HeIsIamJoseph wrote "The other notorious premise is that Sadaam(sic) had no WMD - shall we ask the Kurds?"

So is that why Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the 2003 invasion, went to Iraq to shake Sadaaaaaam's hand (see http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/)?

Stop wasting my time, you fool.

Thanks, cacofonix, I did mean "Orwellian" and not "Orwelling".

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I also need to correct another error, where I have mistakenly reversed the meaning I meant to convey. I should have written:

"I have yet to find a HOSTILE critique Naomi Klein, which, DOES NOT ATTEMPT to put words into her mouth in order to portray her as illogical and driven by ideology rather than the evidence, instead of quoting her directly."

(I should add that there are sympathetic critiques of Naomi Klein, from people who generally agree with her, which don't attempt to misrepresent her. An example is the article "Why is Naomi Klein uncritical of mass immigration to the First World?" at http://candobetter.org/node/686)

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To deal with another of the ever growing list of logical leaps in Paul.L's posts:

Note the sleight of hand in Paul.L's case about privatisation. He demanded evidence of public opposition to privatisation, with which any person informed about the issue would have already been familiar. When I produced it, the argument changes.

The fact that there are no mass movements today demanding, as an example, the renationalisation of the Commonwealth Bank somehow absolves Paul Keating's despicable act of fully privatising the Commonwealth Bank against a specific election commitment not to in 1993.

Paul.L, don't assume that such political movements won't emerge, and don't assume that they won't also demand that those who have profited at our expense from the plunder of our publicly owned resources be made to reimburse us for the expenses incurred.

Of course, we will know better, when this occurs, to expect, of those who support privatisation today, to support democratic principles of democracy, decency and honesty any more than they do today.

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BTW, if anyone thought that the Howard Government had stooped as low as it was possible to stoop in this country, check out the latest antics of Iemma and Costa, who having prevented a full debate in Parliamant having put the NSW taxpayers through $500,000 expense in recalling Parliament, are now attempting to achieve privatisation through the back door at http://candobetter.org/NswElectricity

Dagget,

Oh you poor deluded man

You say >> “What you are trying to do, Paul.L, is throw in a few isolated facts which superficially appear to contradict Klein's case, whilst avoiding directly attacking Klein's words.”

What absolute rubbish. The central tenet of the book, which I addressed in my last post, is that economic liberals require shock tactics to implement their agendas because ordinary voters would otherwise never accept them. This is clearly and obviously a highly contentious and in most cases completely flawed argument. Klein is an ideological zealot pushing a hypothesis that she will make any situation fit.

BTW, You can pretend that the London Review of Books or the Guardian are misquoting her but it really won’t wash.

I can’t even tell what it is you are trying to show by quoting p70 of Kleins book. Whatever, the idea that you can quote a source to prove the veracity of the claims of the same source is so obviously flawed I am flabergasted.

You say >> “In 1973, having made no headway whatsoever in winning electoral support for their program in Latin America, Milton Friedman's Chicago Boys backed a number of bloody military coups.

This is patently false. Especially regarding Argentina. As for Chile, as I pointed out previously the coup was carried out by staunch anti-communists not radical economic liberals. In fact the air force blocked pro-market reforms in social policy until 1979. The reality was that military officials were in charge of the economy at first. They were often corporatist and paternalist and opposed the Chicago Boys’ ideas about radical reforms. It wasn’t until runaway inflation took hold that Pinochet threw his weight behind liberalization and gave civilians ministerial positions. Their success in the fight against inflation impressed Pinochet, so they were given a larger role.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp102.pdf

Whatever Leteliers words, there is NO evidence that Friedman ever supported such actions. The advice on liberalizing the economy was the same advice Friedman gave to the Soviet Union, China, and Yugoslavia. That didn't make him a communist supporter either

TBC

cont,

If Klein produces copious evidence of Friedman colluding with Pinochet, lets see it. Because it is utter rubbish. Friedman never worked as an adviser and never accepted a penny from the Chilean regime. He even turned down two honorary degrees from Chilean universities ... because he thought it could be interpreted as a support for the regime. However, he was in Chile for six days in March 1975 to give public lectures, invited by a private foundation. When he was there he also met once with Pinochet for around 45 minutes, and wrote him one letter afterwards, arguing for a plan to end hyperinflation and liberalize the economy. http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp102.pdf

Friedman strongly believed that economic liberalism could lead to political liberalization and democracy. In Chile's case that has been the end result with Chile evolving into one of the strongest economies in South America. A real sucess story.

Klein ignores the overwhelming evidence that poverty and unemployment are lowest in countries with the most economic freedom. In the freest fifth of countries, poverty according to the United Nations is 15.7 percent, and in the rest of the world it is 29.8 percent. Unemployment in the freest quintile is 5.2 percent, which is less than half of what it is in the rest of the world. In the least economically free quintile, filled with the kinds of restrictions on private property, businesses, and trade that Klein claims are ways of helping the people against the powerful, poverty is 37.4 percent and unemployment is 13 percent
http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp102.pdf

BTW, Are you sincerely attempting to suggest that the USSR was not intimately involved in the spreading of international communism?

You rather bizarrely point to Rumsfledt's meeting with Saddam in 1983 as a response to Iamjoseph undeniable statement regarding Hussein, WMD’s and his murder of the Kurdsish villagers in Halabja in 1988. Don’t waste our time. Just because Rumsfeldt went to Iraq doesn’t make him complicit in Saddams attacks on his own people 5 years later. Nixon visited China in 1972, does that make him a communist?

"So is that why Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the 2003 invasion, went to Iraq to shake Sadaaaaaam's hand"

What does that mean - if it seeks to infer something? These were not countries without any interaction, but it had nothing to do with what transpired. This is the kind of escapism made of America backing the Talibans against the cold war encroachment of communism - that the Taliban took to terrorism and radical Islamism after that war is not consequential. No one anticipated the radical terror outcome - this was based purely on fanatical religious doctrines.

Here, America must be hailed for confronting Communism - while the Islamist Regimes should be taken to task for producing the Taliban, and sponsoring heinous doctrines across the global thread of Madarasas: the regimes are not innocent here, and are responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people. What happened in Bali and India also belongs in the bosom of the Regimes for its source.

The finger here can only point to the simmering religious war which emerged, subsequent to Regimes seeking to deflect their own self-centred goals elsewhere. On no account can this factor be deflected, diminished or made secnd to anything else. Would you hold your government innocent and blame someone else, if it teaches its peoples its a blessing to kill off infidels - glorifying suicide bombers with bill boards in every street corner, with rewards of money and paradise ahead - I'm sure you would'nt? However, there has been only cowardice in addressing and speaking out against the issue of mass murder via religious beliefs - not a single voice from the UN thus far.

These are fanatical religious doctrines - not political or commercial effects. The deflection from the real ground zero is a mark of blind deflection too - thus this terrible conflict will go on and spread and become larger.

My point is that secondary and far removed factors should not cloud the main factor here. It is a global syndrome, spreading over all and unrelated borders today - and guess why!

I guess I will have to leave it to others to spot the flaws in the latest hysterical responses by Paul.L and IamJoseph until I can get around to explaining them myself.

In the meantime, some may be interested in the discussion in response to John Quiggin's article at http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2008/09/02/oil-and-war/#comments