Fighting America’s Corporate Coup D’Etat

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/fighting-americas-corporate-coup-detat

Amy Goodman: Rallies for workers’ rights are spreading across the country. In Michigan, over a thousand people rallied at the State Capitol in Lansing to oppose a measure allowing the breaking of labor contracts by placing schools and districts under emergency management. In a scene reminiscent of Wisconsin, hundreds of demonstrators packed the Capitol Rotunda chanting slogans. Protests were also held against anti-union bills Tuesday in Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Florida and Tennessee.

Meanwhile, in Idaho, the state legislature has given final approval to a measure restricting the collective bargaining of public school teachers. The bill would limit teachers’ collective bargaining to salaries and benefits. It also ends teacher tenure, limits teacher contracts to one year, and removes seniority as a factor in determining layoffs.

As a wave of anti-union bills are introduced across the country in the wake of the Great Recession, many analysts are picking up on the theory that award-winning journalist and author Naomi Klein first argued in her bestselling book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. In it, she reveals how those in power use times of crisis to push through undemocratic, radical, free market economic policies.

Nobel Prize-winning economist, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, recently referenced the book in his column called "Shock Doctrine, U.S.A." He wrote, quote, "The story of the privatization-obsessed Coalition Provisional Authority was the centerpiece of Naomi Klein’s best-selling book'The Shock Doctrine, which argued that it was part of a broader pattern. From Chile in the 1970s onward, she suggested, right-wing ideologues have exploited crises to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises, and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society.

More at the link --

[Snoutport]

1. I'm half way through...this is really good stuff!

thank you for sharing this!

[socialist_n_TN]

2. Halfway through "The Shock Doctrine?" If so...........

I agree, it's good stuff! It should be required reading for every American. There's also a movie made from the book and it's pretty good too. Of course the movie is not as detailed (it's a movie after all :)), but it IS good. "The People's History of the United States" should ALSO be required reading.

IMO, "The Shock Doctrine" is probably the MOST important bood that's been written since the 80s anyway. It certainly was for me.

[AllyCat]

3. This is a great article. I really want to read her book.

[socialist_n_TN]

4. READ THE BOOK! I can't stress this enough...........

:) READ THE BOOK! Watch the movie too, but READ THE BOOK! Did I mention, READ THE BOOK! :)