Customer comments on this selection.
 Real democracy is always demanded, never granted
This book contains superb comments on strategies, policies and mass demonstrations against the actual way of the world. It poses the right questions (who holds power? who exercises it? who disguises it?) and the right answers (people before profits).
The way of the world
For Naomi Klein, the world is dominated by transnational corporations and investors, who control governments. These governments respond to the needs of the former, not of the people who elected them: affordable housing, medicines, clean water, clean land, basic food, education, sustainable energy sources and independent scientific research.
As someone in Prague said, `communism and capitalism have something in common. They both centralize power in the hands of a few.' Globalization and free trade are corporate-driven. The wealth liberated by them is stuck at the top. For the rest, there is wage stagnation, erosion of basic services, of freedom and civil liberties.
Strategies
Resistance to biased free trade and its globalization should not occur within a big unified movement, a coordinated centralization, because it would in the shortest of time being `incorporated by special interests'. Small units of activists, independent groups should focus on simple, crucial issues. Only those can be effective.
Policies
The policies should focus on the application of universal human rights, real democracy, labor and ecological rights and records, civil liberties, freedom of speech (internet) and independent research (e.g., Frankenstein food).
The IMF(ired) and the World Bank should fiercely be attacked or their doctrine, which takes power away from communities, give it to a central government, who gives it to the corporations through privatization (V.Shiva).
Another target should be the WTO, which dead seriously makes trade-related intellectual property rights its focus point in the face of billions of hungry people.
This extremely hard-hitting book (`for Kamikaze Capitalists, terrorism is just another opportunity to leverage') is a must read for all those wanting to save the planet and mankind.
 ...
More for the person already familiar with the movement, IMO. Great collection of speeches and essays though. I ran through it pretty quick.
Frightfully enlightening
Early last year I added myself to the Naomi Klein fan club - unfortunately I did not discover her sooner.
Since then I've read many of her books, checked out some web sites and seen her interviewed by Charlie Rose.
What a welcome phenomenon to the world of intellectual stimulus. Inteligent, focussed, clear, consistent, beautiful...
As I dwell in marketing, branding and creative consulting and coaching, Naomi Klein challenges my focus when I look into the mirror - a welcome discomfort to check my integrity.
 Que?
Social Democratic-Liberal rubbish. From a family of professional activists herself, Klein has become a jet-setting "anti-globalisation" politician, though she disagrees with the term "anti-globalisation." Instead, she calls for a lefist soft internationalism:
"When protesters shout about the evils of globalization, most are not calling for a return to narrow nationalism but for the borders of globalization to be expanded, for trade to be linked to labour rights, environmental protection and democracy."
Hmm... So, like, capitalism without the nasty stuff? Like a good left-liberal, Klein not only defends "good" trade from "bad" trade, but also talks about"labour rights" along with a plethora of other "concerns" of protesters, along with saving the trees, whales, cute little bunnies, etc. In fact, the "labour rights" rhetoric is on a par with "animal rights" (!) rhetoric. And anti-racism. Save some exotic butterfly, oh and while you're at it, heck, let's save those poor, helpless peasants and proles. Them too! Activists demand victims to save just as they demand wrongs to right.
Ok, ok, I don't like activists - in psychological terms, their constant need for activity, which manifests as something approaching a nervous disorder, could perhaps be described what the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich called "orgastic impotency." And in fact, Klein recognises that "demonstrations themselves aren't a movement" and takes on board the criticism that the anti-globalisation movement has turned into "McProtest." No, Miss Klein wants to build a movement out of the messy wreck of single-issue activism that is called the "anti-corporate" movement. She asks, "...how do you hold a protest against abstract economic ideas without sounding hideously strident or all over the map?" It has, of course, been tried - e.g. the Campaign Against Capitalism in London in 1999, and hilarity and disillusionment with activism has followed.
So once this whole "anti-corporate" circus has moved on, what of the workers of the world? I suggest we all turn elsewhere. Instead of being victims to be screwed-over by business, or being "saved" by activists, working people need to organise for themselves. For those in America, Australia, Great Britain, Australia, Germany, and France: check out the syndicalist union the Industrial Workers of the World (iww.org).
 Interesting but scattered read
Fences and Windows is an interesting read but much of its content seems both reactionary and propagandic. There is little coverage of the actual 'meat' to the issue of globalization. Instead this book gives the reader little snippets of information (ie: Some really interesting protester was arrested) which lack much intellectual value. Overall, the book is an interesting read but provides little additional information to the globalization discourse.
|
