The Shock Doctrine
The Hour: Naomi Klein
“In times of crisis, you can either regress or grow up fast. This book is about helping you to grow up fast.”
I also recommend looking up the short film “The Shock Doctrine” by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein. I think the movie gets a little hypocritical with its use of shock to get its own point across, but when you throw a famous director at it and enter it in film festivals, that’s bound to happen.
-Az
October 6th, 2007 at 4:27 am
Its a silly strawman argument to point at today’s intensely regulated system and maintain that it is representative of a free market. “Disaster capitalism” is a ridiculous term - after a disaster or a war, government increases in size and uses the event to intervene even more. Capitalism is the absense of government intervention in economic activity, which isnt what she is talking about. Its a misnomer to categorize corporate interests running under an aegis of government authority as capitalism. It is indicative of fascism more than anything else.
October 6th, 2007 at 5:04 am
We can call it “Pony Raping Assholeism” if you want. But Disaster Capitalism is a little more of a self-explanatory term for the purposes of getting the idea across.
October 6th, 2007 at 5:29 am
I’d also probably call what you’re describing (ie., American Goverment… or well, most Western governments) as Crypto-Fascist more than flat out Fascist. Mostly just because they’d never admit what they’re after, but are visibly and doggedly after it to anyone not wearing red white and blue (or Union Jack or whatever you like) goggles and with an IQ over about 50.
Which is also a statement that’s not entirely fair, since, as mentioned by Mrs. Klein, some people have simply regressed and are looking to be protected above all else. Their freedoms come second to their fear. I guess we all know the famous quote by now.
The real problem comes when that fear is engineered, or even just simply taken advantage of. However, the fear mongering that went on post-911 can be described as shameful at best, and people have to start seeing this garbage for what it is before it’s too late.
October 8th, 2007 at 4:41 am
Fascism is on the dollar. While I agree with your second post I strongly disagree with your first. Half the problem we have in the world today is people dont respect or recognize the definitions of words. People are far to flippant about them. People will hear interviews like this and continue along the train of thought - “Oh, capitalism is bad and ghoulish etc etc” instead of recognizing it for what it is.
Its because of this that I find it really hard most of the time to communicate with other people - they use words as vague approximations and shrug when you bring them up on using words wrongly as “Oh, you know what I mean”.
The art of twisting the definitions of words into the opposite of what they mean is a reasonable start for a definition of propaganda.
October 8th, 2007 at 7:00 am
You sound rather unpatriotic to me, sir.
October 9th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious” - Oscar Wilde.
October 9th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Or the foolish.