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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNaomi Klein: Get Ready for the First Shocks of Trumps Disaster Capitalism
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/24/get-ready-for-the-first-shocks-of-trumps-disaster-capitalism/We already know that the Trump administration plans to deregulate markets, wage all-out war on radical Islamic terrorism, trash climate science and unleash a fossil-fuel frenzy. Its a vision that can be counted on to generate a tsunami of crises and shocks: economic shocks, as market bubbles burst; security shocks, as blowback from foreign belligerence comes home; weather shocks, as our climate is further destabilized; and industrial shocks, as oil pipelines spill and rigs collapse, which they tend to do, especially when enjoying light-touch regulation.
All this is dangerous enough. Whats even worse is the way the Trump administration can be counted on to exploit these shocks politically and economically.
Speculation is unnecessary. All thats required is a little knowledge of recent history. Ten years ago, I published The Shock Doctrine, a history of the ways in which crises have been systematically exploited over the last half century to further a radical pro-corporate agenda. The book begins and ends with the response to Hurricane Katrina, because it stands as such a harrowing blueprint for disaster capitalism.
Thats relevant because of the central, if little-recalled role played by the man who is now the U.S. vice president, Mike Pence. At the time Katrina hit New Orleans, Pence was chairman of the powerful and highly ideological Republican Study Committee. On September 13, 2005 just 14 days after the levees were breached and with parts of New Orleans still underwater the RSC convened a fateful meeting at the offices of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Under Pences leadership, the group came up with a list of Pro-Free-Market Ideas for Responding to Hurricane Katrina and High Gas Prices 32 policies in all, each one straight out of the disaster capitalism playbook.
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Naomi Klein: Get Ready for the First Shocks of Trumps Disaster Capitalism (Original Post)
Jimbo101
Jan 2017
OP
I've been thinking of this book and Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins.
octoberlib
Jan 2017
#5
Delphinus
(11,825 posts)1. Watched her this morning
on a Democracy NOW! interview - she understands things.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)2. This could be a very possible
scenario. So many of Katrina's players are on stage at this time.
suffragette
(12,232 posts)4. I've been thinking of Shock Doctrine a lot lately.
myrna minx
(22,772 posts)3. He's been in office for less than a WEEK. What a fucking nightmare.
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)5. I've been thinking of this book and Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins.
malaise
(268,692 posts)6. K & R
Resist!
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)7. K&R
Resist!
KT2000
(20,568 posts)8. the War in Iraq
was supposed to be their model for the world. According to Dump, unfinished business - take the oil.