Last week you asked us to write a short response blog on Klein, so here I am!
It was fantastic hearing her speak, she was a lot funnier than I expected her to be. I must admit that I felt there were some parts where she lost me and I found myself drifting off from her speech, but she would grab my attention again eventually. She didn't speak exactly on The Shock Doctrine as she wrote it, but rather how it is being applied to our current situation. Although I found this very interesting, I kind of felt myself wishing that she would talk a bit more about why she decided to write about this exactly, the process of her researching this and getting it published and the kind of media it received. It was still interesting, though, to hear her talk about our current financial crisis and how the Shock and Awe theory is being applied to it. She started by defining the shock doctrine as "a political strategy that has been used to overcome the popularity of public programs" (I'm not sure how to cite this...Klein's speech, 14 Oct 2008) and then proceeded to explain how it could be very beneficial to current candidates because the crisis could be used as an excuse to break all the promises the candidates are making right now. This is something I hadn't really thought about yet, so it really got me thinking about all the promises both candidates are making and how, currently, they are rather empty promises because the economy does not seem to be heading in a positive direction anytime soon. Would they be as easily converted from their ideas for change as Clinton was when he became president? It's hard to tell in such a time of desperation. I can't help but wonder if we will fall into the counter-revolution Klein said we were heading into, which would mean that we're turning our country back over to the government and the power-businesses of our nation. If we do follow this counter-revolution, would it be a result of the shock doctrine of the financial crisis? Are we being forced to resort to falling into the hands of the shock doctrine because we have no where else to turn? Can Hank Paulson convince America like he convinced people to vote for the bailout? Will Obama be defeated by McCain because the people won't trust his promises due to the economic crisis? Or are we so desperate for change it doesn't matter who's in the office as long as it's someone other than who's there now? These are all questions that Klein's speech brought up for me. Just some food for thought, what do you guys think?
1 comment:
Unfortunately I missed seeing Klein this evening but I get what you're saying about the recent bailout being a result of the shock doctrine in action:
While there was not so much a 'moment of shock' as much as a drawn-out meltdown of the financial sector, it fits right in to how Klein classifies an initial moment of disaster; it "puts the entire population into a state of collective shock" (20). The bailout was probably the fastest that a potential $700 billion dollars was appropriated by this government, and the scary speed by which it passed is another symptom of the shock doctrine in action: "shocked societies often give up things they would otherwise fiercely protect" (20). In this case, not only have we given the power of the purse from Congress to the Treasury, it would seem that we managed to forego the period of debate usually surrounding such huge appropriations in the frenzied mode of something must be done! and even then it would seem that the application of 'disaster capitalism' was of no use as markets continued to plunge worldwide in the days following the passage of the bailout, only recently bouncing back on word that the government was purchasing a fistful of banks.
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