Shock and horror

My intention to write a review piece about Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine (published by Penguin - rush out to get a copy) was reinforced by the behaviour of a rich multinational company like those she describes in her excellently-written analysis. Being human, I tend to focus on personal matters, even when the world is in such a dreadful mess with so much famine, cruelty and slaughter. And my personal matter of the moment is the conduct of America On Line, known as AOL, or Absolutely Outrageously Lousy, so far as I am concerned.
I live in a small village of 280 people in Burgundy in France, just over two hours by rail from Paris (we have a tiny station) in the centre of a bountiful wine-producing area. The only problem is that we don't have a high-speed internet connection. But this didn't matter too much until a few days ago, because as a ten-year customer of AOL I have (well, had) worldwide dial-up access. AOL boasted words to the effect that "We're in scores of countries; just dial!" Easy. But the other morning when I went into my study at 8 o'clock to read the sub-continent newspapers, as I do every day, I couldn't get online.
Up came a message to say that AOL was sorry but I couldn't access the service "by this method." In fact I couldn't get on to AOL by any method until I drove to the nearest town and signed up to a local internet provider. Then I got on to AOL by email and asked What the Hell?
AOL emailed back that its 'service' (I use the word ironically) was unavailable by dial-up in France. Well, thanks a ton, AOL. The problem is that my Website is in the tender hands of AOL and I can't access it to amend it. With my new book about to be published this is, to put it mildly, a trifle vexing. And I can't get on to a thing called 'Favourite Places' which has been a painstaking building of research sources, mainly concerned with the sub-continent, over the past ten years. All has vanished.
So I have been severely inconvenienced by AOL, which is one of the companies to which Naomi Klein does not refer in her book, but whose attitude is entirely consistent with those of almost every other multinational company she mentions, whose executives screw the consumer and deliver minimum service while treating employees like serfs and making massive profits.
Her point (to quote from the book's write-up) is that "there are people with power who are cashing in on chaos; exploiting bloodshed and catastrophe to brutally remake the world in their image...these global profiteers...now dominate our world. Raking in billions out of the tsunami, plundering Russia, exploiting Iraq - this is the chilling tale of how a few are making a killing while more are getting killed."