The Shock Doctrine and the Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein

[JohnyCanuck]

Run time: 06:46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc   Posted on YouTube: September 07, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: September 08, 2007 By DU Member: JohnyCanuck Views on DU: 1796

 
This video has been put out in conjunction with the release of a new book by author of "No Logo", Naomi Klein. Her new book is titled "The Shock Doctrine."

Naomi Klein's new book a lightning rod

Vit Wagner

Publishing Reporter

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, a painstakingly detailed analysis of how corporations manipulate natural and manmade disasters to line their pockets and further their privatizing agenda, is not a marginal, academic treatise by a lefty think tank targeted at a small, like-minded audience.

It is a book by a bestselling writer and activist who also happens to be one of the anti-globalization movement's most recognizable faces. It's also a book that comes with its own promotional documentary, a short directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men) premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival.

In other words, instead of being consigned to pointy-headed discussion in unread academic journals, it is a book that has the potential to become a lightning rod of controversy and debate.

The distinction is not lost on the writer, Naomi Klein, the 37-year-old Toronto author of the momentous 2000 manifesto No Logo, an influential book that produced its share of detractors and converts. On the one hand, No Logo provoked a backlash from the editors of The Economist magazine, who devoted a 2002 cover story to refuting its Nike-bashing thesis. On the other, it inspired the popular rock band Radiohead to ban corporate signage from its shows.

SNIP

The Shock Doctrine, published worldwide today in seven languages, will be an even tougher pill for Klein's detractors to choke down. In it, Klein assails the legacy of Milton Friedman, the late, Nobel Prize-winning Chicago economist beloved by conservatives for his unequivocal belief in the supremacy of the private sector, even as a means of delivering traditionally public services such as health care, education and drinking water. The book argues that since the public doesn't necessarily share the Friedmanite faith, corporations seize on the disorientation caused by situations of turmoil and upheaval to inflict their privatizing agendas.

Examples range from the way in which the Friedman doctrine was implemented in Chile after the 1973 coup that brought dictator Augusto Pinochet to power, to the more recent displacement of Sri Lankan fishers who were prevented by resort developers from returning to their villages in the aftermath of the 2003 tsunami.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/Books/article/252778

Edited to add some more background info on how the video came about:

A Film by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein, directed by Jonás Cuarón.
"When I finished The Shock Doctrine, I sent it to Alfonso Cuarón because I adore his films and felt that the future he created for Children of Men was very close to the present I was seeing in disaster zones. I was hoping he would send me a quote for the book jacket and instead he pulled together this amazing team of artists -- including Jonás Cuarón who directed and edited -- to make The Shock Doctrine short film. It was one of those blessed projects where everything felt fated." - Naomi Klein

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film

[whirlygigspin]

1. audio debate with Klein & Greg Palast on the Current

interesting ideas, just got to hear a short rather heated debate on the premise
some professor was on calling everything paranoia and conspiracy theory
sometimes they doth protest too much--in the end he came off as an arrogant pratt, imagine that from a professor, the shock! yet he did not disprove anything, and so it goes...helps to refine an argument, what what.

Take a listen, link below

Greg Palast & Naomi Klein interview and debate on the book
from the Current/CBC radio


link to audio of interview and debate
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18327.htm

[JohnyCanuck]

3. Thanks for that link to the interview and debate on The Current

I agree with your assesment of the "learned" professor's debating tactics. Took note of how he tried to disparage Klein and Palast points with the tired old "conspiracy theories" cliche.

In the meantime, The Globe and Mail has published an excerpt from Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine" and provided an embedded link to the accompanying video on their web site. Here is a snip from the G&M excerpt:

Exclusive excerpt from The Shock Doctrine
Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, and Alfonso Cuaron, director of Children of Men, present a short film from Klein's new book

Globe and Mail Update

September 8, 2007 at 12:02 AM EDT

SNIP

Meanwhile, in the midst of the wave of neo-Keynesian epiphanies, Iraq was hit with the boldest attempt at crisis exploitation yet. In December, 2006, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group fronted by James Baker issued its long-awaited report. It called for the U.S. to “assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise” and to “encourage investment in Iraq's oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies.”
Naomi Klein

Most of the Iraq Study Group's recommendations were ignored by the White House, but not this one: The Bush administration immediately pushed ahead by helping to draft a radical new oil law for Iraq, which would allow companies like Shell and BP to sign 30-year contracts in which they could keep a large share of Iraq's oil profits, amounting to tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars – unheard of in countries with as much easily accessible oil as Iraq, and a sentence to perpetual poverty in a country where 95 per cent of government revenues come from oil.

This was a proposal so wildly unpopular that even Paul Bremer had not dared make it in the first year of occupation. Yet it was coming up now, thanks to deepening chaos. Explaining why it was justified for such a large percentage of the profits to leave Iraq, the oil companies cited the security risks. In other words, it was the disaster that made the radical proposed law possible.

Washington's timing was extremely revealing. At the point when the law was pushed forward, Iraq was facing its most profound crisis to date: The country was being torn apart by sectarian conflict with an average of one thousand Iraqis killed every week. Saddam Hussein had just been put to death in a depraved and provocative episode.

Simultaneously, Bush was unleashing his “surge” of troops in Iraq, operating with “less restricted” rules of engagement. Iraq in this period was far too volatile for the oil giants to make major investments, so there was no pressing need for a new law – except to use the chaos to bypass a public debate on the most contentious issue facing the country. Many elected Iraqi legislators said they had no idea that a new law was even being drafted, and had certainly not been included in shaping its outcome.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070907.wshock0908/BNStory/Front/home

[GliderGuider]

2. What am I feeling?

Oh God! I want to puke. The repeated clip of the 1950s mental patient has left a burnt spot in my mind.

And at the same moment ... oh, my lord. Is there such a feeling as a kick in the gut for hope? Information... tell people what's happening. Information is the key.

I got to the video by way of http://www.yayacanada.com/">Yaya Canada. I came here IMMEDIATELY to post it but found it already here.

Roundhouse kick!

[JohnyCanuck]

5. Thanks for kicking the thread. n/t

[mogster]

4. Excerpt from the Guardian

One of those who saw opportunity in the floodwaters of New Orleans was the late Milton Friedman, grand guru of unfettered capitalism and credited with writing the rulebook for the contemporary, hyper-mobile global economy. Ninety-three years old and in failing health, "Uncle Miltie", as he was known to his followers, found the strength to write an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal three months after the levees broke. "Most New Orleans schools are in ruins," Friedman observed, "as are the homes of the children who have attended them. The children are now scattered all over the country. This is a tragedy. It is also an opportunity."

Friedman's radical idea was that instead of spending a portion of the billions of dollars in reconstruction money on rebuilding and improving New Orleans' existing public school system, the government should provide families with vouchers, which they could spend at private institutions.

In sharp contrast to the glacial pace with which the levees were repaired and the electricity grid brought back online, the auctioning-off of New Orleans' school system took place with military speed and precision. Within 19 months, with most of the city's poor residents still in exile, New Orleans' public school system had been almost completely replaced by privately run charter schools.

The Friedmanite American Enterprise Institute enthused that "Katrina accomplished in a day ... what Louisiana school reformers couldn't do after years of trying". Public school teachers, meanwhile, were calling Friedman's plan "an educational land grab". I call these orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting market opportunities, "disaster capitalism"."

http://business.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2165023,00.html

[DemReadingDU]

6. Oh wow, just saw this thread. excellent

[bridgit]

7. me too, kick!

:kick: