Last photo of Benazir

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00410/bhutto_682_410072a.jpg



http://www.legitgov.org/


U.S. Troops to Head to Pakistan 27 Dec 2007 Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning. A new agreement, reported when it was still being negotiated last month, has been finalized. And the first U.S. personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early in the new year, according to Pentagon sources.

Bhutto assassination is an excuse for renewed martial law measures: Pakistan on 'Red Alert' 27 Dec 2007 News of Benazir Bhutto's death brought a swift and angry reaction from supporters in Sindh and its capital, Karachi, where fires were set, shots fired and stones thrown. "Police in Sindh have been put on red alert," said a senior police official. "We have increased deployment and are patrolling in all the towns and cities, as there is trouble almost everywhere."

'Red Alert' in Pakistan allows riot police and paramilitary police to 'fire live rounds' at protesters. (MSNBC) US tax dollars are funding the clampdown. See: Billions in U.S. Aid to Pakistan Wasted, Officials Assert 24 Dec 2007 After the United States has spent more than $5 billion in a largely failed effort to bolster the Pakistani military effort against 'Al Qaeda' and the Taliban, some American officials now acknowledge that there were too few controls over the money. See: US Senate approves Pakistan aid worth $785m 20 Dec 2007 The US Senate has approved a $785 million assistance package for Pakistan for the fiscal year 2008 as lawmakers passed with a bipartisan 76-17 vote a massive appropriations bill for federal spending on Tuesday night.

Pakistan's Bhutto assassinated in gun, bomb attack 27 Dec 2007 Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on Thursday as she left an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi, putting January 8 polls in doubt and sparking anger in her native Sindh province. State media and her party confirmed Bhutto's death from a gun and bomb attack. [Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto shot in neck and chest as she tried to leave rally (MSNBC)]



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtpY5_HASM8


http://www.swissinfo.org/xobix_media/images/reuters/2007/reuters_20070816-232159-450x320.jpg


All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places
Worn out faces
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c274/fire75034/3_21_bhutto450.jpg
Bright and early for the daily races
Going no where
Going no where
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/10/17/world/PAKISTAN_650.1.jpg
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression
No expression
http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2007/10/19/rgw_bhutto_narrowweb__300x370,0.jpg
Hide my head I wanna drown my sorrow
No tomorrow
No tomorrow
http://www.elpais.com/recorte/20071022elpepiint_6/LCO340/Ies/Benazir_Bhutto.jpg
And I find I kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had
http://themoderatevoice.com/wordpress-engine/files/2007-october/capt.f07c48a9614540d0a4967c0a3d6c8722.britain_bhutto_bsd102.jpg
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles its a very very
Mad world
Mad world
http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2007/07/bhutto2_450x459.jpg
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday
Happy birthday
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-10/29/xinsrc_05210042909374711775212.jpg
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen
Sit and listen
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44201000/jpg/_44201735_bhutto_prayer_ap_416.jpg
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me
No one new me
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/10/18/pakistan_wideweb__470x310,0.jpg
Hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson
Look right through me
Look right through me
http://lahore.metblogs.com/archives/images/2007/10/_44183827_bhuttowaves_ap.jpg
And I find I kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
http://www.truthdig.com/images/eartothegrounduploads/benazir1_300.jpg
When people run in circles its a very very
Mad world
Mad world
Enlarging your world
http://scu.edu/ethics/architects-of-peace/Bhutto/resources/portrait_hr.jpg




Mad world


http://themoderatevoice.com/wordpress-engine/files/musharraf_bush.jpg

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Homepage/Homepage.aspx

This is the national newspaper of India, and unlike the Pakistani media, it is not (officially) censored. Unfortunately Asia Times -- in my opinion the best source on anything "east of Suez" -- is on holiday until 2 January 2008.

Benazir said it to David Frost, 6 MINUTES INTO INTERVIEW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIO8B6fpFSQ


Daniel Pearl's murderer! Omar Sheikh


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6671067.stm

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42944000/jpg/_42944541_memoon.jpg

Benazir said it to David Frost, 6 MINUTES INTO INTERVIEW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIO8B6fpFSQ


Daniel Pearl's murderer! Omar Sheikh


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6671067.stm

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42944000/jpg/_42944541_memoon.jpg

Seems is the main point of this that Osama is dead?

Benazir said it to David Frost, 6 MINUTES INTO INTERVIEW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIO8B6fpFSQ


Daniel Pearl's murderer! Omar Sheikh


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6671067.stm

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42944000/jpg/_42944541_memoon.jpg

Seems is the main point of this that Osama is dead?


SURE IS



http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... id=2542572 (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2541841&mesg_id=2542572)

Again, the question, who benefited from today's events?

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh



Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh ( Urdu: احمد عمر سعید شیخ ) (sometimes known as Omar Sheikh, Sheikh Omar <1> , Sheik Syed <2> , or by the alias "Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad" <1> ) (b. December 23 1973) is a British-born militant of Pakistani descent with alleged links to various Islamic-based organisations, including Jaish-e-Mohammed, Al-Qaeda, and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.

He was arrested and served time in prison for the 1994 abduction of several British nationals in India, an act which he acknowledges, he was released from captivity in 1999 and provided safe passage into Pakistan, apparently with the support of Pakistan and the Taleban (the hijackers were Pakistanis) in an Indian Airlines plane hijacking. He is most well-known for his alleged role in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Sheikh Omar Saeed was arrested by Pakistani police on February 12, 2002, in Lahore, in conjunction with the Pearl kidnapping, <3> and was sentenced to death on July 15, 2002 <1> for killing Pearl. His judicial appeal has not yet been heard. The delay has been alleged to be due to his reported links with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence. <4>

Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf, in his book In the Line of Fire stated that Sheikh was originally recruited by British intelligence agency, MI6, while studying at the London School of Economics. He alleges Omar Sheikh was sent to the Balkans by MI6 to engage in jihadi operations. Musharraf later went on to state "At some point, he probably became a rogue or double agent". <5>

His complicity in the execution and the reasons behind it are in dispute. <1> At his initial court appearance, he stated, "I don't want to defend this case. I did this...Right or wrong, I had my reasons. I think that our country shouldn't be catering to America's needs." <1> , but he subsequently appealed his conviction and is awaiting further progress while in prison. Sheikh's lawyer has stated he will base his client's appeal on the recent admission of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that he is the killer of Daniel Pearl. <1> <6>

.....



Would that be the same Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who was waterboarded into *confessing* that HE killed Daniel Pearl? That would certainly take the scrutiny off of Omar Sheikh.





5. Alleged connection to 9/11

On October 6, 2001, a senior-level U.S. government official told CNN that U.S. investigators had discovered Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh (Sheik Syed), using the alias "Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad" had sent about $100,000 from the United Arab Emirates to Mohammed Atta. "Investigators said Atta then distributed the funds to conspirators in Florida in the weeks before the deadliest acts of terrorism on U.S. soil that destroyed the World Trade Center, heavily damaged the Pentagon and left thousands dead. In addition, sources have said Atta sent thousands of dollars -- believed to be excess funds from the operation -- back to Saeed in the United Arab Emirates in the days before September 11. CNN later confirmed this. <1>

The 9/11 Commission's Final Report states that the source of the funds "remains unknown."




And it seems that the 9/11 Commission wanted it to stay that way. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.




More than a month after the money transfer was discovered, the head of ISI, General Mehmood Ahmed resigned from his position. It was reported that the FBI was investigating the possibility that Gen. Ahmed ordered Saeed Sheikh to send the $100,000 to Atta <2>; there were also claims that Indian intelligence had already produced proof for the Pakistani administration that this was so.The Wall Street Journal was one of the only Western news organizations to follow up on the story, citing the Times of India: "US authorities sought removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of Gen Mehmood."<3> Another Indian newspaper, the Daily Excelsior, quoting FBI sources, reported that the "FBI’s examination of the hard disk of the cellphone company Omar Sheikh had subscribed to led to the discovery of the "link" between him and the deposed chief of the Pakistani ISI, Gen. Mehmood Ahmed. And as the FBI investigators delved deep, sensational reports surfaced with regard to the transfer of 100,000 dollars to Mohammed Atta, one of the kamikaze pilots who flew his Boeing into the World Trade Centre. Gen. Mehmood Ahmed, the FBI investigators found, fully knew about the transfer of money to Atta."<4>

The Pittsburgh Tribune notes that "There are many in Musharraf's government who believe that Saeed Sheikh's power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA."<5>

Sheikh rose to prominence with the 2002 killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who at the time was in Pakistan investigating connections between the ISI and Islamic militant groups. In Pakistan, Sheikh was sentenced to death for killing Pearl, however his complicity in the execution and the reasons behind it are in dispute.

In an opinion piece published by the Wall Street Journal, Tunku Varadarajan has claimed that “It is a fact that Gen. Mehmood Ahmed, then head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohamed Atta before 9/11 through an intermediary."




So Daniel Pearl was investigating the transfer of $100,000 from Omar Sheikh to Mohammed Atta in the weeks before 9/11, on the orders of the head of Pakistan's ISI, General Mehmood Ahmed...

The 9/11 Commission looks the other way when this information surfaces via Pearl's investigation.

Omar Sheikh orchestrates Daniel Pearl's death.

But we are conveniently told that Khalid Sheilk Mohammed is *the real killer* of Daniel Pearl,because he *confessed during waterboarding*.


Bhutto very matter-of-factly states in November, 2007 that Omar Sheikh assassinated Osama bin Laden.


Benazir Bhutto is assassinated on December 27, 2007.



Bhutto killed by 'Al-Qaeda tactics': White House, December 28, 2007, Times of India


CRAWFORD, TEXAS: The White House on Thursday said suicide bombing was a familiar tactic for Al-Qaida but declined to cast blame for the assassination of Pakistan's former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

"Whoever perpetrated this attack is an enemy of democracy and has used a tactic which Al-Qaida is very familiar with, and that is suicide bombing and the taking of innocent lives to try to disrupt a democratic process," spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

.....





The constant, recurring charade of Osama bin Laden tapes keeps the BFEE in power, miraculously.

Careful on this one.

First let me say that your Tears for Fears lyrics and accompanying images is probably one of your most powerful to date.

Let me add that it may also conjure up misconceptions.

Not advocating anything near that Bhutto "got what she deserved", I repeat at this moment of immediacy and urgency "nothing of the sort."

But let's remind ourselves who Bhutto was and not turn her into a martyr. She was not only a figurehead for a kleptocratic system but also was a front woman for a certain neo-liberal agenda that we are all too familiar with.

Seems, my concern -- apart from what the C-man rightly points out -- is that what you're proposing reads like a new chapter in The Godfather. At some point it kind of stops mattering whether all the dirty dealings and machinations are even true. What we end up is with a real-life character study that reads alot like crime fiction, all of which no doubt deserves its place in the historical record.

But.. .. ..

Careful on this one.

First let me say that your Tears for Fears lyrics and accompanying images is probably one of your most powerful to date.

Let me add that it may also conjure up misconceptions.

Not advocating anything near that Bhutto "got what she deserved", I repeat at this moment of immediacy and urgency "nothing of the sort."

But let's remind ourselves who Bhutto was and not turn her into a martyr. She was not only a figurehead for a kleptocratic system but also was a front woman for a certain neo-liberal agenda that we are all too familiar with.


I understand your concern just don't forget the title of the song


http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news ... to/221746/ (http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/I-would-allow-IAEA-to-question-A-Q-Khan-Bhutto/221746/)


Looks like AQ Khan was being protected, too. Remember, once it was
known that Kerry would be the nominee, BushInc got Khan to act like
he was 'turned' and being forthcoming with his criminality - and then
he was kept under some luxurious restraints and allowed free the same
day Scooter Libby was commuted.

Bhutto's outstanding Interpol warrant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a41ZGhPGR6A

http://www.buckfush.com/images/George_Bush_Musharraf_Buddy.jpg

http://www.buckfush.com/images/George_Bush_Musharraf_Buddy.jpg

No Rusty, Chlams was right above and, if anything, being overly diplomatic. Bhutto was certainly as bad as Musharref, probably worse in that she had alot to do with the way things are in Pakistan today. Which, nobody needs to say, is really shitty.

No Rusty, Chlams was right above and, if anything, being overly diplomatic. Bhutto was certainly as bad as Musharref, probably worse in that she had alot to do with the way things are in Pakistan today. Which, nobody needs to say, is really shitty.

I take no exception with the rightful disparagement of Bhutto. I just thought the cartoon was funny.

http://www.buckfush.com/images/George_Bush_Musharraf_Buddy.jpg

No Rusty, Chlams was right above and, if anything, being overly diplomatic. Bhutto was certainly as bad as Musharref, probably worse in that she had alot to do with the way things are in Pakistan today. Which, nobody needs to say, is really shitty.

I was being diplomatic just out of simple respect for the dead even if the dead is a neo-liberal kleptocrat.

If people are interested in further details you can google "corruption diva" or better yet do a quick study of the Bhutto family and Pakistani history since 1947.

Again what we are being sold is a fairy tale, it's all quite manufactured storybook style.

There is more than a decent chance that Bhutto was a CIA asset and was certainly an operative for the Neo-Liberal "Democracy Project."

Now the facts are also out there as to how corrupt and incompetent was Bhutto's reign when she held sway in Pakistan so it's no surprise that some of the most honest responses across the internet are coming in from Pakistani folks.

Add to this that she was in fact brought back to Pakistan most recently by The US State Department and we have ourselves quite a situation to consider.

No Rusty, Chlams was right above and, if anything, being overly diplomatic. Bhutto was certainly as bad as Musharref, probably worse in that she had alot to do with the way things are in Pakistan today. Which, nobody needs to say, is really shitty.

I take no exception with the rightful disparagement of Bhutto. I just thought the cartoon was funny.

OK thats cool, I just didn't want it to seem like we were playing this up as some messianic tale when its just more of the same sordid shit as always. If I understand right Bhutto's husband was an even bigger bastard.

If I understand right Bhutto's husband was an even bigger bastard.

In the early 1990's legendary scholar Eqbal Ahmed was granted a parcel of land in Pakistan by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's government to build an independent, alternative university, named Khaldunia. The land was later seized by Bhutto's husband, Asif Zardari, reportedly to build a golf course and country club.

If I understand right Bhutto's husband was an even bigger bastard.

In the early 1990's legendary scholar Eqbal Ahmed was granted a parcel of land in Pakistan by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's government to build an independent, alternative university, named Khaldunia. The land was later seized by Bhutto's husband, Asif Zardari, reportedly to build a golf course and country club.

Sadly, it goes much deeper than this. The English Colonial legacy in both India and Pakistan is the same: cartoon versions of the English hereditary parasites. Check out the definition of zamindar... and Ali Bhutto was a "progressive", just as Sanjay was a terrible man who cleaned out the urban slums through cleaning out the inhabitants, while Rajiv was a "champion of the poor". Only the British are capable of creating "politics" like those of Pakistan, India, or the U.S., for that matter.

http://www.castlebraedrainage.com/assets/sewer_renovation1.jpg

"Austrian troops to head to Serbia."

"French troops to head to Algeria."

"Belgian troops to head to the Congo."

In terms of class-struggle, who benefits from Bhutto's death?

The answer of course depends on the answer to another question: Are the conditions of Iraq and Afghanistan what the pseudo-left believes them to be -- the ultimate FUBAR example of U.S. government ineptitude? Or are the conditions of Iraq and Afghanistan the purposeful expression of clandestine U.S. policy?

If the conditions in these afflicted nations are the result of purposeful policy -- a policy designed to reduce the entire Middle East to murderous chaos all the while escalating the threat to the non-Islamic world (thereby rationalizing not only tyranny in the U.S. but its imposition on all of Westernesse) -- then obviously Bhutto's death is a giant step in the further advancement of that strategy.

In terms of class-struggle, who benefits from Bhutto's death?

The answer of course depends on the answer to another question: Are the conditions of Iraq and Afghanistan what the pseudo-left believes them to be -- the ultimate FUBAR example of U.S. government ineptitude? Or are the conditions of Iraq and Afghanistan the purposeful expression of clandestine U.S. policy?

If the conditions in these afflicted nations are the result of purposeful policy -- a policy designed to reduce the entire Middle East to murderous chaos all the while escalating the threat to the non-Islamic world (thereby rationalizing not only tyranny in the U.S. but its imposition on all of Westernesse) -- then obviously Bhutto's death is a giant step in the further advancement of that strategy.

This is from leftists inside of Pakistan:


Benazir's Murder and the Inconsolable Grief of the
Pakistani People
---------------------------------------------------

Taimur Rahman

Tragically, the fate of the first female prime
minister in the Muslim world has met with a violent
end. The people of Pakistan are gripped by
inconsolable grief at the news of the murder of
Benazir Bhutto.

In the PPP the people of Pakistan saw a mainstream
political party that spoke about the rights of poor
people. The slogan of roti, kapra, makan (bread,
clothes, housing) galvanized millions against the
military dictatorship of Ayub Khan in the late 1960s.
The democratic reforms undertaken by Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto challenged the interests of the traditional
ruling class of Pakistan. The ruling class in turn
began to support Islamic fundamentalism and military
rule as a counter-weight to this democratic upsurge.
After Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged by the religious
fundamentalist regime of Zia ul Haq, Benazir Bhutto
led the PPP for the restoration of democracy. Despite
the ostensible return of democracy in 1988, the
establishment continued to harbour intense hatred and
refused to reconcile themselves to the "populist"
currents of the PPP. General Pervaiz Musharraf treated
the PPP no different than all previous military
dictators. Political rumors notwithstanding,
repression within the country forced Benazir into an
eight year exile.

The "war on terror", however, forced the army to
renege with great reluctance its long-standing
collaboration with religious fundamentalists. Seething
with hatred, the fundamentalists made a serious bid
for power this July leading to the episode of the lal
masjid (red mosque). Benazir was the only national
leader with the courage to take a clear and
uncompromising stance against Islamic extremism.
Moreover, she was the only political leader with the
popular support that made such a statement legitimate
and gave it weight.

Given the precarious position of Musharraf's
dictatorship, Benazir's stance opened up the
opportunity for a softening of the attitude of the
military towards the PPP. The military saw it as an
opportunity to stabilize their rule. The PPP saw it as
an opportunity to get their principle leader back into
the country. The West saw this as an opportunity to
stabilize Pakistan and keep it focused on the "war on
terror". People, groaning under poverty and increasing
cost of living, saw it as an opportunity to obtain
some relief. And the fundamentalists saw it as the
incarnation of their greatest mortal enemy. The latter
openly declared that they would kill Benazir if she
dared to return. In October, upon Benazir's return to
Karachi, they tried and failed. Today they did not.

The overwhelming number of people hold the military
dictatorship of General Pervaiz Musharraf responsible
for failing to provide adequate security. Furthermore,
the finger of suspicion cannot so easily be lifted
away from elements within the establishment. Benazir
herself stated that in addition to Islamic
fundamentalists in tribal areas, she suspected that
certain elements within the ISI also wanted her dead.

While there will be many who try to minimize the
public outcry against this incident by pointing to the
many short-comings, inconsistencies and faults of the
PPP, it is clear that the biggest fault of Benazir was
that she spoke for the secularism, democracy and most
importantly for the rights of the poor and
dispossessed of Pakistan. For this fault, she was
prepared to and did pay the ultimate price.

The Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party condemns the murder
of Benazir Bhutto.

Down with religious fundamentalism and military rule!
Long live a peoples revolution!

The general idea is that they feel the PPP was (as in, it probably dies without Bhutto) a strategic ally vs the military and Islamic extremists. Or another way of looking at it is that Pakistan is along way from socialism but perhaps open to (bourgeoisie it goes without saying) democratic reforms.

To evidence how PPP may be an ally, however reluctant or tenuous, they point to the fact that following the emergency last month the PPP went into open opposition to Mushareff. The assassination strikes fear into everyone, fear of organizing at all..democratic reformists and leftists alike.

I offer no opinion on how valid that argument might be, but there it is.

In terms of class-struggle, who benefits from Bhutto's death?

The answer of course depends on the answer to another question: Are the conditions of Iraq and Afghanistan what the pseudo-left believes them to be -- the ultimate FUBAR example of U.S. government ineptitude? Or are the conditions of Iraq and Afghanistan the purposeful expression of clandestine U.S. policy?

If the conditions in these afflicted nations are the result of purposeful policy -- a policy designed to reduce the entire Middle East to murderous chaos all the while escalating the threat to the non-Islamic world (thereby rationalizing not only tyranny in the U.S. but its imposition on all of Westernesse) -- then obviously Bhutto's death is a giant step in the further advancement of that strategy.

In Iraq and Afghanistan as in New Orleans and Detroit and Benton Harbor, the program is the same. Creating chaos, spreading terror among the people, and corrupting every institution and government are all consistent with expanding corporate hegemony as widely as possible.

In terms of class-struggle, who benefits from Bhutto's death?

The answer of course depends on the answer to another question: Are the conditions of Iraq and Afghanistan what the pseudo-left believes them to be -- the ultimate FUBAR example of U.S. government ineptitude? Or are the conditions of Iraq and Afghanistan the purposeful expression of clandestine U.S. policy?

If the conditions in these afflicted nations are the result of purposeful policy -- a policy designed to reduce the entire Middle East to murderous chaos all the while escalating the threat to the non-Islamic world (thereby rationalizing not only tyranny in the U.S. but its imposition on all of Westernesse) -- then obviously Bhutto's death is a giant step in the further advancement of that strategy.

In Iraq and Afghanistan as in New Orleans and Detroit and Benton Harbor, the program is the same. Creating chaos, spreading terror among the people, and corrupting every institution and government are all consistent with expanding corporate hegemony as widely as possible.

My whacky and completely self generated conspiracy theory is that the fabrication of reactionary jihadism is willful at this point even if it is but a response to "blowback" (something I am not entirely sure I believe is as real as it is often made out to be) because religious fundie brown folks make a better enemy than leftists do. There is a much reduced incidence of people defecting to the dark side, it being reaction rather than progress in such a case, ya know...

OK, that's pedestrian and only half serious, but given things like Israel's funding of Hamas as a hedge against the secular PLO and the Anglo American empire's meddling in central Asia right up unto this very week, there is enough circumstantial evidence for me to think this set of affairs is not wholly an organic confluence of circumstances with no nefarious OILigarchical influence. The thing I think we often forget is that the people who fight tooth and nail to fight the left do so because they know that the left is the oncoming train of the future. Why is it strange to think they may do some central planning of their own when it comes to the macro conditions?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EP8YCK0DL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg

Now all that said and with tongue firmly in cheek at that, I do not think that chaos is necessarily always wanted or "made." Indeed, as interesting and close as I think Naomi Klein comes to 'getting it right' with her concept of the Shock Doctrine, I think she still misses the Marx, uh, mark. That there are those who make big money from chaos and corruption is not to be discounted, but the Really Big money comes from the kind of rape that requires a pliant but stable cartoon gubmint (props to Anax re Bhutto and ilk).

If anything, the deal with Pakistan is to me a crisis caused by our having tried as an empire to have our cake and eat it too - cartoon government in one sense and all that black ops islamoboogeyman shit in another. CIA-ISI-Taliban = too many connections, too much smoke for there to be no fire, perhaps even in current events.

The general idea is that they feel the PPP was (as in, it probably dies without Bhutto) a strategic ally vs the military and Islamic extremists. Or another way of looking at it is that Pakistan is along way from socialism but perhaps open to (bourgeoisie it goes without saying) democratic reforms.

To evidence how PPP may be an ally, however reluctant or tenuous, they point to the fact that following the emergency last month the PPP went into open opposition to Mushareff. The assassination strikes fear into everyone, fear of organizing at all..democratic reformists and leftists alike.

I offer no opinion on how valid that argument might be, but there it is.

Not sure I would trust the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party, kiddo. I don't know much about them but I know the Mazdoor Kissan Party (MKP) came out of the National Awami Party which was your basic third-world socialst, non-aligned, weak-ass program kinda electoral party in the 1960s. After the Soviet Union disappeared, the MKP merged with the Pakistani Communist Party but the CP split back out of the CMKP in the 1990s. As far as I know, the MKP split out, too, in the last ten years. I have no idea who is in the CMKP now, but I would guess that they were part of Bhutto's electoral coalition which was nominally "socialist", going all the way back to the old man's PPP (Ali Bhutto). A "socialist" electoral coalition based on an anti-imperialist, anti-religious alliance with the U.S. and known primarily for corruption? Sure... why not? But I think the bigger lesson is that you have to read a much broader smorgasborg of "left" opinions in places like Pakistan. Then there is the 64 thousand dollar question as to whether the primary issue is still national independence and de-colonization or is it your basic class struggle?
.

Listen to the interview w/Frost again and forget the bit about bin Laden. Really listen to it. Watch it intently, listen to it.

My whacky and completely self generated conspiracy theory is that the fabrication of reactionary jihadism is willful at this point even if it is but a response to "blowback" (something I am not entirely sure I believe is as real as it is often made out to be) because religious fundie brown folks make a better enemy than leftists do. There is a much reduced incidence of people defecting to the dark side, it being reaction rather than progress in such a case, ya know...

OK, that's pedestrian and only half serious, but given things like Israel's funding of Hamas as a hedge against the secular PLO and the Anglo American empire's meddling in central Asia right up unto this very week, there is enough circumstantial evidence for me to think this set of affairs is not wholly an organic confluence of circumstances with no nefarious OILigarchical influence. The thing I think we often forget is that the people who fight tooth and nail to fight the left do so because they know that the left is the oncoming train of the future. Why is it strange to think they may do some central planning of their own when it comes to the macro conditions?

Now all that said and with tongue firmly in cheek at that, I do not think that chaos is necessarily always wanted or "made." Indeed, as interesting and close as I think Naomi Klein comes to 'getting it right' with her concept of the Shock Doctrine, I think she still misses the Marx, uh, mark. That there are those who make big money from chaos and corruption is not to be discounted, but the Really Big money comes from the kind of rape that requires a pliant but stable cartoon gubmint (props to Anax re Bhutto and ilk).

If anything, the deal with Pakistan is to me a crisis caused by our having tried as an empire to have our cake and eat it too - cartoon government in one sense and all that black ops islamoboogeyman shit in another. CIA-ISI-Taliban = too many connections, too much smoke for there to be no fire, perhaps even in current events.

My "whacky and completely self generated conspiracy theory" is that there is no conspiracy theory at all. Sure Israel and then the U.S. backed Hamas against PFLP and PDFLP but they sure don't back them now. The U.S. also "backed" Ho, and Mao, and Tito, too, at one time. The Germans arranged for a closed train to transport Lenin to Russia. When you stick your fingers into everything, then you shouldn't be surprised when everything has fingerprints.

As far as Naomi Klien goes, that "theory" hits me as the dumbest ass bullshit theory that I've heard in a very long time, despite the obvious attraction that it seems to have for so many. Lemme see if I got the two sides of it right: On the one hand, the people are all confuzzed, cowed and compromised out of existence, everything is corrupted and undermined, and corporate power is entrenched everywhere. On the other, the "corporate" power counts on manufactured crises and acts of god to "shock the system", lest it encounter "popular resistance".... And who exactly would this resistance come from? With all due respect, this theory is dumber than Pakistani politics.

This all reminds me of 1970s theories about how world events gave the oil companies "an excuse" to raise prices. Excuse me but, if they had had the power to raise prices at will, why would they need or wait for an "excuse"?
.

Indeed, as interesting and close as I think Naomi Klein comes to 'getting it right' with her concept of the Shock Doctrine, I think she still misses the Marx, uh, mark.

Haven't read Klein yet -- bought her book but meanwhile got distracted reading Troytsky's 1905 and re-reading John Reed's Ten Days That Shook the World. Nevertheless based (solely) on the reviews of Klein's Shock, the only place she misses the mark is indeed by missing the Marx -- that is, her failure to place the Shock Doctrine (which I believe is absolutely real) in the greater context of class warfare and thus acknowledge it as one of the ultimate proofs Marx is not just still relevant but more relevant now than ever. Admittedly this is an ignorant understanding of Klein -- like trying to know the mind of Ravi Shankar by reading American album-jacket blurbs -- which means I posit it here only as a very preliminary position, subject to change once I complete my review of Reed (whom I read half a century ago), finish Trotsky (1905 is an astounding work, reading so well in Anya Bostock's translation the original Russian must be genuine literature) and then (perhaps redundantly) open myself to Shock. :shock:

Meanwhile, beyond the first-principles implicit in what I've already said -- that and my instinctive sadness at the ugly death of a courageous and beautiful woman -- I'm reserving judgement on the details of the political spectrum in Pakistan: the only thing I know for sure is that I don't know enough about the factional ideologies and their leaders to form any meaningful opinion.

Listen to the interview w/Frost again and forget the bit about bin Laden. Really listen to it. Watch it intently, listen to it.

Unbelievably difficult, Chlamor, because Frost's aristocratic pretensions infuriate me even more than O'Reilly's obnoxious bluster, but I will nevertheless do it.

My whacky and completely self generated conspiracy theory is that the fabrication of reactionary jihadism is willful at this point even if it is but a response to "blowback" (something I am not entirely sure I believe is as real as it is often made out to be) because religious fundie brown folks make a better enemy than leftists do. There is a much reduced incidence of people defecting to the dark side, it being reaction rather than progress in such a case, ya know...

OK, that's pedestrian and only half serious, but given things like Israel's funding of Hamas as a hedge against the secular PLO and the Anglo American empire's meddling in central Asia right up unto this very week, there is enough circumstantial evidence for me to think this set of affairs is not wholly an organic confluence of circumstances with no nefarious OILigarchical influence. The thing I think we often forget is that the people who fight tooth and nail to fight the left do so because they know that the left is the oncoming train of the future. Why is it strange to think they may do some central planning of their own when it comes to the macro conditions?

Now all that said and with tongue firmly in cheek at that, I do not think that chaos is necessarily always wanted or "made." Indeed, as interesting and close as I think Naomi Klein comes to 'getting it right' with her concept of the Shock Doctrine, I think she still misses the Marx, uh, mark. That there are those who make big money from chaos and corruption is not to be discounted, but the Really Big money comes from the kind of rape that requires a pliant but stable cartoon gubmint (props to Anax re Bhutto and ilk).

If anything, the deal with Pakistan is to me a crisis caused by our having tried as an empire to have our cake and eat it too - cartoon government in one sense and all that black ops islamoboogeyman shit in another. CIA-ISI-Taliban = too many connections, too much smoke for there to be no fire, perhaps even in current events.

My "whacky and completely self generated conspiracy theory" is that there is no conspiracy theory at all. Sure Israel and then the U.S. backed Hamas against PFLP and PDFLP but they sure don't back them now. The U.S. also "backed" Ho, and Mao, and Tito, too, at one time. The Germans arranged for a closed train to transport Lenin to Russia. When you stick your fingers into everything, then you shouldn't be surprised when everything has fingerprints.

As far as Naomi Klien goes, that "theory" hits me as the dumbest ass bullshit theory that I've heard in a very long time, despite the obvious attraction that it seems to have for so many. Lemme see if I got the two sides of it right: On the one hand, the people are all confuzzed, cowed and compromised out of existence, everything is corrupted and undermined, and corporate power is entrenched everywhere. On the other, the "corporate" power counts on manufactured crises and acts of god to "shock the system", lest it encounter "popular resistance".... And who exactly would this resistance come from? With all due respect, this theory is dumber than Pakistani politics.

This all reminds me of 1970s theories about how world events gave the oil companies "an excuse" to raise prices. Excuse me but, if they had had the power to raise prices at will, why would they need or wait for an "excuse"?
.

I haven't read the book or come up with any reason why I should but is the theory based on the idea that capitalism inherently generates its own crises and then uses "shocks" as a 'correction' mechanism?

And, your oil question is obvious ;) -- if they didn't have an excuse Hilary'd hit 'em with corporate windfall taxes and then the jig would really be up..yeah, thats it!

EDIT: I just read a blurb on the Shock Doctrine -- doesn't her "theory" boil down to some events serving or being manipulated as pretexts for unpopular legislation or governmental action? Take away the bravado it appears to be wrapped in and its a warmed over nothing observation. Shit floats you say?

I haven't read the book or come up with any reason why I should but is the theory based on the idea that capitalism inherently generates its own crises and then uses "shocks" as a 'correction' mechanism?

And, your oil question is obvious ;) -- if they didn't have an excuse Hilary'd hit 'em with corporate windfall taxes and then the jig would really be up..yeah, thats it!

EDIT: I just read a blurb on the Shock Doctrine -- doesn't her "theory" boil down to some events serving or being manipulated as pretexts for unpopular legislation or governmental action? Take away the bravado it appears to be wrapped in and its a warmed over nothing observation. Shit floats you say?

I wish it were as simple as you state it. In fact, it is a near complete inversion of what is structural and what is superstructural. The corporatists are one uniform "they" with one uniform objective, "greed", or more properly "rollback" to an era of apparently greater greed. They both create and manipulate "crises" to "shock" potential opposition (which doesn't and can't exist anyway, but if it did it would be electoral, spontaneous, and organized to prevent the rollback of the recent huge gains made by liberal democracy for the masses). It is no more than a basic super-Rove theory but this time applied to the entire political and economic spectrum. Thus Bush doesn't fuck New Orleans because he is a corrupt fuck who puts loyal toadies in positions of authority, and because he hates black people (and not repeated by anyone since Kanye West), and because everything he does pushes everything out to the "private sector" because that is what he believes in... nope, it's a plot waiting for an event to "shock" New Orleans because they make too much music there or somethin'... and it goes on and on like this.

The narrative is entirely borrowed from politics and is in the language of pundits. The hole it fills is obvious. It "explains" why all the "plots" and plans have purpose as "coherent" strategy, the natural unifier for equally bullshit theories. This is what the "radical wing" of the Democratic Party looks like. It is Markos armed with the Little Red Book. "We will never let the plots of running dog lackeys of imperialism (that means you, Karl), shock the masses out of their just rewards given to them by JFK and LBJ... you will be defeated by the masses or maybe the Iowa caucus goers."

Gag me...
.

I wish it were as simple as you state it. In fact, it is a near complete inversion of what is structural and what is superstructural. The corporatists are one uniform "they" with one uniform objective, "greed", or more properly "rollback" to an era of apparently greater greed. They both create and manipulate "crises" to "shock" potential opposition (which doesn't and can't exist anyway, but if it did it would be electoral, spontaneous, and organized to prevent the rollback of the recent huge gains made by liberal democracy for the masses). It is no more than a basic super-Rove theory but this time applied to the entire political and economic spectrum. Thus Bush doesn't fuck New Orleans because he is a corrupt fuck who puts loyal toadies in positions of authority, and because he hates black people (and not repeated by anyone since Kanye West), and because everything he does pushes everything out to the "private sector" because that is what he believes in... nope, it's a plot waiting for an event to "shock" New Orleans because they make too much music there or somethin'... and it goes on and on like this.

The narrative is entirely borrowed from politics and is in the language of pundits. The hole it fills is obvious. It "explains" why all the "plots" and plans have purpose as "coherent" strategy, the natural unifier for equally bullshit theories. This is what the "radical wing" of the Democratic Party looks like. It is Markos armed with the Little Red Book. "We will never let the plots of running dog lackeys of imperialism (that means you, Karl), shock the masses out of their just rewards given to them by JFK and LBJ... you will be defeated by the masses or maybe the Iowa caucus goers."

Gag me...
.

I haven't read the book. I'm not gonna. I did however watch the lengthy interview posted here. Seems to me that she is merely offering an opaque 'alternative' to the crisis of capitalism. I know that is not too incisive, but it seems adequate to me - at least to the degree that libertarian economics represent an alternative...

I guess its easy to see why her theory is "compelling" to so many people:


Born and raised in New Orleans, he'd been out of the flooded city for a week.
He and his family had waited forever for the evacuation buses; when they didn't
arrive, they had walked out in the baking sun. Finally they ended up here, a
sprawling convention centre now jammed with 2,000 cots and a mess of angry,
exhausted people being patrolled by edgy National Guard soldiers just back from
Iraq.
The news racing around the shelter that day was that the Republican Congressman
Richard Baker had told a group of lobbyists, "We finally cleaned up public
housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." Joseph Canizaro, one
of New Orleans' wealthiest developers, had just expressed a similar sentiment:
"I think we have a clean sheet to start again. And with that clean sheet we
have some very big opportunities." All that week Baton Rouge had been crawling
with corporate lobbyists helping to lock in those big opportunities: lower
taxes, fewer regulations, cheaper workers and a "smaller, safer city" - which
in practice meant plans to level the public housing projects. Hearing all the
talk of "fresh starts" and "clean sheets", you could almost forget the toxic
stew of rubble, chemical outflows and human remains just a few miles down the
highway.

Over at the shelter, Jamar could think of nothing else. "I really don't see it
as cleaning up the city. What I see is that a lot of people got killed uptown.
People who shouldn't have died."

He was speaking quietly, but an older man in line in front of us overheard and
whipped around. "What is wrong with these people in Baton Rouge? This isn't an
opportunity. It's a goddamned tragedy. Are they blind?" A mother with two kids
chimed in. "No, they're not blind, they're evil. They see just fine."

One of those who saw opportunity in the floodwaters of New Orleans was the late
Milton Friedman, grand guru of unfettered capitalism and credited with writing
the rulebook for the contemporary, hyper-mobile global economy. Ninety-three
years old and in failing health, "Uncle Miltie", as he was known to his
followers, found the strength to write an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal
three months after the levees broke. "Most New Orleans schools are in ruins,"
Friedman observed, "as are the homes of the children who have attended them.
The children are now scattered all over the country. This is a tragedy. It is
also an opportunity."

Friedman's radical idea was that instead of spending a portion of the billions
of dollars in reconstruction money on rebuilding and improving New Orleans'
existing public school system, the government should provide families with
vouchers, which they could spend at private institutions.

In sharp contrast to the glacial pace with which the levees were repaired and
the electricity grid brought back online, the auctioning-off of New Orleans'
school system took place with military speed and precision. Within 19 months,
with most of the city's poor residents still in exile, New Orleans' public
school system had been almost completely replaced by privately run charter
schools.

The Friedmanite American Enterprise Institute enthused that "Katrina
accomplished in a day ... what Louisiana school reformers couldn't do after
years of trying". Public school teachers, meanwhile, were calling Friedman's
plan "an educational land grab". I call these orchestrated raids on the public
sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with the treatment of
disasters as exciting market opportunities, "disaster capitalism".

Privatising the school system of a mid-size American city may seem a modest
preoccupation for the man hailed as the most influential economist of the past
half century. Yet his determination to exploit the crisis in New Orleans to
advance a fundamentalist version of capitalism was also an oddly fitting
farewell. For more than three decades, Friedman and his powerful followers had
been perfecting this very strategy: waiting for a major crisis, then selling
off pieces of the state to private players while citizens were still reeling
from the shock.

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.

Friedman first learned how to exploit a shock or crisis in the mid-70s, when he
advised the dictator General Augusto Pinochet. Not only were Chileans in a
state of shock after Pinochet's violent coup, but the country was also
traumatised by hyperinflation. Friedman advised Pinochet to impose a rapid-fire
transformation of the economy - tax cuts, free trade, privatised services, cuts
to social spending and deregulation.

It was the most extreme capitalist makeover ever attempted anywhere, and it
became known as a "Chicago School" revolution, as so many of Pinochet's
economists had studied under Friedman there. Friedman coined a phrase for this
painful tactic: economic "shock treatment". In the decades since, whenever
governments have imposed sweeping free-market programs, the all-at-once shock
treatment, or "shock therapy", has been the method of choice.

I started researching the free market's dependence on the power of shock four
years ago, during the early days of the occupation of Iraq. I reported from
Baghdad on Washington's failed attempts to follow "shock and awe" with shock
therapy - mass privatisation, complete free trade, a 15% flat tax, a
dramatically downsized government. Afterwards I travelled to Sri Lanka, several
months after the devastating 2004 tsunami, and witnessed another version of the
same manoeuvre: foreign investors and international lenders had teamed up to
use the atmosphere of panic to hand the entire beautiful coastline over to
entrepreneurs who quickly built large resorts, blocking hundreds of thousands
of fishing people from rebuilding their villages. By the time Hurricane Katrina
hit New Orleans, it was clear that this was now the preferred method of
advancing corporate goals: using moments of collective trauma to engage in
radical social and economic engineering.

Most people who survive a disaster want the opposite of a clean slate: they
want to salvage whatever they can and begin repairing what was not destroyed.
"When I rebuild the city I feel like I'm rebuilding myself," said Cassandra
Andrews, a resident of New Orleans' heavily damaged Lower Ninth Ward, as she
cleared away debris after the storm. But disaster capitalists have no interest
in repairing what once was. In Iraq, Sri Lanka and New Orleans, the process
deceptively called "reconstruction" began with finishing the job of the
original disaster by erasing what was left of the public sphere.

When I began this research into the intersection between super-profits and
mega-disasters, I thought I was witnessing a fundamental change in the way the
drive to "liberate" markets was advancing around the world. Having been part of
the movement against ballooning corporate power that made its global debut in
Seattle in 1999, I was accustomed to seeing business-friendly policies imposed
through arm-twisting at WTO summits, or as the conditions attached to loans
from the IMF.

As I dug deeper into the history of how this market model had swept the globe,
I discovered that the idea of exploiting crisis and disaster has been the modus
operandi of Friedman's movement from the very beginning - this fundamentalist
form of capitalism has always needed disasters to advance. What was happening
in Iraq and New Orleans was not a post-September 11 invention. Rather, these
bold experiments in crisis exploitation were the culmination of three decades
of strict adherence to the shock doctrine.

Seen through the lens of this doctrine, the past 35 years look very different.
Some of the most infamous human rights violations of this era, which have
tended to be viewed as sadistic acts carried out by anti-democratic regimes,
were in fact either committed with the intent of terrorising the public or
actively harnessed to prepare the ground for radical free-market "reforms". In
China in 1989, it was the shock of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the
arrests of tens of thousands that freed the Communist party to convert much of
the country into a sprawling export zone, staffed with workers too terrified to
demand their rights. The Falklands war in 1982 served a similar purpose for
Margaret Thatcher: the disorder resulting from the war allowed her to crush the
striking miners and to launch the first privatisation frenzy in a western
democracy.

The bottom line is that, for economic shock therapy to be applied without
restraint, some sort of additional collective trauma has always been required.
Friedman's economic model is capable of being partially imposed under democracy
- the US under Reagan being the best example - but for the vision to be
implemented in its complete form, authoritarian or quasi-authoritarian
conditions are required.

Until recently, these conditions did not exist in the US. What happened on
September 11 2001 is that an ideology hatched in American universities and
fortified in Washington institutions finally had its chance to come home. The
Bush administration, packed with Friedman's disciples, including his close
friend Donald Rumsfeld, seized upon the fear generated to launch the "war on
terror" and to ensure that it is an almost completely for-profit venture, a
booming new industry that has breathed new life into the faltering US economy.
Best understood as a "disaster capitalism complex", it is a global war fought
on every level by private companies whose involvement is paid for with public
money, with the unending mandate of protecting the US homeland in perpetuity
while eliminating all "evil" abroad.

In a few short years, the complex has already expanded its market reach from
fighting terrorism to international peacekeeping, to municipal policing, to
responding to increasingly frequent natural disasters. The ultimate goal for
the corporations at the centre of the complex is to bring the model of
for-profit government, which advances so rapidly in extraordinary
circumstances, into the ordinary functioning of the state - in effect, to
privatise the government.

In scale, the disaster capitalism complex is on a par with the "emerging
market" and IT booms of the 90s. It is dominated by US firms, but is global,
with British companies bringing their experience in security cameras, Israeli
firms their expertise in building hi-tech fences and walls. Combined with
soaring insurance industry profits as well as super profits for the oil
industry, the disaster economy may well have saved the world market from the
full-blown recession it was facing on the eve of 9/11.

In the torrent of words written in eulogy to Milton Friedman, the role of
shocks and crises to advance his world view received barely a mention. Instead,
the economist's passing, in November 2006, provided an occasion for a retelling
of the official story of how his brand of radical capitalism became government
orthodoxy in almost every corner of the globe. It is a fairytale history,
scrubbed clean of the violence so intimately entwined with this crusade.

It is time for this to change. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there
has been a powerful reckoning with the crimes committed in the name of
communism. But what of the crusade to liberate world markets?

I am not arguing that all forms of market systems require large-scale violence.
It is eminently possible to have a market-based economy that demands no such
brutality or ideological purity. A free market in consumer products can coexist
with free public health care, with public schools, with a large segment of the
economy - such as a national oil company - held in state hands. It's equally
possible to require corporations to pay decent wages, to respect the right of
workers to form unions, and for governments to tax and redistribute wealth so
that the sharp inequalities that mark the corporatist state are reduced.
Markets need not be fundamentalist.

John Maynard Keynes proposed just that kind of mixed, regulated economy after
the Great Depression. It was that system of compromises, checks and balances
that Friedman's counter-revolution was launched to dismantle in country after
country. Seen in that light, Chicago School capitalism has something in common
with other fundamentalist ideologies: the signature desire for unattainable
purity.

This desire for godlike powers of creation is precisely why free-market
ideologues are so drawn to crises and disasters. Non-apocalyptic reality is
simply not hospitable to their ambitions. For 35 years, what has animated
Friedman's counter-revolution is an attraction to a kind of freedom available
only in times of cataclysmic change - when people, with their stubborn habits
and insistent demands, are blasted out of the way - moments when democracy
seems a practical impossibility. Believers in the shock doctrine are convinced
that only a great rupture - a flood, a war, a terrorist attack - can generate
the kind of vast, clean canvases they crave. It is in these malleable moments,
when we are psychologically unmoored and physically uprooted, that these
artists of the real plunge in their hands and begin their work of remaking the
world.

Torture: the other shock treatment

From Chile to China to Iraq, torture has been a silent partner in the global
free-market crusade. Chile's coup featured three distinct forms of shock, a
recipe that would re-emerge three decades later in Iraq. The shock of the coup
prepared the ground for economic shock therapy; the shock of the torture
chamber terrorized anyone thinking of standing in the way of the economic
shocks.

But torture is more than a tool used to enforce unwanted policies on rebellious
peoples; it is also a metaphor of the shock doctrine's underlying logic.
Torture, or in CIA parlance, "coercive interrogation", is a set of techniques
developed by scientists and designed to put prisoners into a state of deep
disorientation.

Declassified CIA manuals explain how to break "resistant sources": create
violent ruptures between prisoners and their ability to make sense of the world
around them. First, the senses are starved (with hoods, earplugs, shackles),
then the body is bombarded with overwhelming stimulation (strobe lights,
blaring music, beatings). The goal of this "softening-up" stage is to provoke a
kind of hurricane in the mind, and it is in that state of shock that most
prisoners give their interrogators whatever they want.

The shock doctrine mimics this process precisely. The original disaster - the
coup, the terrorist attack, the market meltdown - puts the entire population
into a state of collective shock. The falling bombs, the bursts of terror, the
pounding winds serve to soften up whole societies. Like the terrorised prisoner
who gives up the names of comrades and renounces his faith, shocked societies
often give up things they would otherwise fiercely protect.

· This is an edited extract from The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster
Capitalism by Naomi Klein, published by Allen Lane at £25. To order a copy for
£23.00 with free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0870 836 0875.

Mistaking the trees for the forest, just one tool in a six drawer box.

I haven't read the book. I'm not gonna. I did however watch the lengthy interview posted here. Seems to me that she is merely offering an opaque 'alternative' to the crisis of capitalism. I know that is not too incisive, but it seems adequate to me - at least to the degree that libertarian economics represent an alternative...

What does "adequate" mean? Is that something like "accurate"? OR do you mean that any old theory will do as long as it targets the "bad people"?

.

We said:


Listen to the interview w/Frost again and forget the bit about bin Laden. Really listen to it. Watch it intently, listen to it.

Unbelievably difficult, Chlamor, because Frost's aristocratic pretensions infuriate me even more than O'Reilly's obnoxious bluster, but I will nevertheless do it.

First an apology to David Frost: after about five minutes, his pseudo-Oxbridge/Manorhouse English is genuinely soothing compared to O'Reilly's bullying bombast.

Benazir Bhutto made two significant statements in the Frost interview: she was not going to be "the frosting on a poison cake" -- that is, she said she would not be used as camouflage in the creation of pretend democracy -- and she said she would, if elected, do everything in her power to expose the financial underpinnings of Pakistani terrorism, even unto calling in "Scotland Yard or the FBI" for their investigative and forensic expertise.

The former may have been mere rhetoric, but the latter was an implicit threat to disclose who financed and organized 9/11.

Hence just as Dorothy Kilgallen turned up dead the night before a broadcast she promised would "blow the Kennedy assassination wide open," so was Benazir Bhutto murdered soon after threatening to trace the terrorist networks back to...whomever truly runs and finances them.

And so goes history: H. sapiens sapiens, from banana brachiation to banana republic and thence to Banana Planet.

We said:



And so goes history: H. sapiens sapiens, from banana brachiation to banana republic and thence to Banana Planet.

http://www.democracymeansyou.com/images/planet-of-apes-lg.gif

Just always wonder when something huge like this happens, what is going on elsewhere?? Especially when its all that is on the nightly news (I actually played with the Rabbit ears to see what was going on in the msm regarding this). NBC actually talking about Benizir like she's known by all who are watching, and making all who are watching feel embarrassed to admit they don't know, "but gee she was certainly pretty". This in a country where alot of folks don't know their representatives name, and couldn't find Pakistan instantly on a globe. I am not trying to insult the people, it just makes me think there's gotta be something they don't want the general populous to be thinking about... what of the fifty things I can think of is it??? Or do they just want to shift the focus to Pakistan as something certainly didn't go according to plan with Iran...the shit hitting the fan? a new place to nuke??? one that does really truly have them?? what??? and wheres the nearest bunker?? :?

I haven't read the book. I'm not gonna. I did however watch the lengthy interview posted here. Seems to me that she is merely offering an opaque 'alternative' to the crisis of capitalism. I know that is not too incisive, but it seems adequate to me - at least to the degree that libertarian economics represent an alternative...

What does "adequate" mean? Is that something like "accurate"? OR do you mean that any old theory will do as long as it targets the "bad people"?

.

It's adequate given the body of knowledge I bring to the table and level of interest I have in polluting my mind with this sort of thing. I cannot call on anything nearly so deep or wide as you in experience or historical knowledge, so my thinking is necessarily more cursory. That ain't just a matter of 'style' or cognitive laziness, however much both also come into play, to any degree not eclipsed by the relative blackness of my own universe of contemplation.

I'll say though that this has been on my mind some in the last couple of days though. 'This' being the arising of historical development as a girding principle underlying progress in many fields of endeavor in the time of Pisarev. And "this' also being here and now (what I say are the half measures) of Klein's call for understanding (and what you say are half baked half measures). Stay with me. Take a downer or something.

Picking the half read Pisarev volume back up, I settled in for the final 2/3 or 3/4 of "Progress in the Animal and Vegetable Worlds," his exposition to the Russian literary crowd about the merit of Darwin's exciting new theory. In considering these comments in their context, a time when Darwin's explosive revelations still resonated very loudly and when at the same time Marx was defining the development of history in his field and, as Pisarev notes with his usually stunning depth of knowledge at his age and in that time, the same also recently true with Cuvier in geology and Schleicher in linguistics, even a dullard like me could connect the dots. Historical development as a guiding method for human inquiry was a revolutionary force at this time, right at this time when Pisarev was scribbling to the Russian masses so far removed from the high levels of human progress occurring in Europe.

I was struck repeatedly and a bit differently on each contemplation about the real significance of all of this, the productive forces of man's intellect confirming itself in a number of permutations and at least apparently independent disciplines even as it was popping the collective brain's clutch for what we can surely be safe in saying was one of the first times. Truly, the achievements of human knowledge have been in the bend in the hockey stick since that time relative to what came before, and that even with the impediment of competition in relations having eclipsed cooperation for the very most part.

It occurs to me, and this can only be the impression of a man too ignorant to have a chance of 'knowing,' that the fields of philosophy and economics have in a fashion anyway, not kept pace with the staggering exponential bloom of useful, true, lasting, and evolving knowledge that we see in the hard sciences or even in things like linguistics.

I say this not because growth is not or has not taken place and at a quick pace in economics or philosophy but rather because it seems the branches that have come about from the solid trunk that is Marx are much fewer than those bushy but sure to die ones in bourgeois political economy and philosophy. If true, this is of course natural even if it is not 'right' given the truism of ruling class ideas defining the age of that class' ascendancy.

But are not, at least in very great measure, the biological and physical sciences unhinged from this impediment relative to the very much more significant ways that social relations as property relations bind progress in their related academic fields? I mean, really, the prideful obstinacy of an old "scientist" clinging to his ossified constructs seems not to be nearly as hard an onion to peel as it is when the onion papers are in fact the thick wad of bills that truly progressive economics is always seeking to re-purloin from the parasitic class, no?

I could probably say this better were it not for spending too much time thinking and too little writing owing to this very sore hand. I hope maybe you follow the question.

The chat on Klein's piece is a good example that caused me to try to ask this question, one I was too lazy absent this timely example to even try and ask. Because the progressive 'recipe' for solving the contradictions and predations of capitalism is out there, so to speak, but is in practice unused and seldom even thought of by liberal culture-makers like Klein, what I see and was saying earlier was that her work is a thin and insufficient proposed remedy, one that has been so for better than a century. And if it were not because of this inability (something I think looms larger than the of course frequent unwillingness it conceals) to yet move to the higher state and - for instance - realize that if Keynesianism was the answer it woulda fuckin' prevailed?

Would not philosophy and economics (now so full of fraudulent bullshit as to be completely unique, laughable even, as a 'science' imo, and I gots an opinion even if I am unsure of its pareto effect) have progressed more quickly?

Would - in another for instance - the gulf between climate change awareness and the ever-disappearing time to actually do something meaningful about it in time have been so wide?

Anyway, that was some of the stuff swimming around in my head yesterday after going beyond realizing that a touchstone of the amazing (is it really truly revolutionary as I posit above?) development of the whole of human inquiry at the eve of the industrial revolution springs from the grasp of historical development, and in a way that the significant, if not-too-impenetrably-intricate particulars of both Darwin and Marx are eminent examples.

And yet, one area of human inquiry (that which concerns less of his own impacts and relations, i.e the so-called hard sciences) can these days much more easily smash the gods of men than the other.

Then a few pages past the end of that long and interesting essay concerning Darwin, I come across this (a source of further contemplation, if not an outright answer to my ponderous wonderings):


The 18th century rulers, like the monarchs and popes of the middle ages, were not afraid of thought; the persecuted opposition thinkers not as violators of public order, but as insolent people who dared to express and think impudent things. Punishment was not intended to prevent harm which could arise from the activity of the writer, for nobody thought of that. Indeed, what harm could a despicable and starving scoundrel do by scribbling to make a few pence for bread and firewood? The meaning of punishment was: There, you beastly knave, don't you dare interfere by your stupid considerations when you are not asked. Punishment was revenge for insolence and was therefore conditioned exclusively by the wrath of the important person who had the power to chastise and to pardon. As a result, the most dangerous branch of literature for the writer was was the one that was trifling and least able to affect the life of society in any direction. Writers of satires and lampoons against individual personalities came in for the most severe punishment...If on the contrary... you tried most openly in your book to turn upside down all the conceptions of reigning in official spheres on justice, financial management, relations between the states, international law or any other highly important subect, the danger for you was far less than in the first case. If you wished the danger to disappear all together, all you had to do was dedicate your book to the highest of high-placed personalities whose ideas you subjected to the most devastating criticism, then to sprinkle your introduction and notes with the most enthusiastic and unsubstantiated compliments to all the powerful personalities whose ideas you utterly contradicted. Then your book would encounter no obstacles at all. All influential persons would say your ideas, or course, were rather reckless but that you yourself were a well-educated, modest and respectable man and that consequently there was no reason to grieve you by prohibiting your book or shutting you up in the Bastille.

From the very beginning of society to the 18th century, literature was, indeed, always considered an amusement, very refined and noble, and even elevated, but completely devoid of any serious significance, political or social. The writer could be an artist or a sage, but in the eyes of the business-like people he was always a chatterer putting on airs for his own satisfaction and the amusement of the public. Literature was on the same footing as music, painting and sculpture: it could embellish the life of fashionable society, but nobody believed it could mould live into completely new forms. -
From Popularizers of Negative Doctrines, first published in Luch (The Ray) in 1866.

It occurs to me, and this can only be the impression of a man too ignorant to have a chance of 'knowing,' that the fields of philosophy and economics have in a fashion anyway, not kept pace with the staggering exponential bloom of useful, true, lasting, and evolving knowledge that we see in the hard sciences or even in things like linguistics.

We're just getting started my friend -- in every discipline. Another reason philosophy has lost relevance is that post-Hegel, things became so specialized and the knowledge base so vast that its virtually impossible for anyone to build an entire philosophical "system" of everything. I say *virtually* impossible because others have since tried, but they all kinda sucked. What is the search for a "Grand Unified Theory"in physics but a seriously misguided and philosophically bankrupt attempt at the same?

We're just getting started.

It's all about time, Rusty, and our perceptions of it. If we know anything from those who came before us, we know that a human lifetime is very short. Yet all that you mention is contained in one or two of those small units. None of the ideas we take for granted existed 300 hundred years ago (4 lifetimes). The bourgeois revolutions date from two hundred years ago and did not really triumph until 150 years ago (2 modest lifetimes). The modern powered factory dates from that same period as does the origin of the great bulk of the current population of this continent. 60 years ago, there was one independent country in Africa (1 lifetime). 40 years ago, a handful of white mercenaries (less than 100 hundred) under "Bob" Denard cut their way across the Congo. 20 years ago, the MPLA sent a much much larger force of "mercs" home on commercial airliners, they being too pitiful to bother executing. 35 years ago the best led, best disciplined, best organized military force since the Spartans drove the U.S. into a quagmire in Vietnam. Less than ten years ago, one of the worst organized, worst disciplined and most confused insurgencies in history drove a much stronger U.S. Army into the same in Iraq. All of these timeframes are too short for the kind of sweeping conclusions you want to draw. They are the kind of perspectives that are almost forced down our throats by those who believe that humanity began only with their own birth and ends with their death... a perspective that would have been met by derisive laughter in any other era.

The kid is exactly right: "We're just getting started."

Still, Klein is not an example of any of this. It takes genuine work by our time to approach the vital questions in a more naive way than those who predated Pisarev. In fact, it is not possible for an honest thinker. Klein is fundamentally as dishonest as those who talk of "corporatists". It is an intentional confusion. Do you mean "capitalists" but fear the word? No, not at all. It is not capitalists that are intended but a political faction of them, opposed by Klien and her ilk. How horrible that this faction takes advantage of "shocks", disrespects "rights", and generally behaves badly toward the chairman of Nike. There is analysis here but it is not a primitive analysis... it is someone else's analysis.

Fuck them and their internecine battles. There was no such thing as a soft but useful analysis in 1848. All of that had died under the guillotine 50 years before. And though the time units are short, yet they are distinct. It is Klien's ass that we want too... as well as the philanthropic Gates and the frustrated Nike (and the over-heated Hermes) and all of the others who would rule in a non-shocking way given half a chance. It's a sucker play.... and even in the short time I sketched above, it is dated by now.
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Klein is fundamentally as dishonest as those who talk of "corporatists". It is an intentional confusion. Do you mean "capitalists" but fear the word? No, not at all. It is not capitalists that are intended but a political faction of them, opposed by Klien and her ilk. How horrible that this faction takes advantage of "shocks", disrespects "rights", and generally behaves badly toward the chairman of Nike.
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Thankee sir.

Nike = victory

albeit at the expense of the exhausted life of that heralded messenger.

I can understand at some level this expansive view, but it remains clouded by the fog of my ignorance.

Even so, the material truth of your comment that the last 150-odd years is but a tv show becomes all the more clearly an accurate, yes, and deliberately precise appraisal.

Baby steps, ya know.

Klein is fundamentally as dishonest as those who talk of "corporatists". It is an intentional confusion. Do you mean "capitalists" but fear the word? No, not at all. It is not capitalists that are intended but a political faction of them, opposed by Klien and her ilk. How horrible that this faction takes advantage of "shocks", disrespects "rights", and generally behaves badly toward the chairman of Nike.
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Thankee sir.

Nike = victory

albeit at the expense of the exhausted life of that heralded messenger.

I can understand at some level this expansice view, but it remains clouded by the fog of my ignorance.

Even so, the material truth of your comment that the last 150-odd years is but a tv show becomes all the more clearly an accurate, yes, and deliberately precise appraisal.

Baby steps, ya know.

Check out who Naomi Klein is... in the same way as we did with the Volker Fund: mother, husband, father, grandfather, husband's lineage, schools, etc. The idea here is not to establish a conspiracy but to recognize what the perspepective is here. She is not ignorant of Marx, she "competes" with him. Wherever there is a dead-end movement in the world she is a champion of its "spontanaity" and "direct democracy". She is a "socialist" except where it has ever existed. She comes from the "leading" social-democratic, Socialist International, NDP family in Canada and was a late convert to "activism".

Fuck them. They had their chance.
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Klein is fundamentally as dishonest as those who talk of "corporatists". It is an intentional confusion. Do you mean "capitalists" but fear the word? No, not at all. It is not capitalists that are intended but a political faction of them, opposed by Klien and her ilk. How horrible that this faction takes advantage of "shocks", disrespects "rights", and generally behaves badly toward the chairman of Nike.
.

Thankee sir.

Nike = victory

albeit at the expense of the exhausted life of that heralded messenger.

I can understand at some level this expansive view, but it remains clouded by the fog of my ignorance.

Even so, the material truth of your comment that the last 150-odd years is but a tv show becomes all the more clearly an accurate, yes, and deliberately precise appraisal.

Baby steps, ya know.

What I think isn't as verbose or refined as what Anax wrote but it goes like this: Mike once wrote something about "revealing the truth of our time" which I misread as "refuting the truth of our time". To me the latter was one of the mos profound things I'd ever heard.

My own focus has been chasing that dragon in the hard sciences and we are both getting a quick induction into the social sciences, huh :)? But the thing is, the tsunami is coming and we're just the faintest hints of it that the sharp eye might recognize but nobody else.

Its why your username sort of perplexes me and also why I get into semi-pointless tiffs with the C-Man and why I don't comment much on Wolf's very excellent and stimulating posts. It feels like the three of you set on playing the part of medieval clerics who take a map and at the edges write "Here Be Dragons" and pretend its World's End.

Its not, not even close. What we're seeing is the birthing of a new era. Industrialization is (almost) everywhere. Global communication is here right now.

See, the old definition of socialism -- the proletariat retaining its class relations but eliminating private property -- isn't going to apply without alteration to us. And I don't mean "us" the US, but US the world. Rusty we're on the precipice of something far greater and harder to imagine than the Soviet Union redux. Thats why I loved Iridescent Cuttlefish at RigInt so much. He was right, if his methods were a little stupid (everybodybecoming a pothead)

Forced labor -- be it under capitalism and corporatists or be it under the dictatorship of the proletariat -- is just a lingering artefact of history. No more coercion, because its not necessary.

We can supply energy to everybody on a self-generating basis *RIGHT NOW*. And it doesn't need to be any exotic hope/dream like Free Energy OR any conventional source like petroleum. Now, there's a caveat that we probably can't prop up an insane consumerist society in hyperdrive but for what we're talking about, thats moot.

Further we can feed, clothe, shelter, and acculture everyone on the basis of today. No futuristic technology or massive infrastructure overhaul. Just a social revolution coming on the understanding that labor contributions are voluntary and given freely not compulsory. Equally all of life's necessities are given freely with no prejudice, institutional memory (you..you eat well but did not work!), or even any bureaucratic overseeing body at all.

That should be our vision and it goes out to the same people Jesus walked amongst -- the poorest, the shunned, the indigent, the criminals, the dead-in-spirit. No one who reads and nods their head to The Shock Doctrine is onboard with that -- they're the slave drivers who speak of "moral hazards" and "unintended consequences". That means giving "handouts" is a bad idea because it will just promote idleness and slothfulness. And, besides, you give em something once and they're like a dog at the table begging for scraps for the rest of their lives.

"Sustainable" is just a capitalist buzzword, and its code for sustaining the relations (and hence privileges) of capitalism.

I used to seethe as I'd see reports of research money in physics, biology, astronomy, medicine, etc going into projects and people I *knew* were bunk. How could something like that happen?? Ha, its a trifling -- think about all of the superstitions we can't expel and all of the sudden the crazy stuff imparted to us by "Science" starts to seem tame in comparison.

Its alienation and estrangement in action and, almost by definition, we don't see it. We see social processes as dead things that somehow animate our world. A factory's not a thing, its a complex of processes. Its Debord's thing-ification too. How can you talk about "industrialization" as though its one identifiable object? And we're not so free of superstition ourselves. We make broad, sweeping generalizations over great epochs of time but fail to understand why ideas and social relations exist in the first place and especially why they exist in the here and now (religion, superstition). Is an indictment of Abram anything more than narrow-eyed ideology sashaying about as insight?

We've kept our head (technological advancement) but collectively lost our heart, our soul. We're husks but we have an advantage: we know it and we have a roadmap. There may be no yellow brick road, but what we have'll do.

Listen, no one knows better than I do the allure of "cool" ideas. Different ideas, radical, subversive sounding ideas. And I personally think they're a great way to spice things up, keep it lively (anax, chlamor seem to disagree lol) But there's no such thing as "buying in without selling out".

Did you know there's a machine you can build yourself with parts from radioshack that, when you use some software thats free on the internet, makes prefabricated plastic items like forks and other utensils, containers such as cups, combs, etc?

Just getting started. Promise.

Did you know there's a machine you can build yourself with parts from radioshack that, when you use some software thats free on the internet, makes prefabricated plastic items like forks and other utensils, containers such as cups, combs, etc?

That's it, sign me up!

Man, you oughta do late nite TV commercials.

For this sort of thing I read SciFi.

Very interesting discussion, I always learn so much more from reading than from posting. And this is an excellent place for that.

http://www.best-norman-rockwell-art.com/images/1920-01-08-Life-Norman-Rockwell-cover-The-Wallflower-400-Digimarc.jpg

My own focus has been chasing that dragon in the hard sciences and we are both getting a quick induction into the social sciences, huh :)? But the thing is, the tsunami is coming and we're just the faintest hints of it that the sharp eye might recognize but nobody else.

Forced labor -- be it under capitalism and corporatists or be it under the dictatorship of the proletariat -- is just a lingering artefact of history. No more coercion, because its not necessary.

We can supply energy to everybody on a self-generating basis *RIGHT NOW*. And it doesn't need to be any exotic hope/dream like Free Energy OR any conventional source like petroleum. Now, there's a caveat that we probably can't prop up an insane consumerist society in hyperdrive but for what we're talking about, thats moot.

Further we can feed, clothe, shelter, and acculture everyone on the basis of today. No futuristic technology or massive infrastructure overhaul. Just a social revolution coming on the understanding that labor contributions are voluntary and given freely not compulsory. Equally all of life's necessities are given freely with no prejudice, institutional memory (you..you eat well but did not work!), or even any bureaucratic overseeing body at all.

That should be our vision and it goes out to the same people Jesus walked amongst -- the poorest, the shunned, the indigent, the criminals, the dead-in-spirit.

We've kept our head (technological advancement) but collectively lost our heart, our soul. We're husks but we have an advantage: we know it and we have a roadmap. There may be no yellow brick road, but what we have'll do.

Listen, no one knows better than I do the allure of "cool" ideas. Different ideas, radical, subversive sounding ideas. And I personally think they're a great way to spice things up, keep it lively (anax, chlamor seem to disagree lol) But there's no such thing as "buying in without selling out".

Just getting started. Promise.

Cheers kid, hope you keep that promise...

Listen to the interview w/Frost again and forget the bit about bin Laden. Really listen to it. Watch it intently, listen to it.

Does no one find her passing comment that OBL had been killed of any import worth mentioning?

Listen to the interview w/Frost again and forget the bit about bin Laden. Really listen to it. Watch it intently, listen to it.

Does no one find her passing comment that OBL had been killed of any import worth mentioning?

Not really. I already read some other crank saying Bhutto was misinformed and Osama was alive and well..in Pakistan.

I think its pretty safe to say Osama is the least of our concerns. Hell, GWB of all people said as much..