Disaster Capitalism in Reverse: How Sandy Could Be The Catalyst For Progressive Change

[eridani]

http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/disaster-capitalism-reverse-how-sandy?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

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.