Latin America + Shock Doctrine

Naomi Klein has been at UIUC for the past few days. Today I had the privilege to attend a panel discussion with her and two academics (Prof. Fernando Coronil, Univ. of Michigan; Prof. Andrew Orta, UIUC) on "The rise of current social movements and protests in Latin America."

It was interesting, to say the least, and refreshingly reminded me that I am situated very close to a college campus. I'd been away from the academic air for a while.

Klein built upon arguments presented at her main lecture last night (I was unable to attend) and in her book, Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Her project is to promote a counter-narrative to the unquestioned neoliberal responses to disasters. Lately, see: 9/11, Katrina, and the bailout "plan." The government has responded to these catastrophes by capitalizing on public shock and fear to push an agenda (war in Iraq/Patriot Act, racism/commercialization of NOLA/overlooking of basic infrastructure problems, free reins with $700B). Additionally, we haven't done a good job at remembering history as it happened either. Thus, we're shocked at the shock...and during this our freedoms are stolen right out from under us, without question.

Klein says we Americans are "addicted to shock."

In the context of Latin America, she said that it is the most advanced site of resistance against this "shock doctrine" and neoliberalism. She cited a few reasons (and noted that it's an incomplete list):

1. It got neoliberalism first.
2. It was an extremely obvious un-democratic (violent and/or racist) overthrow of the status quo.
3. The left there wasn't discredited. Compared to the Soviet bloc, the left (socialist) side didn't fall; in Latin America, it was put down. People can't point to the left and say they screwed it up before.

She said we have a lot to learn from Latin American organizing during our own "reconstruction period."

I think she's got some good points, and I'll put her book on my "to read" list. ...Also, she was recently on Colbert Report if you'd like to see her in action.

This is also an interesting story.