Friedman’s Economic Holocaust

Chicago-style Capitalism
free-market corporation exploitation
not compatible with democracy
one or the other must give way
more recently it’s democracy
disappearing
giving way to unfettered
unregulated
laissez faire gangster-capitalism

in the wake of Friedman’s
shock & awe global ideology
Russia was reduced to unprecedented
alcoholism, drug addiction, AIDs, suicide
violent crime, Mafia style brutality
and extreme poverty
bordering on starvation

after a few years of free-market
implementation
Capitalism had killed off 10%
of Russia's population - equivalent
to an economic genocide

there was immense wealth of course
for chosen few elite
the oligarchs
they bought national treasures
for a song

anyone can trace Milton Friedman
mass murderer
too polite a term
for the planned misery
he gloatingly describes
as an ‘economic miracle’

in 21^st century Russia
multitudes of poor
live in a 19^th century world
no electricity
no personal belongings
their goods all sold off
in back lanes
to feed themselves

Capitalism

not only a destroyer
of indigenous cultures
but destroyer of modern culture
it’s institutions
painstakingly built
over generations
for hundreds of years
become genuine culture

Capitalism bulldozes your heritage
your buildings, your child’s future
your sense of culture and place

if Friedman’s doctrine
doesn’t get you by military coup
as in Chile'
you’ll be done over by war
like Iraq & Lebanon

Iraq
reduced to a blank slate
from a successful
functioning secular society
once called 'the Paris of the Middle East'
but oh tut, tut. tut
can't have a state of affairs like that can we
Arabs with sophisticated cities
only Israel's permitted that
along with nuclear warheads
undeclared

Iraq’s sovereign infrastructure
cultural institutions
reduced to rubble
to make way
for Milton's free-marketeers
Halliburton, Blackwater's
corporate cowboys
graduates
from Chicago’s School of Economics

Friedman’s 40 year crusade
for unfettered unregulated
global enslavement
his failed Capitalist ideology
has reaped an economic holocaust
in country after country
around the world

though dead now
Friedman’s still coming for you
your country, your institutions
your parks, your gardens
your peaceful society
your precious water
will be privatised
because he deems it

if you let it happen
he’ll have your world
turned upside down
your social welfare
will be shredded to the bone
he'll sell off your Town Halls
your National Bank
your airlines
your transport
your Post Offices
developers will get
the cream of the crop
for peanuts

Milton Friedman will
have you cowering before the altar
of 'profit before people'

it’s up to you
inform yourself
inform your politicians

what you want
what you don’t want
it’s your society
it’s your child's future -
it IS up to you.

Pamela Sidney 2008



Parasites

for the people of New Orleans

thriving on a stark opportunism

drawn fresh from the tattered handbooks

of their grubby

over-used Machiavellian bibles

the vultures fly in

(not to help the homeless, the aged, the ill & the dying)

but, to 'buy up big'

cold-blooded moguls

infected with a paranoia

a fear of ‘creeping socialism’

their worst enemy

the credo?

never give the people anything free

frowned on by Friedman - not allowed -

he calls it 'evil' socialism

so the parasites invade

(while all is still in chaos)

obeying Friedman’s doctrine to the letter

they are of course “The Chicago Boys”

from the University of Chicago

School of Economics

vultures

here seize all public assets

everything material there is to take

the highest prize ?

land

in just one nanosecond

taken

all that most could call their own

the urgency ?

CORPORATISE

PRIVATISE

the mania ?

PROFIT

the newly arrived low-life

arriving in the wake

of Hurricane Katrina

give orders

paper-shuffling lawyers

grab titles, mortgages, public land

much loved homes & schools disappear

bulldozers flatten everything public

everything owned by citizens

of New Orleans

earned by them over generations

paid for

their with hard earned taxes

ALL REMOVED

in one nanosecond

why this feverish activity ?

(while most New Orleans

are still too shocked to comprehend)

in this business

'speed is the essence' my friend

'shock & awe' capitalism demands

you move in quick make your 'killing'

before all reverts to how it was before

in just one nanosecond

citizens are swept aside

the landscape's scoured barren

condominiums for the wealthy

rise in the sky

new schools built

scrupulously privatised

(with vouchers for 'the poor' of course)

STOLEN

from these people

their city, their services, their utilities

all that's left of hard-won publically owned

infrastructure bulldozed

humble citizens become bereft

society altered forever

the invaders & their feat ?

GRAND THEFT

by corporate cowboys

Capitalism's 'finest hour'

remorselessly ignoring

poor people's lives

they make rubble of human memory

these

less than human beings

will never understand

the meaning

of

human dignity

Pamela Sidney 2008