The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein (2006)
(author of No Logo)
From the inner jacket blurb: “Klein traces back the intellectual origins of disaster capitalism back to the University of Chicago’s economics department under Milton Friedman whose influence is still felt around the world.” And not in a good way. This is the cabal that persuaded Reagan et al that trickle down theory was a sensible plan. Not sure if they did so maliciously or for fun, or just some esoteric playing but with real world consequences.
These events [like 9/11] are examples of what Naomi Klein calls “the shock doctrine”: the use of public disorientation following massive collective shocks — wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters — to push through highly unpopular economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out all resistance, a third is employed: that of the electrode in the prison cell or of the Taser gun. [from jacket blurb again]
It is a long hard read. Descriptions of torture of prisoners is just one example. After the horrific photos were released and having been shocked to learn it was not Americans being tortured but Americans doing the torturing, I was dumbfounded. My dad was a bomber pilot in WWII and while the Geneva Convention wasn’t completely complied with, and he easily could have been killed, I don’t think I ever heard of Nazi’s treating POWs like we treated Iraq POWs. That is to say, brutally, lawlessly, and criminally. Yet Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld are free to enjoy doing a little painting or whatever enjoying the profit of the 40 million or more that Halliburton made for Cheney off the no-bid contracts for the war supplies. I would love to see an audit of there costs versus what they charged the government. I’ll bet it would show such blatant overpricing that it would even make Republicans cry foul.
Continue reading The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It is a thorough discussion of economics (ugh hated it in school) that is actually readable if a bit difficult to grasp because I think what the author is saying is that economists make up shit and then persuade politicians to implement their “theories” without grasping consequences — or giving a damn — and the Chicago School cabal led by the lethal charisma of Milton Friedman and his devoted follower, Donald Rumsfeld, Ronald Reagan (Reaganomics is the same brutal theory), and republicans ever since.