There are lots of incredible people who are working in very flawed structures that are designed to keep us apart, so we're going to have to figure this out. The first stage is just talking about it openly: We are all working within structures where there is a disincentive to do what we most need to do, which is come together. I don't know what the answer is but I definitely think that that first stage is just being honest about it and trying to speak about it in a way that is not just accusatory.
Naomi KleinIndeed the three policy pillars of the neoliberal age-privatization of the public sphere, deregulation of the corporate sector, and the lowering of income and corporate taxes, paid for with cuts to public spending-are each incompatible with many of the actions we must take to bring our emissions to safe levels.
Naomi KleinI do believe that our ability to jam the Trump brand is somewhat limited. I think we can chip away at it, but ultimately the way to undermine the Trump brand is a better product in the political marketplace, if you'll forgive the capitalist metaphor. I do think that the negative messaging on Trump is severely limited because he is tapping into a very deep, and in many a rightful, desire for deep change, and a feeling that the whole system is so broken and so corrupt that you might as well raise a middle finger as some kind of act of agency.
Naomi KleinIt doesn't have the ability to think rationally this economic model. It thinks like a drug addict: 'Where can I get my next fix?' It doesn't learn wisely. Any kind of measure of natural wisdom would be: you make a mistake, you correct it the next time around. But a drug addict feels terrible... and then says: 'I want more'. Unfortunately we have an economic model that thinks like a crack addict.
Naomi KleinIt is our great collective misfortune that the scientific community made its decisive diagnosis of the climate threat at the precise moment when an elite minority was enjoying more unfettered political, cultural, and intellectual power than at any point since the 1920s.
Naomi KleinThe theory of economic shock therapy relies in part on the roleof expectations on feeding an inflationary process. Reining in inflation requires not only changing monetary policy but also changing the behavior of consumers, employers and workers. The role of a sudden, jarring policy shift is that it quickly alters expectations, signaling to the public that the rules of the game have changed dramatically - prices will not keep rising, nor will wages.
Naomi Klein