naomi klein

As a wave of anti-union bills are introduced across the country in the wake of Wall Street financial crisis, many analysts are picking up on the theory that award-winning journalist and author Naomi Klein first argued in her 2007 bestselling book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. In the book, she reveals how those in power use times of crisis to push through undemocratic and extreme free market economic policies. “The Wisconsin protests are an incredible example of how to resist the shock doctrine,” Klein says. Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher was convicted last week of two felony counts for disrupting an auction of more than 100,000 acres of federal land for oil and gas drilling in December 2008. Klein talks about why she signed on to a public letter of support for DeChristopher. Klein has been reporting on global warming and the climate justice movement for years. “My fear is that climate change is the biggest crisis of all,” Klein says. “If we do not come up with a positive vision of how climate change can make our economies and our world more just, more livable, cleaner, fairer, then this crisis will be exploited to militarize our economies, to create fortress continents." Democracy Now!, a daily independent newshour.

Naomi Klein noted as well, "We don't have the ability to make the economically disposed-of people visible." Indeed, all over the country people are struggling just to survive in the current economic climate. Invisible People is a project aimed at doing just what Klein asked--making those people visible again. In this clip, they bring us the story of Jean and her kids.

"We need to be covering the left as much as we cover, with anxiety, the right," notes Nation contributor and Princeton professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell. The lack of coverage of progressive movements, protests, and actions in the face of a loud, angry, and well-funded right wing can be disheartening, but we know they are out there, and in some cases fighting hard to keep a Tea Party backed Republican party from taking back seats in Congress during the midterms. Melissa joins us in studio to discuss the upcoming elections, the media message, and what progressives can do to fight back. "We have to build that independent left. It has to be so strong and so radical and so militant and so powerful that it becomes irresistible." Who better to say such a thing than Naomi Klein, Nation columnist, author of The Shock Doctrine and No Logo, and longtime rabblerouser? Naomi makes a special visit to the GRITtv studio to talk about the recent G20 meetings in her hometown of Toronto, about Obama's recent return to a kind of populism, the looming midterm elections in the U.S., her reporting on the BP disaster in the Gulf, and what we can do to channel the growing rage in this country and in the world into a true progressive movement. Naomi Klein noted as well, "We don't have the ability to make the economically disposed-of people visible." Indeed, all over the country people are struggling just to survive in the current economic climate. Invisible People is a project aimed at doing just what Klein asked--making those people visible again. In this clip, they bring us the story of Jean and her kids.

With Haiti's government "all but invisible" and its repressive police forces "devastated," popular organizations were starting to fill the void. But the Western powers rushing in want to rebuild Haiti on a foundation of sweatshops, agro-exports and tourism. So wrote Arun Gupta in the latest issue of the Indypendent, on the way neoliberal "reforms" are being pushed Haiti's way. Gupta joins guest host Esther Armah in the studio, along with Reverend Osagyefo Sekou, who just returned from Haiti, to talk about the rebuilding effort underway and how people in the U.S. can help make sure Haiti is rebuilt for the Haitian people.