Click here to access Klein's excerpt from her recently published book by the above title, posted on Democracy Now!.
I have to admit that I was very excited earlier this summer to learn of Klein's new book by the above title. Most critics of culture and politics avoid using the term "capitalism", and hence my excitement that one prominent as Klein was going to point a finger at this system. I then pre-ordered the book which I expect to receive today. However, after reading this quite extensive excerpt, I am very discouraged. I really should know better than to be deluded by liberals such as Klein. Permit me to digress a bit to explain how many left-liberals function before I launch into a criticism of Klein's treatment of capitalism.
You see, the left-liberal spectrum in the US consists of people who for various reasons refuse to cross "red lines" drawn by the directors of ruling class media. The red lines consist of questioning the authenticity of ruling class media coverage about events such as the many assassinations (the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, etc), 9/11, the Boston Bombing, and now the sudden appearance of ISIS. Such people range from academics like Noam Chomsky who I believe respects these red lines in order to have opportunities to speak on various campuses and be published in left-liberal media outlets. Regarding others, there is much reason to believe that they receive funding from ruling class sources via non-profit foundations to respect such red lines. This I believe to be true of Democracy Now!.
Democracy Now! has been cited as one media outlet among many that have received ruling class foundation money as reported by Edward Ulrich in his article "Media Outlets Such as 'Democracy Now!' are Establishment Controlled News Sources". Stuart Bramhall and others have reported on the history of the CIA and other government agencies
infiltrating news organizations to disseminate false information up
until Church Committee
investigations in 1975, after which foundations took over to launder such funding in order to influence alternative media that might pose too critical a threat to media coverage controlled by the ruling One Percent.
This type of non-profit funding mainly functions to limit what left media outlets cover and how
they cover controversial topics. This would explain why
the popular left-wing media program "Democracy Now!" has always refused
to interview knowledgeable people about evidence that puts in doubt the
official reports about 9/11, the Boston Bombing, and other terrorist
incidents.
Okay, now back to Naomi Klein and her provocative title of her new book
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. Based on the
extensive quote in this post, I am led to the conclusion
that she is functioning in a "damage control" mode. I believe that she is doing so because there are increasing numbers of left critics who are questioning the system of capitalism and examining its weaknesses. I think this is especially true due to the glaring fact of growing inequality pointed out by such well-established academic people as Thomas Piketty in his widely reviewed and commented-on book Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
It's clear from my reading of the extensive excerpt that she wants to divert attention away from the way capitalism actually functions to the much safer and narrower ground of "deregulated" capitalism. Hence, it encourages people to look only at the system in terms of its not functioning properly, and therefore to promote (futile) efforts to reform it and make it work properly. Read the article and see how often she refers to "deregulated capitalism". I counted four. And, of course, the timing of the release of book is perfect coming just before the expected huge protests at the People’s Climate March in New York City and across the globe that are expected to point fingers at capitalism.
