Thousand Error Reich

Commemoration: 1973/2013

Milton and Augusto

Written by Robert Reich,
Directed by Joy Carlin

Monday, September 16, 2013

No doubt a fine time of self-congratulation was had by all, especially pretend economist Robert B. Reich. Though some didn't take the bait hook, line and sinker;

INT PRESIDENT'S OFFICE, CHILE - EVENING

MILTON: Good evening, Augusto.

AUGUSTO: Good evening, Milton. How is our plan to enrich ourselves at the expense of society coming along?

MILTON: It is time to apply the Shock Doctrine to your country. We throw the nation into chaos so that from the ashes a new order in which our portfolios will be worth a lot more will arise.

AUGUSTO: "New order," Milt?

MILTON: Yes. A neoliberal empire which will stand, like a boot on the face of humanity, for 1,000 years.

AUGUSTO: But how will we fool people into thinking our plan is good for them?

MILTON: My Boys and I have the laid the groundwork. For years I have been preaching from the University of Chicago Department of Economics that people are rational, greed is good, and unfettered markets trickle wealth down to the poor

MILTON and AUGUSTO laugh loudly for several long moments.

MILTON: Right, what was I saying? Oh yes. Many other countries have fallen. Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design.

AUGUSTO: Wonderful, Milton. Let me get some blood diamonds from my office safe here so that I may pay you off.

AUGUSTO and MILTON clink glasses of brandy and chuckle.

FADE OUT

Which, as we said, may play in Berkeley, but a little scholarship easily destroys the left-wing slanders;

INTERVIEWER: Of course Milton Friedman especially then became a kind of a kind of hated figure, didn't he? ....Why do you think people [hated] him?

AL HARBERGER: Well, it's a hard story there. The left wing of the world loved Allende. Allende was the first socialist elected in a Latin American country as I remember, that actually took office anyway, and he was the darling more of the European left than the American left, but we always in the United States had what we call radical student groups like SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] who took their cues from the European left, so these are the people for whom Milton Friedman then became a figure of hate. They organized demonstrations against him wherever he went, and this went on for a period of years, and I see nothing that he did to deserve that. (laughs) And he [faced it] with such courage and such strength of character, I marvel to this day at the way he took that.

And is still having to take it from his grave. Even from a reptilian (scholarly) non-entity like Robert Reich.