Fragmented Obsessions

August 12, 2008 - Posts

Land of the Free, or Home of the Slave?

New York's robotic Mayor Michael Bloomberg is in the news peddling a new government surveillance program which is being introduced in New York City. 

Honestly, this is ridiculous.  And don't give me the speech about safety.  The Revolutionary War was not won by making people feel safe.  In any case, I would rather be dead than a serf in an inflationary police State.

Naomi Klein's book on the Shock Doctrine

A few months ago a dear friend bought me Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine. I think he knew that parts of this book would resonate with me, and they do. What the U.S. government and the CIA have done to promote “freedom” is despicable.

The problem is that Klein is not doing a very good job of distinguishing and is painting the crusades of Milton Friedman as the epitome of capitalism. I can hardly stand to read more than a few pages at a time because of the gross economic distortions. Surely what Klein describes is horrific, but it is not a free market. (This is where, oddly, Klein and Friedman have something in common, i.e. they both think of these atrocities as capitalism.)

But I want to finish this book. I think there is value in it. Anyone have some advice on how I might hold my nose to get through it?

 

Originally posted at http://fragmentedobsessions.wordpress.com