What Naomi had to say at Smith Hall

*
Through the good offices of someone resembling Lucius MacAdoo I learned that Naomi Klein was speaking at the University of Illinois this evening, so I hustled myself on foot through the whispering breezes to hear what she might have to say. I deliberately left the steno book and camera at home so I could pay undivided attention.

I'm guessing her remarks were sort of her standard "stump speech" about the origins of what she calls disaster capitalism, based on The Shock Doctrine. I own the book but haven't summoned the moxie to read it yet. I'll share with you a few tidbits that were new to me instead of trying to recap her speech.

Tidbit 1: the topic of her first book, No Logo, is how regular people have begun to get fed up with global brand names and what they represent, and how marquee logos like Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and McDonald's can become liabilities when they become inseparably associated with corporate incompetence, predatory business practices, and mistreatment of personnel.

Tidbit 2: the corporate elite and their "elected officials" immediately began using the September 11 attacks to tie the antiglobalization movemement to terrorism. As an antiglobalizaiton activist, she ended up joining many like-minded people in Argentina early in 2002 because the political climate in the U.S. and Canada began feeling uncomfortably oppressive. Argentina was experiencing the aftermath of a catastrophic economic implosion, so she and her pals could act like disaster capitalists and get real cheap rent.

Tidbit 3: the response of the Argentinian public to the 19 December 2001 meltdown amounted to a spontaneous effort to prevent itself from going into shock and succumbing to a fatal loss of social direction. They literally drove the President out of his palace by banging on pots and pans in a spontaneous demonstration of rage and solidarity. As corporations withdrew capital and tried to close factories, workers in more than 20 of them said, basically, take a hike if you like, Senor, but we're staying here and will continue to run these factories without you.

Tidbit 4: the shock doctrine consists of three phases of shock. First, the shock of a monumental catastrophe, whether a coup, a natural disaster, or a war. Second, the shock of economic collapse, in which the population is preoccupied with staying fed, sheltered, and clothed. Third, the shock of repressive police or paramilitary power to make an example of those who resist or vocally oppose the disaster capitalism project. The three-part shock functions to create a gap in a nation's conceptual continuity --- an amnesia about national identity, values, and aspirations. Latin America in the 1970s was the test bed for this business model. I remember the visceral impact, if not many specific facts, of outstanding reporting from Latin America done by NPR in the 1970s, back when it was actually an impartial and progressive force in journalism. They were reporting on sinister experiments in political economy being conducted by a cabal of University of Chicago right-wing economists, with a major assist from people with names like Nixon and Kissinger.

I arrived at Smith Hall promptly at 7:30 p.m. and the place was mobbed; standing room only. I'd guess there were at least 700 people on the main floor and in the balcony. And all of us had to bail out on Obama's commercial and/or the Phillies World Series victory to be there.

Sidebar: Klein's speech coincides with some blog material I am preparing that is based on some newspapers lining the inside a Navy machinist's chest that I bought (really cheap) at a St. Joe antique shop earlier this month. They are sections from a Kokomo, Ind., daily newspaper, one of which is dated 10 September 1973, one day before Chile's own September 11 in which the elected Marxist president was overthrown and killed in the world's first documented example of disaster capitalism.