Naomi Klein mentions interesting fact about Hillary's Burston-Marsteller firm

Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist and the Worldwide CEO of international public relations/ lobbying firm Burson-Marsteller, wrote those telling words in his confidential internal corporate blog.

Given the breadth of his company’s representation of special interests, Penn’s assertion may be the understatement of the year. The number of Burson-Marsteller clients — both corporations and foreign governments — that will likely try to influence the next administration is staggering.

And so is the potential for a serious conflict of interest. As a campaign strategist, Penn meets and speaks constantly with both Clintons and with other key policy advisors. He is in a unique position to influence what the candidate supports or opposes — not only during the campaign but also later on in a future Clinton administration. And he has ample opportunity to weigh in on issues that are vital to Burson-Marsteller’s clients.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,303681,00.html

In Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine, she writes about the violence used to implement the coups in Chile in 1973 and in Argentina in 1976. After describing how union leaders were rounded up, paraded around and tortured in the Ford facility in Argentina and how high school students who organized to demand lower bus fare in 1976 were also rounded up, tortured and how six of them were killed, Klein states:

In unguarded moments, some of those on the front lines of the economic transformation have acknowledged that the achieving of their goals required mass repression. Victor Emmanuel, the Burson-Marsteller public relations executive who was in charge of selling the Argentine junta's new business-friendly regime to the outside world, told a researcher that violence was necessary to open up Argentina's "protective, statist" economy. "no one, but no one, invests in a country involved in a civil war," he said, but he admitted that it wasn't just guerillas who died. "A lot of innocent people were probably killed," he told author Marguerite Feitlowitz, but "given the situation, immense force was required."

I would like to ask Hillary supporters to ask their candidate to comment on whether Burson-Marsteller has ever taken responsibility for its role in supporting and enabling the terrible state terrorism that took place in Argentina after the 1976 coup. It is time for Ford, Burson-Marsteller and any other American company that was involved in the repression in Chile and Argentina to take responsibility and denounce the crimes committed by the right wings in those countries at that time.

Be sure to read Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine. I plan to post further short excerpts in order to encourage DUers to read this important book.

It doesn't surpise me, quite truthfully. But if you have a shred of a soul left, it hurts.

and Mark Penn himself - have at it. Just don't forget the fellow has less than 24 months there - so he does not reflect 1973 does he? - and the last 12 months of that 24 has been on leave to work Hillary's campaign. But math nerds that get into polling should be what decides one's vote for President - right?

He needs to clarify the company's stand on supporting regimes that inflict torture and kill political opponents. If you read Naomi Klein's book, you will understand why I say that. Please read the book. It is opening my eyes. The experience of reading the book has placed me in shock. I thought I knew a lot about politics, but this book is making me question whether I know anything at all. Please, please read the book.

is being spun by you so as to throw some dirt on Hillary.

Corporate corruption - corruption and greed by the rich as they kill with out conscience or worry - and buy media silence and acceptance when they don't actually own the media - is the point of the book.

That many make a living directly and indirectly via jobs provided by the corporations owned by those rich doing evil via those corporations is just saying folks have to eat - and sucking up to the rich allows you to eat better.

Mark Penn is no doubt eating better than the average mathematician/pollster since 2005 and his leaving the company he started and taking a job with the PR firm Busron-Marsteller. But since WNP now owns both companies, it is not even clear he made the change voluntarily.

Meanwhile you act as if it is not WNP that owns the PR firm Busron-Marsteller - but Hillary is the owner - and therefore responsible for what happened in 1973 with that firm.

Man - that is spin.

earned money from their support of the NAZIs in WWII take responsibility now. Why shouldn't we start demanding that the companies that supported the fascist regimes in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, etc. take responsibility and apologize for their conduct? Burson-Marsteller is one of those companies. Back in the 70s Burson-Marsteller was marketing the corrupt dictatorship in Argentina. Now, with a different person as its head, it is selling Hillary to the American people. I think we need to recognize that it is still the same company -- with a new figurehead.

The Argentinian junta that Burson-Marsteller supported allegedly caused 11,000 disappearances or deaths. (See the Wikipedia article on this subject.) Mark Penn is currently the head of Burson-Marsteller, so, even though he had played no personal role in the marketing of that regime, he is the person who should make the apology on behalf of that company. I've seen a lot of discussion here on DU of the Bush family's role in funding Hitler's Germany. So why aren't we discussing Burson-Marsteller's role in marketing the Argentinian junta's infamous reign? If the one is bad, so is the other.

rile as part owner/director (one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp) moving money to the Nazi's and taking "dead Jew" profits while a supporter of the fascists.

But the Prescott Bush was elected a Senator so perhaps he was as nice a patriot as George W. Bush. - seems his Nazi past was not even discussed in the 1952 media coverage of his election - much like the media treats all Bushes.

and yes, I would like to know if they have taken responsibility for this as well.

Agreed on the book. I am just getting to the background chapter on the triplets of chaos (Rumsfeld, Cheney and the boy king). This book is too important to just skim.

business as usual among the political leisure class, of which the Clinton's are very much a part.

I, for one, am not shocked. But I also never believed that Mr. Clinton could feel my pain and I sure don't believe this Clinton can or will even try to.

Also the quote from Klein's book is from page 110, and her book was published this year.

was the successful coup and Allende's "suicide".

note the 9/11

Some say the CIA likes those numbers.

I had it right the first time. Sorry.