Naomi Klein on Moyers & Company

The video is 30 minutes long, but so worth your time. Naomi Klein, whose semimal book The Shock Doctrine identified a pervasive and insidious tendency for the ruling elites to exploit disasters--both natural and manmade-- to push through legislation that the general populace won't fight because they are shell-shocked, points out that we have a disaster right now with Sandy that could enable the general populace to demand from the ruling elites legislation to deal with climate change. The Shock Doctrine in reverse, if you will.
NAOMI KLEIN: Here you have a crisis that was created by a collision between heavy weather (which may or may not have been linked to climate change, but certainly it's what climate change looks like) colliding with weak infrastructure, because of years and years of neglect. And the free market solutions to this crisis are, "Let's just get rid of the public infrastructure altogether and drill for more oil, which is the root cause of climate change." So that's their shock doctrine. And I think it's time for a people's shock.

BILL MOYERS: People's shock?

NAOMI KLEIN: A people's shock, which actually we've had before, as you know, where, you know, if you think about 1929 and the market shock, and the way in which the public responded. They wanted to get at the root of the problem. And they wanted to get away from speculative finance and that's how we got some very good legislation passed in this country like Glass-Steagall, and much of the social safety net was born in that moment. Not by exploiting crisis to horde power for the few and to ram through policies that people don't want, but to build popular movements and to really deepen democracy.
We will never get consensus in Washington DC to enact legislation. The big dollar donations from oil and other energy industries make sure of that. But we can push now for them to make investments against the next Sandy, the next Katrina. We have the leverage and the moral high ground. It's time to move.

Go to DotheMath.org for ideas on how you can help.

The Shock Doctrine move by Conservative goons is on the move.  They re using the fear of rising gas prices to push the ridiculous notion that all will be saved if we drill in ANWR. If it didn't pass with the White House controlled by a conservative and Congress controlled by conservatives, how will it ever pass? I think the real reason they didn't get it pushed through before the 2006 election is because drilling for oil is very expensive and Cheney's blood brothers in the oil field really didn't want to spend the cash. Why bother with record profits lining their pockets...

Without question, the book that stands out for me this year was The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. But I also read some other fantastic books as well: Framing the Debate by Jeffrey Feldman, The Assault on Reason by Al Gore and Conservatives Without Conscience by John Dean. For non-political works, I really enjoyed NonnyMouse's Redemption and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

So I'm curious, and it's an extension of last night's open thread, but what were the BEST books of 2007 for you? The NY Times gives their list here.

Today at 5 PM Eastern/2PM Pacific, Firedoglake will host a live discussion with Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine -- “the gripping story of how America’s ‘free market’ policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.” Jane Hamsher will host the conversation.

Everyone is invited to the conversation – bring your questions and thoughts and join in.