monday reads

The age of disaster capitalism is an extract from Naomi Klein's new book The Shock Doctrine


Tom Engelhardt - "Progress" by the Numbers


...a briefing chart prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency says what Gen. David Petraeus won't.


Like millions of others in the world’s poorest countries, she is destined to die in pain. She cannot get the drug she needs — one that is cheap, effective, perfectly legal for medical uses under treaties signed by virtually every country, made in large quantities, and has been around since Hippocrates praised its source, the opium poppy. She cannot get morphine.


"When you have to deal with the VA (Veterans Affairs) or TRICARE (the federal health insurance program), you feel beaten down," Schick said. "You are a number, and you feel like a number. It's a total, total beat-down."