September 26th, 2008

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS ABOUT FALSE QUOTATION: A September 26 AFP wire story incorrectly attributed a quote to Naomi Klein that should have been attributed to Arun Gupta. The error has been corrected by AFP but please note that the call-out below was NOT written by Naomi Klein and though she supported the original protest call, the statement is correctly attributed to Gupta, as stated in the corrected AFP article also posted below. We would greatly appreciate if this error was not repeated.

September 22nd, 2008

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…).

September 19th, 2008

Whatever the events of this week mean, nobody should believe the overblown claims that the market crisis signals the death of “free market” ideology. Free market ideology has always been a servant to the interests of capital, and its presence ebbs and flows depending on its usefulness to those interests.

September 18th, 2008

Naomi has signed this public letter to the U.S. Secretary of State about potential U.S. involvement in recent violence in Bolivia.

September 3rd, 2008

The early results are in: Hurricane Gustav has helped John McCain’s bid for the White House. This is nothing short of incredible.

September 2nd, 2008

Exactly one year ago, I set off on a book tour to promote The Shock Doctrine. The plan was for it to last three months, quite long by publishing standards. Twelve months later, it is still going. But this has been no ordinary book tour. Everywhere I have traveled— from Calgary, Alberta to Cochabamba, Bolivia — I have heard more stories about how shock strategies have been used to impose unwanted pro-corporate policies. I have also been part of stimulating debates and discussions about how the current round of crises — oil, food, financial markets, heavy weather — can be transformed into opportunities for progressive change.

August 7th, 2008

So far, the Olympics have been an open invitation to China-bash, a bottomless excuse for Western journalists to go after the Commies on everything from internet censorship to Darfur. Through all the nasty news stories, however, the Chinese government has seemed amazingly unperturbed. That’s because it is betting on this: when the opening ceremonies begin friday, you will instantly forget all that unpleasantness as your brain is zapped by the cultural/athletic/political extravaganza that is the Beijing Olympics.

July 3rd, 2008

Once oil passed $140 a barrel, even the most rabidly right-wing media hosts had to prove their populist cred by devoting a portion of every show to bashing Big Oil. Some have gone so far as to invite me on for a friendly chat about an insidious new phenomenon: “disaster capitalism.” It usually goes well–until it doesn’t.

June 13th, 2008

Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race to declare, on CNBC, “Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market.”

May 16th, 2008

When news arrived of the catastrophic earthquake in Sichuan, my mind turned to Zheng Sun Man, an up-and-coming security executive I met on a recent trip to China. Zheng heads Aebell Electrical Technology, a Guangzhou-based company that makes surveillance cameras and public address systems and sells them to the government.

Rolling Stone
May 14th, 2008

With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export.

May 4th, 2008

We are circling over Buenos Aires. The airspace is crowded with other planes, all of them holding like ours. The pilot explains that it is the fault of the humo, or smoke, a word I will hear a great deal in the coming week.