A suggestion to the moderators for Farmpunk's status field: 'reality checker'.
Excellent posts, Farmpunk.
Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine
Fri, 2007-09-14 17:53
#52
Fri, 2007-09-14 18:00
#53
[unionist shakes his head in disbelief]
You think workers want to read literature written by other workers about how the system works?
Or that workers don't read books any more?
Come meet some workers and express those opinions. See how far you get.
Fri, 2007-09-14 18:05
#54
I don't know of any MP's or MPP's from the two old line parties who carried a lunch pail or brown paper bag to work every day.
There [i]is[/i] the issue of internet access and cyber-democracy. More and more people want to find things out for themselves on the internet. It's interactive and makes Conrad Blech's and Thomson's newspapers seem obsolete and boring, a lesson in cutting down precious trees for the sake of political propaganda. I think leftists must make their presence felt on the internet like we never had with newsprint, radio or broadcast TV to nearly the same degree as the black cats, white cats or black n' white cats. The internet is at the foothills of development, and I think it will evolve into something really big in the near future.
And so here we are talking about Naomi Klein's new book. And she makes perfect sense to me. Internet forums and blogs could be one of the lanes of communication to mouseland.
Fri, 2007-09-14 18:19
#55
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
[b]A suggestion to the moderators for Farmpunk's status field: 'reality checker'.Excellent posts, Farmpunk.[/b]
I guess it's obvious you're not going to comment on the thread topic.
Fri, 2007-09-14 18:37
#56
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
[b]I guess it's obvious you're not going to comment on the thread topic.[/b]
Farmpunk actually didn't comment on the topic either, other than to opine that "No one reads books anymore..." My head is still shaking.
Fri, 2007-09-14 18:44
#57
Maybe they'd rather be parkouring ?.
Sat, 2007-09-15 04:24
#58
quote:
Who said that the populist grass roots socialism of the 60s and 70s accomplished little? The lefty pros since have done what exactly?
Well this would be a huge debate woulddn't it? According to one theory what the 60's did was take a basically apolitical population in North America and encourage them to take positions on issues which they had no understanding or knowledge. They were encouraged as part of Nixon's "silent majority" to vote for right-wing programs. The media aided and abetted this by creating the illusion that the social justice issues like racism and poverty were solved. Criticism has been repressed by the "war on terror" (an oxymoron if there ever was one.)
Intellectuals like Chomsky, Marcuse, George Woodcock, Linda McQuaig, and Naiomi Klein provide glimpses of the reality behind this vast murk stirred up by the rebellious 60's.
I am glad they happened and agree they were positive but that was 47 years ago! And we have George Bush in the White House, a War in Iraq, Stephen Harper in Ottawa, Free Trade, internal combustion engines and Ontario "going nuclear" to solve its energy needs! Does it not appear as it did in 1848 that the forces of reaction have won all the battles so far?
The point is good ideas are not running the world bad practices are.
Sat, 2007-09-15 09:46
#59
And then neo-Liberal ideologues allied themselves with paleoconservatives.
Simplifying further we arrive at:
(neo-Liberal ideologues + paleoconservatives) = neoconservatives
(usury + mafia) = "free market economy"
ETA: Generally, very few of the ideologues have ever had to break a sweat for a living, just live off compound interest, usury, rent, and kick-back and graft by aggressive lobbying of successive weak and corrupt governments pandering to the ideology for personal gain and profit. Fascism is fun. Fascism is entertaining, a three ring circus with lots of sparkle and glitz.
Global warming and obligatory crises of capitalism should be encouraging people to think in terms of "we" for the first time since social gains were made in the 60's and 70's when red menace threatened status quo in the west.
~~ [i]"When the last tree is cut down, and the last river is poisoned, only then will we realize we can't eat money"[/i] -- someone
[ 15 September 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]
Sat, 2007-09-15 12:09
#60
quote:
Global warming and obligatory crises of capitalism should be encouraging people to think in terms of "we" for the first time since social gains were made in the 60's and 70's when red menace threatened status quo in the west.~~ "When the last tree is cut down, and the last river is poisoned, only then will we realize we can't eat money" -- someone
At University a friend of mine took an introductory anthropology course. And there was a chapter on the field studies done on so called "primitive tribes" living by hunting and gathering. They discovered that one individual in this tribe had to work very little because he had discovered an ingenius way top trap turtles and always brought a few home to eat eack week for which he could barter other things but for which the tribe benefitted greatly over-all.
He was in a sense the prototype of the modern enrepreneur. There was one significant difference however. His inventiveness and success enriched the collectivity. Everyone partook of the turtle soup that was made.
This is what we need in the modern world - soclalist entrepreneurialism.
[ 15 September 2007: Message edited by: DonnyBGood ]
Sat, 2007-09-15 14:58
#61
quote:
Originally posted by Farmpunk:
[b]Hey, isn't there a net rule against referring to media as the opiate of the masses that's on par with the first person to use Hitler as an example to back up their argument?
[/b]
I think it compares favourably with saying that people don't read books anymore.
[ 15 September 2007: Message edited by: RosaL ]
Sat, 2007-09-15 14:58
#62
Jane Smiley provides the kind of review of The Shock Doctrine that Canadian readers deserved to get from the Globe. Klein's own ideas are presented so we get to know what the book is about.http://www. commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/14/3841/
If you google Gitlin you get a debate he had with Klein about the Democratic Party and the war at the time of the last presidental campaign. Gitlin was against demonstations in New Year at the Republican convention because it would damage Kerry. Klein pointed out that unlike in Spain, American voters were not getting a choice between a war, and an anti-war party, so she thought protests were necessary to create awareness of anti-war thinking.
So when the Globe book review editor picked Gitlin to review The Shock Doctrine what was he up to? My guess was he wanted a negative review, so did his research to find someone with an axe to grind. Gitlin, the journalism prof. was used by big media, he must have known what was going on. That is why I wrote to him (see above)..
Sat, 2007-09-15 16:40
#63
Ammended commentary since some posters have decided to take me absolutely literally.
How many people are going to read Klein's book?
How many people who don't even bother to vote in NA, a significant number of people, will read Klein's book?
I probably will, if I can wade through the hideous reams of daily material that's availible at the touch of a mouse. Unionist doesn't need to read Klein, I'd suspect. Or Fidel. I probably should read the book, and hopefully will be able to find the time and the headspace.
Sat, 2007-09-15 16:57
#64
quote:
Originally posted by duncan cameron:
[b]
So when the Globe book review editor picked Gitlin to review The Shock Doctrine what was he up to? My guess was he wanted a negative review, so did his research to find someone with an axe to grind. [/b]
Right on, Duncan, I had read the Gitlin-Klein exchange, which helped form my conviction that Gitlin has made peace with the "system". And thanks for the Smiley review.
[ 15 September 2007: Message edited by: unionist ]
Sat, 2007-09-15 16:57
#65
quote:
Originally posted by Farmpunk:
[b]Ammended commentary since some posters have decided to take me absolutely literally.
[/b]
I think your point is quite clear.
Sat, 2007-09-15 17:01
#66
"At University a friend of mine took an introductory anthropoly course..."
I've got an idea. Why not get some of Unionist's and RosaL's literate working class people, whom they know so well in reliably general terms, and begin your conversation with the above quote and the following paragraphs from DBG.
Then suggest they should really read Klein.
I'd bring that up to a working person in a second.
And, DGB, bringing up George Woodcock? I'm afraid I lean a little more towards Hugh Garner, who actually fought in the Spanish Civil War. But if you're into George and bookish anarchy, then that's fine with me. We'll be able to communicate better, with me being a redneck and all, if we establish that fact.
Or maybe you've never read Garner. You should.
Sat, 2007-09-15 17:03
#67
quote:
Originally posted by Farmpunk:
[b]"At University a friend of mine took an introductory anthropoly course..."I've got an idea. Why not get some of Unionist's and RosaL's literate working class people, whom they know so well in reliably general terms, and begin your conversation with the above quote and the following paragraphs from DBG.
Then suggest they should really read Klein.
I'd bring that up to a working person in a second.
[/b]
I'm a literate working class person. I don't know if I'll read this book.
ETA: I probably won't. There are other writers I prefer.
[ 15 September 2007: Message edited by: RosaL ]
Sat, 2007-09-15 17:15
#68
quote:
Originally posted by Farmpunk:
[b]I'd bring that up to a working person in a second.[/b]
Old guy used to live next door to my parents place. He had a grade six education maybe. Old Joe was a foster kid who'd worked on a farm while growing up in N. Ontario in the 1920's and 30's. Old Joe and his wife still maintained tradition with a family garden out back in case hard times made a comeback. He asked my dad, a grade nine graduate at the time, who he was going to vote for in a local election. Dad told him, well, I don't think the lawyer and the business man have carried a lunch pail to work like you and I've had to for the last umpteen years, so I'm going to vote for the union guy running for the NDP. He's new blood, and I think he deserves a kick at the can. By the next week, old Joe had an NDP lawn sign in his front yard.
Sat, 2007-09-15 18:32
#69
Personally, I don't think Gitlin has made peace with the system. His comments in his exchange with Klein where he disagreed were about strategy. I agreed with those points. I disagreed with what Klein said in the Maclean's interview. Are we both not left wing because we disagreed on certain points with Klein? Gitlin opened his review citing the history with him and Klein. In his review he didn't dismiss 'Shock Doctrine' but took serious issue with certain points. I also don't understand Duncan Cameron rushing to her defense here unless he is Klein's publicist?
I almost suspect there is what I would call Atwoodism going on here. 'Oh my good you disagreed with or don't like the works of a Canadian leftist icon, now we will hyperventilate against you!'
Sat, 2007-09-15 19:11
#70
quote:
Originally posted by mayakovsky:
[b]Personally, I don't think Gitlin has made peace with the system. His comments in his exchange with Klein where he disagreed were about strategy. [/b]
I didn't see that at all. Gitlin said that the whole focus had to be on defeating Bush in November 2004, otherwise no change was possible, especially with regard to the war in Iraq. He said electing Kerry could "re-start politics".
Klein pointed out that the Democrats had no platform of ending the war - that the war was ongoing - and therefore the people had to mobilize against the war. She said "this isn't Spain", where the people had the opportunity to vote for a candidate who was promising to immediately pull out the troops - they did - and he did.
There is no peace party in the U.S. right now, nor was there in 2003. The Democrats went on to gain control of Congress, and (as anyone without stars in their eyes was predicting at the time) absolutely [b]nothing[/b] changed.
As was the case in Vietnam, there are only two factors which will end this war: 1) Inability of the U.S. to win militarily or politically. 2) Sabotage of the war effort on the home front. Electing another Clinton or Obama will have as much beneficial effect on peace as did the elections of JFK and Lyndon Johnson.
Sat, 2007-09-15 19:20
#71
I read the Gitlin critique, or at least page one of two of Google's cached version of it. Gitlin more or less summarizes the book with sneering sarcasm. He doesn't provide anything in the way of counter explantion for the basic premise of her book, which is that this neoLiberal-paleconservative alliance made in hell has been affecting real world events as a general pattern since Chile on 9-11-73. The Chicagoans have taken Strauss' "ignoble lie" and used it as a battering ram in various countries to turn them into Friedmanite economic experiments in basically what failed in 1929 America. Smaller doses of ideology at a time have managed to keep the patient from dying altogether in the big-giant lab here in Canada and U.S. Developing countries with smaller economies haven't fared very well after force-fed the ideologue's economic prescriptions and potions.
Sat, 2007-09-15 20:12
#72
Wow, Laurel and Hardy followed each other!
Perhaps a Democratic White House would have ended the war or brought it to a slow conclusion. What if all those out there protesting had voted? (There was no increase in voter participation of those between 18-25 from 2000).
Yes. But to paraphrase Gitlin: the world isn't perfect.
Fidel, Having not read the book but I ask why are the examples pertinent to an international capital drive? New Orleans, Poland? Why didn't international capital predict and destroy a resurgent nationalist Russia?
Sat, 2007-09-15 20:19
#73
quote:
Originally posted by mayakovsky:
[b]Wow, Laurel and Hardy followed each other![/b]
I apologize for taking your earlier post seriously and trying to respond to it seriously. And thanks for the witty rejoinder.
Sat, 2007-09-15 20:28
#74
quote:
Originally posted by mayakovsky:
[b]Perhaps a Democratic White House would have ended the war or brought it to a slow conclusion. What if all those out there protesting had voted? [/b]
Well, perhaps a Democratic White House would have attacked Iran by now, or gotten involved in a military adventure in North Korea. Or Darfur. Didn't Clinton bomb Sudan and Afghanistan and Serbia? Didn't a Democratic White House drop nuclear bombs on Japan and launch the Cold War and invade Korea and stay there for the next 57 years and embargo and invade Cuba? Wasn't it a Republican White House that "ended the war or brought it to a slow conclusion" in Southeast Asia and recognized the People's Republic of China and normalized relations with the Soviet Union?
There is no peace party in Washington except the one in the streets. Klein may not have put it quite that strongly, but she is far closer to the truth than Gitlin, who has become a mouthpiece for Democratic illusion-mongering.
[ 15 September 2007: Message edited by: unionist ]
Sat, 2007-09-15 20:49
#75
quote:
Originally posted by mayakovsky:
[b]
Fidel, Having not read the book but I ask why are the examples pertinent to an international capital drive? New Orleans, Poland? Why didn't international capital predict and destroy a resurgent nationalist Russia?[/b]
It wasn't without trying. The PNAC and capitalist friends tried to buy votes in Russian parliament in 2003 as the PNAC cabal was following through on a pretext for war and to liberate Iraqis from their oil. Putin apparently observed the attempt to buy off Russian politicians as a power play, an ajoinder to perestroika and the corrupted privatization decrees drafted by the bureaucrats with the aid of HIID, Yeltsin's people and money pouring in from the west.
They've been drafting Iraqi energy policy for privatizations of the oil, in Houston no less. American energy companies want the Iraqis to sign long-term contracts for oil similar to what the Russians signed in the 1990's for Sakhalin Island I and II development, only the Russians have since anulled those contracts citing a change in taxation of natural resource exports(not a bad idea if our feds ever gave a thought to curbing America's voracious appetite for cheap Canadian energy, Kyoto etc), and the Rooskies are saying it's all been done using free market mechanisms.
The production sharing agreements they're trying to force on Iraq, PSA's, are essentially as crooked as the ones forced on the Russians when that country was at a severe economic disadvantage in the 1990's. What happened in Russia with neoLiberal voodoo for deregulation and privatization was absolutely criminal. I tend to agree with Mikhael Gorbachev's comments of last year that the USSR should have been and could have been saved. What happened was a revolution from above, an enormous tragedy and largest attempt to separate people from the means of production and common good since British era enclosure.
And this is what they are trying to pull in Iraq and everywhere else the bastards can get a foot in the door.
[ 16 September 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]
Sat, 2007-09-15 21:03
#76
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
[b]There is no peace party in Washington except the one in the streets. Klein may not have put it quite that strongly, but she is far closer to the truth than Gitlin, who has become a mouthpiece for Democratic illusion-mongering[/b]
No peace parties, just kick-ass Americanism! I'll never forget my sweet little aunt in Michigan telling us that Jimmy Carter was a wimp!. They needed a president then to kick ass, she said. A few Brits still suffer this affliction of imperialist power today with soccer hooloiganism when they travel abroad. Gotta KICK ASS for Queen/President, flag, fervent nationalism and all that rattle.
Sun, 2007-09-16 11:09
#77
quote:
He doesn't provide anything in the way of counter explantion for the basic premise of her book, which is that this neoLiberal-paleconservative alliance made in hell has been affecting real world events as a general pattern since Chile on 9-11-73.
"Atavistic: regressive - opposing progress; returning to a former less advanced state."
The assumption in Klein's book is that the ideology caused the change of events. What happened was that power brokers in Washington decided to end Chile's threat to their interests.
It is likely why Canadians do not elect a democratic socialist government. Voters feel it would be upended by the US. This is what Liberals think, particularly left wing Liberals. So they act as the proxy CIA in Canada sabotaging democratic socialists like Glen Clark.
Even the NEP was little more than an "innoculation" against a more assertive Canada. That is why Disaster Capitalism works so effectively. It is the "big lie" instead of the small liberal truism.
[ 16 September 2007: Message edited by: DonnyBGood ]
Sun, 2007-09-16 11:12
#78
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
[b]I apologize for taking your earlier post seriously and trying to respond to it seriously. And thanks for the witty rejoinder.[/b]
That's okay, unionist. Because when war party numero deux swaps power with war party number one in Warshington, and they have a [i]brand new[/i] cosmetic government running the show, things will be different.
Sun, 2007-09-16 21:13
#79
Naomi Klein does not need me as a publicist, her own publishers world wide are doing very well by her, check out her website to see how well.
What irritates me is that when a major book comes out from a Canadian writer on the left, normally the book is not reviewed in Canada. Since The Shock Doctrine is being released around the world, it is reviewed, except the Globe goes out of its way to ensure the book is trashed.
Naoimi Klein should feel honoured to be seen as such a serious threat. In the meantime people looking at the review may not understand how seriously they should be taking the book.
Who is to blame? First the reviewer. Compare the gentle review given the Mulroney bio in the Globe by Willian Johnson who goes on to dump on what is substanitally wrong with his thinking, with the Gitlin review. Gitlin knows the book makes a serious case but conceals this in his review. Both reviewers reflect what the newspaper represents in their pieces.
How sad is that for freedom of speech. Long live rabble.ca where people can write honestly what they think, so long as they accept that others may decide to disagree.
Sun, 2007-09-16 21:40
#80
And we think you're an excellent writer for the left, Duncan. Contributions from the likes of you are why I frequent this site.
I think the criticisms of Naomi's Shock Doctrine [i]will[/i] tend to be haphazard and off the mark for several weeks more. And I think it's because her critics, all those half-hearted lefties and fence-sitting centrists are in shock right now as they digest the truth.
Mon, 2007-09-17 14:36
#81
I would not assume that Klein (or anyone) supports the NDP solely due to her spouse's family but this article (which may be the one N.Beltov referred to) states that she does support the NDP and has not ruled out being a candidate someday:
quote:
When push comes to shove, though, she is not that left-wing. A down-the-line Keynesian dressed in deceptively wolfish clothing; her stance on capitalism would have put her on the right wing of the British Labour party 25 years ago, along with yer Hattersleys and yer Healeys; she is no old-fashioned, hard-left Bennite.She supports the moderately leftish NDP in her home country and does not rule out standing for election one day. That being said, as soon as she has not ruled the prospect out, she gets nervous about having not done so and takes a gulp of coffee. She is a very big deal indeed back home and such an admission will have the phone ringing off the wall. For a brief moment the media veneer has gone and she looks slightly embarrassed.
All she wants, she says, in response to the usual criticism levelled at her – that we know what she is against but not what she is for – is better regulation of these damnable corporations; not their absolute destruction. Nike and co merely need to be reminded that they are human and, as she might put it, occupy a public space.
[url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2459948.ece]http://ww...
Mon, 2007-09-17 14:48
#82
Yet she did The Take in which she seemed very sympathetic to the idea of workers' control of industry - that is a position way to the left of the NDP. Maybe she's moderated her views since?
Chomsky is also sympathetic to anarchism but most of the stuff he proposes is actually pretty reformist - that doesn't make him a moderate social democrat, does it?
Mon, 2007-09-17 14:54
#83
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
[b]And we think you're an excellent writer for the left, Duncan. Contributions from the likes of you are why I frequent this site. [/b]
Ditto, I second the motion. Keep up the fine work please, Duncan.
Mon, 2007-09-17 19:08
#84
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Palmerston:
[b]Yet she did The Take in which she seemed very sympathetic to the idea of workers' control of industry - that is a position way to the left of the NDP. Maybe she's moderated her views since?[/b]
I believe in workers' control of industry too and I'm not an anarchist [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img] And I think in the one article people keep citing, she said she voted for the ndp. (I've done that, too, and will surely do it again!) That's not the same as "supporting" the ndp.
All the same, I think the Times article has probably got it about right. Although (If this isn't too nasty) I sometimes wonder whether she really has a carefully worked out position.
Mon, 2007-09-17 19:36
#85
I wouldn't pay too much attention to a piece in the Times, especially with a title like "Miss angry's brand new target" [img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img] No sexist condescension there. Referring to Tony Benn as "Hard Left" is an example of how far right political discourse has swung in the last 30 years.
Mon, 2007-09-17 20:10
#86
quote:
Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:
[b]I wouldn't pay too much attention to a piece in the Times, especially with a title like "Miss angry's brand new target" [img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img] No sexist condescension there. Referring to Tony Benn as "Hard Left" is an example of how far right political discourse has swung in the last 30 years.[/b]
All true. Nonetheless, I think the Times got it more or less right.
Tue, 2007-09-18 00:23
#87
[url=http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/17/1411235]http://www.d...
DemocracyNow! September 17 '07
Amy Goodman INTRO to broadcast interview
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, the bestselling author of "No Logo" and the co-director of "The Take." Her latest book is called "THE SHOCK DOCTRINE: THE RISE OF DISASTER CAPITALISM." She joins us in the firehouse studio for the hour.
#########
AMY GOODMAN: Pinochet's coup in Chile, the massacre in Tiananmen Square, the collapse of the Soviet Union, September 11th, the war on Iraq, the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Award-winning investigative journalist Naomi Klein brings together all these world-changing events in her new book. It's called THE SHOCK DOCTRINE: THE RISE OF DISASTER CAPITALISM.
Economist Milton Friedman once said, Only a crisis produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. Naomi Klein examines some of what she considers the most dangerous ideas -- Friedmanite economics -- and exposes how catastrophic events are both extremely profitable to corporations and have also allowed governments to push through what she calls disaster capitalism.
Naomi Klein writes in the introduction to Shock Doctrine the quote, The history of the contemporary free market was written in shocks. She argues, Some of the most infamous human rights violations of the past thirty-five years, which have tended to be viewed as sadistic acts carried out by anti-democratic regimes, We're in fact either committed with the deliberate intent of terrorizing the public or actively harnessed to prepare the ground for the introduction of radical free-market reforms.
I want to begin by playing excerpts from a short documentary co-written by Naomi Klein and Children of Men director Alfonso Cuaron. It's directed by Cuaron's son Jonas. It's also called The Shock Doctrine. It premiered last week at film festivals in Venice and Toronto.
- Click to watch the entire film [url=http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film>]http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film>[/url]
And here's another by Monbiot on related note:
"For the first time the UK's consumer debt exceeds the total of its gross national product: a new report shows that we owe Ј1.35 trillion. Inspectors in the United States have discovered that 77,000 road bridges are in the same perilous state as the one which collapsed into the Mississippi. Two years after Hurricane Katrina struck, 120,000 people from New Orleans are still living in trailer homes and temporary lodgings. As runaway climate change approaches, governments refuse to take the necessary action. Booming inequality threatens to create the most divided societies the world has seen since before the first world war. Now a financial crisis caused by unregulated lending could turf hundreds of thousands out of their homes and trigger a cascade of economic troubles."
[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2157198,00.html]http://ww...
Tue, 2007-09-18 11:52
#88
I saw Naomi Klein very briefly on tv last night. She was talking about critiques of her books and seemed to be saying that there were many valid criticisms. She also indicated some embarassment over "No Logo", saying, "I was such a kid".
All this makes me think rather more highly of her than I did.
Tue, 2007-09-18 13:07
#89
N.Beltov
quote:
N.R.KISSED: Referring to Tony Benn as "Hard Left" is an example of how far right political discourse has swung in the last 30 years.
I'm presuming that you meant to refer to Tony [b]Blair[/b] and not Tony Benn. The latter abandoned his hereditary Lordship and successfully ran for the House of Commons instead. He's a hero to me; I would, however, call him the 'solid' left, rather than the hard left. But that's only because I think that being on the left is a good thing. I suspect most paid contributors to the [i]Times of London[/i] don't share my views. Heh.
[ 18 September 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
Tue, 2007-09-18 14:43
#90
quote:
I'm presuming that you meant to refer to Tony Blair and not Tony Benn.
I know exactly who Tony Benn is, he is a democratic socialist, a position that used to be quite common and respected prior to thatcher/blair era. I said what I did to distinquish what would be considered hard left Stalinist or Maoist from democratic socialists. I would not even consider Phony B-liar left.
Tue, 2007-09-18 15:06
#91
N.Beltov
OK, I see. You draw a dividing line [i]inside[/i] the left (the way I see it). I would draw the key line between those sympathetic to socialist ideas and those antagonistic to them. And the two Tonys would fall on different sides of that line I think.
[ 18 September 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
Tue, 2007-09-18 15:51
#92
I think that once the "political discourse" has swung to the right like this with widespread privatizations since Maggie and John Major, there is little else to do but let it run its course. It took 30 years for laissez-faire to fail in 1929 America, and then just 16 years in Chile. I think it's better for the left in the long run to allow the new capitalism to fail on its own, for the record and for posterity sake. And it's already failed and failing on several fronts along the NAFTA super highway leading to serfdom.
Meanwhile, British labour does what it can, and it's a not bad for a country without Canada's unparalleled in the world natural resource wealth. Canada should [url=http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/240710][b][i]follow Britain's lead on social housing[/i][/b][/url]
Tue, 2007-09-18 17:45
#93
N.Beltov
quote:
Fidel: I think it's better for the left in the long run to allow the new capitalism to fail on its own, for the record and for posterity sake.
On so many levels, that's just so wrong. It's wrong because the left is about making lives better and not causing capitalism to fail. It's wrong because inaction will change nothing. People should never abandon the struggle for their rights, against oppression and injustice, for equality and above all for peace in the world. There are all kinds of possibilities: including more capitalism, or more socialism, or more extinctions, including our own - to name just 3.
Tue, 2007-09-18 18:23
#94
I was meaning in terms of renationalisation of what was handed off to friends of conservative parties for a song. Once a publicly-owned company and assets are hacked away from the common good and stock shares bid up, I think it becomes far too expensive for any government of any stripe to buy them back. And especially so since they've refuse to use the Bank of Canada for infrastructure and social spending. Unless of course, social democrats should decide to run on campaign platforms to do what Putin did in Russia, the renationalisations using perfectly legal free market mechanisms and several billion dollar loans from China's state banks.
The time for renationalisations will come in Canada soon enough. 49 percent of Canadians were for public ownership of the oil in a survey last year. And there were no advertising companies with friends in Ottawa paid to promote that idea either.
What I meant to say was that Britain's labour party is pursuing social housing as per their tradition over there. Affordable housing is an important cornerstone of social democracy, and they're at least doing that. We've had an explosion of homelessness in Canada since Mulroney and Chretien. And inequality in the U.S. is ... well forget it.
Mon, 2007-09-24 07:06
#95
Naomi Klein debates Allan Greenspan today on democracynow.org:
[url=http://tinyurl.com/2fnuz6]http://tinyurl.com/2fnuz6[/url]
Mon, 2007-09-24 07:37
#96
N.Beltov
In the segment of the debate up on the website, Greenspan trivializes the rule of law in the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by making reference to actions that he thinks Hussein might have done in the future. Civilized people oppose "preventative arrest" for the same reason that they oppose such monstrous apologetic for US atrocities. Greenspan is another neoliberal who loves violence as a means to enforce his views on others. And this is supposed to be some intellectual heavyweight in the USA, deserving of awards and all sorts of kudos?
i wonder if he came to the debate with a sidearm and reached for it when he heard the word "culture"? Good grief.
Mon, 2007-09-24 17:33
#97
Frustrated Mess
The best part of that debate is split up and underlines, once more, that neo-cons are lying liars:
Greenspan on Clinton: "I stated that I’m a libertarian Republican, which means I believe in a series of issues, such as smaller government, constraint on budget deficits, free markets, globalization, and a whole series of other things, including welfare reform."
Later, Greenspan in response to Klein: "First of all, ideology is not what I hold."
[img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
Mon, 2007-09-24 21:37
#98
Does Greenspan come off unprepared to anyone else? The only case he really musters for himself is making Klein back off of the implication that he might have a hand in the "crony capitalist" deals handed out to corporate giants like Halliburton.
Sun, 2007-09-30 11:52
#99
The NY Times ran a review of The Shock Doctrine that looks to be more balanced than Gitlin's Globe review.
quote:
Klein is not an academic and cannot be judged as one. There are many places in her book where she oversimplifies. But Friedman and the other shock therapists were also guilty of oversimplification, basing their belief in the perfection of market economies on models that assumed perfect information, perfect competition, perfect risk markets. Indeed, the case against these policies is even stronger than the one Klein makes. They were never based on solid empirical and theoretical foundations, and even as many of these policies were being pushed, academic economists were explaining the limitations of markets — for instance, whenever information is imperfect, which is to say always.
[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/books/review/Stiglitz-t.html?_r=1&ref=... here (subscription may be required).[/url]
Mon, 2007-10-08 06:03
#100
quote:
I was meaning in terms of renationalisation of what was handed off to friends of conservative parties for a song. Once a publicly-owned company and assets are hacked away from the common good and stock shares bid up, I think it becomes far too expensive for any government of any stripe to buy them back. And especially so since they've refuse to use the Bank of Canada for infrastructure and social spending
LInda McQuaig pointed out the inconsistency and inversion of purpose of the Bank of Canada, in her book, Ther Wealthy Banker's Wife. But the point I would like to make is that the policy of the bank is not an ideologically motivated policy in the sense that it is justified in any way by some sort of political program known to the public. In fact the public thinks the Bank of Canada should act in exactly the opposite way that it did in the 1980's. That is, when they know about its role at all.
Moreover, if you drill down into publically owned institutions like Petrrocan or say even any hospital, university, old-age home, they are hardly anything like worker's co-operatives in form or structure. Look at public tendering for public building. There are no publically owned construction companies, architectural firms, designers, eletrical and plumbing companies bidding for work. They are all private companies who extract profit from the process. Yet when a government enters into a public-private partnership by allowing financing to be provided privately for similar rates of return, somehow the entire project reeks of "privatization" and is universally attacked, often for good reason - that it is profiteering at the public trough.
But if the Bank of Canada funds the project and charged the same interest rates as regular banks - as they are bound to do because of laws eneacted by Mulroney & company - it would be solid, worthwhile, "social spending". Go figure.
Real social spending would be low interest rate loans between levels of government to develop infrastructure. It would be public companies that trained workers to build hospitals and schools, that would have their own corps of electricians and plumbers acting as civil servants. It would be publically funded architecure and design groups working on public housing and city planning that, like Medicare, could be implemented at cost.
Klein's most compelling argument is that she is not part of an elitist cabal that would oppose such socialistic processes in principle. She is not part of some dark council of manipulating ideologues who profess to be making things better for all when they are conciously acting to enrich themslves to the exclusion of the general benefit. She thinks for herself and rejects the powerful abuse of knowledge such groups promote. In a word she thinks for herself.
I would not agree with the New York Times that this undermines her intellectual and academic credits but rather, enhances them.
Chomsky has long been a critic of the appauling dishonesty in the American Academic community...Why should Klein be subject to their standard?
Mon, 2007-10-08 17:30
#101
quote:
Originally posted by DonnyBGood:
[b]
But the point I would like to make is that the policy of the bank is not an ideologically motivated policy in the sense that it is justified in any way by some sort of political program known to the public. In fact the public thinks the Bank of Canada should act in exactly the opposite way that it did in the 1980's. That is, when they know about its role at all.[/b]
Right. And I think most Canadians aren't aware of the bank bailouts. They aren't aware that Mulroney slid a bill through parliament on the quiet in 1991 removing statutory reserve requirements for chartered banks. And they've made huge profits ever since while national, provincial, and personal debts have gone through the roof. Why would a government decide to borrow money at high interest from private banks if they could borrow money for important infrastructure and social needs from the Bank of Canada at very low next to zero interest?
I did not read Wealthy Banker's Wife. I wondered if Linda McQuaig made any comments on the role of the Bank. You say she does, and so now I'll have to read them.
quote:
[b]Moreover, if you drill down into publically owned institutions like Petrrocan or say even any hospital, university, old-age home, they are hardly anything like worker's co-operatives in form or structure. Look at public tendering for public building. There are no publically owned construction companies, architectural firms, designers, eletrical and plumbing companies bidding for work. They are all private companies who extract profit...[/b]
And the trend has even been to run public enterprise like private businesses with contracting out, downsizing, and over 170 repressive pieces of labour legislation enacted across Canada since 1982. Capitalist friends of our two old line parties don't want the end of the cow that needs feeding, just the end that gives milk.