Naomis vs Neocons
I watched the attractive and intelligent Naomi Wolf utterly destroy some poor deputy under-secretary droid in the Gonzalez Justice Dept. the other night on the new Dish TV. Ouch!He had helped old Alberto craft the Patriot Act but he was having trouble defending it's constitutionality aginst the articulate Ms.Wolf. It didn't help that he was homely and stuttered. Earlier I watched the other famous Naomi, Ms. Klien, who also just happens to be attractive and brilliant. She also writes well and I am finding her new Shock Doctrine well argued.
"What is clear is that human beings are much to intelligent not to have a rational society; the most serious question we face is whether they are rational enough to achieve one."
Murray Bookchin
posted by troutsky @ 10:34 AM
12 comments
12 Comments:
Just finished the Shock Doctrine. It's well put together in a manner that is accessable to the average punter. Even Sonia could read it without being too confused.
The US media will ignore it and hope it goes away. Which, of course, it will.
yeah, but this stuff adds up cringing. By sheer accumulative force it works on the normative discourse. Pretty much everyone left and right agrees the "US media" is a farce.Thats a start.
CringingInAmazement,
Even Sonia could read it without being too confused.
I was confused. What confused me the most was that Lenin's lawyers didn't sue her ass for copyright infringements. Her "Shock Doctrine" is a word-for-word retelling of the Leninist revolutionary principles of how the Bolsheviks should seize power by "hightening the contradictions". Naomi Klein has only replaced the word "bolshevik" with "capitalist"...
iI noticed she didn't list Keynes (of whom she seems to be a big fan)as one of the "shockers", even though it was the Great Depression that created the conditions for his policy prescriptions to be tried.
She is smart enough to realize this though:"Any attempt to hold ideologies accountable for the crimes committed by their followers must be approached with a great deal of caution."
Whats with the pussy footing Troutsky the US media's not a farce it is a fraud. You know that, I know that, everyone knows that but we must continue to pretend. I bet even Sonia the Hun knows that. Ethnic nepotism rules the day. That's why we can't get the truth about anything.
LWB: Oppressors could care less about ethnicity.
Sonia: Lenin was in exile, until the revolution occured. Trotsky had to explain to him what the situation was. Lenin didn't invent the dialects of change. The 1905 Revolution started with a priest, bringing a petition to the government.
Wait until the Cubans get told they have to pay for medical care and schooling.
Bush's speech about Cuba, was a call to destroy European property, so US will not honor contracts, if they get their foot into Cuba.
Ren,
Lenin was in exile (...) Lenin didn't invent the dialects of change.
You're missing my point. Lenin wrote extensively in his works (which I studied in my Communist youth) about what is necessary to create revolutionary situations. Lenin's point is that instead of trying to improve capitalism (like social democrats try do do), Bolsheviks should "highten the contradictions" in order to destroy capitalism completely and force people to accept Communism. What Lenin wrote is EXACTLY the same as what Naomi Klein's has written in "Shock Doctrine": that you need to "highten the contradictions"/"apply the shock doctrine" in order to force people to accept oppression/Communism. The only difference: Naomi is ACCUSING capitalists of using the tactics that Lenin has RECOMMENDED to his followers...
I'm not so sure RE, historically and now ethnicity (nationalism) seems to be a guiding principle if not a reason for oppression.
She is smart enough to realize this though:"Any attempt to hold ideologies accountable for the crimes committed by their followers must be approached with a great deal of caution."
This is an important statement. I get tired of trying to defend Christianity against every big sinner who claimed to follow Christ.
That said, if we apply it to your case, I would say that attempts to create Communism tend to become totalitarian. Ignoring my other problems with the doctrine--the nonsensical labor theory of value for one--it is incumbent on Socialists such as yourself to explain how we are to avoid such pitfalls the next time around.
This is perhaps THE primary concern of our age Wiser, wise of you to recognize it!
I address it by looking away from the purely economic for a minute and looking at the authoritarian/ libertarian axis as it relates to hierachical structure. That is how you choose to organize society, interrelated to the economy, of course , just not necessarily determinate.In some institutions power is vested at the top of a pyramid, (Church-God, State-King,Fuhrer,dictator Family-Father etc) in others, power is spread more horizontally. In either a socialist or capitalist economy, power will tend to concentrate but my contention is that tendency can be countered through democratic mechanisms MORE READILY in a socialist system than in a capitalist one.In fact,I think capitalism's contadictions make true democracy impossible.(despite valiant efforts of civil society, politics, social movements) The softer form of totalitarianism within capitalism is harder to identify (and therefore combat) and lends itself to that authoritarian tendency MOST readily.Witness Hayeck, Struass, Friedman et al.
By the way , you are right sonia and Klein acknowleges the relationship to Bolshevik theory.And to Christian rapture!I suppose these crisis hypotheses insist the ends justify the means. Maybe it depends on your project?
She also acknowleges the opening cisis gave to Keynesian theory, which I failed to see ,my bad.
Sonia is reaching to create a left v right duality which Klein is careful not to buy into.
It is a demonstration of his (Sonia's) lack of intellect or integrity.
The extremist nutters have to create a comic book duality to hide the bankruptcy of their beliefs. It is the struggle that excites the poverty of their conscious being.
The challenge for we moderates is to fight their inanity without being drawn into engaging it. Why engage the truly moronic?
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