Forum Post: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism - Naomi Klein
Posted 12 years ago on June 29, 2012, 9:27 a.m. EST by Underdog
(2971)
from Clermont, FL
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Below is from Wikipedia:
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Paul B. Farrell from the Dow Jones Business News stated "you must read what may be the most important book on economics in the 21st century". John Gray wrote in The Guardian, "There are very few books that really help us understand the present. The Shock Doctrine is one of those books." and described the book as "both timely and devastating". William S. Kowinski of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Klein may well have revealed the master narrative of our time," and it was named one of the best books of 2007 by the Village Voice, Publishers Weekly, The Observer, and the Seattle Times. The Irish Times describes Klein’s arguments as "compelling" with Dr. Tom Clonan reporting that she "systematically and calmly demonstrates to the reader" the way in which neocons were intimately linked to seismic events that "resulted in the loss of millions of lives". Near the end of the review Dr. Clonan’s offers a précis for Klein’s central argument—that the neoconservative project is not about "implanting of democracy" but a repressive prescription for the maximising of global profit for a small elite. "Neocons see the ideal ratio of super-rich to permanent-poor as consistent with an uber-class of business oligarchs and their political cronies from the top 20%". The remaining 80% of the world’s population, the "disposable poor", would subsist in "planned misery" unable to afford adequate housing, privatised education or healthcare. The Independent called the book "a compelling account of the way big business and politics use global disasters for their own ends", while Stephen Amidon of the New York Observer calls it a "compelling study of the dark heart of contemporary capitalism."
A documentary adaptation of Naomi Klein’s 2007 book :
An investigation of disaster capitalism, based on Naomi Klein’s proposition that neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war and terror to establish its dominance.
Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, 'The Shock Doctrine' vividly shows how disaster capitalism – the rapid-fire corporate re-engineering of societies still reeling from shock – did not begin with September 11, 2001.
The films traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today.
New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, shock and awe warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.
'The Shock Doctrine' follows the application of these ideas through our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
e tenebris, lux ...
Thanks for providing that documentary shadz. I just finished watching all of it. The use of the word "excellent" gets used too often, but I can think of no other word to use. Every adult in the world should see this video.
Do you know if this vid has been posted as an original post before? If not, I'm thinking that I will (or perhaps you should since you provided it).
Thanks again!
Also by Naomi Klein is her book 'No Logo' from which the documentary of the same name was made.+ You are welcome & sorry for getting back to you so late ;-)
http://vimeo.com/22673331 or
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/no-logo-brands-globalization-resistance/ .
'No Logo', based on the best-selling book by Canadian journalist and activist Naomi Klein, reveals the reasons behind the backlash against the increasing economic and cultural reach of multinational companies. Analysing how brands like Nike,The Gap, and Tommy Hilfiger became revered symbols worldwide, Klein argues that globalization is a process whereby corporations discovered that profits lay not in making products (outsourced to low-wage workers in developing countries), but in creating branded identities people adopt in their lifestyles.
Using hundreds of media examples, 'No Logo' shows how the commercial takeover of public space, destruction of consumer choice, and replacement of real jobs with temporary work – the dynamics of corporate globalization – impact everyone, everywhere. It also draws attention to the democratic resistance arising globally to challenge the hegemony of brands.
lux et veritas ...