The Shock Doctrine I am reading this at the moment, and saw there was a documentary on E4 about Naomi Klein's book on last night, anyone else watch / (read) it?
interesting stuff
link for the doccumentary here:
The Shock Doctrine - 4oD - Channel 4
In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.
At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters -- to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets.
Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism – the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock – did not begin with September 11, 2001. The book traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today. New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, “shock and awe” warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.
The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas through our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
Swine Flu Vaccine I fear this pig flu stuff has been massively overblown and the WHO and Government (Media included) have made a panic over nothing.
I have had swine flu albeit a mild case, just felt like a bad cold.
I won't be having this vaccine as i fear it'll be more harm than good, I even had this view before this latest health scares (about the vaccine)
Even if it (H1N1) mutates into something nasty then this vaccine won't protect against it, The vaccine is surely there just to placate the worriers of this country and appease the media into thinking the govt is actually doing something about this virus.
Won't it be useless to everybody who has already had the virus? It'll probably turn into a 'I am Legend' scenario! ;)
So that said will any of you going to try and have the jab? :wink:
Police ‘Assaulted’ the Bystander Who Died During G20 Protests The man who died during last week's G20 protests was "assaulted" by riot police shortly before he suffered a heart attack, according to witness statements received by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Investigators are examining a series of corroborative accounts that allege Ian Tomlinson, 47, was a victim of police violence in the moments before he collapsed near the Bank of England in the City of London last Wednesday evening. Three witnesses have told the Observer that Mr Tomlinson was attacked violently as he made his way home from work at a nearby newsagents. One claims he was struck on the head with a baton.
Photographer Anna Branthwaite said: "I can remember seeing Ian Tomlinson. He was rushed from behind by a riot officer with a helmet and shield two or three minutes before he collapsed." Branthwaite, an experienced press photographer, has made a statement to the IPCC.
Another independent statement supports allegations of police violence. Amiri Howe, 24, recalled seeing Mr Tomlinson being hit "near the head" with a police baton. Howe took one of a sequence of photographs that show a clearly dazed Mr Tomlinson being helped by a bystander.
A female protester, who does not want to be named but has given her testimony to the IPCC, said she saw a man she later recognised as Tomlinson being pushed aggressively from behind by officers. "I saw a man violently propelled forward, as though he'd been flung by the arm, and fall forward on his head.
"He hit the top front area of his head on the pavement. I noticed his fall particularly because it struck me as a horrifically forceful push by a policeman and an especially hard fall; it made me wince."
Mr Tomlinson, a married man who lived alone in a bail hostel, was not taking part in the protests. Initially, his death was attributed by a police post mortem to natural causes. A City of London police statement said: "[He] suffered a sudden heart attack while on his way home from work."
But this version of events was challenged after witnesses recognised the dead man from photographs that were published on Friday.
An IPCC statement was due to be released the same day and is understood to have portrayed the death as a tragic accident. However, the statement's release was postponed as the complaints body received information that police officers may have been more involved in events than previously thought. An IPCC spokesman said yesterday that in light of new statements it was "assessing" the information it had received before deciding whether to launch a full investigation.
Part of the commission's inquiries will involve the examination of CCTV footage from the area.
Liberal Democrat MP David Howarth said: "Eventually there will have to be a full inquest with a jury. It is a possibility this death was at police hands."
Police 'assaulted' bystander who died during G20 protests | World news | The Observer12
IL : TV presenter hangs himself in jail after career fails just like a real life darker version of a Alan Partridge episode - I always thought fame was as addictive a drug as heroin..
Israel's former top TV entertainer has hanged himself in jail - bringing a dramatic end to a saga of faded stardom and violence.
Dudu Topaz, 62, was known in the past as "the king of TV ratings".
He had hosted a variety show so popular that homes across the country went dark after he told viewers they should turn off their lights because flying saucers were about to appear.
But Topaz, an actor-comedian, was stripped of his prime time slot five years ago when his ratings slumped.
He pitched ideas for a comeback to two television executives and an agent last year. But, when they turned him down, he hired thugs who beat them up.Israel's 'King Of TV' Hangs Himself In Jail - Yahoo! News UK
Check this out- just proves how fucked up America is Okay was just reading the guardian online and came across this story
Obama fights back as bid to reform US healthcare stalls | World news | The Observer
It is basically about how Obama is trying to implement health care reform so milliions of Americans can health care, which is amazing when you think the NHS for its faults is free and something we take for granted....
....but even more fucked up are some of the tactics used by the Private health care industry to sabotage his plans, in case you didn't read it here are some highlights
Scores of "town hall" public meetings held by Democratic politicians in recent days have been disrupted by Republican supporters or protesters linked to groups funded by the healthcare industry. Some meetings have been cancelled out of a fear of violence. In Missouri six people were arrested at one event. A group of supporters even hung an effigy of a Democratic congressman outside his office; another Democrat has received death threats.
What the fuck??? who hangs an effigy because they believe poor people must not have health care, and appartently there is proof that the cunts doing this are card carrying republicans
Though Republican leaders and other conservatives have claimed the protests are a genuine outburst of anti-healthcare reform feeling, there have been instances of activists being caught red-handed....
.....One woman who protested at a public meeting held by Wisconsin congressman Steve Kagen, a Democrat, had said she was "just a mom" but turned out to be a former senior Republican party official. "They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems," said Washington Post columnist Steven
Pearlstein.
and the fucking cunt who helped fan the flames, yeah its that porn star wanabee, Sarah 'i am stupid cunt' Palin, according to the Guardian
Sarah Palin, the Republican's former vice-presidential candidate, raised the temperature in the debate by declaring Obama's plans "downright evil" and accusing him of introducing a care rationing system that could threaten her own mentally handicapped child.
"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down's syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide… whether they are worthy of healthcare," she wrote on her Facebook page.
also found this youtube response completly mocking the one who is a twat- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fab0cN8LsyI&feature=popular
A book about Russia russia is a country that really interests me in a dark way, from secret killings to the backstabbing spy underworld, the end of the soviet union, the wars with chechnya, all of it - the complicated dark history really intrigues me.
the problem is i dont really know much. i've read almost all of wiki, articles etc. but what i'd love is a really good book coverin the history of USSR/Russia, the politics and the KGB situation etc. - the whole lot really
can anyone recommend any?
US : Movie director John Hughes dies at 59 Don't you forget about me....
The US film director and writer, John Hughes, who created some of the most famous comedies of the 1980s and 1990s, has died at the age of 59.
The director died after a heart attack in New York, his spokeswoman said.
Hughes was the director of such successful films as Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Breakfast Club creator dies at 59
Tories get Norwhich North Was to be expected really - Tories have gained the seat from Labour.
Disappointing result for the Greens - fifth behind UKIP.
Although Norwhich North apparently includes rural areas, which unsurprisingly are stronghold Tory.
I think we really need proportionate representation - first-past-the-post discourages people from voting for smaller parties.
Ah dear. Looks like an almost inevitable Conservative win next general election. Thinking about it makes me want to down lots of whisky and mumble about capitalism down the pub.
Holeydel, you are The Weakest Link I filled out an application form to compete on The Weakest Link (the idea is to give me Ma' a mild cardiac once she sees me on it as she watches the programme all the time) and when I was completing the form I was being a right sarcastic little bugger. Answering questions like 'Do you have any skills or talents' I'd say I can draw a mean picture of any scene from the movie Jaws - and displayed was an effort of a shark eating a stick man that could have been drawn by a 5 year old.
Anyroad, they called me the other day and now I have an audition lined up for the 21st raaa
They want to see what I'm like in front iof the camera and how I perform in a mock round of the game where there's some chick impersonating Anne throwing abuse at me :mad_curse123
Mexican Flu Threat? Anyone seen this? Should we be worried? What are all your views, for anyone who doesn't know what i'm talking about here's a link to peruse,
BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Warnings as swine virus spreads
Plus a worldwide view of possible and infected countries.12…67
Truth about Torture!!! Worth a read........
"The last torture warrant in England was issued in 1641. Enraged by the mistreatment of religious dissenters and other enemies of King Charles I, parliament resolved to abolish the Star Chamber. The Habeas Corpus Act, passed that year, was to end forever what the lawmakers described as the "great and manifold mischeifes and inconveniencies" of that tribunal, which had "beene found to be an intollerable burthen to the subjects".
Today, however, there is mounting evidence that torture is still regarded by some agents of the British state as a useful and legitimate investigative tool. There is evidence too that in the post-9/11 world, government officials have been prepared to look the other way while British citizens, and others, have been tortured in secret prisons around the world. It is also clear that an official policy, devised to govern British intelligence officers while interrogating people held overseas, resulted in people being tortured.
The Guardian has established that Tony Blair, when prime minister, was aware of the existence of this policy. What he knew of its terrible consequences is less clear: he has repeatedly been asked, in a series of letters from the Guardian, what he believed to have happened to those who were subjected to the policy, but he has repeatedly failed to answer the question. There is a growing suspicion that Blair could not have been alone, and that other very senior figures in government may have been aware of the existence of Britain's secret interrogation policy. What did David Blunkett and Jack Straw, the ministers responsible for MI5 and MI6 at the time, know about the policy and its consequences for people detained in the so-called war on terror? They too have declined to say, stating that it is the British government's policy not to condone torture, but that they cannot comment further because of a number of forthcoming court cases.
Ian Cobain on the truth about torture | Politics | The Guardian
What do we reckon, a needed interrogatory tool or a breach of human rights!!!
Rave my (sweet)ass…fukin Daily Mail!!! Ok the kids involved in this are pretty stupid yeh. This is just a lads party that got out of hand.......Mail seriously winds me up!!!
Village hall wrecked as teenager holds illegal rave under guise of 'father's 50th birthday party' | Mail Online
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