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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September-October 2008, page 66 Waging Peace Busboys Hosts Naomi Klein
THE THEATER room was filled to capacity at Washington, DC’s Busboys and Poets on July 10, as renowned and respected journalist, author, and activist Naomi Klein discussed her latest book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, a bestseller that has now been translated into 20 languages. Klein began by talking about the recent Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act that Congress had passed, and which became law that very day, July 10. The law amends the 1978 surveillance act which established a procedure for authorizing electronic surveillance of people located outside the United States. This bill expands the government’s surveillance powers, and grants legal immunity for the phone companies that cooperated in the National Security Agency wiretapping program. Klein said she joined the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in a lawsuit against the U.S. government challenging the law’s constitutionality on the same day the FAA was signed into law. Klein proceeded to discuss her book, in which she argues that although we are led to believe that the free market was advocated in many countries because it was very popular among its citizens, it succeeded only because it was implemented during a state of shock, such as a war, market crisis, or natural disaster. A state of shock is not just something awful that occurs, Klein explained, but “something bad that happens that you can’t understand, an event without a narrative.” Citing the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the natural disaster in Myanmar, Klein argued that the privatization of businesses in these areas following these events were deliberate strategies to seize an economic hold on the respective country or city. As examples of some of the corporations that moved in to take advantage of disasters, Klein named Halliburton Energy Services and Blackwater Worldwide. These corporations, she said, see crises like the natural disaster in New Orleans as a “growth industry.” Klein suggested treating these crises as “opportunities for progressive change,” rather than opportunities for corporations to take hold of countries. She concluded by saying that for the past 50 years this has become far too prevalent throughout the world. “The market is adapting,” she said. “We need to get off this disaster course.” —Ali Al-Arian |
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