Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

Movie Monday - The Shock Doctrine

On Memorial Day and as a pacifist, I should begin by saying: All wars are wrong.  And, of course, with that statement, a part of the web world that may be reading this posting is saying: What a jerk! Because people can always find the one war, the one conflict, which, after they assure you they too are anti-war, should have been fought or should be fought in the future. So they'll dismiss me as the idealist, as the dewy-eyed idealist, or in past times, as a commie-pinko idealist, shake their collective head and go about their business.

Well, I guess I'd rather be labelled the idealist and side with those proverbial, peace-loving angels I don't believe in. I know it would be a tremendously long haul to reach a peaceful world; perhaps even, ironically, a blood-filled long haul but to repeat the quote attributed to Robert Kennedy:

There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.

And now, in keeping with these deep thoughts, the movie I'm reviewing this week is The Shock Doctrine. The Shock Doctrine to me was like a difficult school assignment because I watched it during a very rare daytime, alone, free time.But The Shock Doctrine was not a school assignment just because I got to watch it during the day. It was a school assignment because I had to will myself to keep watching and not grab my running shoes and try to jog down my rapidly rising blood pressure.

This movie, based on Naomi Klein's book of the same name,  is a documentary. We see Klein giving a speech at Hamilton College in NY and as we hear and see her speaking, we watch the proof of her thesis being played out on the screen using appropriate documentary footage.

The movie visualizes Klein's thesis that nations and corporation powers "shock" the population into the behavior they desire. She says: A state of shock is something that happens to us not only when something bad happens. It's what happens to us when we lose our narrative, when we lose our story, when we become disoriented. A modern example of this disorientation is the 2003 US invasion of Iraq after George W. Bush and his minions blatantly lied and sold the story to the US (and much of the world for a while) that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that they were involved in 9/11.

Klein's speech and the movie, however, stretches back into US modern history to show how economist Milton Friedman, the great economic trickle-downer, convinced politicians (who can forget Saint Ronnie Reagan or Iron Lady Thatcher?) that a wise economic policy is hands-off the rich since their increased wealth always trickles down (you know, like pee.) In the US, willing and greedy Republicans and Democrats (who should have known better) bought into this wacky economic theory. Then throughout the documentary, Klein shows us how so much better this theory works when corporations and the US government spread disorder and conflict throughout the world first. We get to see examples of its success in South America, etc. (I still shudder when I read/see about the disappeared of Argentina.)

This economic theory has been sold successfully to a great segment of the US populace: Make it as easy as possible for the rich to make and keep their money because this always helps the less fortunate. So successfully, that even Obama who rode to victory in 2008 on a platform of "hope and change" has been reluctant to fire more than timid scatter shots at the bastions of wealth in the US. Further, the acceptance of this theory has led to a confused US voting public who has so lost its way (the disorientation mentioned above) that it may very well vote in a US presidential candidate in 2012 who is resolved to destroy the very programs (Social Security, Medicare, "Obamacare") which are keeping it from sinking into poverty.

(For me, the willingness of the US to accept the Orwellian: WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH "truths" started when capitalism, which is only another economic modality, became the American way of life and it got up there with the Constitution, the flag, apple pie and god as ideas which must be defended to the death.)

 The Shock Doctrine doesn't have a Hollywood ending. You're not going to come away thinking: Maybe things will change. However, I have to believe, as a teacher, that change for the better can happen. Like Brad and Janet in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, I have to believe: There’s a light...in the darkness of everybody’s life.

But whatever happens with our futures, this is Memorial Day, a day of memories, and The Shock Doctrine gives us disturbing memories we have to watch and we should not forget.