Interesting…please email that to the editors and if the letter was as you say, I believe they would restore it.

Unfortunately the prior poster argument are fallacious. While the Internet is currently open it may not remain that way. Take a look at the history of radio. The Telecommunication Act of 1996 was the start of the privatization of the Internet and the Internet itself was NOT develop to serve the public but is an artifact of the Cold War.

What the prior poster ignores is that working class is divided and split and lacks solidarity. Unbridled “greed” benefits the ruling class and as resource become difficult to obtain will lead to barbarism that also benefits the powerful.

Right now from my perspective racism, Zionism, and identity politics maintain division and distrust much less ignorance and other media distractions. However there are some bright spots. Right now the resistance by other countries resisting U.S. (and Israeli) aggression provides hope. The trends in Latin America also provides hope.

There is an arrogance within Marxism that the workers from the predominately white countries would lead the world to socialism. Apparently during this epoch it is not so. I think the trend is that the rest of the world will lead the west and white countries toward a better way and just way to organize economies cooperatively and democratically.

If man identifies with the soul, and the spiritual side of man is catered to, then institutions will no longer be designed to encourage exploitation of others. Institutions will then be in line with man’s real nature, of spiritual beings, to serve the entire mankind.

I disagree with Klien’s “revelations”, “there are three forces that can defeat capitalism: the organized working class, the politics of marxism and the principles of solidarity.”

The working class is indeed the exploited class but it is also dependent on capitalism. Marxism has already proven to be a failure. Even China is embracing capitalism. Solidarity of a group can be both used and abused. Solidarity of a group does not inherently mean that it is for the good of other groups.

“Defeating” capitalism need not be a goal. After all, it has brought unparalleled benefits to man. It is just the unbridled greed of capitalism that needs to be tempered.

Mass media, controlled by capitalism, won’t organize man to temper capitalism. It has been doing just the opposite. But, in the new age of information, an uncontrolled and free media, like the internet, can. Maybe, the internet will, indeed, become the independent media that a majority of people will utilize to get organized in, on a world-wide basis, to usher in a new age of enlightenment that will help man to identify with man’s inherently spiritual nature, to eliminate and resolve conflicts caused by material or economic disparities.

Plus I have an additional reservation or two of my own.

Klein repeatedly indulges in historical superficiality and oversimplifications, both of which alert the reader to her lack of specific knowledge or her lack of a concern for it. For example, on page 58 of The Shock Doctrine, Klein writes: “In 1953….when large portions of the globe were turning to Stalinism and Maoism…” Now, if Klein is referring just to the USSR and China, Stalin was dead and so the statement is meaningless; if she is referring to the “large” portions of the world outside of the USSR and China, the statement is patently false. Another example is on page 56, where Klein characterizes Milton Freidman as “a brilliant mathematician.” In fact, the hallmark of Freidman’s brilliance (if there ever was one) could only have been his Nobel Prize, and it was for Economics. There is no Nobel Prize for Mathematics; the Economics Nobel has long been a source of controversy if not outright embarrassment to the Swedes and to the world; and no Economics Nobel Prize has ever gone to a brilliant mathematician.

Still, I have great admiration for The Shock Doctrine, and I was enchanted by the author’s prose as well a by her astounding synthesis of so many elements of a truly radical critique of contemporary capitalism. We have sorely lacked such a critique.

If anyone is trying to find humanity in a system which meant to deal with material objects, then humanity will become nothing more than an object. The answer cannot lie in how we buy and sell, but in moral principles about how we do everything in life, including buying and selling. Self worth cannot come from how much money we make or how much we produce for the company - self worth cannot be measured in money.

If America and other capitalist or communist countries steal and kill for money, we cannot blame the economic system for it. What book on economics or business says “Thou shalt kill for profit!”? If you want to counter the ill effects of capitalism - get religion.