Web Letters: The Shock Doctrine

The single most insightful book written on modern economics and politics. Klein connects the dots like no one else. A must read. If you read only one book on modern history, this is the one. Thank you, Ms. Klein.

Ron Bishop

High Springs, FL

Klein is brilliant, and my fear is that the concepts discussed, and analyzed and uncovered by her are being implemented by the neocon fanatics upon the US in the form of setting up "economic shock treatment." My belief is they are intentionally setting up an economic disaster, so they can implement their radical economic agenda of privatization here. I believe it will be in conjunction with Bush's looming Iran attack and what I think will be his declaration of Martial Law after Iran retaliates.

Maybe martial law won't be required. A depression caused by the overnight increases in oil prices might be sufficient to shock the people into oblivious submission. Take a look at what she says about "the shock doctrine." Unfortunately I don't think she sees that it is being implemented here, or at least being set up to be implemented.

Alexander Rahman

Raleigh, NC

I've been quoting the same phrase you mentioned on C-SPAN, for over a year now, our "military industrial complex," as President Eisenhower used in his farewell speech to the nation. Everything you said on C-SPAN was true, and I'm sure it was just the tip of the iceburg. This White House and their friends have robbed us blind right under our noses. It makes sense that after the cold war came to an end they had to find another, there's too much money at stake to just let it go out the window, that's why were in Iraq. Just follow the money, it will lead you to who benefits from the money spent on military hardware, food, medical, and the rest, adds up to big bucks. You made a mistake on the amount of private security forces are in Iraq. I read there's 180,000 men not 30,000 more than American troops. This is Bush's private army like Saddam had in Iraq. Bush will probably use them on Americans.

Mike Melley

St Petersburg, FL

Naomi Klein has written the most important book on Capitalism since Milton Friedman. Klein's Disaster Capitalism lays out a whole new technique for analyzing events in their historical context.

Klein shows us how pschological stress can weaken people and ultimately whole societies that they may alllow or even participate in what was once unthinkable. From the murder of Allende and the takeover of Chile to the days following 9/11, Klein shows how the powers that be used the confusion and fear resulting from traumatic events to enact and enforce actions for their own benefit . These traumatic events can be manmade or natural, deliberate or accidental, but can be used to change societies against their will. Klein explains in detail deliberate and calculated "shocks" that have changed the history of the modern world. China's emergence into Capitalistic Communism, for example ...

John Perkins explained to us how Imperialistic Capitalism used the IMF and the World Bank to cripple and traumatize countries into submission, in his Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Chalmers Johnson laid out the destructive consequences of our Imperial Foreign Policies in Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis. Both hinted at Disaster Capitalism, but Klein has explained the underlying dynamics of the process. Klein has blown away the common understanding of history for the last forty years!!!

Michael McKinlay

Hercules, CA