I finally got a glimpse of Naomi Klein, author of "The Shock Doctrine" at a panel discussion on the presidential election at Cooper Union Saturday night, where many NYC area activists, progressives, radicals, and those do-nothing community organizers gathered. Bet there were just a few coppers at Cooper lurking. I tried to smile often in case they wanted a clear picture.
The left is going crazy over Obama - and not positive crazy. People are extremely unhappy over his policies and especially his rightward drift over the past few months. How long before he starts to wear pant suits? However, where else can they go in this election? The answer is that some of the leading lights, while they will probably vote Obama because he is better than the alternative, do not view these elections as the end all and be all. Rather they look at things from the view of the level of activism and how that can force change outside the election process.
My immediate reaction is to say, "Good luck and good night" – in that order. But, darn, there's always that slight tug of optimism. Or why else would I even bother to stay involved in education? You see, I agree with the idea of creating an activist movement. But my small mammalian brain can only seem to narrow cast on the ed wavelength. And narrow cast even narrower on the union without getting too distracted.
But the UFT gets so boring so easily. Not facing the daily outrages that used to drive my anger and activism has an impact. Thank goodness for people like Under Assault, who today takes another shot at the UFT, this time focusing on the
official propaganda tool, the NY Teacher.Which brings me to Klein (Naomi), who is quickly becoming a legend for her clear thinking and analysis. And reporting too. Saturday night she was not too user friendly to Barack, stressing that he was more likely to continue Bush policies than McCain.
Huh?
Well, it seems Klein(Naomi) thinks that McCain is the real agent of change and after listing the Obama policies that line up with Bush, she pointed to the McCain claim that in the first 90 days they would remake government - mostly by eliminating it. Basically, we can see the irony being played out in front of us of the 90 days of The New Deal being dismantled 75 years later - in 90 days. That is the promise of the McCain campaign. Better eat your meat and get yer puddin' while you can because once they get rid of the FDA, FTA, etc. we will be "ptomaine nation."
That the forces backing Palin are in control of McCain and the Republican Party is increasingly clear, as he has become a total puppet so he can be president - with his strings being pulled. Not exactly a Manchurian candidate, but a puppet with the forces backing Palin pulling the strings.
Klein (Naomi) used her favorite word - "shock" to describe the tactic Palin/McCain will use.
I finally bought her book the other day and in the first few pages of reading about the 35 year war on progressives and liberals through the use of the shock doctrine, I was reminded of how Klein (Joel) and Bloomberg (Mike) used exactly that same philosophy to dismantle the NYC school system. There's more to it than I want to go into here, but those who have lived through multiple reorganizations and incompetence couldn't understand why a system in need of change would face the BloomKlein lunacy that has so shocked the system that my words to Klein (Joel) back in 2004 still echo in my mind - that the school systems of Kabul and Baghdad will recover sooner than the NYC school system. (I was later branded by Carmen Farina as having accused Klein of being worse than the Taliban. Hmmm!)
I really want to write more about the shock doctrine as I get further into the books. Today I was reminded by Under Assault about a piece done on that blog on this very idea back in January '08. So I'm going to shut up while you go over and read it.
http://underassault.blogspot.com/2008/01/shock-comparisons.html
2 comments:
Don't tell me, all the people who came out to hear Naomi were white, right? You think it bothers Klein at all that she has no audience among workers of color?
If the Obama campaign does threaten the plan for McCain to occupy the White House, there will be no election. But Barack Obama will almost certainly be denied the White House by racism without resort to martial law. Obama knows this and has frantically run away from every principle and position on the issues that even slightly disquiets the ruling class. But he cannot shed his race or culture.
This goes beyond Obama the Black man and candidate for president. Something the ruling class can never permit must happen before Obama can be elected. In the general election Obama will win 95-plus% of a record turnout of Black working people. And he could be elected president with a substantial number of white working class votes. This would constitute a level of working class unity like we have never witnessed in US electoral history.
Such unity would shake this county’s ever constricting capitalist bourgeois democracy to its foundation. One of the main engines of that capitalist economy is racism. For the sake of profits racial divisions and the super exploitation of workers of color must be kept intact—at all costs.
The reason that chattel slavery came into existence in the semi-feudal agrarian US economy of the time was that it was very profitable for the masters of that economy.
The reason that racism is so pervasive in the United States today with its developed industrial capitalist economy is that it is very profitable for the masters of that economy. Take the five members of the Walton family that occupy slots among the ten wealthiest Americans through the operation of their modern-day plantation, Wal-Mart.
It took the bloodiest war in US history and hundreds of thousands of white workers willing to fight to the death to end chattel slavery. No election and no candidate for office will end racism in this country. As long as capitalism exists elections will only produce racist results.
Barak Obama is not being neutralized right now for fear of his empty rhetoric about change. The ruling class chuckles over such nonsense. What they are stricken over is the possibility that working-class whites might make their first halting steps toward an effective political relationship with their brothers and sisters of color. They know their history. They know that was the dynamic that brought down the slave economy. They know that would be the beginning of the end for them.
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