We live in this culture of endless extraction and disposal: extraction from the earth, extraction from people's bodies, from communities, as if there's no limit, as if there's no consequence to how we're taking and disposing, and as if it can go on endlessly. We are reaching the breaking point on multiple levels. Communities are breaking, the planet is breaking, people's bodies are breaking. We are taking too much.
Naomi KleinIt is always easier to deny reality than to allow our worldview to be shattered, a fact that was as true of die-hard Stalinists at the height of the purges as it is of libertarian climate change deniers today.
Naomi KleinA lot of people voted for Trump because of the promises he made around jobs. And so it's a failed political strategy if the goal actually is to get Trump impeached. Trump's not going to get impeached if he's still useful to the Republican party, and the only thing that makes him not useful to the Republican party is if his base turns on him. And that's not going to happen over Russia. That's going to happen over economic betrayal. But that's not going to happen if no one knows that it's happening.
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 KleinOur enslavement to oil has required the repression of millions of Arab people. As they shake off their bonds, so must we.
Naomi KleinWhen Nike says, just do it, that's a message of empowerment. Why aren't the rest of us speaking to young people in a voice of inspiration?
Naomi KleinEither greed belongs in a war zone, or it doesn't. You can't unleash it in the name of sparking an economic boom and then be shocked when Halliburton overcharges for everything from towels to gas, when Parsons' sub, sub, sub-contractor builds a police academy where the pipes drip raw sewage on the heads of army cadets and where Blackwater investigates itself and finds it acted honorably. That's just corporations doing what they do and Iraq is a privatized war zone so that's what you get. Build a frontier, you get cowboys and robber barons.
Naomi Klein