One thing I would like to have more explored in detail in conjunction with the “Disaster Capitlaism” is the idea that the resistance in Iraq against US and UK soldiers/occuption has grown and exhilarated also because of the neoliberal way of “building” the country up again. And even more interesting would be to research if and to what extent that resistance of suicide bombings had an effect on the privatisation and exploitation drive of communal, formerly state owned, resources. Given that the Left is said to be in a crisis by not being able to stop the neoliberal free market policies in the first world countries; it would be interesting to see if that very crazy way of Iraqi resistance has any impact on the free market policies there locally.

I have been quite intrigued by the discussion of Naomi Klein’s new book on The Guardian. Somehow though it seems that my comments don’t have any impact at all on the discussions and questions are not answered. When Naomi Klein discussed China’s Tienanmen Square repression as the shocking event to introduce free market capitalism into China, nobody seems to take on the point that the fall of Communism and the end of the Cold War with the disintegration of the USSR fell into the same period as well. When I remember 1999, I think of the one afternoon when a train full of Eastern Germans refugees from the (was it the West German or US) Embassy in Hungary travelled through the GDR to West Germany; and then the Monday demonstrations in Leipzig; and I was sitting in front of the telly in excitements and shudders, “I hope they don’t shoot.

Reflection on my personal journalism at the G8 In order to report for and investigate the issues around alternative media and protest, I travelled to the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, near Rostock at the Baltic Sea in Germany in June 2007. I did not travel alone but with my boyfriend, who took two weeks of his sacrilege holiday allowance, and we also visited my family. However much he was supportive, when reporting, he also became a hindrance, for example as he does not have a press pass he was not allowed to cross police barriers, so I had to leave him behind when visiting the sit-in blockades.

Reflections After the G8, a whole lot of debriefs and reflective summaries were published by the protesters. There were differences in opinions depending on the groups’ characters, nationalities, examining questions, time of debrief, questions in focus and tactical preferences. Most questions examined were the effects of the protests, the question of militancy in protests and violence and consequences for the future. During the weekend June 30st and July 1st, activists in Netherlands met in Amsterdam to discuss the G8 activities. The tone of their feedback is light-hearted and humorous, starting off with the statements:_ “It is difficult to make deals with clowns” says a represent of the Dutch Clown Army with a serious face.

The Guardian has been running excerpts from Naomi Klein‘s new book: Disaster Capitalism, which is very impressive – both the book and The Guardian’s in depth coverage, including the videos. In fact, these excerpts are the really rare articles which are much nicer to read in print than online, as they are quite long and occasionally require some reading breaks to think about and it’s nice to show these other people and to discuss the issues and the articles with them. Which might be the reason why they haven’t attracted any comments yet on CiF – most Internet bloggers have a short attention span.