[Highwayman]

Originally Posted by Army_of_One

Wow...that was most assuredly an objective and unbiased video...lol...

That’s an understatement Army. It looks like Wordy has been sucking down the Kool-Aid with his Dayquil. This Shock Doctrine has been a big hit with the far left Kool-Aid blogs since it came out last month.

Fred Kaplan, Slate's "War Stories" columnist, was the Boston Globe's Moscow bureau chief from 1992-95.

...Finally, in October 1993, facing a revolt from embittered parliamentarians, Yeltsin dissolved the legislature; the rebels and many rowdy friends occupied the building. Yeltsin mobilized the army to shell the place, forcing surrender. Again, he had his reasons. The revolt was led by an assortment of Communist retreads, outright fascists, and simple hooligans.

(Naomi Klein's depiction of the conflict as a clash between Chicago-style capitalists and honorable, fledgling democrats is ludicrous. The day before Yeltsin opened fire, I was one of many reporters who spent an eerie afternoon in the parliament building, talking with its armed, black-booted, and stinking-drunk occupiers. Believe me—and Klein should, since she quotes one of my Globe reports in describing the soldiers shelling the building the next morning—there were no democrats among that lot. Nor, by this time, was Yeltsin a Milton Friedmanite, if he had ever been.)....

The historical roots of Vladimir Putin's power play. - By Fred Kaplan - Slate Magazine

Mr. (Tyler) Cowen is professor of economics at George Mason University and author of "Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist."

Ms. Klein's rhetoric is ridiculous....

Rarely are the simplest facts, many of which complicate Ms. Klein's presentation, given their proper due....

But the reader will search in vain for an intelligent discussion of any of these points. What the reader will find is a series of fabricated claims, such as the suggestion that Margaret Thatcher created the Falkland Islands crisis to crush the unions and foist unfettered capitalism upon an unwilling British public....

If nothing else, Ms. Klein's book provides an interesting litmus test as to who is willing to condemn its shoddy reasoning. In the New York Times, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz defended the book: "Klein is not an academic and cannot be judged as one." So nonacademics get a pass on sloppy thinking, false "facts," and emotional appeals?....

Shock Jock - October 3, 2007 - The New York Sun