Of couse anyone with half a brain will have concerns and questions of what Obama will do once in the White House,  for I do not claim to have a crystal ball like some.  Actually my concern is more for the House of Repepoos, for who do they represent,  for they seem to be bought and sold like socks? 

My congressman seems to be a fair and balanced,  he is limited,  depending on the policies set by the elite for we have seen little political showing of integrity and accountability, we know policy is not set by the people even though they would tell us otherwise. 

Shock Doctrine seems real enough to me and explains very well why we see what we see happening, for the slow paced demise of peoples rights has been ongoing for much longer then I can phantom to even know.  Bottom line means opportunism demands of the elite who pursue agendas to enhance their coffers and quest for power,  run over any obstacles in the way,  people are nothing but road kill on the highway of elitists   pursuits.