The book argues that the free market policies of Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics have risen to prominence in countries such as Chile under Pinochet, Russia under Yeltsin, the United States (for example in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina), and the privatization of Iraq's economy under the Coalition Provisional Authority not because they were democratically popular, but because they were pushed through while the citizens of these countries were in shock from disasters or upheavals. It is also claimed that these shocks are in some cases, such as the Falklands war, created with the intention of being able to push through these unpopular reforms in the wake of the crisis.

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I haven't gotten around to reading Naomi Klein's book, but I have seen her on teevee. I offer the above excerpt from "Wikipedia" because it struck me that the Gummint's haste to Run to the Rescue seemed to conform to her analysis.

Martin Gale's straw man criticism that Glenn is recommending the alternative-- that Gummint stand around with its thumb up its ass, "do nothing", and let the nation go to Hell in a handbasket-- is patently bogus; no more need be said about it. It's as puerile as Shooter's typically goofy predilection for perpetually coughing up wrongheaded opinions-- to wit, that the Gummint's response will not, and is not intended to, serve the interests of the kleptocrats and moneyed interests, but is altruistically designed to secure, and reassure, the Larry Lunchbuckets and Susie Soccermoms out there whose economic futures indeed rest on a knife-edge. Please!

In fact, this "solution" of providing gamblers' insurance to finiancial institutions at the taxpayer's expense, and perhaps throwing a bone or two to the ordinary citizens crushed by debt to deflect criticism and encourage the credulous, strikes me as exactly the kind of fait accompli created by a bipartisan coalition of political leaders in collusion with the financial elite, the ugly and debilitating long-term effects of which will pass unseen or unheeded in the heightened anxiety and hysteria of the moment.

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On a lesser note, another personal anecdotal reminiscence: many moons ago, when I was newly promoted to a position that included becoming a regional trainer, I attended a week-long intense train-the-trainer session to implement a new computerized processing system. I was accompanied by a few co-workers who'd been on the regional staff for years, but I was the rookie.

The Trainer-Trainer was suitably zealous and actually inspiring; he had designed the training package himself, and provided hitherto-unseen professional resources in the form of comprehensive manuals, guides, training outlines, etc. He drilled into us that it was our responsibility to ensure that the training in our regions was conducted in accordance with these standards.

I was so young! I returned to my office gung-ho, since the training was scheduled to begin immediately. When I was informed that there would only be three terminals available at the first office, far short of the number required for the specified trainee-to-terminal ratio, I explained earnestly to my supervisor that this Would Not Do, and asked what I would have to do to correct this deficiency.

She liked me, and pitied me. She took me aside and explained, in a nutshell, that things were never going to work out as the Trainer-Trainer proposed. The significance of this is that it was the first of many occasions during my tenure that she used the term "purist" to characterize the Trainer-Trainer's expectations. In succeeding months, I was to hear her gentle admonition against being a "purist" whenever we became involved in anything hopelessly cockeyed, backasswards, and contrary to reason, ethics, and standards of quality.

It was a good lesson. I eventually came to see that any time someone used the code word "purist", it was a lame rhetorical gimmick to champion mediocrity, and put the best face on something that was outright wrong, deplorable, or hopelessly inadequate.

So if Glenn is indeed a "purist", in my view this is very much to his credit.

Crimestop - Orwell's definition: "The faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. In short....protective stupidity."

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Crimestop, which certainly facilitates, or is a precursor to doublethink, is most readily achieved by those not encumbered with self-awareness.

Morrissey's post is a real knee-slapper, all right!

OK, I read that cartoon, and what you're obviously failing to take into account is...

... is...

Well, hell-- there must be something you're obviously failing to take into account!

There must be!

I don't know if Elephantman and Shooter ever slither out from under Greenwald's bridge to comment over here, but if they do, you'll soon have your comeuppance!