Traducido del inglés para Rebelión por Germán Leyens

Hace exactamente un año, salí a una gira promocional para mi libro “La doctrina del shock”. Planeábamos que duraría tres meses, bastante tiempo según los estándares editoriales. Doce meses después, todavía continúa. Pero no es una gira promocional cualquiera. Por todas partes donde he ido – de Calgary, Alberta a Cochabamba, Bolivia – he escuchado más historias sobre como han utilizado las estrategias del shock para imponer políticas indeseables favorables a las corporaciones. También he participado en estimulantes debates y discusiones sobre como las crisis actuales – petróleo, alimentos, mercados financieros, mal tiempo – puede ser transformadas en oportunidades para el cambio progresista.

Y ha habido otro tipo de reacciones. “La doctrina del shock” es un ataque directo contra intelectuales e instituciones que han diseminado la ideología corporativa por el mundo. Al escribir el libro, estaba segura de que sería atacada. Sin embargo, durante ocho meses después de la publicación, hubo un silencio escalofriante de los ideólogos del “libre mercado.” Claro que aparecieron unas pocas reseñas desdeñosas en la prensa económica. Pero ni una palabra de los think-tanks de Washington que menciono en el libro. Nada del departamento de economía de la Universidad de Chicago. Incluso la revista The Economist, que solía atacarme jubilosamente y con gran regularidad, nunca mencionó el libro impreso. Una productora de televisión estadounidense, que estaba tratando de encontrar un oponente para que debatiera conmigo en vivo, me confesó que nunca había sido rechazada con tanta consecuencia. “Parecen pensar que si la ignoran, usted desaparecerá.”

Bueno, el silencio de la derecha ha sido ciertamente roto. En los últimos meses, han aparecido varios artículos e informes que pretenden desacreditar mi tesis. Los más destacados son: un “documento introductorio” publicado por The Cato Institute, ampliado a todo un libro en sueco (¡), y un largo ensayo en The New Republic por el editor sénior Jonathan Chait.

Varios lectores han escrito a este sitio pidiéndome que responda a esos ataques, aunque sea para ayudarles a defender mejor el libro. Primero me resistí (aferrada a mis vacaciones de verano...) pero aprecio los comentarios y varios puntos tienen que ser corregidos. Ya que los informes de Cato y de The New Republic – aunque pretenden provenir de puntos radicalmente diferentes en el espectro político – comparten algunas pronunciadas similitudes, he decidido encararlos en conjunto.

Perdonen, pero Milton Friedman apoyó la guerra

Tanto Jonathan Chait como The Cato Institute afirman que el difunto economista Milton Friedman fue un inquebrantable oponente a la invasión de Iraq. El trabajo de Cato dice sobre mi persona que: “Ella afirma que Friedman fue ‘neoconservador’ y por lo tanto estaba a favor de una política exterior agresiva de EE.UU., y argumenta que Iraq fue invadido para que pudieran implementarse políticos al estilo Chicago en ese país... pero en ninguna parte menciona los verdaderos puntos de vista de Friedman sobre la guerra. El propio Friedman dijo: “Me opuse desde el principio a que se fuera a Iraq. Pienso que fue un error, por el simple motivo de que no creo que EE.UU. debiera estar involucrado en una agresión.’ Y no fue sólo una guerra a la que se opuso. En 1995, describió su posición sobre política exterior como ‘anti-intervencionista.’”

De la misma manera, Chait me acusa de no conocer la diferencia entre libertarios y neoconservadores y me reprende por no mencionar ninguna vez – “ni una vez, en ninguna parte” – que Friedman “argumentó desde el comienzo contra la guerra de Iraq.” Al parecer la posición contra la guerra de Friedman debería ser “mórbidamente embarazosa” para mi persona.

No soy yo la que debe sentirse embarazada. A pesar de protestas posteriores, Milton Friedman apoyó abiertamente la guerra cuando estaba ocurriendo. En abril de 2003, Friedman dijo a la revista alemana Focus que “el presidente Bush sólo quería la guerra porque cualquier otra cosa habría amenazado la libertad y la prosperidad de EE.UU.” Al preguntársele sobre el aumento de las tensiones entre EE.UU. y Europa, Friedman respondió: “el fin justifica los medios. En cuanto nos hayamos librado de Sadam, las diferencias políticas también desaparecerán.” Claramente no fue una voz contraria a la intervención. Incluso en julio de 2006, cuando Friedman afirmó que se opuso a la guerra desde el comienzo, siguió siendo belicista. Ahora, con EE.UU. en Iraq, dijo Friedman a The Wall Street Journal, “me parece muy importante que lo convirtamos en un éxito.”

Sin embargo, nada de esto tiene nada que ver con mi libro. En “La doctrina del shock,” describo la invasión y la ocupación de Iraq como la culminación de la cruzada ideológica de Friedman, porque fue el principal intelectual de EE.UU. favorable a la privatización del Estado – no porque haya apoyado personalmente la guerra, lo que es irrelevante. Durante más de cinco años Iraq ha sido la vanguardia de este proyecto radical de privatización. Contratistas privados superan ahora la cantidad de soldados de EE.UU. y las corporaciones se han hecho cargo de funciones estatales tan cruciales como el interrogatorio de prisioneros.

Además, nunca dije que Friedman fuera “neoconservador” y discuto, extensivamente, lo difícil que es encontrar términos para describir el proyecto corporativo que sean aceptables para todos los lectores. En la página 17 (en todos los números de página me refiero a la edición en rústica de Picador [en inglés]) escribo:

En el intento de relatar la historia de la cruzada ideológica que ha culminado en la privatización radical de la guerra y del desastre, recurre un problema: la ideología cambia de forma, cambia permanentemente su nombre y permuta identidades. Friedman se calificó de ‘liberal,’ pero sus seguidores en EE.UU., que asociaban a los liberales con altos impuestos y hippies, tendieron a identificarse como ‘conservadores,’ ‘economistas clásicos,’ ‘partidarios del libre mercado’ y, más tarde, como creyentes en ‘reaganomía’ o ‘partidarios del laissez-faire.’ En la mayor parte del mundo, su ortodoxia es conocida como ‘neoliberalismo,’ pero a menudo es llamada ‘libre comercio’ o simplemente ‘globalización.’ Sólo desde mediados de los años noventa, el movimiento intelectual, dirigido por think-tanks derechistas con los que Friedman mantuvo largas asociaciones - Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute y el American Enterprise Institute – se llamó ‘neoconservador’, una visión del mundo que ha aprovechado toda la fuerza de la maquinaria militar de EE.UU. al servicio de una agenda corporativa.”

La importancia de que la etiqueta “neoconservadora” ganara vigencia a mediados de los años noventa es que entonces fue cuando los republicanos, bajo la dirección de Newt Gingrich y respaldados por los think-tanks que ya mencioné, barrieron con el Congreso prometiendo un “Contrato con EE.UU.” En ese momento, la etiqueta de “neoconservadores” no fue una referencia sobre todo para posiciones belicistas de política exterior sino para aquellas medidas económicas duras. A mediados de los años noventa, mucha de la gente más asociada actualmente con la etiqueta neoconservadora – David Frum y William Kristol y gran parte de los del Weekly Standard – se concentraban directamente en la exigencia de recortes y privatizaciones friedmanitas dentro de EE.UU. Frum, por ejemplo, se dio a conocer por primera vez en EE.UU. con “Dead Right,” su libro de 1994 en el que exhortaba al movimiento conservador a volver a sus raíces económicas de libre mercado. Después de que Bill Clinton abrazara gran parte de esa agenda económica, varios de los principales guerreros neoconservadores concentraron su enfoque en la dominación estadounidense de la escena mundial, un hecho que ha permitido que sus entusiastas intereses por las ideas económicas friedmanitas pasaran en gran parte desapercibidos.

Ignora el contenido, ataca al autor

Tanto el ensayo de Chait como el documento de Cato se caracterizan por una negativa obstinada a hacer frente a la evidencia citada en mi libro. Por ejemplo, Chait rechaza sin más mi sugerencia de que hubo intereses económicas detrás de la intervención de la OTAN en 1999 en Kosovo (aunque admite a regañadientes que nunca afirmo que la economía haya sido el único motivo). Escribo que hubo otros factores que motivaron la guerra, aparte de las flagrantes violaciones de los derechos humanos de Slobodan Milosevic. Baso esta información en el análisis posterior a la guerra suministrado por Strobe Talbott, Secretario Adjunto de Estado bajo el presidente Bill Clinton de EE.UU. y negociador jefe de EE.UU. durante la guerra de Kosovo. En un ensayo de 2005 (citado en la página 415), Talbot escribió:

“Mientras las naciones en toda la región trataban de reformar sus economías, mitigar las tensiones étnicas, y ampliar la sociedad civil, Belgrado parecía deleitarse en moverse continuamente en la dirección contraria. No es de extrañar que la OTAN y Yugoslavia hayan terminado en una confrontación. Fue la resistencia de Yugoslavia a las tendencias más amplias de la reforma política y económica – no el sufrimiento de los albanos kosovares – lo que explica mejor la guerra de la OTAN.”

En lugar de explicar cómo las palabras de un responsable estadounidense a alta nivel podían coincidir tan claramente con mi argumento, Chait prefiere ignorar por completo la cita de Talbott. Una y otra vez, deja a los lectores de The New Republic con la clara impresión de que “La doctrina del shock” es una obra de periodismo de opinión, en lugar de ser una tesis basada en la investigación y la información.

Cuando Chait y el Cato Institute reconocen que me baso en hechos, me acusan de manipularlos para ajustarlos a mi tesis. Es interesante ver que cuando Chait cita por primera vez mi trabajo, hace precisamente eso. Para explicar a sus lectores el tipo de extremista del que se ocupa, cita mi primer libro: “No Logo.” En él, supuestamente describo al mundo como un “Estado fascista en el que todos saludamos el logo y tenemos poca oportunidad para críticas porque nuestros periódicos, estaciones de televisión, servidores de Internet, calles y espacios comerciales, son todos controlados por intereses corporativos multinacionales.” Si hubiera dejado que la cita continuara sólo durante una frase más, sus lectores habrían sabido que paso a rechazar esa visión del mundo como una caricatura exagerada. Las frases siguientes dicen: “hay buen motivo para alarmarse. Pero una palabra de advertencia: podremos lograr ver un mundo-no-tan-feliz en el horizonte, pero eso no significa que ya estemos viviendo en la pesadilla de Huxley... En lugar de una fórmula hermética, [la censura corporativa] es una tendencia constante... pero repleta de excepciones.”

Es sólo la primera de innumerables ocasiones en las que Chait deforma mis palabras para ajustarlas a su tesis. Cuando fracasa la manipulación, simplemente toma mis temas y los presenta como suyos, sin atribuirlos. (Sé perfectamente, por ejemplo, que tanto marxistas como keynesianos han explotado crisis y desastres, motivo por el cual exploro el oportunismo de izquierda en las páginas 21-25, 65-70, 283, 316-317.)

Agarrándose a clavos ardiendo

El documento de Cato reconoce, a veces, que mi libro contiene hechos, pero me culpa de no suministrar fuentes para mis estadísticas. Es una acusación atrevida cuando se trata de un libro con 74 páginas de notas al final. El único ejemplo mencionado es la estadística “de que entre un 25% y un 60% de la población está descartada y se convierte en una clase inferior en países que liberalizan sus economías.” No coloqué una fuente para esta estadística porque es una amalgama de estadísticas que ya había citado y para las cuales ya había suministrado múltiples fuentes. Es una práctica normal: una vez que una estadística ha sido mencionada, puede ser repetida (por razones de brevedad) sin repetir la fuente. De modo que éstas son las estadísticas en la que se basa la amalgama de entre 25 y 60%, con sus fuentes, directamente de las notas finales de “La doctrina del shock”:

* El desempleo en Bolivia era entre un 25 y un 30% en 1987 (página 186. Fuente: Mike Reid, “Sitting Out the Bolivian Miracle,” Guardian (Londres), 9 de mayo de 1987.)

* 25% de los rusos vivían en una pobreza desesperada en 1996 (página 300. Fuente: Russian Economic Trends 5, no. 1 (1996): 56–57 citada en Bertram Silverman y Murray Yanowitch, New Rich, New Poor, New Russia: Winners and Losers on the Russian Road to Capitalism (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000), 47.)

* El desempleo de sudafricanos negros se más que duplicó de un 23% en 1991 a un 48% en 2002 (página 272. Fuentes: “South Africa: The Statistics,” Le Monde Diplomatique, septiembre de 2006; Michael Wines y Sharon LaFraniere, “Decade of Democracy Fills Gaps in South Africa,” New York Times, 26 de abril de 2004.)

* El desempleo en Polonia fue de un 25% en algunas áreas en 1993 (página 241. Fuente: Mark Kramer, “Polish Workers and the Post-Communist Transition, 1989–93,” Europe-Asia Studies, junio de 1995)

* Un 40% de los trabajadores jóvenes estaban desempleados en Polonia en 2006

40% of young workers were unemployed in Poland in 2006 (página 241. Fuente: Andrew Curry, “The Case Against Poland’s New President,” New Republic, 17 de noviembre de 2005)

* Un 59% de los polacos había caído bajo la línea de pobreza en 2003 (páginas 241-242. Fuente: Przemyslaw Wielgosz, “25 Years of Solidarity,” agosto de 2005.)

En otro sitio, el documento de Cato afirma que: “Klein nunca suministra al lector algún dato [sobre Chile] durante un período más largo. Ella... nunca admite que Chile es la historia de éxito social y económico de Latinoamérica y que ha eliminado virtualmente la pobreza extrema.” De hecho, mi análisis económico de Chile cubre un trecho de 34 años y suministra hechos y datos que cuestionan directamente la afirmación de que el país sea una historia de éxito del libre mercado. El siguiente es un pasaje relevante (páginas 104-105):

“Lo único que protegió a Chile del colapso económico total a comienzos de los años ochenta fue que Pinochet nunca había privatizado a Codelco, la compañía minera del cobre estatal nacionalizada por Allende. Esa compañía por sí sola generó un 85% de los ingresos de exportación de Chile, lo que significó que cuando se reventó la burbuja financiera, el Estado todavía tenía una fuente continua de fondos... Al llegar 1988, cuando la economía se había estabilizado y crecía rápidamente, un 45% de la población había caído por debajo de la línea de pobreza. El 10% más rico de los chilenos, sin embargo, había visto un aumento de sus ingresos en un 83%. Incluso en 2007, Chile siguió siendo una de las sociedades más desiguales del mundo – de 123 países en los que Naciones Unidos rastrea la desigualdad, Chile estuvo en el lugar 116, convirtiéndolo en el octavo país por su desigualdad en la lista.”

Una masacre de hombres de paja

La mayor parte de los ataques contra “La doctrina del shock” involucra el amaño de afirmaciones, atribuyéndolas falsamente a mi persona, luego poniéndolas hábilmente por los suelos. Por ejemplo, Jonathan Chait abrevia mi punto sobre las posesiones de Donald Rumsfeld en el Complejo del Capitalismo del Desastre como sigue: “Donald Rumsfeld mantuvo sus acciones en Gilead Sciences, que tiene la patente para Tamiflu, incluso cuando actuó como secretario de defensa. ¿Comprendéis? Rumsfeld se beneficiaría de una pandemia de gripe. Pero seguramente no hay que ser admirador de Rumsfeld para dudar de que organizaría el estallido de un virus letal a fin de engordar su cartera bursátil.”

En realidad, esa es la intriga de la cinta “V for Vendetta” [“V de Vendetta” o “V de Venganza”]; no tiene absolutamente nada que ver con mi libro. Lo que yo menciono es cómo el Pentágono bajo la dirección de Rumsfeld, almacenó Tamiflu y Rumsfeld se habrá beneficiado al aumentar el valor de las acciones en un 807%. En las páginas 394-395 escribo:

“Durante los seis años en los que estuvo en el puesto, Rumsfeld tuvo que abandonar la sala cada vez que la discusión trataba la posibilidad del tratamiento de la gripe aviaria y de la compra de drogas relacionadas. Según la letra que delineaba el arreglo que le permitió conservar sus acciones, tenía que quedarse afuera de decisiones que ‘pudieran afectar directa y previsiblemente a Gilead.’ Sus colegas, sin embargo, velaron bien por sus intereses. En julio de 2005, el Pentágono compró Tamiflu por 58 millones de dólares, y el Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos anunció que compraría la droga por un monto de 1.000 millones de dólares unos pocos meses más.”

Hay muchos hombres de paja más que aparecen en el documento de The Cato Institute. La mayoría involucran la exageración del papel que atribuyo a Milton Friedman. Y no es de extrañar. Aparte del departamento de economía de la Universidad de Chicago, Cato es la institución más íntimamente alineada y asociada con las teorías radicales de Milton Friedman. Entre otros tributos, cada dos años, Cato otorga el Premio Milton Friedman para el Avance de la Libertad, con un valor de medio millón de dólares. (Este año fue destinado a un activista estudiantil venezolano de 23 años para impulsar su oposición al gobierno de Hugo Chávez). Como Friedman sigue sirviendo como santo patrono de Cato, tiene mucho que perder con la disminución de la reputación de Friedman, así como un interés directo en su exoneración de todos los crímenes, reales o imaginarios.

Unos pocos ejemplos más: El documento de Cato afirma que echo toda la culpa por las políticas económicas de Pinochet a Milton Friedman – luego “prueba” que su participación directa fue mínima. Una vez más, no hago una afirmación semejante. Dedico considerable espacio – aproximadamente 60 páginas – a describir el impacto de un programa del Departamento de Estado de EE.UU. que llevó a más de cien estudiantes chilenos a la Universidad de Chicago como parte de un esfuerzo deliberado por exportar ideas económicas de libre mercado a Chile. Es el programa que engendró a los infames “Chicago Boys” de Chile, varios de los cuales estuvieron activamente involucrados en la planificación del programa económico de la dictadura chilena, incluso antes de que tuviera lugar el golpe de 1973. Sorprendentemente, el documento de Cato no hace absolutamente ninguna mención de este programa académico en su esfuerzo por exonerar personalmente a Friedman. El autor no vio 60 páginas de mi libro, o prefirió ignorarlas deliberadamente.

El mayor desafío en la respuesta al documento de Cato es la medida de su deshonestidad. Consideremos este pasaje:

“Klein también culpa a Friedman y las ciencias económicas de Chicago por las actividades del Fondo Monetario Internacional durante la crisis financiera asiática y la confiscación por el gobierno de Sri Lanka de la tierra de familias de pescadores para construir hoteles de lujo después del tsunami. Pero el hecho es que Friedman pensó que el FMI no debía estar involucrado en Asia, y sostuvo que se debía prohibir a los gobiernos que expropiaran propiedades para entregarlas a urbanizadores privados. Por cierto, Klein podría argumentar que Friedman fue en cierto modo una fuente de inspiración para esas políticas, a pesar de que se oponía a ellas. Pero no lo hace. Pretende que estuvo de acuerdo con ellas, y que eso es lo que él y otros economistas de Chicago quisieron todo el tiempo.”

Absolutamente todo en este pasaje es erróneo. Nunca dije que Friedman favoreció el rescate del FMI en Asia, todo lo contrario. En las páginas 335-336, informo que: “El propio Milton Friedman, que ya tenía alrededor de ochenta años, hizo una rara aparición en CNN para decir al presentador de noticias Lou Dobbs que se oponía a toda clase de rescate y que debía dejarse que el mercado se corrigiera por sí solo.” ¿De qué manera podía esto constituir una “pretensión” de que Friedman apoyaba el rescate?

También reconozco libremente el hecho de que Friedman se opuso por principio al FMI. Sin embargo, como en el caso del gobierno de Pinochet en los años setenta, también documento que el FMI, en los días del rescate, estaba repleto de Chicago Boys ideológicos – algo bien diferente de afirmar que el FMI recibía órdenes de Friedman. En la página 202, encaro directamente esta aparente contradicción:

“Filosóficamente, Milton Friedman no creía en el FMI o el Banco Mundial: eran ejemplos clásicos de la interferencia del gran gobierno en las delicadas señales del libre mercado. De modo que fue algo irónico que haya habido una cinta transportadora virtual que entregaba Chicago Boys a las gigantescas centrales de ambas instituciones en la Calle 19 en Washington D.C. donde ocuparon muchos de los puestos superiores.”

“La doctrina del shock” tiene sitio para este tipo de complejidad porque no es – a pesar de lo que afirma Cato – un libro sobre las acciones de un hombre. Trata de una multifacética tendencia ideológica que durante medio siglo ha servido con éxito los más poderosos intereses corporativos en la sociedad.

Además, nunca escribí, como afirma Cato en el mismo pasaje, que Friedman haya tenido nada que ver con “la confiscación por el gobierno de Sri Lanka de tierras de las familias de pescadores para construir hoteles de lujo después del tsunami.” Su nombre no aparece ni una sola vez en mi capítulo de 25 páginas sobre el tsunami. Una vez más, escribir que “pretendo” que Friedman propugne esas políticas es puro amaño. Además, todas esas invenciones e imposturas aparecen en un solo párrafo. El documento introductorio de Cato tiene 20 páginas y está formado por docenas y docenas de párrafos igualmente deshonestos. Someter a todos a este tipo de refutación requiere simplemente demasiado tiempo; mi refutación total es el libro en sí.

Buscad la fuente

Gracias a un fantástico equipo de investigadores, especialmente mi increíble asistente de investigación Debra Levy, “La doctrina del shock” ha resistido un año de intenso examen por los medios en docenas de países. No salió ileso, pero ha emergido en aún mejor forma de la que me atrevía a esperar. Cuando se descubren errores, los corregimos de inmediato en futuras ediciones y colocamos una corrección y una explicación en el sitio en la Red del libro. Hasta ahora se ha descubierto sólo un error importante, relacionado con los beneficios ganados por las acciones de Halliburton de Dick Cheney. Fue inmediatamente corregido. Los lectores de “La doctrina del shock” saben que ése no es más que uno de numerosos ejemplos que confirman el mismo hecho sobre los conflictos de interés en el gobierno de Bush; por cierto, dedico todo un capítulo al tópico. Y éste es el beneficio de una metodología que se basa no en anécdotas, sino en miles de hechos y cifras obtenidos de fuentes: las tesis no se basan o caen por uno u otro ejemplo aislado.

En cuanto a la acusación de mis críticos de que soy selectiva en mi uso de citas, es un peligro que corre todo escritor. Es también el motivo por el cual Debra y yo lanzamos la sección de “recursos” del sitio en la Red del libro. En esa página, los lectores pueden tener acceso a docenas de informes, cartas y estudios originales que componen parte del material de investigación crucial para el libro. Si alguien se preocupa de que esté exagerando el apoyo de Friedman al brutal régimen de Augusto Pinochet, que lea una carta que Friedman escribió a este último. Si alguien sospecha que esté presentando al capitalismo del desastre como más conspirativo de lo que es, que lea las actas de una reunión que tuvo lugar en la Heritage Foundation sólo dos semanas antes de que los diques se rompieran en Nueva Orleans. Presentan 32 “soluciones de libre mercado” para el Huracán Katrina y los altos precios del petróleo, muchas de las cuales han sido propugnadas por el gobierno de Bush.

La tesis de “La doctrina del shock” no nació por capricho sino de cuatro años de investigación. Debra y yo pusimos esos documentos en línea porque queremos que educadores, estudiantes y lectores en general vayan más allá de una versión reconocidamente subjetiva de la historia – como todas las historias – y vayan directamente a la fuente. Os invitamos a explorar esos documentos, que nos enviéis los que hemos olvidado, y que lleguéis a vuestras propias conclusiones.

http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2008/09/response-attacks

Un excelente corto sobre “La doctrina del shock” de Jonás y Alfonso Cuarón, presentado en el Festival de Venecia 2007 y en el Festival de San Sebastián 2007, puede ser visto http://www.paidos.com/klein.asp

No, there is still 2 months to go, lots of speeches, debates, opportunities for discussion, and Obama usually looks better when it comes to live talks I think. Okay, over & out.

Sinopsis:

Trabajar. Resistir. Producir. Durante la crisis económica de 2001, en los suburbios de Buenos Aires, treinta desempleados de una fábrica de piezas de coches entran en su fábrica inactiva, sacan sacos de dormir y se niegan a abandonarla. Todo lo que quieren es reiniciar las máquinas que ahora permanecen en silencio.

Este simple hecho "La Toma" tiene el poder de centrar el debate de la globalización sobre sus cabezas. Armados sólo con hondas y una perseverante fe en la democracia del taller, los trabajadores se rebelan contra jefes, banqueros, y un sistema que ve a su amada fábrica simplemente como un pedazo de metal para vender.

Con La Toma, el director/productor Avi Lewis y la escritora/productora Naomi Klein, autora del best seller "No Logo", lideran un radical manifiesto económico para el siglo XXI, acercando a los espectadores las vidas de gente común, que reclaman su trabajo, su dignidad y su democracia.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6939956197822128063&ei=PNDBSLSoEIG2rQLz9YG3BQ&q=la+toma]

--> Web site of the day
--> 8 rules to break to build wealth
--> 6 common car shopping mistakes
--> vinyl records making a comeback
--> song lyrics on clothes
--> not just a passenger anymore

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Here are today's Quick Pickz!

Unlike Lotto and Powerball where you usually end up with ZIPPO...with these Quick Pickz you always get interesting, goofy, weird, valuable, far out, right on, totally off base, make you roll your eyes, scratch your head and shake your fist little snacks to tickle your basal ganglia.

Don't be timid. Dive in, swim around a bit and give us your $0.03. (Yep, on today's economic roller coaster - even your infamous and time honored 2 cents is worth more!)

"Information is shock resistance - arm yourself"
- Naomi Klein

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Web Site of the Day: Jugaadu
Connect with street-smart and creative people! Check it out...there's some cool ideas, people, stuff here!

8 rules to break to build wealth
It may pay to practice divergent thinking when it comes to the rules of building wealth. Check it out and tell us what you think.

6 common car shopping mistakes
Because this is often an emotional rather than rational buying decision can cause all kinds of problems. So take your time and consider each of these mistakes that are made all too often.

Vinyl records making a comeback?
I want to think this is cool - but I just don't. What do you think?

Song lyrics on clothes?
Shssssh...listen...is that P.T. Barnum I hear?

Not just a passenger anymore
And I think it stinks. How about you?

Word of the Day:
metier

Today's BONUS:
18 vs. 21
Here's a prediction: lowering the drinking age to 18 from 21 will NOT lower the incidence of binge drinking. Not until drinking becomes LESS fun. What do you think?

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Here's a poser. What is the best interview on You Tube?

By now there are thousands to choose from and more being added daily. Many of these are light hearted chats or mere publicity slots used to plug albums, books, movies etc.

An exception I recently discovered is a good series called The Alcove which may be old hat to you but is new to me.

It features an earnest, but very bright, interviewee Mark Molaro who, get this, wants his subjects to talk rather than being concerned to impose his own personality on the show.

They are a decent length too so come across as much more in depth. In other words the speakers can talk in a relaxed style without feeling they've got to come up with smart ass one liners all the time. There's also no studio audience to try to impress. The success or failure of the interview depends on the wisdom and articulacy of the speaker. So far I've watched interviews with Naomi Klein and Greil Marcus, both of which were genuinely illuminating.

Described as "smart talk for a new global generation" the show's other guests on an impressively diverse list include: Mark Pesce (Web technology expert); Helen Epstein, (HIV/AIDS expert & author); Byron Hurt ("Hip Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes") and Naomi Wolf ("The End of America"). Interviews can also be seen on Mark Molaro's website.

But for my money the best interview ever is a show I remember being entranced by when broadcast in the BBC Arena season in 1982. Over the course of over two hours, Orson Welles talks to Leslie Megahey about his extraordinary career which by his own admission is largely one in which he started at the top (with the Mercury Theatre and Citizen Kane) and worked his way down thereafter.

To call someone a larger than life character is something of a cliché but its a description that fits Welles to a tee. In his latter years he was gigantic figure both literally and metaphorically.

In this clip (# 11 of 16) he talks about the 1958 movie A Touch Of Evil where he played the grotesque cop Hank Quinlan. The movie also starred Charlton Heston and Marlene Dietrich. I like the way he describes this as "unreal but true" . The implication is that this is how he approached movie making as a whole, a process he describes as like working from an expensive paint box. Getting the funding for his idiosyncratic projects was always a major problem throughout his career.

In the course of the conversation you get a real sense of the man and what makes him tick. As a storyteller he is magnificent - you don't always believe his version of events but you marvel at the anecdotal capacity and charm.

He maintains his mythical status yet is not afraid to show us his vulnerabilities.

At the beginning of the week, I was reading reports of the raids right before the RNC. I really tried not to make a comparison between the film above and the raids of RNC 08 but I couldn't help it.

'Preemptive raids' sounds familiar right, kinda like preemptive war. The recent events make me feel as though we are moving towards a society much like the movie Minority Report, where we could be arrested for anything we might be thought of 'potentially' doing.

Sono tornato a casa presto ed ho vinto una battaglia con la mia tazza del cesso!! In pratica il copriwater precedente era rotto ma erano rimasti i pispoli dell'attacco incrostati ed impossibili da rimuovere, dopo vari tentativi con le pinze ed aver rotto una una lama di un seghetto a ferro ho vinto la mia battaglia personale, ora devo vincere la guerra.

Soddisfatto dalla buona sorte, e sudato come al solito, dopo una doccia mi sono messo sui divani luridi del portico di casa col computer (e sono ancora qua) e, rischiando, mi sono portato anche dietro il libro Shock Doctrine per vedere le reazioni, sono rimasto piacevolmente colpito. Seth mi ha detto di aver letto questo libro (forse viene anche lui dalla Klein) cosi' come alcuni di Noam Chomsky e di essere stato al controvertice G7 in Quebec. Poi ci siamo messi a chiacchera su questi argomenti e mi ha fatto una domanda che non mi aspettavo: "chi sono i mandati dell11/9?" e' iniziata una disquisizione in cui mi ha fatto notare delle cose interessanti, suo padre inoltre ha fatto affari col governo americano ed era soldato fino ad un po' di anni fa.
Per gli amichetti acari che leggono e' stato anche tra i collaboratori del codice di /.
Per questo ha guadagnato un sacco di punti di quelli che aveva perso, diciamo che per il momento e' in pari.
Prima di tutto questo pero' c'e' stato un episodio davvero buffo. Eravamo 3-4 sul portico e siamo rimasti soli, giusto per chiedere, ero curioso di sapere se conosceva il film Animal House, oltre a conoscerlo mi ha fatto notare un'altra cosa che nella versione italiana di Wikipedia per esempio non c'e', il film e' basato sulla confraternita Alpha Delta Phi, ovvero questa dove siedo adesso e dove vivo!

Mentre stavo per chiudere questo post arriva Geremy (lo scrivo che me ne scordo), di origine italiana (Calabro anche lui..), parliamo di pizza.

Iniziano ad esser simpatici sti confratelli

In questo momento davanti a me ci sono due orientali con mascherina di cartone che fanno il verso del gatto, sara' buon segno? ;)

nota: lo stile di vita di questa casa non piace molto ad alcuni abitati della zona
nota2: la mia finestra da giusto dove nella foto vedete la spazzatura (l'angolino in basso a destra)

But as some have noted, this is being replaced by the idea of "behavioral economics," which focuses on psychology (both brain-based research and surveys are heavily used) to understand why people make decisions that aren't rational, and how these shape the economy.

Matt Stoller of Open Left writes,

these are important ideas, because they undermine the notion that free markets exist as neutral arbiters, showing markets as artificial constructs with important regulatory choices built into them. This is a newly emergent set of ideas, and who controls their interpretation will control the public policy choices they imply. As we move into an era where free market fundamentalism dies, it's important to keep our eyes on the framers of the new intellectual moment.

And, keeping his eyes on the framers, Stoller writes about two different visions of behavioral economics.

First, we have a very short entry on Tom Slee's book, No One Makes You Shop At Walmart, which he praises, but says very little about. However, I am interested in chasing it down.

Second, we have a review of Thaler & Sunstein's book, Nudge, with more than a few damning critiques of one of Obama's main advisors.

The fundamental concern I have with this concept of behavioral economics is that it still places the onus of attention on the consumption of goods and not the production of goods. Craftsmanship, working conditions, fair wages and pay, local production-- these things are all secondary to behavioral economics, which tends to look like a glorified version of marketing rather than something concerned with creating a sustainable economy. I don't believe that one should look solely at the production side, but rather that one needs to look at both sides, and the ways in which they are interconnected.

--> Web site of the day
--> 6 ways to insure your deposits
--> thinking about becoming a landlord?
--> big and healthy - fit and unhealthy
--> ever heard of shotpacks
--> the jetsons are coming

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Here are today's Quick Pickz!

Unlike Lotto and Powerball where you usually end up with ZIPPO...with these Quick Pickz you always get interesting, goofy, weird, valuable, far out, right on, totally off base, make you roll your eyes, scratch your head and shake your fist little snacks to tickle your basal ganglia.

Don't be timid. Dive in, swim around a bit and give us your $0.03. (Yep, on today's economic roller coaster - even your infamous and time honored 2 cents is worth more!)

"Information is shock resistance - arm yourself"
- Naomi Klein

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Web Site of the Day: Reelz Review
Here's a chance to everything there is to know about your favorite film! Check out the widget to get the latest movie news on your personal site or blog...

6 ways to insure your deposits
According to the FDIC: less than 62 percent of the $6.88 trillion on deposit in FDIC-insured banks was covered at the end of 2007. That leaves more than $2.5 trillion unprotected in the event of bank failures. Whatever you do, don't get caught with uninsured deposits...

Thinking about becoming a landlord?
Pretty sure I could never do this. Some things to consider if you're thinking about it!

Big and healthy - fit and unhealthy
Surprising numbers are hefty but healthy or trim with heart risk, study finds

Ever heard of ShotPaks?
I'll bet your kids have. Aka "party in a pouch" critics are describing it more as an alcoholic candy bar. This is just plain scary...

The Jetsons are coming, the Jetsons are coming
Inventors are sure cars can fly and I can't wait!

Word of the Day:
dint

Today's BONUS:
Pandora Could Be First Major Casualty of New Royalty Rates
This is a HUGE drag. Pandora is KICK-ASS!

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Utan att gå in i bokens alla detaljer vill jag bara säga det Kleins försvar inte ändrar det faktum att boken framstår som propaganda. Dels är det en berättelse som tar sitt avstamp i den sluge Milton Friedman ,lärljunge till den bistre Friedrich von Hayek (det är epiteten i den svenska översättningen i alla fall). Utifrån denna presentation målar hon upp ett scenario av hur Friedmans idéer formar den moderna ekonomiska politiken och hur denna politik är förödande - där av namnet katastrofkapitalism (Hon backar i försvaret om Friedmans roll. Han spelar ingen roll egentligen - han är med andra ord endast där för det goda narrativets skull). Ingen stans i boken presenteras något som ens försöker visa på någon annan version. Det är med andra ord en långt driven tes som självklart bygger på i stort sett korrekt fakta. Detta betyder att den fungerar väl som propaganda för dem som vill ha denna historia presenterad för sig. Men den har mycket svårt att övertga den som inte redan är troende. Chockdokrinen är fortfarande en väldigt ensidig och förenklad bild av verkligheten. Det är en storslagen, dramatisk och fasansfull berättelse om maktmissbruk. Men att varje faktum i sig är sant innebär inte att narrativet är det.

Jag har skrivit om Chockdokrinen här, här och här.

--> Web site of the day
--> hybrids catching on
--> bills to slash to save money
--> take the kids to i.o.u.s.a
--> how to beat rising food prices
--> trust is the very first thing

***********************************************************************************

Here are today's Quick Pickz!

Unlike Lotto and Powerball where you usually end up with ZIPPO...with these Quick Pickz you always get interesting, goofy, weird, valuable, far out, right on, totally off base, make you roll your eyes, scratch your head and shake your fist little snacks to tickle your basal ganglia.

Don't be timid. Dive in, swim around a bit and give us your $0.03. (Yep, on today's economic roller coaster - even your infamous and time honored 2 cents is worth more!)

"Information is shock resistance - arm yourself"
- Naomi Klein

***********************************************************************************

Web Site of the Day: Razz'em
Brought to you by the founder of GoToTheDoghouse.com

Hybrids catching on
Not too long ago there were only a few options. Now there are close to twenty different models. Check out the latest scorecard here

5 big bills you can slash to save money
We'll come out of this eventually. Until then...save where you can and as much as you can!

Take the kids to I.O.U.S.A.
A.S.A.P.

How to beat rising food prices
WOW...sure glad I don't live here.

Trust is the very first thing...
...we decide about a person. And once we've decided...

Word of the Day:
inextricably

Today's BONUS:
SaysMe.tv
Now anyone can create a commercial and buy advertising on television for as little as $6 per play

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You are needed tomorrow for a good old fashion protest at town hall. With the newest wave of cuts to government funding of arts and culture (click here for the complete list), it is finally time for us to stand up!

The recent wave of cuts by the Conservative government has sent shockwaves throughout an already resource-strapped arts community. Since taking power in 2006, the Conservative Government has eliminated almost $60 Million from Cultural and Heritage Granting Programs... Prime Minister Stephen Harper put himself on the line defending the cuts, which he says are a commonplace outcome of a strategic program review (which has not been made public). Although it is a relatively small part, the cuts include a 20% reduction ($500,000) in the support for industry initiatives under the Canada Magazine Fund. Harper's defence came on the heels of a Conference Board of Canada report that said arts funding is an investment that pays off handsomely, spinning off $84 billion annually. The three opposition parties demanded the session in the wake of cuts the government quietly implemented during Parliament's summer recess."There is real concern the government is picking and choosing which artists it is supporting and which artists it is not supporting," said New Democrat MP Peggy Nash. "I suggest, in a democracy, that is a dangerous thing."

The protest, will take place at the Theatre Centre (1087 Queen Street W) at 7 pm. Organized by Fuse magazine, it began as a show of support for the arts has snowballed into something much larger. The meeting will address larger social issues and activism in the imminent federal election, including unseating key Conservatives in the greater Toronto area and across Canada. And the lineup for the night includes many prominent speakers, most importantly NOAMI effing KLEIN! (This is almost as cool as the time Noam Chomsky came to speak at my school!)

Art is necessary! Especially in the environment of hostility and bottom lines in which we currently exists. As someone who has spent her entire life waiting for a career in magazines, only to get there a moment too late, this issue stings me personally. Unfortunately, due to my stupid job selling soaps, I will not be able to attend this wonderful display of solidarity. But I will be there in spirit as they fight for my future and wish everyone who attends the best of luck!

Fore more info, visit departmentofculture.ca.

--> Web site of the day
--> can't get enough CDs?
--> last chance for financial aid
--> how do your kids trick you?
--> 7 secrets to picking good funds
--> no company pension?

***********************************************************************************

Here are today's Quick Pickz!

Unlike Lotto and Powerball where you usually end up with ZIPPO...with these Quick Pickz you always get interesting, goofy, weird, valuable, far out, right on, totally off base, make you roll your eyes, scratch your head and shake your fist little snacks to tickle your basal ganglia.

Don't be timid. Dive in, swim around a bit and give us your $0.03. (Yep, on today's economic roller coaster - even your infamous and time honored 2 cents is worth more!)

"Information is shock resistance - arm yourself"
- Naomi Klein

***********************************************************************************

Web Site of the Day: Hospital Compare
From this site: This tool provides you with information on how well the hospitals care for all their adult patients with certain medical conditions or surgical procedures. This information will help you compare the quality of care hospitals provide. Talk to your doctor about this information to help you, your family and your friends make your best hospital care decisions.

Can't get enough CDs?
The stock market rollercoaster has millions socking their cash away in CDs until the storm blows over. If you're hooked on CDs - make sure to play all your options!

Last chance for financial aid
Make sure your kids explore every last nickel that's out there.

How do your kids trick you?
It's hard to argue with the fact that kids very often know ho to get what they want. Here are some ways to keep control and maintain some sanity.

7 secrets to picking good funds
Generally not a big fan of articles like this but this one looks reasonable. Can anyone attest to a positive experience and better than expected results?

No company pension?
Create one of your own! As I've talked about before in this space - make sure you get with an advisor you trust. There's a LOT that can go into building that trust. Contact me if you'd like more information.

Word of the Day:
triskaidekaphobia

Today's BONUS:
10 most/least expensive cars to own
The long-term price of a car is much more than purchase price,  interest rate, reliability and fuel economy!

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nota: il 29 settembre c'e' la presentazione del libro Shock Doctrine di Naomi Klein, si terra' ad un cinema a 5 minuti a piedi da casa :)

"Anyone who is caught looting in the city .... will go directly to Angola," Nagin said referring to the state penitentiary during a press conference at City Hall. "You will not have a temporary stay in the city; you will go directly to the big house."

In the U.S. Angola is synonymous with modern-day slavery (well, theoretically, all U.S. prisons can be defined as such particularly for the ways in which the prison industrial complex targets people of color, but just go with me for a bit on this one). And, in fact, a recent article makes precisely this link to show us precisely how Angola is like a modern-day plantation:

This scene is not a glimpse of plantation days long gone by. It's the present-day reality of thousands of prisoners at the maximum security Louisiana State Penitentiary, otherwise known as Angola. The block of land on which the prison sits is a composite of several slave plantations, bought up in the decades following the Civil War. Acre-wise, it is the largest prison in the United States. Eighty percent of its prisoners are African-American.

"Angola is disturbing every time I go there," Tory Pegram, who coordinates the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3, told Truthout. "It's not even really a metaphor for slavery. Slavery is what's going on."

Mwalimu Johnson, who spent 15 years as a prisoner at the penitentiary and now works as executive secretary of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana, concurred.

"I would truthfully say that Angola prison is a sophisticated plantation," Johnson told Truthout. "'Cotton is King' still applies when it come to Angola."

Angola is not alone. Sixteen percent of Louisiana prisoners are compelled to perform farm labor, as are 17 percent of Texas prisoners and a full 40 percent of Arkansas prisoners, according to the 2002 Corrections Yearbook, compiled by the Criminal Justice Institute. They are paid little to nothing for planting and picking the same crops harvested by slaves 150 years ago.

The U.S., as you know, was built on stolen land and cannot survive without forced labor, hence the need for such a system. God forbid Americans cannot run out to the stores and find products that are dirt cheap, products that they buy without ever thinking about whose labor was used to produce it or whose labor was used to sell it to them; in either scenario I wonder how difficult it is for those families to eat. In prison, at least in theory, they are fed, though I don't know if you can call it food per se. But what happens to the prisoners in the midst of a hurricane, if Katrina is any example, is devastating.

But it is predominantly food that people seek when they "loot." We know from Hurricane Katrina how the U.S. media used different words and different images to show the situation of people of color and white people trying to survive. White people "find" food; Black people "loot." Clearly Mayor Nagin didn't say anything about who would be going to prison--white or black people--but he didn't say that people who are able to scramble to "find" food would be imprisoned. No, he said those who "loot" will be put in Angola. Welcome to the wonderful world of racist, American lingo. Or how about this report on the difference between "looting" and "finding":

Emergency systems and disaster protocol must put life above law. And yet, when it comes to the lives of blacks and poor people in the aftermath of Katrina, "looting" is the leading headline.

President Bush has declared "zero tolerance" and pledged more troops to police the area. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has prioritized "law and order" over search and rescue. Exacting punishment instead of providing for basic needs is compounded by this disaster and the inhumanity of policies guided by this belief are laid bare. Black and poor residents of New Orleans are paying for this decision with their lives.

While the decision to arrest people for trying to survive seems misplaced, it could have something to do with the news coverage of Katrina. It has been saturated with descriptions of blacks chest-deep in water "looting" food, while referring to whites in virtually the same circumstances as survivors "finding" food.

Or perhaps it is because news stories of structural racism in the relief effort are few and far between. And almost none have raised critical life-and-death questions about how the evacuation process, search and rescue operations, relief distribution, law enforcement decisions and disaster policy are being determined by race.

Yes, the differences in language mirror the differences on the ground with respect to relief, preparation, support, solidarity, and language. The racism is structural and embedded in every part of society (one could easily look at the Israeli invasion of Lebanon on the heels of the 1st anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and see how Americans reported that Israelis "entered" Lebanon: countries bombing other countries to the stone age and back do not "enter"; they "invade.").

I'm feeling annoyed, too, about the use of language related to "natural" disasters once again. Like the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006 or its daily war on Palestinians, the Hurricane in Katrina was a man-made disaster. I never posted the original English of my article in Al Akhbar earlier this summer, so I will do it now (see below) to explain precisely why I am so disturbed by this rhetoric. Also, does the recent flooding in Bihar, India, the earthquake in southwest China, and the level of damage Hurricane Gustav has already inflicted in Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, and elsewhere int he region not tell you something about climate change? We have refugees from wars, economic crises, and global warming now, some internally displaced, and others needing to cross borders to seek food and shelter. It's always food and shelter first.

So I am thinking about these people who are hungry today. I'm using this fasting time of Ramadan, which started today, as did daylight savings, to consider what it feels like to be hungry every day for people who do not have the luxury of food and shelter whether in Gaza, New Orleans, or India. I like the feeling of being hungry and how it makes the brain pay attention to things like this--which one should think about daily, but one rarely does.

So here is my piece from الأخبار earlier this summer in English:

Suheir Hammad's poem "on refuge and language," written in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, alludes to an nakba as a way to imagine what was in store for internally displaced people of New Orleans:
 
"I think of my grandparents
And how some called them refugees
Others called them non-existent
They called themselves landless
Which means homeless
 
Before the hurricane
No tents were prepared for the fleeing
Because Americans do not live in tents
Tents are for Haiti for Bosnia for Rwanda
 
Refugees are the rest of the world"
 
These images of forced removal, of homelessness, reveal the striking similarity of people forced from their homes as a result of catastrophic events, catastrophes produced by man not by nature. In either context it is useful to consider historian Ilan Pappe's suggestion that we challenge the term an nakba because catastrophes are merely events producing sudden disaster rather than man-made events. Whether one is considering the premeditation of Zionists to massacre and expel Palestinians or the deliberate malfeasance of the American government to rehabilitate the levees in New Orleans in anticipation of a hurricane, we must acknowledge that we are dealing with attempts to ethnically cleanse an area of its inhabitants based on both racism and white supremacy.
 
The allusions in Hammad's poem resonate not only with events 60 years ago, but also with multiple Lebanese and Palestinian contexts in more recent years, including the Israeli war on Lebanon and Gaza in 2006--a war that began in Gaza and continues in various forms until today--and the Lebanese army's destruction of Nahr el Bared refugee camp last summer. The parallels take different forms, but also coalesce in particular ways.
 
During the July 2006 war I helped to organize a trip for young Palestinians from Dheishe refugee camp to visit their villages in 1948. In one such village, Jerash, a partially destroyed and currently uninhabited village on a quiet hill, we could feel the vibrations of the bombing in Gaza under our feet while also watching the Israeli Occupation Forces planes fly over our heads on their way to Lebanon. I was also acutely aware that this fighting occurred on the cusp of the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Precisely one week prior to our trip to Jerash, when new homelessness and devastation rained on Gaza and Lebanon, the U.S. government's Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency gave the Israeli Occupation Forces $210 million worth of JP-8 fuel to cover the costs of its genocidal war rather than lend any financial or infrastructural support to the survivors of Katrina. One year after Hurricane Katrina, tens of thousands of people were still denied their right to return home and the little aid that FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) promised had still not been disbursed.  Three years later the population of New Orleans is two thirds of what it was before the hurricane.
 
In this region it is widely known that the U.S. gives unprecedented aid to Israel's war machine, but we often don't put this in the context of American genocidal policies that target people of color internally. Many communities in New Orleans, particularly in areas like the Lower Ninth Ward, understand their situation in relation to the U.S. neocolonial policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. National Guard units that could have been deployed to assist with the evacuation of the city were killing innocent civilians in Iraq. Those in the National Guard who returned spoke of New Orleans as akin to the Green Zone in Iraq. Instead of helping they guarded evacuees who were kept behind barricades filled with mud and sewage. What little relief efforts that have emerged resemble American neocolonial policies in the region. Survivors are criminalized, marginalized, and forgotten. The same contractors mismanaging reconstruction and wreaking havoc in Iraq, among them Blackwater and the Israeli security company Instinctive Shooting International, came to New Orleans.
 
As we approach the three year anniversary of Katrina, we find that FEMA just closed its largest mobile housing unit area where survivors from New Orleans have been living in bleak conditions, still prevented from their right to return home.  Now they are homeless. The trailers they had been staying in temporarily look remarkably similar to the newest mobile units that the few Palestinians who have been allowed to return to Nahr el Bared live in. These small steel units may provide shelter for these communities, but exposure to the weather, extreme heat and extreme cold, as well as fitting large families into inhumanly small spaces make them unlivable. In both places, those fleeing were criminalized, denied the right to return to their destroyed homes, and abandoned by the institutions and organizations promising to rebuild their communities. In both contexts, the people attempting to rebuild their lives represent some of the most underserved and overexploited people within their respective contexts.
 
But in Nahr el Bared as in New Orleans there are groups of people from these communities who have resisted the authorities to claim  their right to return.  Organizations like Common Ground Relief mobilized rebuilding and relief efforts under the banner of "solidarity not charity." This solidarity has been mainly in the form of local work as people in New Orleans, South Lebanon, and Nahr el Bared rebuild their lives. But a sister city project could be a productive way to build a larger movement that resists the neocolonial impulses of governments, corporations, and NGOs that either feed off the misery of the dispossessed or generally refrain from offering sustainable projects that instead focuses on the needs of those rebuilding their lives. A sister city project based on solidarity could forge connections across the lives of those who are subjected to what Naomi Klein calls "the disaster capitalism complex" by creating sustainable bonds and projects that are based on rebuilding people's lives so that they can be strong enough to fight for the political objectives that matter most. Exchanging ideas about resistance cultures in New Orleans, South Lebanon, and Nahr el Bared could enable people in these communities to unite against governments like the U.S. intent on destroying people's homes while refusing to build its own.

For those of you who are feeling like you want to be generous and do something to help people in New Orleans, here is what Common Ground Collective is requesting:

8/31 As Hurricane Gustav bears down on the Gulf Coast, Common Ground Relief is preparing for the worst. The levees have not been fully repaired, so widescale flooding could once again hit the city of New Orleans. Residents who were forced out of their homes in 2005 for a supposedly 'temporary' evacuation, and then found themselves kept out of their homes for 18 months or more, are understandably wary of the forced evacuation that is currently taking place. Common Ground Relief is committed to helping the people of the city survive this storm, no matter what happens.

But to do this, we need your help.

Here's a basic list of what we need right now:
Generators: Diesel or Solar
Food, all kinds
Cooking Utensils (pots, pans, spoons, etc) for quantities of people
Water
Hygiene Supplies
Volunteer Health Care Providers (doctors, nurse practitioners, para-medics,
herbalists, etc)
Medications
Emergency Health Clinic Type Equipment
Refrigerated Supply Van or a Refrigerated Truck & Trailer
Shovels
Respirators
Tyvek Suits
Crowbars
Hammers
Wheel Barrows
Huge Tents to Set Up Distribution Centers, Temporary Medical Clinics, Office
Space, Living Quarters
OR... MODULAR STRUCTURES To Provide the Same
Bicycles
Chain Saws
Safety Goggles
Heavy Duty Work Gloves

ANOTHER OPTION IS TO MAKE CONTRIBUTIONS ONLINE HERE.

Naomi Klien quite brillianty documents the rise of a disaster industrial complex in her book the Shock Doctrine. The Chicago School of Economics and their hangers on have crafted an ideology that uses political, ecological or military crisis to ram through the creation of a neoliberal-military hybrid state.

Now, the process is continuing with un-shocking events of political stagecraft.

First, there was Miami in 2003, where the Miami PD turned an FTAA meeting into a police riot, funded by millions of dollars in Homeland Security funds, spent on weapons that no doubt remain in the hands of the department today.  Handling of the protests became a "model for Homeland Security," in the words of Miami's mayor.  He was right.

Then, there was the 2004 RNC, an event still echoing through New York's legal system and political consciousness.  The convention and protests surrounding it involved a mind-numbing abuse of police power, and the pretext of convention security provided the excuse to bulk up on security devices still in use today - cameras, riot gear, tasers and more.  More importantly, it provided a pretext to break down convergence points in New York's activist networks, creating capacity building problems that

More recently, there was the Olympics, where China spent $12 billion on security measures.  That's about 10 times more than what was spent in Athens, and 20 times more than what was spent in Salt Lake City.  Almost none of that will disappear after the Olympics end - those cameras, weapons, personnel, etc., will become permanent features of China's police infrastructure.

Now we have the 2008 conventions.  Each will incur about $50 million in security costs.  At Denver, we saw the use of pepper-spray bullets, as well as those shiny new police-truck things pictured above.  At the RNC in the Twin Cities, tactics borrowed from New York have begun - illegal detentions, arrests, and raids have been carried out against the anti-authoritarian and anarchist presence, doubtless using technology bankrolled by the DHS and taxpayers.

I say 'illegal' because I think there is a conscious effort on the part of the police to make arrests that they know to be unauthorized: since it remains illegal to resist an illegal arrest, and police accountability is so so broken in this country, police can make arrests without fear of serious retribution.  Any legal ramifications down the road are minuscule compared to the millions in free equipment and more in publicity cities earn from hosting these conventions 'trouble free.'

The Miami Model and its inheritors risk not only the right to free speech and vital civil rights, but also a severe backlash.  Using overwhelming force to execute the whim of police administrators and politicians leaves no recourse to serious protesters except a violent response.  That's not a threat: that's a fact of how people will respond to this strategy.

Private equity firms have long wanted to move into banking.  And given the financial crisis that many banks are now facing, isn’t this a good time to allow private equity firms, with their billions of dollars of available resources, to come riding to the rescue?

According to an editorial in the New York Times, “for the past month, some private equity firms have been promoting what they claim would be a relatively pain-free fix of the nation’s banks . . . Private equity firms say they are ready to invest huge amounts in ailing banks — provided the Fed eases up on the regulations that would otherwise apply to such large investments. The firms’ desire to jump in makes perfect sense. Bank shares are cheap now, but for the most part, are likely to rebound when the economy improves.”

What the private equity firms want in return for playing the role of savior are significant changes in banking regulations.  

“Under current rules,” the Times explains, “if an investment firm owns 25 percent or more of a bank, it is considered, properly, a bank holding company, subject to the same federal requirements and responsibilities as a fully regulated bank. If a firm owns between 10 percent and 25 percent of a bank, it is typically barred from controlling the bank’s management. To place a director on a bank’s board, an investor’s ownership stake must be less than 10 percent. The rules exist to prevent conflicts of interest and concentration of economic power. They protect consumers and businesses who rely on well-regulated banks, as well as taxpayers, who stand behind the government’s various subsidies and guarantees to banks.  To maximize their profits, private equity firms want to own more than 9.9 percent of the banks they have their eye on and they want more managerial control — and they want it all without regulation. They argue that because they tend to be shorter-term investors, problems that the rules address are unlikely to occur on their watch.”

The private equity firms’ grab for the gold is an example of what Canadian writer Naomi Klein calls the “shock doctrine” of “disaster capitalism.”

The basic idea of the shock doctrine is that corporations are able to remove regulations and operate without governmental oversight when citizens are in a state of shock from a traumatic event, such as a natural disaster, a war, a coup, or an economic crisis and are desperate for a solution and unable to mobilize effective opposition.  When these crises occur, corporations exploit them by promising a solution — the catch is that in return for their solution, the corporations demand the drastic reduction or elimination of regulation and public oversight.

In her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein identifies University of Chicago economist and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman as the ideological father of the Shock Doctrine: “In one of his most influential essays, Friedman articulated contemporary capitalism’s core tactical nostrum, what I have come to understand as ‘the shock doctrine’. He observed that ‘only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change’.  When that crisis occurs, the actions taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. Some people stockpile canned goods and water in preparation for major disasters; Friedmanites stockpile free-market ideas. And once a crisis has struck, the University of Chicago professor was convinced that it was crucial to act swiftly, to impose rapid and irreversible change before the crisis-racked society slipped back into the ‘tyranny of the status quo’. A variation on Machiavelli’s advice that ‘injuries’ should be inflicted ‘all at once’, this is one of Friedman’s most lasting legacies.”

Examples of the application of the shock doctrine offered by Klein are the government-corporate responses to Hurricane Katrina, the 9/11 attack, the war in Iraq, the oil crisis, and the global food crisis.  In each instance, Klein argues, corporations systematically exploited, and are still exploiting, the state of fear and disorientation that accompanied the shock and crisis to remove regulations and government oversight of their activities.

That’s exactly what’s behind the private equity firms’ solution to the banking crisis.  As the Times points out, “the private equity firms are exploiting the desperation of banks and regulators. They know that banks are desperate to raise capital and that doing so is a painful process bankers would rather avoid. They also know that regulators and other government officials, many of whom where asleep on the job as the financial crisis developed, want to avoid the political fallout and economic pain of bank weakness and failure.”

Giving in to the private equity firms’ offer to save the banks in return for fundamental regulatory concessions would be a serious mistake. 

As the Times explains, “Now, when there is great uncertainty about which institutions are too big or too interconnected to fail, is exactly the wrong time to allow less transparency and less regulation. And with confidence in the financial system badly shaken, it would be a mistake to signal to global markets and American citizens that the government is willing to put expediency above long-term stability.”

In fact, the responsible response to the current crisis is not less regulation, but more effective and focused oversight.  As economist Austan Goolsbee (also of the University of Chicago) said in a Dow Jones interview, “If you can borrow money from the U.S. taxpayer at a moment of crisis, that is a very sacred insurance policy underwritten by the U.S. taxpayer.  We have the right to oversee anyone who is accessing that insurance policy.”

It remains to be seen whether Congress will capitulate to the private equity firms’ demands. 

Most likely, this will be one of the issues that are decided by the November elections.

That's not right.

This will be forgotten within a matter of days. These things always are.

Chris Hedges's article about it here.

The war in Afghanistan is steadily getting worse. The war in Iraq is already a disaster. Yet the numbers of the innocent lost in these wars glaze over us. Over 600,000 dead in Iraq, yet nothing has changed. Where's the outrage? I don't know.

While it's obvious the current presidential administration isn't going to do anything to stop these wars, it's time to start pressuring the next administration. If Obama is elected president, then pressure needs to be placed on him from all sides to end these wars, because Washington and Obama's corporate backers will pressure him to do the opposite. I have faith that Barack Obama can do good. At the very least, he's our only chance to get the country back on track. But we still need to pressure him to do so. If there's no pressure, then nothing will get done.

Here's an interview with Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, talking about whether or not to give a free ride to Obama. I like her point because she's also realistic about things. She doesn't support Obama bashing, but does think that if he's elected, then progressive groups need to immediately switch gears from cheerleaders to critical thinkers pushing Obama forward to make real change.

In an interview with Real News Network, Naomi Klein is at it again. Agitating. I love that woman. Is she married? Who cares, hey lady...wink, wink! If there is any great reason to oppose the Swami Obami movement, she's laying it out. Obama is a different color than the previous palefaces that run this country but I'd caution you, dear reader. The Democrats can fuck us, have fucked us, and may well again. It might be a little more well oiled than the unlubed Republican dicking we've been getting but when your ass is in the air all the time you can't complain. Can we tell the difference between promises and actual change? Yes we can!

aflutter,

Martin V.

Words above and video below posted by TheRealNews

Naomi Klein
on the SHOCK DOCTRINE: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

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Monday, September 29th, 2008
Bloor Cinema: 506 Bloor St. W, Toronto
6:30 pm
Tickets are $8.00 in advance, $10 at the door

Tickets Available starting August 26th at:

• Toronto Women's Bookstore: 73 Harbord St.
• OPIRG – Toronto Office: 563 Spadina Ave.
• University of Toronto Students' Union Office: 12 Hart House Circle
• University of Toronto Mississauga Students' Union Office: 3359 Mississauga Rd. N.

**All proceeds going to support the communities of Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory and the Algonquins of Barriere Lake

Bestselling Writer, award winning Journalist and Filmmaker Naomi Klein is speaking in Toronto on Monday, September 29th on the release of her new book: "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism".

In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America's "free market" policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries. (www.naomiklein.org)