The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Just a few things off the top of my head I find wrong with this book.

1. Friedman opposed the Vietnam and Iraq Wars.
2. Friedman opposed the IMF's actions in Asia.
3. Friedman visited Argentina 2 years after Pinochet's bloody coup.
4. Pinochet requested help from Friedman economists after his economy was failing and still didn't start reforms for several years.
5. Chinese students gathered at Tiananmen Square to mourn the death of the Secretary General who was a market reformer.

the list goes on and on. This book was written to be marketed to the left because Naomi Klien new it would sell well, truth be damned.

This is a well-written review of the state of our economy. If the 'deciders' would all read this, it might make a difference!!

I didn't know what to expect. I had heard Naomi Klein on Democracy Now! and several other programs and she was an interesting contributor. I checked out the book online and purchased it. I have not been disappointed. I recommend this book to anyone. Should be required reading in high school.

I know, I know, this shock doctrine stuff is serious, and harms many people, and so forth.

But Naomi Klein is cute.

Ah, I've known so many women like her from years gone by.

Such a nice girl. And smart, too!

What a fantastically researched book. It is full of details that you had no idea upon. The foundation is set in great detail with the first application of Shock Therapy upon humans. Then it talks about Milton Friedman's free market approach and its adoption through out the world.

If these things are indeed true, the US has done crimes against Humanity. For example, according to the book, the CIA supplied a list of 5000 names of liberals and union leaders to Pinochet's military in Chile so they can have them all killed. All for the sake of money. Who's making the money, not you or I.

The middle of the book got a little tedious, it was the same thing over and over again. How the US basically screwed over country after country with the free market approach.

But the last section will get your blood boiling. The last few chapters detail how the Bush administration and all his cronies became immensely rich, by filling the public with lies to essentially fill their own pockets and the pockets of their friends. They surreptitiously gave themselves more power. I'm afraid of the future.

Why do most people, in this day and age, still vote republican and are still enamored by the fallacies of the complete free market approach I don't know. Why do most poor people vote against their own best interest, I don't know. But these are the people that need to read this book.

It probably won't make a bit of difference though. These are the same people that will read it and brush it off as fake or not true. But even if the information in this book is 1% true, isn't that enough to change your minds about what the US has done to the world, our current role in the global politics and economy, and the falsity of complete free market capitalism.

It's because we never had complete free market capitalism that we even have the little good things we have today. Be thankful for that, and hope for a proper change for our children.

Just look around you. It's November 11, 2008 and the world is falling apart.