I wrote The Shock Doctrine in the hopes that it would make us all better prepared for the next big shock. Well, that shock has certainly arrived, along with gloves-off attempts to use it to push through radical pro-corporate policies (which of course will further enrich the very players who created the market crisis in the first place…). But here’s the thing: these tactics can only work if we let them. They work when we give in to our fear and our desire for “strong leaders” – even if they are the same strong leaders who used the September 11 attacks to launch the Disaster Capitalism Complex. Sadly, there are no saviors in this crisis, and the only hope of preventing another dose of shock politics is loud, organized grassroots pressure on all political parties.
In this newsletter, Debra Levy, who runs www.shockdoctrine.org and was my closest colleague in researching The Shock Doctrine, has compiled my recent writing and interviews on the crisis, as well as information about an upcoming protest in New York. We also have the gory details of how the right wing think tanks are already using the market shock to push for some old fashioned economic shock therapy.
We send this with an urgent request: please, don’t be silent. If you have read the book, you know that this is precisely the kind of moment in which we stand to lose (or gain) it all. If we are slow, the radical changes will be locked in; if the Bush Administration gets its way, the actions taken this week will not be subject to repeal or to any legal challenge. So write letters to the editor, call your elected representatives, contact the Obama campaign, and let them know: the way to solve a crisis born of deregulated capitalism is not with more gifts and giveaways for Wall Street!
