Naomi Klein’s brilliant book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise. Of Disaster Capitalism  (2007) documented a systemic pattern of wealthy interests and corporations exploiting major crises to advance radical, free-market policies that would be impossible to implement under normal democratic conditions. She calls it “Disaster Capitalism” and it is operating in full force in America today. Milton Friedman, the godfather of neoliberalism, in his 1982 book, Capitalism and Freedom, said "Only a crisis-actual or perceived-produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the action that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe is our basic function, to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes[...]

This morning, the breathless surprise of the morning hosts  of MSNBC apparently discovering the “fusion” between the Tech-bros and Washington political elites made me want to run a yellow pencil through my eye. Imagine the central fact of our political system advanced as a surprising event; as if no one had ever noticed that amassing and disbursing of money is the central feature of our entire political system. It was dispiriting. The Oligarchs have the money, social media and AI, and have been operating with impunity since the beginning, so why is it surprising that they have dedicated their fortunes and prestige to purchasing power from the general store in Washington? Even more disheartening is the apparently[...]