from The Guardian
It's worth remembering that it was under Bill Clinton that the progressive movements in the west began to turn our attention to systems again: corporate globalisation, even--gasp--capitalism and colonialism. We began to understand modern empire not as the purview of a single nation, no matter how powerful, but a global system of interlocking states, international institutions and corporations, an understanding that allowed us to build global networks in response, from the World Social Forum to Indymedia.
- Naomi Klein
1 comment:
I saw Naomi Klein on Bill Moyers NOW the year before last, and I thought she seemed really smart. So I went to the library and checked out her book No Logo. (I'm not an active reader at all, so this was Sheryl going out on an adventuresome limb.) The beginning of her book was blatantly manipulating facts to make her points, so I didn't stay on that limb for long.
Like she started her book out talking about poor people in country X, who only make 15 cents a day or whatever. Blah, blah, blah.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that if the cost of living in country X was the same as the US, then that person would be dead (not bad off or starving.) So to give an exchange rate amount without any standard of comparison about cost of living is just plain dishonest.
I'm not saying that american corporations aren't doing bad things or exploiting the exchange rates to profit off people's poverty, but I don't have time for people like Ms. Klein. She is smart enough to abuse facts and not at all adverse to doing so.
Have you read anything by Arundhati Roy? I think she also has problems with corporate power. I haven't read any of her books, but I have enjoyed the interviews I've seen her in.
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