Disaster Capitalism: The Ride of a Lifetime

Being my 150th thread, I thought I would do something important... something vital.

The following was inspired by author Naomi Klein and her coined phrase ‘disaster capitalism’. I have taken the horrific ideology presented in her book and tried it on many militaristic endeavors, economic malfunctions and natural disasters that have occurred in the last 30 years. What develops after an analysis is not only horrific but shows to be insanely out of control. We will undoubtedly be taken under its wing for quite possibly the rest of our lives and generations to come if we don’t put a stop to it. The following is quite possibly one of the most important things you will EVER learn, it is the key principle to how the world is run today and for anyone who wants to learn more about this I strongly suggest you purchase Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine. The issue has been oddly enough, under addressed, I want to revive a CONTINUOUS communal understanding of the concept in order for this knowledge to be used to make sense of what is happening around us.

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Many here are familiar with D. Eisenhower's warning that has been misinterpreted for decades:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” –D. Eisenhower, 1961, farewell address.

What he warned us about was the military industrial complex. Many people failed to understand why they were so dangerous. But their poison has been revealed, disaster capitalism enacted through an economic and political shock doctrine. So what is ‘disaster capitalism’ and why is it so important?

Enter the rabbit hole... you won’t be getting out of it anytime soon.

The Doctor

A clean slate. An empty brain. Tabula Rasa. This was the ultimate goal of CIA mind control and manipulation experiments which started in the 1950’s. After rumours began to spiral of the Soviets developing a mind control mechanism the US was running scared thinking of ways to train troops in order to resist these mind control tactics if they were ever caught by Soviets. So the initial experiments that started were not for the purpose of manipulating someone’s mind but rather learning how to resist this manipulation... how quick things changed. The history of how these mind control experiments became such an interest for the CIA and how they evolved to what many consider to be torture in the modern day is a complex and interesting tale.

It begins in McGill University in the 1950’s. Doctor Ewen Cameron was conducting new electroshock experiments on his ‘patients’ who were initially willing students of the university but once CIA funding became a factor some of these patients weren’t so consenting. Modern day survivors of Dr. Cameron’s early work with electroshock are not only mentally handicapped but due to the electroshock suffer from cracks within their bones, all over their body which only get worse with arthritis and ageing. The doctor from Montreal (who is now long dead) experimented not only with electroshock solely but with other methods in extreme doses. The CIA’s funding of Dr. Cameron was revealed in the seventies through the Freedom of Information Act. Cameron is arguably the inventor of contemporary US torture techniques with what was initially intended to cure patients. The mentality went something like this:

1. 1. A patient had to be deprived of all senses. Hoods placed over heads, heavy headphones over ears, cardboard over their arms, etc. All of this was done in order to ‘soften up’ the victim so that they could not act to protect their best interests. The patients were also drugged with substances such as '___' and PCP.
   
2. 2. Next, Cameron believed that extensive electro shocks could ‘reform’ the brain from a faulty state. This could only be done after the patient is completely hopeless and dependent. Cameron knew how to destroy the brain, how to turn an adult into a child, but he did not know how to ‘remake’ it.
   
3. 3. The third stage was the attempt of actually remaking the brain, which Cameron failed to do. It was ‘psychic driving’ which was intended to break up old pathological patterns. Methods used by Cameron during this stage included playing looped audio in a patient’s cell continuously.
   

By the end of his experiment, Cameron’s patient was not healed or reformed, but returned to a child like state where in some cases it was reported that the patients forgot how to feed themselves, some had a completely defunct memory, remembering nothing for longer than 6 seconds. The horrific methods used are no doubt familiar to those who have heard or seen the same tactics used by the US army in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Cameron saw his shock therapy methods as a way of blasting his patients back to infancy, it was only once a patient was in complete shock that they could be manipulated when they were most vulnerable, this is an important philosophy. His electric shocks were delivered by a machine called the Page-Russell, it was used to send six consecutive jolts through a human body, it was reported that Cameron abused the machine to send in excess of 200 consecutive jolts.

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You’re probably wondering what this has to do with Disaster Capitalism. Well let’s review Cameron’s methods, his shock tactics. His patient was first deprived of all sense and drugged. They were then treated with electro shock therapy in order to completely destroy their psyche. Once completely dependent, vulnerable and disillusioned with all that was happening around them, Cameron meant to brainwash them through audio recordings. If we are to examine these shock tactics in a political sense, we create a very scary picture. No one could have possibly conceived that Cameron’s methods could be applied to politics, but one man saw exactly that, the architect of the shock doctrine, Milton Friedman.

The Architect

Milton Friedman is a world renowned economist who comes from the Chicago School of Economic thought. He believed in a completely free market economy, unregulated and unrestricted by government. Friedman had built a strong ideological community with his students and staff in the University of Chicago in the 1950’s where they all supported this free form of corporatism as the only way that society could live in equilibrium; letting the economy run wild, or so to speak. Dr. Cameron used electricity to inflict his shocks, but Friedman used policy. Friedman believed the only way that a complete free market economy could be introduced into a society was all at once, policy had to be reformed literally over night and introduced all together. This shock and awe tactic was what the economy needed to free itself and act on its own, or so Friedman thought.

All the problems of the economies of the time such as high inflation and soaring unemployment were according to Friedman and his followers the result of an economy which was not truly free. There was to be no interference, no distortion of the system. Unlike Cameron who could operate on his guinea pigs any time, Friedman could not and was relishing the opportunity to try his shock and awe tactics through policy. Many governments at the time completely opposed such a thing as ignoring national borders or tax evasion, Friedman could gain no support for his shock doctrine, not even at home. The home of the Chicagoan's was a total opposite of how they wanted the free market economy to run; when it to comes to making products affordable, governments fixed prices; to protect workers from being exploited, they set up minimum wages; to make sure the maximum amount of people had education, they socialized it. Friedman was convinced that this was doing untold harm to the equilibrium of the market. Friedman was further convinced that what happened after a crisis depended solely on the ‘ideas’ that were lying around. These ‘ideas’ were his market reformation policies which would be ready once disaster struck...

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The motive of disaster is quite simple and the means even simpler. Disaster related functions (such as war, natural disasters, terror, civil unrest, civil ‘security’, etc) can be performed by corporations in order to gain a profit. In essence, disaster capitalism applied through the shock doctrine opens up new markets which were previously ‘untapped’. Through time Friedman realized, as stated above, that his shock doctrine had to be tested somewhere outside of the United States. Friedman got his chance to test his shock tactics, which we will get to later. For now, it’s important to realize the related ideology of shock tactics and how they originated. Much like Cameron’s work where the individual was treated with electroshock therapy in order to completely distress and confuse them and then once vulnerable attempted to ‘reconstruct’ their mind, Friedman’s policies were used as the electricity and when applied simultaneously it would distress and confused a society, a nation. Once distressed and confused, whether in the case of Cameron and the individual or Friedman and the whole society, the subject was much more compliant and flexible.

CONTINUED


[edit on 16/3/2010 by serbsta]

The Doctor’s Architecture

It’s necessary to see disaster capitalism in action. Examples of the shock doctrine have been prevalent in recent history (last 10 years), but one can see its early mode as far back as the 1970’s with the South American coup’s.

Example: In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, private enterprise capitalized on the situation by applying shock tactics in order privatize the new industries that had been opened up due to the disaster:

1. $60 contract handed down to Halliburton KBR to rebuilt military bases along the coast.
   
2. Blackwater billed $950 a day per guard while it was protecting FEMA operations.
   
3. Parsons was immediately hired to reconstruct a bridge in Mississippi.
   
4. Bechtel, Shaw and CH2M Hill were given contracts to build mobile homes along the coast right after the disaster.
   
5. New Bridge Strategies representative, Joe Allbaugh was the lobbyist for most of these deals.
   
6. New policies immediately introduced such as the privatization of schools.
   

I call the above process the ‘nose dive’ in order to characterize it with other disasters. It is in fact the shock doctrine in action. No negotiation, no time wasting, as if it was all planned.

What isn’t evident to some immediately is that all these major corporations are in some way or another involved with reaping profits from the ongoing war in Iraq. Once Katrina struck there was no negotiation of contracts, within a week all the companies above had received a contract to reap profit from the disaster. What resulted was not only the private monopolization of all major industry, new and old, but the state became completely handicapped; it could no longer perform its fundamental functions without the help of contractors. When a disaster occurs, firms such as Blackwater lose their primary flow of revenue from the area of incident. All of their taxpayer bought equipment is still available but they need a new business model. As disaster strikes the government is no longer able to pay the bills on its own while the citizens are dazed and displaced. The state then re-rents their disaster equipment to anyone who can afford it, this is where corporations such as Blackwater jump in and purchase all equipment necessary for a low price in order to protect FEMA operations which they have been contracted to do. It’s as if the state is in bed with the corporation (nothing new). In fact New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin stated; "It is a smorgasbord in New Orleans! It is a buffet, an economic buffet! All you can eat! If you have a lawnmower and an edger, you can make money in New Orleans!"

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What we see with disaster capitalism is the fusion of Dr. Cameron’s ideology and Freidman’s hypothesis of a truly free market economy. The shock therapy is applied in order to open up the market with little resistance from the public who have been traumatized, in doing so, new markets are opened up which are capitalized upon by large corporations.

Closing

I have presented above just one case of gross injustice in the name of the free market economy. Iraq has proved itself to be a laboratory, an experiment where the shock doctrine was tested once more. Private contractors won their contracts, it was all done in the hope that the market and the nation could be rebuilt based on Friedman’s philosophy, but Iraq went from “blank state to scorched Earth” as Klein called it. The immediate actions taken by the US government following the events of 9/11 are another fine example. Laws were introduced immediately which restricted civil liberties, contracts were awarded, wars were started, all while the public was still in shock as to what happened on that fateful day. All this is done to open up new markets in the quest for profit. We are entering an age where this tactic is becoming principle, where millions are dying in the name of profit and global monopolization, where we no longer have the power to do anything about it...

I once read a book titled 1984 by George Orwell, a favourite here among ATS members. The words ‘WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH’ really didn’t mean much until now.

---

Source:
Klein, Shock Doctrine, 2007
www.democruptcy.com...
www.thenation.com...
en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 16/3/2010 by serbsta]

Thanks Serbsta, good thread and good book. The newest looting field for the vultures is Haiti. Here a video of Naomi Klein on Haiti.

Haiti Earthquake; How Monsters Profit from Tragedy (Naomi Klein) Democracy Now!


For the swine flu campaign the initiators tried to use fear instead of shock. They were not successful. I believe conspiracy theorists played a role in thwarting their plans. Regardless of whether they were right or wrong, conspiracy theorists showed a visible online presence. They wrote many comments on swine flue articles. They influenced discussions and brought people to doubt the official information.

In the aftemath, psychologists from the McGill university, which is the very same university were the monstrous Ewen Cameron conducted his MKULTRA experiments, tried to recruit members from ATS for a psychological study. The funny thing is, the lead scientist is a specialist for trauma research. Quite a coincidence.

(Shameless self-promotion, but I believe this thread fits here)
www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 16-3-2010 by Drunkenshrew]

Can you explain the relationship between the corporations that benefit from disaster economics and the government involvement with them.

I did not see whether or not you addressed that particular component in your OP. Of course, I just did a cursory evaluation of your conclusion.

I myself feel the underlying problems facing the so called capitalism we have today, is the direct result of government interference in the markets.

I have stated in the past my abhorrence for Multi-National and for Mega Corporations, but these entities could not and would not exist without the direct involvement of government itself.

Anytime a government is involved in business, be it directly through them taking it over, or by indirect involvement through contracting out the work, capitalism no longer exists. The symbiotic relationship between Mega Corps and corrupt government, I believe, makes these type of problems inherent.

Government loves to demonize private business, pointing out the very problems they create, with their incestuous relationship to the businesses they are involved with, to take more control of private industry.

It is almost sickening to see the absolute evil and corruption they cause and than to demonize it to take over industries drives me nuts.

Free enterprise self regulates, whereas a fascist system destroys the good while advancing the bad.

Your thoughts?

3 cheers for serbsta!!!
awesome, awesome, awesome!!!

A real eye opener!


[edit on 16/3/10 by spearhead]

reply to post by endisnighe

Originally posted by endisnighe
Can you explain the relationship between the corporations that benefit from disaster economics and the government involvement with them.

Well there-in lies the conspiracy. The relationship is evidently existent, it is adamantly concerned with being as covert as possible while maintaining as much influence as possible. I suppose if you wanted to look into specifics you could examine, for example, why Cheney awarded a no-bid contract to Halliburton KBR to distribute Iraqi oil. That would answer your question; I haven't addressed these issues because they're outside the scope of the thread, I am mainly trying to address the philosophy of the shock doctrine.

Originally posted by endisnighe

Anytime a government is involved in business, be it directly through them taking it over, or by indirect involvement through contracting out the work, capitalism no longer exists.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that it doesn't exist, rather being present in a restricted form. I can't say I agree with Friedman style free-markets but I also think that interference from the state should be limited to areas such as education (if done the right way).

Originally posted by endisnighe


Government loves to demonize private business...

That goes both ways. Except when it does we don't hear about it too much.

Nice thread.
Just to promote Ewen Cameron - Milton Friedman link: way of economic transformation implemented in post-communist countries in early 90's was called "SHOCK THERAPY"

reply to post by zeddissad


Yes, good point. 'Shock therapy' was used in Poland in the 80's following the Solidarity revolution as well as in Russia in the 90's. Shock therapy is exactly what is described above. Unfortunately for Poland it didn't work so well and it is still suffering as a nation with one of the largest poverty lines in Europe all as a result of Chicago style shock therapy implemented by Jeffrey Sachs.

Found this FANTASTIC video of the shock doctrine in action in Haiti. This may upset some people...

reply to post by serbsta


Wow what a hit piece against Friedman.

You know Friedman wanted to end the Fed all together right?

Had we followed Friedman's advice, wars would become next to impossible because government would be forced to tax in order to pay for them.

Had we followed Friedman's advice, AIG, Goldman, Citi, JPMorgan, and the rest of the scum suckers on Wall Street wouldn't be walking off with 1% of the GDP in bonuses - because they would all be bankrupt.

BUT they wouldn't have gotten into the financial trouble they did in the first place because they wouldn't have had the moral hazard of the Fed there prodding them to make bad business decisions.

We wouldn't have the massive inflation we have now where a McDonald's meal costs 7 bucks.

We wouldn't have a gigantic welfare state that has 100 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

We wouldn't be suffering under the oppression of a massive bloated federal government.

Friedman was a genius, and did as much to support freedom in this nation as Ron Paul has today.


[edit on 16-3-2010 by mnemeth1]

Milton Friedman telling us we should end fascism here in America:



"You shouldn't have an institution that depends on whether he is good or not. My first inclination is to abolish the Federal Reserve".

reply to post by serbsta

The Architect

Milton Friedman is a world renowned economist who comes from the Chicago School of Economic thought. He believed in a completely free market economy, unregulated and unrestricted by government.

I agree with alot of what you said, but I don't really think Friedman envisioned anything like this. What we have going on today is a massive government that actively restricts the market.

It is the government that hands out these contracts to whoever they see fit. I do believe the government uses the disasters as an excuse to give their buddies a handout, but I believe the government always gets something in return.

A free market economy, unregulated and unrestricted by government is a good thing.



[edit on 16-3-2010 by BlackJackal]

Originally posted by mnemeth1
Milton Friedman telling us we should end fascism here in America:

"You shouldn't have an institution that depends on whether he is good or not. My first inclination is to abolish the Federal Reserve".

I agree with everything that is mentioned in the OP for the exception of Milton because I just don't know enough about him to make that assumption. Through the one vid you presented he sounds like a stand-up guy that I'd end up liking. Again, I'd have to do more of my own research but thanks for bringing in another side to coin.

Thank you Serbsta!!!
Your 150th post is terribly important and well done
.
Shock and Awe have changed the entire world and not for the better.

The more we know about it's history, mechanisms and possible future ramifications the better we can fight it.

Naomi Kleins' Shock Doctine is one of the most important books ever written.

Thank you for addressing the critical issue!
APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE

reply to post by mnemeth1


Yes I somewhat agree with you but under Frideman's model a state would crash. There's a reason why it wasn't tested in the US, it was tested in places like Chile, Argentina, Poland and Russia, where there were disastrous consequences which still have effects to this day.

Found this awesome article in relation to the above from the Nation: www.thenation.com...

Really is worth a read if you're interested in the above.

"It's not reconstruction at all--it's about reshaping everything." If anything, the stories of corruption and incompetence serve to mask this deeper scandal: the rise of a predatory form of disaster capitalism that uses the desperation and fear created by catastrophe to engage in radical social and economic engineering.

Scary stuff.

It's not about 'the government' handing out contracts to corporations, but about corporations taking over government and then using government to enrich themselves. Think about it, there's a difference.

A free market economy, unregulated and unrestricted by government is a good thing.

Actually it isn't. Without regulation you will end up with a single monopoly in a world of smog and pollution in a very short time. A well regulated free market is a good thing.

Excellent thread, thanks for posting this.
I will try to get her book as a result as well.

Another thing to keep in mind is that disaster generates profit, not only in the sense of having to rebuild bridges, but in the sense of some (expensive) products like ammunition are actually designed to become trash, and therefore create new demand.

Big Pharma and the Military industrial complex are especially good at creating markets/demand with their products.

Imo, there is an alternative.

Great post. Most interesting. Good to read something on here that is well presented and that actually makes you think hard about this topic. I wonder how long before some loon comes and mucks it up by saying it was all caused by HAARP and that HAARP is involved in the bigger scheme of thing?

See now I have done it, once you type HAARP on this forum they come out of the woodwork!!

Thanks again, interesting OP for sure...

Reply to OP

Interesting, your posting implies that the 2012 "phenomena" may in fact be a contrived social engineering shock and awe aided by theatricals.

Good post, Starred and Flagged

Posts that make you think are NOT condoned by TPTB... who desire to stop thought long enough to pick your pocket.



[edit on 16-3-2010 by seataka]