Alan Greenspan and Naomi Klein: One is Prophetic, One is Pathetic

[Joanne98]

New Books By Alan Greenspan and Naomi Klein: One is Prophetic, One is Pathetic

Arianna Huffington
Tue Sep 25, 10:22 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20070926/cm_huffpost/065860

A fascinating dispute on modern economics -- and the dominant role it plays in our politics - is currently taking place in America's bookstores.

On one side is Alan Greenspan, whose The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World offers his usual free market uber alles philosophy, while attempting to rehabilitate his tattered image (which is worth about as much as the U.S. dollar these days).

On the other side is Naomi Klein, whose The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism offers an alternative economic history of the last 30 years and, using the war in Iraq as a mind-blowing example, pulls the curtain back on free market myths and exposes the forces that are really driving our economy.

Klein's book is powerful and prophetic. Greenspan's is pitiful and pathetic.

Yet it is Greenspan's 500-page memoir that been getting all the attention, as almost no traditional media outlet has been able to resist what Josh Marshall has aptly dubbed "The Greenspan Embarrassment Tour."

Greenspan's book is another in the growing pile penned by folks who lent their integrity to buttress the Bush presidency but who now, in horrified hindsight, want it back.

Now that it's clear what an unsound strategy investing in George Bush turned out to be, Greenspan wants us to know he was skeptical all along. Imagine his shock when he found out that in the Bush White House the "political operation was far more dominant" and that "little value was placed on rigorous economic policy debate or the weighing of long-term consequences." Yes, who could have imagined that sort of thing happening in a White House run by Karl Rove?

Nor did the former Fed Chair mean for his pro-tax cut testimony in 2001 to be seen as, well, pro-tax cuts. It turns out he was just really concerned about the federal deficit drying up, and thought that, surely, Bush would institute triggers should the tax cuts cause the budget to go into deficit.

When that didn't happen, Greenspan says he was disappointed, but, then, what could he really do? He knew the policies were bad, but he was just the Chairman of the Fed. Who would ever pay attention to lil ol' Alan Greenspan?

He also wants us to know that he advised Bush against the GOP's "out-of-control" spending and that he thinks the Republicans "deserved to lose." Well, thanks, but that and two bucks will get you a British pound.

Greenspan's "I was against it, even when I acted like I was for it" attempt at the irrational exhumation of his reputation is laughable but hasn't stopped the book from getting massive attention.

Meanwhile, the book that should be in the spotlight is The Shock Doctrine.

It's a brilliant dissection of what Naomi Klein calls "disaster capitalism," an economic philosophy born half a century ago at the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman. It holds that the best time to institute radical free-market policies is in the aftermath of a massive social crisis, such as a terrorist attack, a war, or a natural disaster like Katrina.

Klein shows how the crony capitalists running the Bush administration saw post-invasion Iraq as the perfect proving ground for all their pet free-market policies. The fantasy was that a privitazied and corporatized Iraq would become a free-market utopia that would spread the gospel of the market throughout the Middle East. Democracy would reign, and Halliburton and Bechtel would stand supreme.

And we know how well that turned out.

Klein's writing on the subject helped inspire John Cusack to create a stinging new satiric film called War, Inc. The pair recently sat down for a lively and insightful conversation on The Shock Doctrine, Iraq, the burgeoning new economy that has sprung up around the war on terror, and Baghdad's Green Zone, which Klein calls "a heavily armed Carnival Cruise ship parked in a sea of despair." To watch the video of this conversation click here.

And to read a transcript of Klein giving Greenspan all he can handle -- and then some -- on Democracy Now, click here. (Of special note is Klein taking hold of Greenspan's headline-grabbing claim that the war in Iraq was about making sure the flow of the world's oil wasn't interrupted, and asking, "Are you aware that, according to the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions, it is illegal for one country to invade another over its natural resources?")

Greenspan is a lifelong devotee of Ayn Rand, whose books The Virtue of Selfishness and Atlas Shrugged are the bibles of free-marketeers. I actually loved them myself. When I was 11. I grew out of them, but Greenspan never did.

And, as any self-respecting fan of Rand knows, the guiding principle of her work is rational self-interest. The problem is, what's in the self-interest of the CEO of Halliburton is most likely not in the self-interest of your average American.

In any case, Greenspan may not have always followed the "rational" part, but he's clearly nailed the "self-interest" part. It was in his narrow self-interest to cheerlead for Bush in 2001, so he did it. Now the country -- and most of the world -- has turned on Bush, and Greenspan sees it is in his self-interest to distance himself from Bush.

His mentor would be proud.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20070926/cm_huffpost/065860

[pnorman]

1. I just checked, and Naomi Klein's book is available at Audible.com

I just added it to the shopping cart. Alan Greenspan's "Age of Flaulence" is also available there, but I think I'll pass on that one.

pnorman

[Joanne98]

2. lol

[pnorman]

5. I wrote:

"Alan Greenspan's "Age of Flaulence" is also available there, but I think I'll pass on that one."

I guess I shoulda written: ".. but I think I'll pass gas on that one"
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Actually, I may consider that Greenspan book, although probably not in Audible format. It's also available in e-text.The download price is almost the same as the paper version, but I can not only load it into my PDAs or read it on the monitor, but I can use the search function --- incomparably better than any index. Also, I've grown a lot less judgmental in my advanced years. Although still a Chomsky-socialist (aka: anarchist), I'll listen to anything with an open and un-hostile mind. I draw the line of course at unprincipled LIARS.

pnorman

[Joanne98]

3. NYT shows how important Naomi Klein's book is by slamming it twice!

http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2007/09/nyt-targets-naomi-klein.html

In a sign of just how important Naomi Klein's new book is, the New York Times has enlisted not one but two reviewers to slam The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism. In the first four years under Bully Boy, a book review got a huge amount of attention online. But many seemed to miss the point buried deep in it. I know the reviewer and called to ask how, buried in the review, was an opinion that contrasted with everything else. ___ maintained (and still does) that the New York Times rewrote it. So possibly reviewers were rewritten or asked to rewrite? That would certainly explain the overheated opening to Joseph E. Stiglitz in tomorrow's paper. However what explains the lack of disclosure on the part of Stiglitz (a mental midget in the best of times)? Or is it supposed to be a known that he not only worked at the World Bank but was an economic advisor to Bill Clinton? Considering Klein's accurate and stinging critiques of Clinton and the World Bank, that's not the sort of thing that can go undisclosed. Unless you are the New York Times whose ass was saved by big business about a century ago when they purchased the paper's independence.

The demented Stiglitz wants to structure his rebuttal around Klein's early chapter on "a rogue C.I.A. scientist". First off, he wasn't a CIA scientist. He was not in the Agency itself. He did contract work. Second of all, he wasn't a lone rogue. There were many others (some of whom get noted) but Stiglitz plays dumb because that's the only pose he's convincing at.

Little Tommy Redburn pops up in today's Times to do the hatchet job. Well why not? When you're an economic reporter for the paper and your initials aren't "G.M." you clearly have an abundance of time as demonstrated by your late to the party work on Enron (shoddy even when it started). In what can only be read as projection on Redburn's part, he writes, "But her argument constantly overreaches, because her goal is not really to tame capitalism so much as to taunt it." Her goal is to inform. No doubt the economics desk at the paper spends hour pondering whether to "tame" or "taunt," but Klein's just attempting to get the information out.
A goal the paper might share were it not for going out of the new business during the turn of the 20th century. The reformer minded paper can't grasp that because their own reformation process always starts with distortions to 'sway' the public.

Little Tommy then contradicts himself at the end by projecting another goal onto Klein (in opposition to his earlier one) and fails to grasp that he hasn't turned in a book review (or even report), he's turned in telling analysis of himself. It also demonstrates his own tiny intellect ('intellect' may be overly generous) when he insists Klein is a conspiracy theorist. Even Sunday's review doesn't go that far in distorting: "Some readers may see Klein's findings as evidence of a giant conspiracy, a conclusion she explicitly disavows. It's not the conspiracies that wreck the world but the series of wrong turns, failed policies, and little and big unfairnesses that add up."

Some community members have noted the strong push Klein's received from Amy Goodman and Arianna Huffington's site while recieving very little from The Nation. File it under KvH's aversion to war resisters (Klein is the child of a war resister) and KvH's aversion to women (this is the magazine that elected to run something like 3.8 piece by men for every single piece by a woman in the first six months of this year). It's an important book and the proof is in the fact that the paper of no reputable record elects to run not one but two hatchet jobs on The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism. The publisher should note that on the softcover edition. As for the Times, to quote Donna Summer, they're just cats without claws. If the Times had it to do over, they'd portray Karl Marx as a conspiracy theorist as well.
http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2007/09/nyt-targets-naomi-klein.html

[Joanne98]

4. Klein's book is no 15 on Amazon..Traitorspan's is no 1...

[pnorman]

6. Here's that Amazon list:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/ref=pd_dp_ts_b_1/104-1562466-1319948 She's now #25, still not bad for a contrarian voice. "The Age of Flatulence" is #1 there. I see "The Looming Tower" there too. I have that in Audible format, and I just finished listening to it last night. Excellent listen.

pnorman