Ian Crowley 9/22/2014

In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein discusses how capitalists take advantage of natural disasters, using them to implement radical or previously unpopular market types. According to Naomi these capitalists thrive when countries and individuals are in shock from disastrous events. They wait until the proper moment when a nation is weak and vulnerable to promote their radical ideas, knowing that countries are looking for a quick fix. In my opinion the predatory nature of these capitalist is a bit disturbing. I think it is cruel that they would take advantage of people's suffering in order to introduce their radical forms of capitalism. I think it is important that Naomi Klein is working to spread awareness about what she calls "disaster capitalism." I agree with Klein when she explains that if citizens are aware of the capitalists' manipulative actions after disasters, then we resist them.

Shock Doctrine

I found this reading to be incredibly poignant and interesting. Having never heard of the Shock Doctrine or Disaster Capitalism, it was very cool to learn about this and the ideas of Mira Klein.

The part I found most interesting in the first part of Shock Doctrine was her comparison of the economy to torture and the ideas of Ewen Cameron. It was very interesting how Klein asserts that Cameron's essentially lay the groundwork for what the CIA did to prisoners of war and war criminals.  I completely agree with Klein's conclusion of torture: the economy is like the victim--left completely confused and blank. The victim, or economy, is ready for new information. And the free market is imposed on the tortured economy as a way of fixing it. This kind of blew my mind. In that way disaster capitalism is almost an exact parallel of Cameron's torture tactics.
Overall this was an incredibly stimulating read and I am interested in reading the entire book.

9/22/2014 - Response to Shock Doctrine

After reading a segment of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine I felt like everything I had been told by my teachers, the media, and adults was false to some degree. In the United States there is a sense of nationalism and patriotism that allowed Bush's administration to "walk into" Iraq with fairly little resistance, however, up until recently the media construed it in such a way that it was beneficial for us to send troops into Iraq because there were weapons of mass destruction. However, that was completely untrue and we went into Iraq in order to destroy Baathist influence in that area and to impose ourselves in a strategically important area of the world that also has access to oil. In addition to that as Naomi Klein put, 9/11 was also an opportunity for us to implement free-market principles on another country and gain access to markets that were previously sealed off to us. I found the concept of a "shock" especially interesting because of the idea that they serve as a distraction for the public and media in order for countries to apply their unfavorable economic policies on other nations without much criticism. Naomi Klein's discussion regarding Torture as a Metaphor was also particularly interesting because of the way that she was able to relate how the CIA and other interrogators torture individuals on a larger scale. For example, the first step is to numb/starve the sense of any input and the second step is to bombard the body with overwhelming stimulation. Once these two have been completed the human would be much weaker and ready to admit to any crimes and hand over any important information. This was related to what the U.S. did by educating several Chilean individuals at the University of Chicago in order for them to team up with Pinochet and instill policies in Chile that were favorable for potential U.S. investors.

I find it ironic that a mission which appears sound in its morals could cause so much damage.  Before I read the excerpt and explored Klein's findings further, implementing charter schools at face value does not seem like a harmful project.  Improving schools and educating children is typically not a mission that is condemned; until now.  Hurricane Katrina, despite hitting in 2005, and its effects are nowhere near rectified.  While we sometimes forget about Hurricane Katrina's lasting and detrimental impacts on New Orleans, Klein shed an eye opening light on the violent ripples it has caused.  I was disturbed to read the selfishness of the corporate world and its careless choices that it made regarding this poor community.  This corporate world, albeit small, is extremely powerful.  It worries me that such a non-representative, closed minded organization of people can make such drastic choices that affect so many lives.