Shock as an organizing principle is not just the semantic trope I originally took it for. As if to punctuate the release of this book, and to demonstrate its point, we were treated to video footage of six fat rent-a-cops tackling a Florida student, handcuffing and practically sitting on him before — and then Tasering him repeatedly, with a US Senator and upwards of a hundred fellow students passively watching on while he screamed out in pain. All for the thoughtcrime of reading a book and having the temerity to refer to it in public and raise the same issues. The book in his hand? Greg Palast’s Armed Madhouse.

Both Klein and Palast stick to what is documented, letting the neocons and neolibs hang themselves with their own words.

So…why read both books? They’re complementary.

I would recommend the skeptic read Armed Madhouse first. It offers detailed analysis focussed on a smaller number of issues. He leads the reader through detailed analysis of original document after original interview after original document, demonstrating absolutely monumental frauds committed by the current administration. Demonstrated is the self-dealing and profiteering of multinational corporations off the backs of the poor and disenfranchised — Black voter fraud victims in Florida in Ohio, Katrina victims New Orleans, debt victims in Latin America and war victims in Baghdad.

The remedy Palast offers is Information and Analysis. Better oversight, better auditing, better press coverage — a more vigilant and empowered civil service, if you will — can prevent these frauds in the future.

Klein’s book is more than a synthesis of primary research such as Palast’s. It is a narrative of a longer period of history, and employs the unifying theme — shock — to paint a rather more disturbing picture that goes beyond mere profit-seeking.

For companies to profiteer in times of war and disaster is nothing new. For power elites to utilize times of war and disaster as opportunities to expand their powers is nothing new. However, in Klein’s narrative, we see the same cast(e) of characters using the economic theory of the free markets, the economic reality of the IMF and the World Bank to bludgeon population after population, people after people, country after country, family after family, into submission. Time and time again, where people organize themselves into unions, democracies or cooperatives — these efforts are suppressed, with violence and even torture where deemed “necessary.” The causal connect between the grab for money and power by international elites on one hand, and the long-term brutal physical, psychological, social, political and economic harm done to the people on the other is conveniently whitewashed in the narratives presented by the Mainstream Media.

The remedy Klein offers is Knowledge and Wisdom. If we know what is happening, we can respond more wisely. It builds on Palast’s remedy of raw Information and Analysis.

Obviously, both remedies are necessary — without Information and Analysis, we have neither Knowledge nor Wisdom; and without the Wise use of Knowledge, the only effect of the Information and Analysis is to Shock us, and set us up for more Shock.

Ask Andrew Meyer. He had the Information. He followed the Analysis. And he was shocked, over and over. The first shock — I know, because I read the same book — were the scandals described in Armed Madhouse. The second shock was the realization that he could be arrested for political speech in America. His third shock was being physically tackled and cuffed by six fat rent-a-cops in his own college auditorium. And, as if all this was not enough, he was physically shocked, tasered over and over again in public, not as a warning to him (he’d already been arrested) but as a warning to everyone else in the room: torture by proxy. The mainstream media has compounded this further by ridiculing the man while sweeping under the carpet the “mysterious yellow book” and the questions it posed.

Little did they know an even more incendiary indictment of this very approach to dissent was being published even as they shocked Andrew Meyer with a Taser.

While the US MSM dodged reporting on the release of Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine that day–six fat rent-a-cops in Florida proceeded to prove her very point on every level. Disturbing but…priceless.

What we take away from this is the realization that we must be yes, as clever as foxes — but also as wise as wolves and as innocent as lambs. Which I first heard, paradoxically enough, at my University of Chicago convocation.

Henry Kissinger continues to advise the Bush administration. …

I wonder, what’s the penalty Colin Powell might face for lying to the world at the U.N.

This is what happens when the top ruling elite free themselves from any restraint whatsoever on their behavior.

Perhaps this is what Little Boots meant when he said, “They hate us for our freedom”?

But, it’s not their Freedom, it’s what they’re doing with it — torture, murder, theft, blackmail, etc.

Someone like George Washington or FDR had tremendous “freedom” and power when they first went into office and yet they used that to do great good. Obviously Shrub isn’t one of the greats.

marymccurnin @ 8

It was released to scare the crap out of all of us.

…
… the evolution of torture techniques by US government. There are several components but what struck me is that sensory deprivation is the most insidious and damaging, corroborating this book’s findings, most insidious because the technique leaves no evidence. …

Re: sensory deprivation torture

The CIA Torture Manual could be a blank book.

In fact, it should be a blank book and torture should never ever be done by Americans.

And don’t kid yourself that a lot of people in the military wouldn’t fire either. They don’t think much of DFHs either, and they are very used to doing what they’re told.

The military might check things, but if so that will be a question of various command level decisions – which is why the Republicans have been choosing generals very carefully.

Economies can work for ordinary people. It’s not that damn hard to do.