Disaster Capitalism: Watchdog Thread

[m1thr0s]

If anybody has read the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, you already know what a powerful predictor of insidious political events this book is. She's pretty well nailed the hat to the door with this one and it's a certainty that what she calls *disaster capitalism* is a political/economic strategy that is escalating with extreme deliberation and all of us are caught in its crosshairs, acknowledge it or no...

This whole scenario is so bizarre (and fundamentally evil by all conventional moral standards) that it is hard to simplify it, hard to boil it down to a logic most people can even fathom. You have to first understand that capitalism - as an economic strategy - has nothing to do with what is right or good for real people at all. In general, just about everything that is good for real people is bad for business if by *business* we mean to imply what benefits the super wealthy in the shortest span of time.

Public libraries, affordable healthcare, social programs of all kinds, descent education, sustainable farming practices...virtually anything and everything that is aimed at helping real people in real time without making a fast profit on the deal is antithetical to capitalism itself which is a closed loop logic based entirely on money and the most efficient ways to generate money without regard to anything else.

Peace, it happens, is bad for *business*, as are all those things we would normally think of as constituting a peaceful coexistence with our world and each other. Because America used to be rooted in a fairly strong sense of right and wrong, capitalism was held in check against those things deemed morally reprehensible but these checks and balances have eroded over time so that there is virtually nothing stopping it from doing exactly as it pleases today.

And what it *pleases* is world domination by any means possible no matter how foul. In general, the fouler, the better for so-called "business". The *shock doctrine* lays in a very simple strategy...in times of crisis people are willing to forego their natural rights due to the shock effect of the crisis itself. It has been established through meticulous trial-and-error that the best time to slip in laws and political or economic sanctions that further limit natural human rights is in the midst of a catastrophic event of some kind and while the powers that be used to be content to wait like vultures on unexpected events of this kind (earthquakes, hurricanes, industrial accidents etc), they are now aggressively creating these events for the sole purpose of assuming greater control over entire populations and their resources.

Occultists, historically have always been drawn to conspiracy theories in general and this one is the mother of all conspiracies that is not even trying very hard to cover its tracks at this point.

So maybe nothing will come of this thread but I think it might be interesting to set up a watchdog thread and see what happens...how many instances of *disaster capitalism* we can find making its debut in the world around us. It shouldn't be difficult...it's moving out fast and furious and leaving its footprint all over the world in a huge way.

I may return with a few resources that help to define the game better so we know exactly what kinds of things we should be looking for.

m1thr0s

[deviadah]

Good idea... haven't read the book yet, but I know of the concept.

The shock doctrine is ever present - even in Sweden!

The most recent, and still most common, shock is terrorism! Even in Sweden, which is a fairly peaceful place, the fear of terrorism is present. In fact this fear made it possible for the government to introduce a new law (FRA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law)) that basically makes it possible for the government to spy AND save all text messages, e-mails and phonecalls!

This is fascism - and I don't care what good it might do.

Belgium is taking Sweden to the European Court of Human Rights...

This law was voted for on the 18th of June 2008, and will take effect next year. A funny date to pick since it was Swedens most important game of the European Championships in soccer! This means that everyone had their eyes on something else, even the leader of the nation was down there in Austria (or wherever it was)! And 67 delegates were not even present at the time of voting!

Reminds me of how the Patriot Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_act) got passed...

In a way one has to make an addition to shock, and that is synergy with other events such as early mornings, big events and spectacles. It does not always have to be shock!

The Mohammed Cartoons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy) of Denmark is another example where the West actually created the stir. It was many months after the cartoons publication that the conflict arose... and this was after a French newspaper picked up on the Danish cartoons and brought it to the attention of fundamental Islamic leaders.

It is good for such laws as FRA and Patriot Act that the East shows its hate for the West!

:no:

Conspiracy is a conspiratorial word in itself that takes away the substance that some truths have. As soon as we label something with the C-word it becomes invalid! This is a conspiracy in itself...

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist!" - source (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTrRiWYSqqQ)

Wherever money can be made people will suffer, unless those that profit have empathy - which they never do since money equal power, and power corrupts!

Basically we're all fucked!

...how many instances of *disaster capitalism* we can find...
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050502/klein) - by Naomi Klein

:cool:

[m1thr0s]

*conspiracy* is actually a weak word in this instance since the real travesty going on here is that all of this is being and has been done quite in the open...hidden in plain view as it were.

...and even as we speak the Bush administration is laying the groundwork for a final strike against Iran before he leaves office...just to insure his constituency that we will be hopelessly embedded in what used to be considered an *insane* foreign policy by previous administrations...

...which is to say that this whole political/economic strategy has been known for some time but was simply considered too extreme to ever actually be implemented.

...but no more. The Bush-Cheney syndicate has changed everything...

m1thr0s

[deviadah]

The Bush-Chaney syndicate has changed everything...

It will be scary to see what Obama/Clinton and McCain & Co will do in the coming years...

I am sure the greatest shock is yet to come!

:cool:

[m1thr0s]

I am sure the greatest shock is yet to come!among other things, the damage to the environment worldwide is much worse than has been acknowledged by any political regimes thus far...top environmental scientists now tell us that we are in a race to minimize catastrophic damages to come - not prevent them. In the meantime, there are huge issues looming that have never even been weighed into the equation...such as the vast reserves of methane traditionally trapped under the tundras. When the tundras actually thaw out of course...so much for our buffer. Methane is much worse than CO², for those paying attention to greenhouse ecology...

and that's just one item...there's a whole lot more where that came from.

One cannot help but wonder at the apparent hurry of the disaster capitalists in their fanatical rush to do as much damage as possible in as brief a time as possible. Certainly their own predictors yield the same informations. Are they deliberately plotting what they imagine to be a new human race with them at the helm?

It would be difficult to be surprised at this, were it so...unfortunately, their arithmetic is horribly skewed. That's what you get for only ever counting piles of bloody money...

m1

[deviadah]

Yeah... I agree!

That's what you get for only ever counting piles of bloody money...
Another thing is also the End of Cash!

There is a big PR campaign here in Sweden to convince people that we should get rid of cash. Some of the points I can understand like the fact that there will be less pressure on the environment (no trees cut down to make money, less transportation of cash equals less pollution etc). But these are small positive points compared to the very dangerous situation that a cash-less society can/will face.

Sweden aims to be free of cash in 2020 (I think I heard somewhere)... it will all be digital.

Complete control is ONE MOUSE CLICK away... now of course some might argue that this is just silly distrust in our governments, but people can call me paranoid all they like:

In 2019 I will buy gold of any savings I have! :p

And just like the shock theory the MAIN REASON to end the use of cash is the THREAT of ROBBERY! This is what all the ads and PR has as its main point.

Talk about a global culture of fear...

Btw read this if you haven't done so already:
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h18/deviadah/forum/4193ZGY6NSL.jpg
(http://www.barryglassner.com/the_culture_of_fear.html)
:cool:

[fr.novumorganum]

http://www.naomiklein.org/main

very much right on the target.

Klein also propsed a theory of 'global green zones', areas which are trans-national safe haves for the ruling elite (not politcians but the heads of international capital), areas completely gated from the rest of the world. Basically the rest of the world will herded into permant crisis/third world status, so minimum social cost can be extracted from capital while maximum value is extracted from the world.

Dubai is considered the leading edge of this type of development.

If you haven't seen the movie Children of Men take some time to rent it. Watch the special features, which has a documentary where Klein discusses this theory.

The DVD was released in Europe on January 15 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_15), 2007 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007)[81] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men#cite_note-dvdmonsters-80) and in the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) on March 27 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_27), 2007. Extras include a half-hour documentary by director Alfonso Cuarón entitled "The Possibility of Hope". The documentary explores the intersection between the film's themes and reality with a critical analysis by eminent scholars: the Slovenian sociologist and philosopher Slavoj Žižek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek) , anti-globalization activist Naomi Klein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Klein), futurist James Lovelock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock), sociologist Saskia Sassen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskia_Sassen), human geographer Fabrizio Eva (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fabrizio_Eva&action=edit&redlink=1), cultural theorist Tzvetan Todorov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzvetan_Todorov), and philosopher and economist John N. Gray (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._Gray)

[frater luciferi]

no no, we can rape and pillage the environment as much as we want because jesus is coming soon..jeez dont you guys believe? :p

[m1thr0s]

Jebus is coming soon? At a theatre near me?
Xst, I'd better polish the cat and vacuum the dog!...:eek:

m1

[Talkingfox]

I think that a whole lot of this ties into the End Times/ Dominionist voting base....and the marketing machine of the industrialists knows just how to push that button. Religious fervor backed by fear is a powerful motivator.

The spooky thing is is that it's worked.....and not just recently.

Even Rome worked on it's viewpoint that they had the divine right to pillage and conquer as they saw fit. The political workings of the Roman Republic were also seen as religious matters.

Way to bring down a Republic? Scream that it's in jeopardy and that only a select few in a a select few camps can save it.

Fuck humans panic easily...just threaten to shake up the troupe structure. No need to actually overtly shake it up, just threaten

[sethur]

Sorry, this conspiracy theory vastly overestimates the intelligence of capitalists. The reason capitalism crashes regularly is because it is driven by greed. The dotcom collapse was triggered by people buying into what they didn't understand (especially in thinking that on-line buyers would show the same retailer loyalty as RL shoppers), the worldcon/enron disasters were caused by governmental unwillngness to investigate companies that were paying too much profit tax instead of too little, and a weak independent audit system, and as for the current one, just think about this:

I will not lend you a hundred dollars if you promise to pay me back ten dollars a month for eleven months, because I do not believe that you can afford ten dollars a month. Instead, I shall lend you a hundred dollars if you promise to pay me twenty dollars a month for fifteen months, because while it is even more unlikely that you can afford twenty dollars a month than ten, with any luck I'll get the first six months off you before you run out of cash.

The sub-prime mortgage nonsense explained!

Capitalism does not crash to whip the ordinary person into shape, it crashes because it doesn't work - and Bush buying out Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac proves it - capitalists are all against state intervention - until they need bailing out!

[m1thr0s]

Disaster Capitalism isn't actually a *conspiracy theory*. It's a name that has been given to a meticulously documented economic doctrine originally inspired by the teachings of Milton Friedman and the notorious Chicago School of Economics where he taught for many years. His extremist theories are well known and no one is actually hiding the fact that they are now being implemented with a vengeance...despite their complete lack of ethical controls or guidelines.

So it has nothing to do with market crashes per se...it has a lot more to do with market takeovers through artificially engineered crisis's such as war or catastrophic events that leave whole populations in a suspended state of *shock*...thus the term *shock doctrine*...

It's not a conspiracy if it's being done right out in the open...disaster capitalists aren't really hiding what they are up to. It's just that less and less people are paying any particular attention.

m1

[deviadah]

It's not a conspiracy if it's being done right out in the open...
:yes:

The conspiracy only comes in when one tries to discover who is sitting behind the wheel, and exactly where the wagon is going.

Not that it really matters what ends is at stake when the means are cause of such horrors!

:cool:

[Anibis]

'Conspiracy theory' is at this point a coopted term that can be applied rhetorically to a given analysis in order to discredit it. When something get's the label 'conspiracy theory', whether it merits that label or not, folk will be inclined to disregard it without actually listening. Of course this has happened because an enormous amount of what have been labeled 'conspiracy theories' are indeed the ramblings of cranks, a fact which is very convienient for someone who does care to pull off a clandestine operation: even if they did it openly, or were caught, they are able to deflect all such discoveries as 'conspiracy theory'. This is a tactic known as 'disinformation'. In fact, it is not out of character for certain parties to dismiss the very argument I propose in this post as 'conspiracy theory'. Very convenient indeed.
-A-

[deviadah]

Very convenient indeed.
That is exactly how it is played these days... I would go so far as to state that the word conspiracy theory is the modern equivelant of heretic or heresy!

:cool:

[sethur]

And what has caused the current crisis?

"Primarily this is because rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence....The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."

Franklin Roosevelt, inaugural address, 1933

[Anibis]

That one's especially relevant now, for sure... I think, the idea of Disaster Capitalism is as opportunistic as anything else. I mean, they will certainly USE any disaster to fuel the propaganda... some even will LOOK for disasters to play up... I doubt anyone has said. Okay, lets' cause a disaster right here at this time and place, and play off it (Well except maybe 911, but even that one seems to be more like "let's allow this to happen... we've got some stooges we could prime up, and let them do the rest."), Generally, it's just that the policies that follow from the exploitation of one distaster, are fertile ground for more to take place, and the agency of said disasters is always vauge... It's all about indirect enabling, and cultivation through negligence than say, direct planned conspiracy... It just continues to spiral making more money, and more disfunction which makes more money and more disfunction, ad nauseum... till it breaks.
-A-

[sethur]

Well, certainly the nature of money is likely to be re-defined again, as it was when the Federal Reserve was established, as it was when Roosevelt re-defined its role, as it did when Gerald Ford destroyed the illusion that the dollar was based on gold. A lot of you won't realise that for about the previous 40 years it was illegal for an American to own gold bullion!