I didn't much care for the past few Friday's worth of pop culture questions on the Onion AV Club Blog but this week's question I liked. This week they asked:
If you could make a single book, film, or album required material to graduate from high school, what would it be?
I'd make all the high schoolers read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Ms. Klein, a current imaginary celebrity girlfriend, lays out the case for why Milton Friedman's philosophy of the free market uber alles has been a disaster for all of us the world over. It shows just how destructive the influence of the US has been in trying to implement it's favored brand of capitalism on steroids. And even though the book is unrelentingly downbeat until the very last chapter, it needs to be read over and over again until the facts sink in that unrestrained capitalism is not a good thing and that there is no such thing as a free market. Welfare is part of our existence, whether it's welfare for the poorest among us or welfare for corporations in the form of tax cuts and Ms. Klein's books shows us exactly why we need to keep the welfare for the poor and do away with welfare for the wealthy multi national corporations.
7 comments:
I would make "And The Band Played On" required reading. The book shocking lays out exactly how the Religious Right, and conservatives politicized HIV/AIDS in the eighties. Everyone should read this book.
I tried reading it Rick but it made me too sad. I'll go back and finish it one day.
Both Shock Doctrine and Band Played On should be required reading, along with Fast Food Nation (though that's just a bonus book compared to the critically needed other two).
Go Naomi!
I can't believe you left this book off your list.
Hey, I did that too!
Since you beat me by hours I apologize for copying you.
I vote for "Watchmen."
Amen, Dr. Monkety Muck.
There is a special circle of hell for Uncle Miltie.
If I believed in Hell, that is.
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