- Das der Beck weg muss, stand schon an anderer Stelle oft genug. Nun hat es wohl auch die Onlineausgabe der Süddeutschen Zeitung erkannt. Wenn es dann dort steht kommt es auch beim gentle-rocker an. Schön ist es wenn sich eine Erkenntnis ihren Weg bahnt.

- Auch das Bundesverfassungsgericht scheint schon von der neoliberalen Propaganda durchsetzt. Wie sonst soll man die Äußerungen seines Präsidenten Hans-Jürgen Papier verstehen.

Kürzlich haben wir eine Liste solcher Organisationen zusammengestellt, die in den vergangenen Jahren direkt und indirekt dafür gesorgt haben, dass Armut in Deutschland - Kinderarmut inklusive - wieder zu einem Massenphänomen wurde. Deshalb haben wir nun die erste Protestaktion ins Leben gerufen: Die 55 Cent-Protestaktion.

Ablauf
Wir haben einen Flyer erstellt, der als PDF-Datei heruntergeladen werden kann. Drucken Sie diesen Flyer aus und senden Sie ihn per Telefax oder per Post an die darauf genannten Organisationen. Sie gehen dabei keinerlei Risiko ein, wenn Sie den Flyer per Post verschicken oder per Fax von einem Copyshop aus.

Ziel
Es geht darum, dass so viele Menschen wie möglich diesen Flyer an die darauf genannten Organisationen senden. Die neoloberalen Verbrecher gegen Menschlichkeit und soziale Gerechtigkeit sollen merken, dass wir wissen, wer sie sind und sie im Auge haben. Dass wir uns nicht weiter belügen, betrügen und gegeneinander aufhetzen lassen. Wir wissen, wo unsere Feinde sitzen, nämlich oben. Der erste Schritt zum Kampf ist immer das Abstecken des feindlichen Territoriums.

Termin
Der Flyer soll bis spätestens 31.07.2008 an die genannten Organisationen geschickt werden. Außerdem kann er verkleinert (2-4 Stück je DIN A4) und zur Information an die Mitmenschen in Ihrem Umfeld verteilt werden.

Da bleibt uns nur eines zu sagen: Mitmachen!

CDU-Kandidatur: Mit Anstand verloren!

Was für ein Unsinn! Oswald Metzger und Anstand? Hat sich Metzger diesen Spruch beim Sloganizer generieren lassen? Denn er selbst dürfte auf Grund seiner korrupten Mietmaul-Tätigkeit für Bertelsmann, die INSM, den Konvent für Deutschland und den Frankfurter Zukunftsrat schon lange nicht mehr wissen, was Anstand ist. Vielleicht blätterte Ossi Metzger aber auch im Duden und platzierte einfach per Zufallsprinzip seinen Finger darin, um ein weiteres Wort zu finden. Denn eigentlich müßte der Titel seines Beitrags so lauten:

• CDU-Kandidatur verloren (ganz ohne Anstand)
• CDU-Kandidatur: Wegen Rest-Anstand der Mitglieder verloren (Ossi trotzdem ohne Anstand)
• CDU-Kandidatur: Menschenverachtende Mietmäuler und Hetzer unerwünscht (bringt es auf den Punkt)

Der von jeglicher Fachkompetenz und sonstigen Qualifikation freie Oswald Metzger ist wirklich ein Spassvogel. Wir würden ihm den Beruf des Pornodarstellers empfehlen. Schön, eigentlich ist er dazu ja zu häßlich, aber vielleicht gibt es solche Filme ja auch extra für Blinde. Oder er könnte sich im Fetisch-Genre breit machen, da gibt es schicke Masken für dieses schwäbische Gesichtsgulasch. Und wenn er selbst da nicht genommen würde, könnte er ja immer noch Scheisse fressen. Darin hat er Dank Bertelsmann, INSM und Konsorten ja schon Übung und Erfahrung, inklusive wiederkäuen. Oswald Metzger als ein Scheisse fressender, schwäbischer Abklatsch von  Sachsen-Paule - das wär's doch!

Weitere Beiträge zu Oswald Metzgers Scheitern in der CDU:

• Duckhome - Oswald Metzger und die INSM sind gescheitert
• Oeffinger Freidenker - Abgemetzgert
• Feynsinn - Metzger geht zur FDP
• FIXMBR - Schadenfreude
• Maik's geblogge - Oswald Metzger gescheitert

PS: Angesichts der weit verbreiteten Schadenfreude sollte Oswald Metzger aufpassen. Denn wir denken, dass es kaum noch jemanden in Deutschland gibt, der ernsthaft bremsen würde, wenn ein Oswald Metzger auf der Straße stünde. Sie wissen ja: Was ist der Unterschied zwischen einem überfahrenen Hund und einem überfahrenen INSM-Mietmaul? - Vor dem Hund sind Bremsspuren  :lol:

Ihr könnt Euch nicht vorstellen, wie sehr die Menschen in Deutschland es begrüßen, dass Ihr das hauptberufliche Lobbyisten-Mietmaul Oswald Metzger in der Stichwahl mit nur 41,9 Prozent habt auflaufen lassen. Übrigens, an dieser Stelle Glückwünsche an den bodenständige Gegenkandidaten Josef Rief! Denn Oswald Metzger ist nicht nur williges Mietmaul der menschenverachtenden Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM), sondern zugleich Mitglied im Konventkreis des Konvents für Deutschland und beim Frankfurter Zukunftsrat. Zuvor war er bereits Sprachrohr der Bertelsmann-Stiftung und des neoliberal gepolten Wirtschaftspropagandainstituts DIW in Berlin. So jemanden kann man nicht in ein Parlament schicken, sondern bestenfalls in die Müllverwertung zum Sortieren.

Denn Oswald Metzger interessiert sich nur für Oswald Metzger. Damals war er zuerst bei der SPD, kam dort wohl nicht weiter und wechselte zu den Grünen. Dort diente er sich mit seinen dümmlich-provokanten Parolen nach oben und verkaufte zugleich weiter sein leidlich vorhandenes Rückgrat und Maul für ein paar Tausender auf dem Konto an die INSM und andere Lobbygruppen. Als Oswald Metzger dann bei den Grünen abdanken mußte, weil er sich bei seiner asozialen Hetze gegen sozial Schwache zu weit aus dem Fenster gelehnt hatte, wechselte er zur CDU, nachdem er zuvor längere Zeit einen Riesen-Bohei darum gemacht hatte, ob er nun bei der CDU oder bei der FDP aufschlagen würde. Dabei interessierte das kein Schwein, Metzger wollte lediglich abchecken, welche Partei ihm zuerst ein Bundestagsmandat in Aussicht stellt. Denn alleine darauf und auf die damit verbundene luxuriöse Versorgung auf Kosten der Steuerzahler hat es der gierige Sozialschmarotzer Oswald Metzger abgesehen. Aber man kann eben nicht der Diener vieler Herren sein. Entweder man dient dem Volke oder Arbeitgeberverbänden und Lobbyisten - beides geht nicht, wenn man halbwegs anständig bleiben will.

Was wird Oswald Metzger nun wohl machen? Denn einen Studienabschluß oder eine Berufsausbildung hat er ja bekanntlich nicht, außer Politik und für Lobbyisten und Arbeitgeber lügen, betrügen, verdrehen und hetzen kann er ja nichts. Logischerweise wird Oswald Metzger nun möglicherweise ein weiteres überflüssiges Buch bei Bertelsmann veröffentlichen. Dadurch wird er sich mittels dümmlich-eindimensionaler Parolen, wie man sie von ihm seit eh und je kennt, wieder in die Talkrunden hochschlafen und wahrscheinlich unmittelbar danach seinen Aufnahmeantrag bei der FDP einreichen - und hoffentlich ein weiteres Mal scheitern oder erst gar nicht aufgenommen. Denn seinen zahlreichen schlechten Taten zum Nachteil des Volkes sollte kein langfristiger Lohn folgen und keine Partei, die wählbar bleiben will, sollte sich solch ein korruptes Schmuddelkind in die eigenen Reihen holen.

Hier noch einmal das NDR-Video über die INSM, in dem auch Oswald Metzger nicht besonders gut wegkommt. Ach ja, vielleicht wird Oswald Metzger ja den Attac-Mitgliedern in der CDU sein Scheitern anlasten. Was für eine alberne, an grandioser Selbstüberschätzung leidende Witzfigur! :lol:

Wie es aussieht, wird das heute ein sehr schöner Tag :mrgreen:

PS: Man kann Oswald Metzger übrigens in seinem sinnlosen Blog beim FOCUS zu seiner verdienten Niederlage gratulieren. Mal sehen, wann er dort wieder seinen üblichen Dummschwatz vom angeblich verkannten Genie samt seiner nicht vorhandenen Größe abfackelt und die Praktikanten der INSM ihre Gefälligkeitskommentare abwichsen.

Die IZA, wie diese Rotte von Wichsern um das zynische menschenverachtende Arschloch Zumwinkel sich nennt, und die auch eng verbunden ist mit dem Haufen namens INSM, der hinter "Du bist Deutschland" und zahlreichen antisozialen und prokapitalistischen Kampagnen steckt, will mit diesen Vorschlägen die öffentliche Debatte weg von den Mindestlöhnen locken. Diesen Markt-über-alles-Deppen geht es darum, daß allein der Markt bestimmen soll, wieviel das Leben eines Menschen wert ist - und ein jeder soll gezwungen werden, seine eigene Haut zu Markte zu tragen und zu nehmen, was man ihm gibt.

Cereal Killer - Die Rückkehr der Faschisten in der Maske der Demokraten

Kommentar:
Die INSM ist nicht für die Du bist Deutschland-Kampagnen verantwortlich, dahinter steckt Bertelsmann. Aber unter dem Strich ist es in der Tat  der gleiche wirtschaftsfaschistische, menschenverachtende Sauhaufen, egal, ob er sich nun INSM, Institut zur Zukunft der Arbeit (IZA), Bertelsmann, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW Köln), Konvent für Deutschland, Frankfurter Zukunftsrat oder Roman Herzog Institut nennt. Und natürlich sind für diese vermögenden Menschenverachter Mindestlöhne und ein menschenwürdiger Sozialstaat Teufelswerk. Dann kann man die Massen ja nicht so schön versklaven und hemmungslos ausbeuten, damit der eigene Arsch immer fetter werden kann, nicht wahr?

Fahrt zur Hölle, Unmenschen!

Sie unterstützen darin vor allem den Transgenialen CSD, der morgen -leider ohne mich- in Kreuzberg startet, sich nicht zuletzt im diesjährigen Motto gegen die Kommerzialisierung des schwul-lesbischen Protestes einsetzt und sich schon in den letzten Jahren als geeignete Plattform schwuler Selbstkritik bewährt hat.

Kritik an der Entwicklung der schwul-lesbischen Szene kommt auch von der grünen Jugend, die eine deutliche Zunahme konservativer oder noch schlimmerer Tendenzen unter den Schwulen und Lesben wahrnimmt. Das ist etwas, was mein derzeitiger Lieblingsgegner Gay West natürlich nicht umkommentiert lassen kann. Nur scheint der gute Mann nicht zu wissen, wo er seine Kritik ansetzen könnte. So betreibt er mit der absurden Frage, ob die Grünen wieder(!) Sex mit Kindern unterstützen eine traurige Selbstdemontage. Auf diese Frage kommt er, weil die grüne Jugend Solidarität mit allen Minderheiten gefordert hat, ohne Pädophile und Neonazis konkret dabei auszunehmen.

Da Herr West ganz offensichtlich von der abwegigen Annahme geleitet wird, dass von ihm erwartet wird links zu sein, möchte ich mich ihm an dieser Stelle mal persönlich zuwenden.

Sehr geehrter Herr West,

da Sie schon mehrfach behauptet haben, dass es in der schwulen Szene eine linke Dominanz gäbe und von Schwulen erwartet würde, sich links von der Mitte zu verorten, möchte ich eins ein für alle mal klarstellen. Niemand der sich bei der politischen Linken engagiert (egal welche Partei ihn beherbergt) und weiss, was linke Politik wirklich ausmacht, glaubt dass schwul-lesbische Politik, wie sie heute gemacht wird, eine grundsätzlich linke Angelegenheit ist. Die Angleichung von Steuersätzen zugunsten Homosexueller kann auch von der FDP vorangetrieben werden. Wahrscheinlich ist dieses Anliegen da sogar besser aufgehoben, da für mich eher die Anpassung der Versteuerung kinderloser Ehepaare an die der Menschen in einer eingetragenen Partnerschaft auf  der Tagesordnung steht. 

Sicherlich konnten offen lebende Schwule, die früher politisch aktiv sein und für die Rechte der Homosexuellen kämpfen wollten das nur in linken Parteien tun. Ehrlich gesagt bin ich froh, dass marktradikale und konservative Schwule sich nicht mehr gezwungen fühlen müssen, bei den Grünen mitzumachen. Gerade von den Neoliberalen haben wir nämlich (noch) genug. Da kann ich auf Ihre Mitarbeit auch gerne verzichten, Herr West.

Wenn man sich Schwule Politiker heutzutage anschaut, kommt man nicht umher zu erkennen, dass die Mehrheit von denen eher Wirtschaftsliberal orientiert sind oder zumindest eine gewisse Gleichgültigkeit an den Tag legen, wenn es um Sozialpolitik geht.

Man kann also durchaus sagen, dass die von Schwulen betriebene Politik heutzutage nicht unbedingt links ist. Und das ist auch durchaus nichts schlimmes, da wir im Zweifelsfalls nicht mehr miteinander gemein haben, als das Geschlecht, mit dem wir Sex haben. Warum sollte ich davon ausgehen, dass es Sie kümmert, dass wir in Deutschland ein massives Armutsproblem haben, nur weil mich das Thema umtreibt.

Die grüne Jugend hat in ihrer Erklärung kritisiert, dass die Schwulenszene immer konservativer wird. Sie haben darin einen anmassenden Alleinvertretungsanspruch erkannt, den ich ehrlich gesagt nicht so sehe. Ich lese aus dieser Erklärung vielmehr, dass die grüne Jugend den allgemeinen Rückschritt in die konservative Ecke kritisiert, der auch vor den Schwulen nicht halt macht.

Selbstverständlich kann die grüne Jugend Kritik an der neokonservativen Agenda üben, ohne konservative Schwule und Lesben aussen vor zu lassen. Ich persönlich glaube nicht, dass jemand einen Immunitätsstatus erhalten sollte nur weil er Schwul ist. Kritik muss auch bei Homos erlaubt sein.

Das gilt vor allem für Schwule, die sich die Assoziationsketten erklärter Schwulenfeinde aneignen und anderen eine Sympathie für die Vergewaltigung von Kindern unterstellen. Wissen Sie, dass von Seiten der CSU der Vorwurf kam, die Grünen wollten den sexuellen Missbrauch fördern als die eine Angleichung des Schutzalters gefordert haben? Gefällt Ihnen das, wenn man Schwule und Kinderficker auf eine Stufe stellt? Glauben Sie nicht, dass man gerade als Schwuler da etwas sensibler sein sollte?

Mit freundlichen Grüssen

Maik

Aktualisierung 1.6.08: Ario hat in seinem Blog einen sehr lesenswerten Text geschrieben, auf den ich gerne hinweisen möchte.

So wollt ich jeden Zweifel beseitigt wissen, dass ich die Verwirklichung einer Wirtschaftsverfassung anstrebe, die immer weitere und breitere Schichten unseres Volkes zu Wohlstand zu führen vermag. Am Ausgangspunkt stand da der Wunsch, über eine breitgeschichtete Massenkaufkraft die alte konservative soziale Struktur endgültig zu überwinden.

Diese überkommene Hierarchie war auf der einen Seite durch eine dünne Oberschicht, welche sich jeden Konsum leisten konnte, wie andererseits durch eine quantitativ sehr breite Unterschicht mit unzureichender Kaufkraft gekennzeichnet. Die Neugestaltung unserer Wirtschaftsordnung musste also die Voraussetzung dafür schaffen, dass dieser einer fortschrittlichen Entwicklung entgegenstehende Zustand und damit zugleich auch endlich das Ressentiment zwischen „arm“ und „reich“ überwunden werden konnten. Ich habe keinerlei Anlaß, weder die materielle noch die sittliche Grundlage meiner Bemühungen mittlerweile zu verleugnen. Sie bestimmt heute wie damals mein Denken und Handeln.

Vergleichen sie diese Aussage einmal mit der Propaganda und dem Wirken der Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM)! Da gibt es exakt Null Schnittmenge, denn die INSM will keine soziale, sondern eine ausschließlich freie, entfesselte Marktwirtschaft ohne soziale Komponenten jenseits der Zwangsarbeit fürs karge Sozialgeld (Workfare). Ludwig Erhard wollte kein Lohndumping auf breiter Front durch Zeitarbeit und andere prekäre Arbeitsverhätnisse. Ludwig Erhard wollte keine Lohnspreizung in dem bedenklichen Ausmaß, wie es heute Fakt ist. Ludwig Erhard wollte nicht, dass der Staat mit Kombilöhnen und Zwangsarbeit (Workfare) den Arbeitgebern noch mehr Zucker in die fetten Hintern bläst. Ludwig Erhard wollte nicht, dass der Kapitalmarkt jeglichen Mehrwert absaugt und alles wirtschaftliche Wirken bestimmt, während die Arbeitnehmer um ihren Anteil an der Wertschöpfung betrogen werden und Reallohnverluste hinnehmen müssen. All das also, was die INSM und deren Mittäter bisher forciert haben und fortwährend bewerben, wollte Ludwig Erhard ausdrücklich nicht! Ich bin mir sicher, Ludwig Erhard würde Martin Kannegiesser, Max A. Höfer und Dieter Rath mit den Eiern an die Wand nageln, wenn er wüßte, wofür sein Name in den Schmutz gezogen wird von ein paar widerlichen Vampiren der Mordwirtschaft.

Da hilft es auch nichts, wenn die INSM aktuell auf einer neuen Website, welche u.a. mal wieder als Link- und Ideologie-Schleuder dient, eine Möchtegern-Community für Projekte anbietet und lächerliche 5.000 Euro "Startfinanzierung" ausschreibt. Das Ganze wird mit dem Slogan Soziale Marktwirtschaft ist toll! beworben und unter der URL SoMaWi-ist-toll.de ins World Wide Web erbrochen. Andererseits zeigt dieses Beispiel sehr schön, was die INSM unter neuer sozialer Marktwirtschaft versteht: Statt öffentlicher Förderung guter und wichtiger Projekte ein paar Almosen für ein Projekt von einem Arbeitgeberverband  der damit vorrangig PR für seine menschenverachtende Agenda betreiben will. Statt einer sozialen Absicherung der allzeitige Druck sich zum Überleben der Arbeitsprostitution hingeben zu müssen. Das ist nicht sozial, sondern durch und durch asozial und menschenverachtend.

Aber wir wissen ja: Asozial ist, wer Armut schafft!

Kampf jetzt!

Interessenten können uns über unsere Privacybox kontaktieren und dort auch gleich bis zu 600 KB als Anhang mitsenden.

=//= Events at Bowl Court and Rampart =//=

## THURSDAY 26TH JUNE

8PM @ Bowl Court
[[ 'the battle of tolmers square' and discussion ]]

We will be screening the 30 minute documentary 'the battle of tolmers square' (see below for details) from 8pm onwards and then discussing how to defend spaces in light of the current situation at Bowl Court. How should the media be used within such situations and what is the best way to gain local support? If you would like to come and get involved in the space then this is the prime opportunity. We have already begun a media campaign, with the Victorian Society issuing a press release last week (http://www.victorian-society.org.uk/) and the Hackney Gazette visiting the space for an article in this weeks paper. However, the aim of this meeting is to form a plan of action for what to do next.

"For seventeen years, Tolmers Square in north London was the focus of a conflict involving tenant's groups, community associations, students, squatters, intellectuals, political parties at both national and local level, and property developers. The dramatic story of that conflict is told by Nick Wates, who describes how Tolmers Square became a national symbol of the fight against property speculation and the need for community involvement in planning." (taken from http://www.nickwates.co.uk/tolmers.htm)

## FRIDAY 27TH JUNE

6PM @ Bowl Court
[[ radical theory reading group ]]

The reading for the next meeting is Chapter 9 'The Masses and the State' from Wilhelm Reich's The Mass Psychology of Fascism.

Download here
www.geocities.com/danknowsall78/Reich_-_The_Mass_Psychology_Of_Fascism.pdf

or as an e-book from here
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3524967/Reich_-_Mass_Psychology_of_Fascism_(1946)
_(PDF_ebook) (you will need to first download MS E-Reader if you don't already have it as well as BitTorrent from the Pirate Bay website).

## SATURDAY 28TH JUNE & 5TH JULY

2PM - 5PM @ rampART
[[ music workshop pilot sessions ]]

This workshop is designed for guitarists in particular, but possibly other instrumentalists also, who already have some working proficiency on their instrument, be they professional, semi-professional or amateur and who feel the need to expand their knowledge of music theory and harmony. We will look at music structures with reference to jazz harmony, which can provide insight into all forms of popular music, visiting the harmonised major scale, chords, ii-iv-i's, some jazz standards, modes and scales.
Contact: Patmo
email: patmosheeran@hotmail.co.uk
Tel: 02077334121
mob: 07908435684

== And events you might be interested in elsewhere ==

## THURSDAY 26TH JUNE

9am - 7pm @ Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, SW1H 9NH
[[ GIVING VOICE TO THE EARTH Conference ]]

Peace Brigades International invites you to Giving Voice to the Earth The Environment and its Defenders under Threat: deforestation, megaprojects and human rights in Latin America, Africa and Asia

Environmental destruction and human rights abuse are inextricably linked. As we face unprecedented global challenges from climate change and loss of biodiversity, the work of environmental human rights defenders is assuming ever greater importance and urgency.

This conference, organised by Peace Brigades International UK, will explore threats to biodiversity presented by deforestation, pollution and mono-crop cultivation and the risks that environmental human rights
defenders face. We will identify the links between these threats and the violation of human rights, as well as the role played by European and other international economic interests.

Local environmental human rights defenders will present specific cases of environmental destruction and human rights violations, and their impact on indigenous groups. The cases will include:

• Palm oil and logging in Colombia
• Mining in Guatemala
• Transnational extractive industries in Papua.

Members of parliament, Academics and International NGOs working in the fields of human rights and the environment will also contribute to the debate.

Programme, further information and registration forms can be obtained by email from: coordinator(at)peacebrigades.org.uk
or available at
http://www.peacebrigades.org.uk/263.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=743

Environmental Human rights conference will explore threats to biodiversity and climate change presented by deforestation, pollution and mono-crop cultivation and the risks that environmental human rights
defenders face. We will identify the links between these threats and the violation of human rights, as well as the role played by European and other international economic interests. Places are very limited so
registration is essential and will be done on a first come basis. Email:
coordinator@peacebrigades.org.uk

NB Guatemalan activist Eloyda Mejia, speaking at the conference, is in Britain until 2 July. Eloyda is the legal representative of the Friends of Lake Izabal, an indigenous organisation fighting a Canadian Nickel
mining company (London-listed BHP Billiton also have shares in the mine). If you would like to meet with her at any other time, please contact Louise Winstanley of PBI on 07920 886874.
________________________________________________

## SATURDAY 28TH JUNE

8PM @ Pullens Centre, 184 Crampton St, SE17

Free Film show: FINALLY GOT THE NEWS- Revolutionary black unions in Detroit, 1970s. Followed by discussion and chat. With speaker Brian Ashton, an ex-car industry shop steward.

FINALLY GOT THE NEWS is a 'forceful, unique documentary that reveals the activities of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers inside and outside theauto factories of Detroit. Through interviews with the
members of the movement, footage shot in the auto plants, and footage of leafleting and picketing actions, the film documents their efforts to build an independent black labor organization that, unlike the UAW, will
respond to worker's problems, such as the assembly line speed-up and inadequate wages faced by both black and white workers in the industry.

Beginning with a historical montage, from the early days of slavery through the subsequent growth and organization of the working class, FINALLY GOT THE NEWS focuses on the crucial role played by the black
worker in the American economy.
Also explored is the educational 'tracking' system for both white and black youth, the role of African American women in the labor force, and relations between white and black workers'.

"A classic! Rather than the lock-stepped, black-bereted, leather-jacketed Panther units of other films, FINALLY shows rather ordinary people becoming very angry with the system. Ideological in the best sense: it is a film about ideas [and] presents a serious strategy for mass working class action... It speaks of a specific time and specific experiences in terms that will remain relevant as long as working people are not able to control their own lives."—Dan Georgakas, for Cineaste

http://www.frif.com/new2003/fin.html
________________________________________________

## TUESDAY 1ST JULY

7PM @ The Church House, Fletcher St (off Cable St) E1
[[ Feeding Frenzy – a Discussion on Food, Fuel and Finance ]]

Mute Magazine invites you to a discussion

If the government is to be believed, we are undergoing a streak of freakily bad luck. First the credit crunch, then astronomical fuel price hikes and now a global food crisis. Could all these by any chance be connected?

Neoliberal policy makers and money-men clearly don't think so, since they are advocating more of the same medicine as a cure - further deregulation of food markets, more restructuring of developing countries
sweetened by aid packages, more biotech and, of course, bank bail-outs to sustain the whole debt-addicted economy. In other words, propping up a system that will continue to force famished populations to grow
export-only crops, to be fuel-intensively shipped to the developed world, to stock supermarket shelves at inflated prices for debt-encumbered consumers, while the famished producers pay through the nose for imported food at prices inflated by the flight of investment from mortgages into basic commodities. A vicious circle indeed.

But how can we best feed the world's swelling population? Is 'food sovereignty' a progressive or reactionary demand? Should biotech and industrial farming methods be embraced as a way of feeding a warming
planet? Have we reached 'Peak Food'? Are biofuels, on balance, helpful or harmful? As food riots break out in Haiti, Cameroon and Bangladesh, and fuel protests by truckers threaten Europe's supply lines, what are
the political possibilities of this conjunction of crises?

Mute magazine will be hosting an open discussion with contributions from: Gareth Dale (author of recent critiques of 'green capitalism' including 'On the Menu or At the Table: Corporations and Climate Change'), James Heartfield (author of Green Capitalism: Manufacturing Scarcity in the Age of Abundance), Helena Paul (co-director of Econexus, http://www.econexus.info/ and long term campaigner against GM and Agrofuels), Graham Burnett (vegan-punk permaculturist and founder of http://spiralseed.org.uk )

Contact:
josie AT metamute.org

Links:
URL
http://www.metamute.org/en/feeding_frenzy_a_discussion_on_food_fuel_and_finance

Flyer:
PDF
http://www.metamute.org/sites/www.metamute.org/files/mute_food_flyer_02cropweb2.pdf
JPG
http://www.metamute.org/sites/www.metamute.org/files/mute_food_flyer_02cropweba_Page_1.jpg
________________________________________________

## THURSDAY 3RD JULY

11AM @ Department for Transport (DfT) 76 Marsham Street, SW1P 4DR
[[ Paper Plane Flash Mob ]]

Tell Ruth Kelly to Stop Airport Expansion:

- Meet 11am, Thursday 3 July, Department for Transport (DfT), 76 Marsham
Street, SW1P 4DR (tube: St James's Park or Westminster)
- 11.03am: Reveal your 'Stop Airport Expansion' t-shirt, if you have one
- 11.05am: launch your 'Stop Airport Expansion' paper planes at the DfT

A third runway and increased flights at Heathrow would destroy local communities, cause misery for tens of thousands of local residents, and help make devastating climate change inevitable. Yet Transport Secretary
Ruth Kelly has refused to visit local authorities or meet with local people who will be affected.

Join us on 3 July to find Ruth Kelly and tell her to Stop Airport Expansion!

We'll be taking the message direct to her doorstep at the Department for Transport. After the mass launch at 11.05am you may also want to take paper planes to Downing Street or Parliament, or anywhere else she may be hiding'!

An A4 paper aeroplane template is available for download at
www.stopairportexpansion.org

Called by the people who brought you the Terminal 5 Flash Mob ...

Ruth Kelly
- e-mail: stopairportexpansion[at]gmail.com
- Homepage: http://www.stopairportexpansion.org
________________________________________________

## FRIDAY 4TH JULY

Subsidiarity & The Other Campaign

There is talk in some circles of calling for an Independence mobilisation, starting on 4th July 2008 with a call for as many regular, decentralised food sharing/ independent local governance meetings as possible, political picnics converging outside eg American embassy, local town halls, ASDA, Tescos, BBC and/or other prominent, politically relevant places, basically wherever people and groups think most appropriate. Ideally throughout the country and even spreading the word overseas, inspiring others to do the same : as a means of building a decentralised coalition in context of Civil Liberties election (here in the UK, in Yorkshire) on 10th July, but also because of the urgent need for a joined up, grassroots democratic movement (hence,
Zapatista-inspired 'Other Campaign') in response to the US inspired neo-liberal superstate that is the EU.

We are thinking to call this, 'subsidiarity' which is/was an original EU principle (now forgotten) which said that any decisions that can be taken at the local level, wherever possible should be.

more-info-later
________________________________________________

## SATURDAY 5TH JULY

The London Fete against the G8
for freedom of movement, the freedom to protest and equal rights for all !

http://londonfete.ucrony.net/

On the 5th of July 2008, people all around the world will protest against the G8 summit 2008 in Japan. The G8 is a co-ordination for the interests of Global Capitalism and the wealthy north who benefit from it.

Globalisation has created huge movements of people to the centres of capitalism. However whilst capital - money and commodities - has been granted ever-expanding freedom of movement, the movement of
workers as migrants is subject to increasingly complex and brutal systems of control.

Militarisation of the borders, raids on communities and work places, the expansion of migrant prisons and deportation centers, restrictive visa regimes and the revival of nationalist fears and hate are all being used
to segregate, divide and weaken the working class. Along with building the border regime, governments restricted the possibilities of assembly, protest and any form of dissent wherever possible.

In Britain today, the role of managing and policing this system to benefit the rich is carried out by the UK Border Agency (formerly known as BIA), an executive agency of the Home Office in the United Kingdom.

Lunar House, a massive twenty-storey office block in Croydon, South London is the headquarters of the UK Border Agency. Just over the street there is Electric House, a reporting centre, where hundreds of asylum
seekers visit everyday from miles away to fulfil their reporting obligations'. They are often arrested on the spot, there are holding facilities ( short-term prisons) where asylum seekers are being kept until they get transferred to an immigration removal centre.

London NoBorders is calling for actions against the UK Border Agency. It is time to join forces, for freedom of movement, the freedom to protest and equal rights for all !

Interessant zu beobachten ist auf jeden Fall die Diskussion und das Diskussionsarchiv zum Eintrag des IZA Bonn in der Wikipedia. Dabei fällt das gleiche Schema auf wie beim Wikipedia-Eintrag über die Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM) und andere neoliberale Verfassungs- und Menschenfeinde: Erst löscht jemand wegen angeblichem Mangel an Neutralität oder angeblicher Privatmeinung Kritik aus dem Eintrag, andere Benutzer stellen diese wieder her. Dann heult der Manipulator aus den Reihen der Lobbygruppen und Propagandainstitute auf der Diskussionsseite wegen angeblichem Vandalismus herum, es werden Vermittlungsausschüsse und Artikel-Sperren eingerichtet, um einen weiteren Edit-War zu verhindern. Unter dem Strich ist so für Wochen und Monate die Kritik zu den betreffenden Organisationen nicht abrufbar.

Tatsächlich führt die IP-Adresse 131.220.115.227, von der aus die Kritik am IZA Bonn gelöscht wurde, über das Deutsche Forschungsnetz (DFN) direkt zum Rechenzentrum der Universität Bonn, an welchem auch das IZA Bonn angebunden sein dürfte. Wie man dem Diskussionsarchiv entnehmen kann, ging die stärkste Agitation gegen den Kritik-Abschnitt von dem Wikipedia-Benutzer Mfallak aus, bei dem es sich sehr, sehr wahrscheinlich um den IZA-Mitarbeiter Mark Fallak handelt:

Aktuell ist hingegen ein Benutzer mit dem Namen Cbarth_student führend bei der Weichspülung des Eintrags und der Verhinderung von Kritik im Eintrag des Forschungsinstituts zur Zukunft der Arbeit (IZA Bonn). Dabei handelt es sich um einen in Krefeld geborenen Studenten an der Uni Bonn, welcher dort Rechtswissenschaften und Volkswirtschaftslehre studiert(e), und mit an Sicherheit grenzender Wahrscheinlichkeit studentische Hilfskraft, Doktorand oder anderweitig über die Uni Bonn mit dem IZA Bonn oder dessen Personal verbandelt ist. So hat er nicht nur verschiedene Edits am Eintrag durchgeführt, sondern auch einen neuen Redirect mit dem Titel Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit angelegt - vermutlich, weil dies eine häufige Bezeichnung des IZA in den Medien geworden ist. Außerdem aktualisierte er folgende Einträge:

• Deutsche Post (Sponsert über die Deutsche Post-Stiftung das IZA)
• Sponsoring (siehe oben)
• Florian Gerster (Policy Fellow des IZA)
• Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität (Kooperation mit dem IZA)
• Universität Bonn (siehe oben)

und erstellte nachfolgende Einträge bei Wikipedia neu:

• Klaus F. Zimmermann (CEO und Direktor des IZA)
• Armin Falk (Forschungsdirektor des IZA)
• Laboratorium für experimentelle Wirtschaftsforschung (Direktor: Armin Falk, siehe oben)
• Zentrum für Europäische Integrationsforschung

Im Großen und Ganzen wurde da vieles an Einträgen erstellt und weichgespült, welche sich mit der Deutschen Post, dem IZA Bonn, dem Personal des IZA und der Universität Bonn beschäftigen. Wir wissen nicht, ob der Benutzer cbarth_student, den wir mittels etwas Recherche und Link auf eine Amazon-Wunschliste als Christoph Barth wiederfinden, direkt für das oder beim IZA arbeitet, ob er in irgendeiner Weise an der Universität Bonn arbeitet oder dort tatsächlich "nur" Student ist. Wer allerdings Kritik im Wikipedia-Eintrag des IZA Bonn als Vandalismus bezeichnet, während Leute wie der IZA-Mitarbeiter Mark Fallak den Vandalismus in der Form durchführen, einfach mal eben jegliche Kritik zu tilgen, zeigt sehr schön, wessen Geistes Kind er ist und dass er vermutlich nicht gerade der Wahrheit, sondern vielmehr der Lüge und des größtmöglichen eigenen Vorteils verpflichtet sein dürfte.

PS: Sicherheitshalber haben wir alle entsprechenden Seiten per Screenshot und als Website gesichert. Löschen wird Euch nicht retten, Ihr Lügenmäuler!

Ursprünglich hatte ich mir vorgenommen einzelne Textpassagen herauszuheben und buchstäblich auseinanderzunehmen. Schließlich entschied ich, mir nicht den Sonntagabend zu vermiesen und mir etwas ehrlicheres zu gönnen:
Die Neujahrsansprache aus dem Jahre [hier die Jahreszahl einsetzen] von Bernd dem Brot.
Zeitlich wirkt eine Neujahrsansprache im Juni deplaziert, aber sie zeigt exemplarisch wie man Köhlers Geschwurbel mit Bernd's Worten zusammengefasst interpretieren Könnte:

Das Leben ist die Hölle in bunt.
Macht Euch keine Illusionen, es bleibt alles wie immer, nur schlimmer. Bleibt in Deckung und haltet immer nach dem nächsten Amboss Ausschau, der Euren Namen trägt.

Bernd das Brot - Die Neujahrsansprache

Direkter Link zum YouTube-Video

Horst Köhler, ein Bundespräsident, den keiner (außer der Wirtschaft) braucht. Er gibt sich bürgernah, ist aber meilenweit von den Sorgen und Nöten des Volks entfernt. Er zählt zu jener Politkaste, die sich in einer Blase isoliert von der Realität zu befinden scheint. Nicht Köhler, nicht Schwan sondern Bernd das Brot for President!

Überlege gerade, ob ich mir einen Wellensittich zulege,...aber Eines ist sicher: Ich bleibe in Deckung!

Es ist klar, dass die INSM diese Gelegenheit nutzen wird, einerseits Medienpräsenz zu bekommen und andererseits weiter den Anschein einer angeblichen Bürgerinitiative zu verbreiten, obwohl sie als Sprachrohr der Arbeitgeberverbände, insbesondere von Gesamtmetall, ausschließlich die Interessen der Wirtschaft vertritt und bereits daran arbeitet, auch dem letzten Rest von Sozialstaat den Todesstoß zu verpassen, um mit dem Zwangsarbeitskonzept des IZA Bonn endlich irgendwann unter den Neusprech-Begriff Workfare noch mehr Gewinne und Renditen auf Kosten der Menschen und der Menschenwürde machen zu können, während die Ausgebeuteten in chinesischer Manier zugrunde gerichtet werden. Wer nicht mehr arbeiten kann und dann auch kein Geld vom Staat mehr bekommt, darf dann nach dem Konzept des INSM-Gesundheitsökonomen Prof. Peter Oberender den Leistungsträgern aka Neuen Asozialen seine Organe verkaufen, damit zumindest seine Familie noch ein wenig länger herumvegetieren kann. Was die INSM fordert und mit ihrer verlogenen Propaganda befördert, ist keine soziale Marktwirtschaft, sondern eine ungebändigte, freie Marktwirtschaft, die auf die Menschen keinerlei Rücksicht mehr nimmt.

Daher halten wir es für angebracht, die INSM-Schiffstour zu sabotieren und dabei auf unsere zahlreichen Leser und Unterstützer zu bauen, in diesem Fall vor allem auf jene aus Berlin:

• Besetzen Sie mit ihren Familien, Freunden und Kollegen das Spreeufer zwischen der Anlegestelle Friedrichstraße und dem Halt an der Moltkebrücke. Bewaffnen Sie sich mit großen Transparenten, faulen Eiern und matschigen Tomaten. Sobald Sie die Spree-Comtess erblicken, auf der die INSM-Ganoven und ihr Sympathisanten-Pack für ihre asoziale Propaganda-Tour durch Berlin schippern, lassen Sie es faule Eier und matschige Tomaten regnen! Wasser- und Stinkbomben und sowie andere Geschosse, die weder den Menschen noch dem Schiff Schaden zufügen, sind natürlich auch möglich. Wichtig ist es, mit Transparenten und Plakaten beide Seiten des Spreeufers zu besetzen, so dass diese bei Foto- und Video-Aufnahmen immer sichtbar sind. Mit Megaphonen und Luftdruckhupen, welche viele auf Grund der EM eh zur Hand haben, kann die neoliberale NSM-Propaganda wunderbar gestört werden.
• Am Halt an der Moltkebrücke sollten sich an allen drei Tagen diverse Gruppierungen zu einer lautstarken Spontan-Demo verabreden und mit Sprechchören und anderen Störaktionen den Menschenfeinden von der INSM die verlogene Show verderben. Am 16.06.2008 könnten sich Studentenvereinigungen dort treffen und sich bei der INSM lautstark für die Studiengebühren und das dümmliche Portal Unicheck.de bedanken. Eine Reihe Studenten, welche den INSM-Köpfen ihre nackten Hinterteile mit einer "netten" Aufschrift entgegenhalten, rundet die Aktion ab. Am 17.06.2008 könnten sich dort beispielsweise Initiativen für den Mindestlohn, das bedingungslose Grundeinkommen, die Überflüssigen und Erwerbsloseninitiativen treffen und demonstrieren.
• Einzelne sollten sich mit Transparenten, Plakaten und Sprechchören auch ruhig unter das INSM-Gesindel mischen, wenn es das Schiff verläßt und so dafür sorgen, dass die Aktion medial nicht ausgeschlachtet werden kann, jegliches Bild- und Video-Material auf Grund von Störungen unbrauchbar wird.
• Melden Sie sich für die Schiffstour an, stellen Sie kritische Fragen zum Hintergrund und zu den Zielen der INSM und sorgen Sie durch Zwischenrufe immer wieder für Tumult.

Sorgen wir gemeinsam dafür, dass die INSM diese Veranstaltung nicht für ihre menschenfeindlichen Lügen und Propaganda ausschlachten kann! In den nächsten 2-3 Tagen folgen noch weitere Artikel zu diesem Thema, u.a. ein offener Brief an Andreas Schleicher, OECD-PISA-Leiter, ob sich dieser bewußt ist, dass die Arbeitgeber und vor allem die INSM die stärksten Protagonisten für die Einführung von Studiengebühren waren. Herr Schleicher, wollen Sie sich wirklich von einem solch verlogenem Abschaum wie der INSM instrumentalisieren lassen?

Wer in der Demokratie schläft, wacht in der Diktatur auf.

Goethe

PS: Hinsichtlich der kürzlichen Anfrage von Hans-Dieter Hey wegen der Nutzung der Mietmaul-Grafik verweisen wir auf die Piratenlizenz: Alles frei verwendbar, Backlink schön, aber kein Muss.

]]> http://insmwatchblog.wordpress.com/?p=343 Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:52:09 +0000 insmwatchblog http://insmwatchblog.wordpress.com/?p=343

Eigenverantwortung bedeutet hier nichts anderes als ein großes Geschäft für Versicherungen und Banken, welche die staatliche Vorsorge als unzureichend und ungenügend diffamieren, um Millionen Menschen in die private Vorsorge zu treiben, um so schließlich Milliarden Euro Gewinne zu machen. Dabei ist die private Vorsorge keineswegs sicherer oder besser als die staatliche.

Zeitgeistlos: Eigenverantwortung - das neue Leitprinzip

wolltT irr die totaaaale aRrrrbeit!?!?!?
unTeer diesemm banNärr geet eß voRrrran!

Der einzig richtige Weg aus dem Dilemma besteht in der flächendeckenden Einführung eines gesetzlichen Mindestlohns zwischen 8 und 10 Euro, den die Arbeitgeber aber verabscheuen wie der Teufel das Weihwasser und deshalb mit Lügen und Demagogie wie der obigen Umfrage und diversen unseriösen Studien ihrer Mietmäuler dagegen Propaganda betreiben.

Im Übrigen ist der Satz

Arbeitslosigkeit ist der Hauptgrund für Armut.

in dem INSM-Artikel vollkommen falsch. Sonst müßten die zahlreichen Spekulanten, Vermieter, Berufserben, die  lebenslangen Zins- und Rendite-Rentner sowie andere vermögende Nichtsleister ja auch von Armut betroffen sein. Der Hauptgrund für Armut ist der Mangel an Geld und der sich daraus ergebende Mangel an Lebensmöglichkeiten inklusive einem Mangel an Bildungschancen. Und dieser Mangel ist dem Lohndumping der Arbeitgeber ebenso geschuldet wie dem jährlichen Mangel an Ausbildungsplätzen, der Einführung von Studiengebühren und der generellen Chancenungleichheit nach Herkunft in Deutschland, welche sich seit der Agenda-Politik von Rot-Grün noch massiv verschärft hat. Zusätzlich steigt die Produktivität durch immer mehr Automatisierung und andere Optimierungen des Produktionsprozesses. Nur die Reallöhne stagnieren seit der Jahrtausendwende auf einem siechenden Niveau, weil die Arbeitgeber der Politik und den Mitarbeitern trotz explodierender Gewinne vorgelogen haben, dass die deutsche Wirtschaft angeblich am Abgrund stünde und Lohnzurückhaltung das Gebot der Stunde sei.

Fakt ist, dass mehr Brutto her muss, dann haben die Menschen auch wieder mehr Geld in der Tasche und auch Staatsausgaben für Investitionen und Sozialleistungen - der Sozialstaat ist in Deutschland im Grundgesetz verankert - können problemlos bewältigt werden. Eine zusätzliche Einführung von angemessen hohen Vermögens- und Erbschaftssteuern sowie eine Besteuerung von Transaktionen, Spekulationen und den Gewinnen daraus (Tobin-Steuer) würde zu einem flutartigen Plus im Staatssäckel führen. Nur leider stecken die korrupten Anführer der großen Korruption Koalition und ohnehin aller etablierten Parteien außer der Linkspartei inzwischen so tief in den fetten Hinterteilen der Arbeitgeberverbände, dass fürs eigene Nachdenken keine Luft mehr da ist.

Mögen die INSM und deren Mietmäuler an ihren Lügen ersticken!

by Stephen Lendman

Naomi Klein is an award-winning Canadian journalist, author, documentary filmmaker and activist. She writes a regular column for The Nation magazine and London Guardian that's syndicated internationally by the New York Times Syndicate that gives people worldwide access to her work but not its own readers at home.

In 2004, she and her husband and co-producer Avi Lewis released their first feature documentary - "The Take." It covered the explosion of activism in the wake of Argentina's 2001 economic crisis. People responded with neighborhood assemblies, barter clubs, mass movements of the unemployed and workers taking over bankrupt companies and reopening them under their own management.

Klein is also the author of three books. Her first was "No Logo - Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies" (2000) that analyzes the destructive forces of globalization. Next came "Fences and Windows - Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate" (2002) covering the global revolt against corporate power.

Her newest book just out is "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" that explodes the myth of "free market" democracy. It shows how neoliberal Washington Consensus fundamentalism dominates the world with America its lead exponent exploiting security threats, terror attacks, economic meltdowns, competing ideologies, tectonic political or economic shifts, and natural disasters to impose its will everywhere. Wars are waged, social services cut, and freedom sacrificed when people are too distracted, cowed or bludgeoned to object. Klein describes a worldwide process of social and economic engineering she calls "disaster capitalism" with torture along for the ride to reinforce the message - no "New World Order" alternatives are tolerated.

"Free market" triumphalism is everywhere - from Canada to Brazil, China to Bulgaria, Russia to South Africa, Vietnam to Iraq. In all cases, the results are the same. People are sacrificed for profits and Margaret Thatcher's dictum applies - "there is no alternative."

"The Shock Doctrine" is a powerful tour de force, four years of on-the-ground research in the making and well worth the wait. In an age of corporatism partnered with corrupted political elites, it's must reading by an author now firmly established as a major intellectual figure on the left and champion of social justice. Naomi Klein is all that and more. Even for those familiar with her topics, the book is stunning, revealing, unforgetable and essential to know. This review will cover a healthy sample of what's in store for readers in the full equisitely written text. It's in seven parts with a concluding section. Each will be discussed below starting with a brief introduction.

Introduction - Blank Is Beautiful: Three Decades of Erasing and Remaking the World (into Hell)

New Orleans, post-Katrina, is a metaphor for an American-style "New World Order" with unfettered capitalism unleashed in its most savage form. Klein quotes Republican congressman Richard Baker telling lobbyists: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it but God did." And New Orleans developer Joseph Canizaro added: "I think we have a clean sheet to start again (and take advantage of) big opportunities." Their scheme is erasing communities and replacing them with upscale condos and other high-profit projects on choice city real estate at the expense of the poor mother nature forced out and government won't allow back.

Enter the "grand guru" of free-wheeling capitalism, then age 93 and in failing health. This was conservative/libertarian economist Milton Friedman's moment that he first articulated in his 1962 book "Capitalism and Freedom." His thesis: "only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When a crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around....our basic function (is) to develop alternatives to existing policies (ones Friedman rejects, and have them ready to roll out when the) the impossible becomes politically inevitable." Klein calls crises "democracy-free zones," and Friedman's thesis "the shock doctrine." For New Orleans it means "permanent reforms" like destroying public housing and issuing vouchers for privatized schools in lieu of rebuilding public ones with government reconstruction funds.

For Friedman, government's sole function is "to protect our freedom both from (outside) enemies....and from our fellow-citizens." It's to "preserve law and order (as well as) enforce private contracts, (and) foster competitive markets." In his view, anything else in public hands is socialism that for "free market" fundamentalists like Friedman is blasphemy.

Until 1973, Friedman's radical doctrine stayed in his classroom, but all that changed on an earlier September 11. Following General Augusto Pinochet's bloody ascent to power, he had a real life laboratory as advisor to the new Chilean dictator. His prescription came to be known as the "Chicago School" revolution of rapid-fire economic transformation he called "shock treatment," now known as "shock therapy." It's an economic version of "destroy(ing) the village (and country) to save it" from the Vietnam era and nearly as harsh.

Millions know its lessons, but Friedman's not their hero. It's central tenets are structurally adjusted mass-privatizations, government deregulation, unrestricted free market access for foreign corporations, and deep cuts in social spending with repressive laws, harsh crackdowns and torture along for the ride to reinforce the core tenet Reaganites call "trickle down" and Brits call "Thatcherism."

Its recipients call it hell, and Klein explains why - in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Russia, the Falklands, Poland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Orleans, Israel, and coming to a neocon-occupied homeland neighborhood near you. It's "disaster capitalism" unleashed, and business is booming. Klein cites insiders saying opportunities are on a par with a thriving "emerging market...."the deals are even better than the dot-com days, and the 'the security bubble' picked up the slack when those earlier bubbles popped."

Reaganomics adherents are today's neoconservatives with the "full force of the US military machine (serving their unfettered) corporate agenda" of greed writ large. Its holy policy trinity is: "elimination of the public sphere, total liberation for corporations and skeletal social spending (if any at all)." But instead of lifting all boats as promised, it's mirror opposite. It creates a powerful ruling corporatist class partnered with corrupted political elites - "with hazy and ever-shifting lines between the two groups." Russia got billionaire "oligarchs," China "the princelings," Chile "the piranhas," and America the Bush-Cheney "Pioneers."

Everywhere, the scheme is the same: huge public wealth transfers to private hands, exploding public debt most often, "an ever-widening chasm between the dazzling rich and disposable poor, and an aggressive nationalism (like George Bush's permanent "war on terrorism" and the world) that justifies bottomless spending on security." "Inside the bubble" is paradise. Outside, however, is hell with "aggressive surveillance, mass incarceration, shrinking civil liberties," a declining standard of living, and repression and torture reinforcing the message to non-believers.

Klein calls the harshness "a metaphor of the shock doctrine's underlying logic." When applied, it induces a state of "deep disorientation," and shock to force targets "to make concessions against their will." The "shock doctrine" works the same way on a mass scale, and the 9/11 experience proved it. It exploded the "familiar world" and created a period of disorientation and regression the Bush administration jumped on abroad and at home. As Klein put it: "Suddenly we found ourselves living in a kind of Year Zero (with) everything we knew of the world before (now) dismissed as 'pre-9/11' thinking." We became a "blank slate, a clean sheet of paper," and the administration did what was impossible before. It's how the "shock doctrine" works: "the original disaster (terror attack, war, hurricane, market meltdown) puts the entire population into a state of collective shock" enabling policy manipulators to move in for the kill to remake the world in their image and get it done before the shock wears off.

Part 1 - Two Doctor Shocks - Torture and Chicago School Fundamentalism

Following a crisis shock, another quickly follows. The corporate piranhas exploit disorientation with economic "shock therapy" along with "police, soldiers and prison interrogators" with torture their method of choice "to build a model country (by) erasing people and then trying to remake them from scratch."

Klein reviews the history of CIA's interest in torture as a way to control the human mind. It began with the Montreal doctor they funded to perform "bizarre experiments on his psychiatric patients (by) keeping them asleep and in isolation for weeks, then administering huge doses of electroshock (plus) experimental (psychedelic LSD and hallucinogen PCP angel dust) drug cocktails."

The experiments were performed at McGill University's Allan Memorial Institute by Dr. Ewen Cameron even though they clearly violated all standards of medical ethics using human guinea pigs without their permission with permanent damage their reward. Cameron believed by blasting the human brain with an array of shocks, he could "unmake and erase faulty minds, then rebuild (on a blank slate) new personalities" cleansed of their previous nature. It was voodoo science, and it failed. His patients were his victims, but CIA gained a wealth of knowledge it now employs with no pangs of conscience or regard for ethics.

Klein traces CIA's interest in mind manipulation to a 1951 trinational meeting of intelligence agencies and academics in Montreal when concern was that Communists could brainwash POWs to control them. That was when the spy agency engaged Canadian researchers to learn how, and one of them was Dr. Donald Hebb, director of psychology at McGill, who was working on the problem. Intelligence agencies were impressed enough with his work to fund classified sensory-deprivation experiments on volunteer McGill students.

They proved intensive isolation interferes with clear thinking enough to make people more receptive to suggestion. They were also "formidable interrogation techniques" amounting to torture that Hebb knew violated medical ethics. He later characterized Cameron's work as "criminally stupid," but CIA got what it wanted - a way to interrogate "resistant sources" in a "new age of precise, refined torture, not the gory, inexact" kind from the Spanish Inquisition or what Nazis and other tyrants often practiced. Cameron's experiments with human guinea pigs built on Hebb's earlier work laying the foundation for CIA's "two-stage psychological torture method" of sensory deprivation followed by sensory overload. University of Wisconsin historian Alfred McCoy in his book, "A Question of Torture" on CIA interrogation, called it "the first real revolution in the cruel science of pain in more than three centuries."

Pre-9/11, these techniques were freely used covertly as any form of abuse or torture violates the Geneva, UN and other statutes prohibiting these practices as well as the US Army's own Uniform Code of Military Justice barring "cruelty" and "oppression" of prisoners. No longer, as "On September 11, 2001, that longtime insistence on plausible deniability went out the window" as well as any claim this nation respects the law and rights of free people everywhere. What once was done sub rosa or by proxy is now condoned and authorized at the highest levels of government on the fraudulent claim of national security to hide the real aim of social control.

Klein notes torture is still technically banned in the US, but only when pain is the "equivalent in intensity to (what accompanies) serious physical injury, such as organ failure." Simply put, anything goes, but it's not put that way. In Iraq, it was thought "shock and awe" would be so stunning, Iraqis "would go into a kind of suspended animation." A second makeover Chicago School fundamentalism shock could then be imposed on a blank post-invasion slate, and bingo, mission accomplished. Klein notes "there was no blank slate, only rubble and shattered, angry people" who were blasted with more shocks when they resisted. Like Cameron and his experiments, "Iraq's shock doctors can destroy, but they can't seem to rebuild," and the same is true wherever these shock doctors show up.

Milton Friedman and the Search for a Laissez-Faire Factory

The epicenter of shock ideology is the University of Chicago Economics Department. It came out of the 1950s "in the thrall" (of a) man on a mission to fundamentally revolutionize his profession," and on that score Milton Friedman succeeded mightily. Friedman, now gone, believed, markets work efficiently and best unfettered of rules, regulations, onerous taxes, trade barriers, entrenched interests, and human interference. Whereas Cameron believed electroshocks could restore natural health, Friedman favored economic shock as extreme and destructive to nations as Cameron and CIA's methods are to human minds.

Friedman taught this voodoo science and believed to the end, all contrary evidence aside, it was perfect and worked. Chicago School fundamentalism developed at a post-war time in the 1950s when leftist ideas supporting worker rights were gaining ground. Where they "promised (workers) freedom from bosses, citizens from dictatorship (and) countries from colonialism," Friedman promised "individual freedom" to choose that appealed to owners of capital who embraced him and his thinking.

It stood in stark contrast to what became known as "developmentalism" or "Third World nationalism" in the post-war developing world. Economists in it favored an "inward-oriented industrialization" strategy to break the cycle of poverty and grow. Like Keynesians and social democrats, they showed it worked in Latin America's Southern Cone with leaders like Juan Peron "put(ting) their ideas into practice with a vengeance (by) pouring public money into infrastructure projects, (providing) local businesses generous subsidies, and keeping out foreign imports with....high tariffs." It brought prosperity to the South and "dark days" for Friedman, his acolytes, and free-wheeling capitalists losing out to social progress.

It sprung corporate America to action by funding a legion of think tank and Chicago School foot soldiers to change the message and fortunes of their businesses. Friedman was their ideological leader preaching public wealth should be in private hands, rules and regulations out the window, accumulation of profits unrestrained, and social welfare programs curtailed or abolished. In short - deregulate, privatize and get government out of the business of everything besides providing security and enforcing contracts. He also believed taxes were onerous and once said he was "in favor of cutting (them) under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible...."

He also said corporations should be exempt from federal taxes claiming what they pay ends up in consumer prices that, in fact, is pure nonsense as every marketing MBA (like this writer) learns straightaway. The fundamental law of pricing is to charge what the market will bear, no more or less. In other words, get all you can but no more than buyers will pay. Soon enough they'd pay plenty in the developing world.

In 1953, the US declared war against "developmentalism" with CIA's first ever coup against Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. Another followed the next year in Guatemala, and in both instances democratically elected leaders were ousted because corporate interests opposed them. It was only the beginning, and Friedman and his "Chicago Boys" soon had a real time laboratory to prove their "capitalist utopia" worked.

Salvador Allende's Popular Unity government electoral victory in 1970 was the opportunity. Three years later he was out giving Friedman the chance he wanted. Klein related the results in what she called "the first Chicago School state" with others to follow. They're all the same with "an unstoppable hurricane of mutually reinforcing destruction and reconstruction, erasure and creation" following the crisis. Next is unfettered economic shock therapy with torture and disappearances awaiting resisters and anyone guilty of bad thinking. Friedman's brave new world was beginning to roll. It's devastation is everywhere including at home.

Part 2 - The First Test - The Bloody Birth of the Counterrevolution

Counterrevolution began 34 years ago in Chile on another September 11 that should have been unimaginable and had to seem surreal. There were tanks in the streets and fighter jets attacking government buildings in a scene all too real and deadly. It played out in Santiago and around Chile and was just the beginning of a long nightmare. It brought General Augusto Pinochet to power (with plenty of CIA help) who called his action "a war," not a coup, and to reinforce his message he made it seem like one. Blood in the streets, the presidential palace in flames, and President Salvador Allende dead ended the most vibrant democracy in the Americas. It was a cakewalk with "the junta's grand battle over by mid-afternoon."

A state of siege was imposed followed by mass arrests, killings and torture in a climate of fear that enveloped the country. Allende supporters were targeted in Chile's "Caravan of Death." Chileans paid dearly, but the Chicago Boys had their moment of triumph, and they were ready. Rolling off the press was their detailed economic manual for the new government called "The Brick." It was a 500 page Chicago School shock therapy wish list. It was "the first Chicago School state," its first "global counterrevolution" victory, and "a genesis of terror" in a brave new world for Chileans.

The economic playbook was right from Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom" that's long on free market triumphalism and void on its effects on real people. It was pure Friedman featuring mass privatizations, deregulation and deep social spending cuts flavored generously with corporate-friendly tax cuts, trade unionist crackdowns, savage repression for non-believers, and an end to Chile's social democratic state Friedman condemned.

Pinochet bought it along with a team of Chicago School alumni called "technos." They embarked on a free market binge with disastrous results. In the first year, inflation hit 375%, thousands of Chileans lost jobs, the country was flooded with cheap imports, local businesses closed and hunger grew along with public and small business discontent in this free market "paradise." In desperation, "it was time to call in the big guns" with Milton Friedman coming to Santiago to reinforce his message that for things to improve they first had to get worse. It was classic shock treatment and Chicago School baloney with Friedman preaching patience and promising an "economic miracle" if his prescription was followed.

Pinochet agreed, and slash and burn followed with visions of paradise at the end of the rainbow. It was pure untested fantasy, and the results showed it. After one year of hardened shock therapy, Chile's economy contracted 15%, unemployment rocketed to 20%, and contrary to Friedman's rosy scenario it lasted for years with no social safety net help for desperate Chileans.

Klein notes Chile today is still cited as a model that free market "Friedmanism" works in spite of the clear evidence it doesn't. Growth did resume a decade later, but only after conditions worsened. It forced Pinochet to reinstate Allende policies like renationalizing privatized companies but not his social democratic agenda. Chileans were left with the shambles. When the economy stabilized and rapid growth resumed in the late 80s, poverty was 45%, but the richest 10% saw their incomes rise by 83%. Even today, Klein notes, Chile remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. It's shock therapy miracle shifted "wealth to the top and shock(ed) much of the middle class out of existence."

It's the way it works everywhere and a glimpse of the future: "an urban bubble of frenetic speculation and dubious accounting fueling superprofits and frantic consumerism, ringed by ghostly factories and rotting infrastructure of a development past; roughly half the population (excluded); out-of-control corruption and cronyism; (decimated) nationally owned small and medium-sized businesses; (mass) transfer of (public) wealth (and resources) to private hands (accompanied by) a huge (shift) of private debts into public hands." Inside the Chilean bubble was paradise. Outside was "The Great Depression." Bubble-benefitters reacted with "junkie logic: Where is the next fix?"

It was first across the border in other Latin American Southern Cone countries where the "counterrevolution spread (and) people vanish(ed)." Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay were targeted with similar results as in Chile under juntas replacing democrats. Chicago School fundamentalism was on a roll, and woe to the non-believers. Nations that were developmentalism models became wastelands with decades of worker gains lost almost overnight. Factories closed, wages fell, unemployment soared, poverty grew severe, dissenters disappeared, and ordinary people suffered to prove what pin-stripped academics knew after Chile went sour. Instead, it was on to the next target.

In them all, the slate was cleansed and terror unleashed, unrestrained by national borders. Former Allende economist and diplomat turned activist Marcos Orlando Letelier became a victim in September, 1976. While living in Washington, he condemned Chile's "economic freedom" for the privileged and paid with his life. Pinochet's DINA secret police killed him and his American colleague, Ronni Moffit, by remote-detonating a bomb planted under his driver's seat. An FBI investigation learned the assassins entered the country under false passports with full CIA knowledge and complicity.

The purging included cleansing wrong ideas and thinkers like legendary left wing Chilean folk singer, Victor Jara. He was seized and taken to Chile's notorious National (killing and torture) Stadium to be reeducated. Soldiers broke his hands so he couldn't play the guitar. Then they shot him 44 times "to make sure he couldn't inspire from....the grave." One culture was being erased and replaced by another. As in Nazi Germany, books were burned, newspapers and magazines shuttered, universities occupied and strikes and political meetings banned. Trade unionists were specially targeted as threats to the new economic order. It's leaders were rounded up, movement members viciously attacked, and "battalions" targeted workers in factories. They were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and disappeared in a sweeping reign of terror designed to crush opposition and wrong-thinking.

In Argentina, Ford Motor Company's local subsidiary was complicit. It helped soldiers and secret police rid unionists from its factories and supplied vehicles as well. Green Ford Falcon sedans became the feared symbol of terror an Argentine playwright called "death-mobiles." Many thousands kidnapped and disappeared rode off in these cars, never to return.

Farmers involved in land reform struggles also were targeted along with anyone with "a vision of society built on values other than pure profit." It affected community worker activists, many church-connected, who wanted social services like health care, public housing and education the state was erasing through shock therapy and mass repression. Klein noted while "policies attempted to excise collectivism from the culture, inside....prisons (the practice was to) excise it from the mind and spirit." The sickness was democratic socialism, the cure pain and suffering. Wrong-thinkers were taught the hard way, and many paid with their lives. Chicago School fundamentalism is harsh medicine. Its grand guru, Milton Friedman, was unrepentant. He called it "freedom" and took his mathematical model miracle to the grave amidst a hail of undeserved eulogies.

In his memoirs before he died, his "blatant revisionism" on Chile was shameful and disturbing. He falsely claimed Pinochet only asked for help in 1975 when, in fact, the Chicago Boys worked with the military before the 1973 coup, and their policies were implemented on Pinochet's first day in power. Friedman also claimed the junta's repressive years didn't undo Chilean democracy. In his view, it opened up "more room for individual initiative and for a private sphere of life (offering a greater) chance of a return to a democratic society." It was classic convoluted Chicago School thinking. It made him famous courtesy of corporate triumphalism, generous funding and an utter disdain for human rights and dignity.

Friedman also used his 1976 Nobel lecture to argue economics was as scientifically accurate and objective as other sciences. He failed to mention its dark side - devastating poverty, unemployment, shuttered factories and mass human misery and deaths in the first nation adopting his ideology on its victimized people. Now it's everywhere and savagely enforced in an age of corporate dominance, wars for profit and neglect of human needs to fund them. That's Friedman's real legacy from the barrel of a gun and called "freedom."

Part 3 - Surviving Democracy

Chicago School dogma became known as Thatcherism in Britain, but its prime minister wasn't an early adherent. Margaret Thatcher thought Chilean shock therapy wasn't possible in a democracy like the UK because voters wouldn't buy it. Three years into her first term, her approval rating was lower than George Bush's. She was in danger of not being reelected and didn't dare risk imposing bitter economic medicine that would sink her chances. That is, until destiny intervened on April 2, 1982 when Argentina invaded the British-held Falkland Islands off its coast that was unimportant to either country except for the political hay to gain from war.

Thatcher jumped at the chance to regain her footing and "went into Churchillian battle mode," even though Argentina's president, General Leopoldo Galtieri, wasn't Adolph Hitler. But defending the British empire was almost as good, and it paid off. Thatcher's political future was at stake. She revived it, more than doubled her approval rating and henceforth was known as the "Iron Lady" that for her was high praise, and she made the most of it.

She launched a "corporatist revolution" based on Chicago School economics she thought impossible earlier. She parlayed her new popularity to a victory against striking coal miners in 1984 with tactics like unleashing 8000 "truncheon-wielding" riot police in a single confrontation. Before the strike ended, thousands of workers were injured, but Thatcher stood firm with a clear message to other unionists. Take what you're offered or get the same medicine.

She didn't stop there, and what followed was a radical economic agenda in a wave of state enterprise privatizations including British Telecom, British Gas, British Airways, British Steel and others in what Klein called "the first mass privatization auction in a Western democracy." It proved Chicago School fundamentalism didn't need repressive dictatorships to advance as long as "Iron Ladies" like Thatcher were around to match the best of them, short of all out tanks in the streets shock therapy, that is. Her eleven and a half years in power proved it, and Britain hasn't been the same since with Labor as committed now as the Tories.

Bolivia was soon targeted as well, but in 1985 was part a democratic wave sweeping the world. It was an election year with two familiar figures facing off for the presidency - former dictator Hugo Banzar and former elected president, Victor Paz Estenssoro. It was close and Banzar thought he won so before final returns were in he named 30 year old Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs to help develop an anti-inflation economic plan for the country.

Sachs was part Keynsian but larger part Chicago School adherent that made for a bad combination. He bought its orthodoxy in softer form by supporting debt relief and generous aid along with the shock therapy he advised Banzar to adopt as the only solution to hyperinflation.

As it turned out, Banzar lost and Paz won, and while no socialist, he was no Chicago School adherent either, or so voters thought. Four days into his term, he charged his emergency economic team to radically restructure the economy using shock therapy with a twist. It was much harsher than Sachs proposed with the entire state-centered structure Paz erected decades earlier dismantled in the first 100 days before the public could react. In its place, food subsidies were ended, price controls lifted, wages frozen, oil prices hiked 300%, deep government spending cuts imposed, unrestricted imports allowed, and state-owned companies downsized as a first step to privatizing them. It cost hundreds of thousands of full-time jobs, pensions and safety net protections. Friedman continued to roll.

The results were predictable. The minimum wage never regained its value, and two years later real wages were down 40% and average per capita income dropped from $845 in 1985 to $789 in 1987. As in other shock therapy countries, a small elite got richer while the great majority of Bolivians lost out with campesinos faring worst. In 1987, they earned on average $140 a year, or less than one-fifth the nation's declining average income.

Bolivian misery gave Sachs star status for the country's "Miracle." It launched his new career and brought him to Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela and Russia later on plus a best-selling book and three-part PBS "success story" series. The only problem was it wasn't true. President Paz had no mandate for shock therapy, and many workers were predictably furious at his betrayal. They went on strike and Paz's response made Margaret Thatcher's earlier action against striking coal miners seem tame by comparison. Tanks rolled in the streets, and riot police raided union halls, a university and factories. Hundreds of arrests followed, including the top 200 union leaders, and oppositional politics was banned. The siege lasted three months during the decisive shock therapy period with more repression and Chicago School medicine later.

It showed shock therapy needs harsh authoritarian rule backing with Bolivia's pin-stripped politicians, economists and bureaucrats administering it, not uniformed soldiers as in Chile. Paz's democratic victory was illusory like others when leaders renege on promises and sacrifice them on the alter of Chicago School orthodoxy.

Argentina was another "textbook case." In the post-Falklands War period, it was burdened with billions in odious debt Washington insisted be serviced and paid. It was far more onerous after the (Paul) "Volker Shock" when the US Federal Reserve Chairman hiked interest rates up to 21% in the early-mid 1980s to fight inflation, so he said. It was painful in the US and disastrous for developing countries turning their debt burdens into crises. New loans were needed to pay off old ones, and the debt spiral was born afflicting nations then and still today. That was the whole idea, or at least one of them.

Argentina, Brazil and other countries had another option they didn't take - defaulting on debt so great it was unrepayable. As Klein put it: "Understandably (new democracies were) unwilling to go to war with Washington (and the international lending agencies it controls so they) had little choice but to play by Washington's rules (and) in the early eighties (they) got a great deal stricter....It was the dawn of the era of 'structural adjustment' - otherwise known as the dictatorship of debt."

In the 1980s, Chicago School economists colonized the IMF and World Bank to advance their corporatist crusade. Economist John Williamson named it "the Washington Consensus" that stuck ever since. It consisted of core economic policies both institutions consider essential for economic health according to their orthodoxy. We know them well: all "state enterprises ....privatized (and) barriers impeding entry of foreign firms....abolished." There was more that together was classic Friedman dogma: privatization, deregulation, unrestricted free trade (never called fair), and deep cuts in government spending except for security.

Indebted developing countries learned shock doctrine 101 the hard way. Getting aid meant accepting Washington Consensus rules - the whole package. So to save their countries, they had to "sell (them) off." Klein calls Argentina the "model student" in the 1990s under leaders like Carlos Menem. Appointing Domingo Cavallo economy minister signaled he bought the corporatist package. But as Klein points out: "Argentina was not unique (and by 1999) Chicago School alumni included more than twenty-five government ministers and more than a dozen central bank presidents from Israel to Costa Rica."

Shock therapy was on a role that in Argentina turned into a textbook case of therapeutically induced disaster. What Time magazine in 1992 called "Menem's Miracle" became Menem's Mirage when the economy collapsed in 2001, and Argentina did the unthinkable with Menem gone and a new president in power. It defaulted on an $805 million debt to the World Bank. It should have ended the neoliberal experiment, but instead it spread. Economic crises fueled it, and when old ones ebbed "even more cataclysmic ones appear(ed): tsunamis, hurricanes, wars and terrorist attacks. Disaster capitalism was taking shape" with shock therapy its tool of choice.

Part 4 - Lost in Transition: Slamming the Door on History

Before the Berlin Wall fell, Lech Walesa became a labor hero in Poland and the West by defying the Moscow-controlled government and getting away with it. Solidarnosc (Solidarity) spread from its Gdansk roots to the country's mines, shipyards and factories and within a year had 10 million members. They won the right to bargain but wanted more. They aspired to take over the state and institute their own alternative economic and political program. It's radical centerpiece was to transform huge state-run companies into worker-run cooperatives so Solidarity members could be empowered in their own "socialized enterprise."

Walesa objected, lost the debate, and he feared what then happened. The Jaruzelski government declared martial law, sent tanks to the streets and rounded up thousands of Solidarity members. By the late 80s, the crackdown subsided, the economy was in free fall, workers again struck and Mikhail Gorbachev's reformist government was in power in Moscow. Solidarity was legalized, a Citizens' Committee Solidarity wing was formed, its members stood in snap elections and won effective control of the government capturing 260 parliamentary seats.

It should have been the best of times, but with the economy in trouble, Poland needed aid including debt relief. With Chicago School alumni running IMF, none was offered except under Washington Consensus rules, take it or leave it. Enter Jeffrey Sach, the shock doc, with an even harsher plan than imposed on Bolivia. It included an immediate end to price controls, slashing subsidies, and privatizing mines, shipyards and factories. It short, it ran directly counter to Solidarity's aim for worker-run industry.

Sachs promised Solidarity Poland could become like France or Germany under his plan. By swallowing shock therapy medicine first, taking the pain, the patient would end up cured and healthy - if he was right. After debate, the verdict was in and the treatment bought with predictable results. Sachs promised "momentary dislocations" but delivered a full-blown depression. Industrial production plummeted 30% after two years of "reforms." Unemployment skyrocketed, and in 1993 hit 25% in some areas. It's still chronic today with recent World Bank figures pegging it at around 20%, the highest in the European Union. For young people, it's even worse with 40% of workers under 24 unemployed.

Most alarming is the number of people in poverty. From a 15% level in 1989, it rose to a startling 59% in 2003. Incredibly, the country, like Chile, is still cited as a free market reform model. It's pure myth, angry Poles know it, but reports in the West ignore them as they do shocked victims everywhere.

They didn't ignore "the shock of Tiananmen Square," but didn't report it accurately either. In the early 1980s, Deng Xiaoping was transforming his country economically while keeping rigid political control including iron-fisted repression when needed. Democracy was nowhere in sight nor is it now. While many of Deng's reforms were successful and popular, others in the late 80s weren't, and it provoked deep anger in the cities by people most affected. Price controls were lifted, corruption and nepotism was rampant, freedom minimal, job security eliminated, unemployment soared, and deep inequalities grew between "winners and losers in the new China."

It came to a head with mass protests in 1989 in Tiananmen Square that Western reports characterized as a clash between old-guard Communist authoritarians and idealistic students wanting western-style democracy. It was pure propaganda. The protests were massive and threatened the government, but democracy wasn't the issue. It was popular discontent from wrenching economic change raising prices, lowering wages, and causing "a crisis of layoffs and unemployment." Protesters weren't against economic reform. They were against the Chicago School version of it, but their efforts were costly.

Deng declared martial law May 20, tanks rolled in the square, indiscriminate shooting took place, and when it ended thousands were dead, many more thousands injured, and still more thousands hunted down, arrested, jailed, some tortured, and hundreds likely executed. Shock therapy rolled in China as in Chile - through the barrel of a gun and raw state terror. Following the crackdown, China opened to foreign investment, joined the WTO, and turned the country into the world's largest low wage sweatshop for Wal-Mart's "Always Low Prices."

For foreign investors and party apparatchiks, it was a win-win arrangement with Klein citing a 2006 study showing 90% of China's billionaires to be Communist Party officials. About 2900 "party scions" (called "the princelings") control $260 billion, and Klein notes the "stark similarity between (China's authoritarian rule) and Chicago School capitalism - a shared willingness to disappear opponents, blank the slate of all resistance and begin anew" using shock and fear to transform countries into free market paradises for the privileged.

The Tragedy of South Africa's "Democracy Born in Chains"

Klein quotes Nelson Mandela in January, 1990 (two weeks before he was freed) in a note to his supporters from prison saying: "The nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly industries is the policy of the ANC (and changing) our views....is inconceivable. Black economic empowerment is a goal we fully support and encourage, but in our situation state control of certain sectors of the economy is unavoidable." That belief became ANC policy in 1955 in its Freedom Charter. The liberation struggle wasn't just about a political system but an economic one as well. White workers in mines earned 10 times more than blacks, and large industrialists worked with the military to enforce order and disappear dissenters.

Once apartheid ended, a new way was possible, and Mandela seemed poised to lead it. The ANC had "a unique opportunity to reject the free market orthodoxy of the day" and choose a "third path between Communism and capitalism." ANC candidates swept the 1994 elections and Mandela became president at a time South Africa surpassed Brazil as the most unequal society in the world. Negotiations were held with the ruling National Party, and a peaceful handover was achieved but not without "prevent(ing) South Africa's apartheid-era rulers from wreaking havoc on their way out the door."

Negotiations took place on two parallel tracks - political and economic. Mandela and his chief negotiator, Cyril Ramaphosa, "won on almost every count" politically. But along side it, economic negotiations were held with the country's current president, Thabo Mbeki, in charge with the outcome in the end far different. With ANC leaders preoccupied with controlling Parliament, the former white supremacist government and industrialists were determined to safeguard their wealth, and they succeeded by assuring Washington Consensus policies would be instituted when political power changed hands.

ANC economists and lawyers were outfoxed or outgunned by the opposition, IMF, World Bank, GATT and power of big capital against inexperienced politicians and technocrats who ended up losers. Black officials controlled the government, but discovered the real power was elsewhere. As Klein put it: "The bottom line was that South Africa was free but simultaneously captured." The leadership mistakenly thought once firmly in power they could undo earlier made transition compromises.

They couldn't or didn't for the same reasons other developing countries accept free market rules. Adopt them or be punished by the market as Mandela learned when he was freed. The South African stock market collapsed in panic, and the country's currency (the rand) dropped by 10%. He acknowledged the problem later on saying it's "impossible for countries....to decide economic policy without regard to the likely response of these markets." It's too bad he didn't know how Hugo Chavez managed after 1999 (oil aside). He achieved what Mandela reneged on, and Venezuela's economy is booming. Had he and ANC officials stood their ground early on, South Africa (with its mineral riches) might have done the same thing - had a growth economy in a socially democratic state and a model for its neighbors.

They didn't, black South Africans lost out, Mandela's legacy is tainted, and a key factor was current president Thabo Mbeki. He spent spent years studying in exile in England during the apartheid years during which time "he was breathing in the fumes of Thatcherism." He became the ANC's free market tutor, believed in market fundamentalism, and its prescription was "growth and more growth." It meant neoliberal shock therapy with the full Friedman package Mbeki supported. He later professed: "Just call me a Thatcherite," and Mandela told journalist John Pilger the same thing in retirement saying: "....you can call it Thatcherite but, for this country, privatization is the fundamental polic