Will Japan fall victim to the "Shock Doctrine"?

I. What is the "Shock Doctrine?
The Shock Doctrine is the title of a book by Naomi Klein about how capitalism takes advantage of (and sometimes even instigates) natural disasters and other upheavals in order to rearrange society and rake in cash. Klein is controversial among many because she is a pretty much staunchly "leftist" figure. So some people will have a knee-jerk reaction against her very name. I'm not particularly leftist, but I think her analysis is compelling and if you look beyond the surface even conservatives should be able to find value in some of her ideas.

I will quote from the Wikipedia entry on the book and idea. which I think gives a pretty good rundown of the basic core concept:

[Klein's two main themes are:]
1. That practitioners of the shock doctrine tend to seek a blank slate on which to create their ideal free market economies, which inevitably requires a usually violent destruction of the existing economic order.

2.The similarities between economic shock doctrine and the original shock therapy – a psychiatric technique where electric shocks were applied to mentally ill patients.

A brief outline of the chapters and themes can be found at the same link. I'll summarize even further for you.

Outline of main ideas

Chapter 1: Psychiatric torture, brainwashing, and personality reformation techniques are well known to TPTB. Big capitalists and international freebooters apply the same undertstanding of psychology to manipulate tramautized societies for money.

Chapter 2: How the Shock Doctrine was first honed and applied in South America in the 1970s.

Chapter 3: Using the Shock Doctrine surgically agaainst certain segements of the population rather than in a society-wide manner.

Chapter 4: Application of the Shock Doctrine in Poland, Russia, South Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Chapter 5: The Shock Doctrine network; shady connections between government and security-related private enterprise; a murky world of money and violence.

Chapter 6 : The case of Iraq -- the biggest example of the Shock Doctrine in history.

Chapter 7: Winners and losers; how certain segments of a society are lured to cooperate with the Shock Doctrine. How certain types are "seduced" by the various promises of the Shock Doctrine.

Conclusion: Efforts to fight the shock doctrine around the world.

And here are some vids on the Shock Doctrine.





Also highly recommended, covering some of the same ground from a different perspective (absolutely fascinating) part I of II:



II. The specific case of Japan

Japan is not a poor country. It is highly developed, so it does not necessarily fit the typical Shock Doctrine profile. Yet the Shock Doctrine can be applied selectively within a country, such as to poor parts of rich countries. They are getting better at "honing" the skills involved.

Japan must be attractive pickings. Athough rich, it has a long history of autonomy from the West. Consider the following:

-Ejected Portugese colonialists in the 16th century and successfully kept the West out for the next 300 years.
-Has own system of Capitalism that is much more long-term-oriented than the Anglo-American model
-Highly insulated from the rest of the world due to strong government control of media and information flow, almost archaic levels of patriotism and nationalism, and isolation imposed by language and culture differences.
-More highly regulated and government-controlled than the US or Europe; plenty of "juicy meat" to crowbar open through "privitization" than is possible in any of the other developed countries (which have already gone through their deregulation episodes in the 80s and 90s).

Like a mind-manipulator is able to reform and craft a personality after a massive electroshock, will the shock of the earthquake lay Japan open for plunder after centuries of keeping the pirates at bay?

The "Shock Doctrine" helps to make a lot more sense of what is happening with the world. A little closer to home, it also describes the neo-con agenda which we see being played out across the US by Republican governors under the guise of budget reform.

Time will tell, history tells us that the capitalists will try and make the most of things but the Japanese bless'em tend to stick to their own agendas. However its likely the big corporations will offer all sorts of incentives if the Japanese govt does this or agrees to that!

It will be interesting to see how long it takes, at the moment they have Iraq to plunder and of course Libia soon, the men in the dark suits must be dancing next to their big oak desks!!!

Read the book - thought it was a great read, but if the NWO or anybody else wants to capitalize on Japan's tragedy and/or tragedies to come, they better get a move on and fix the reactor problems quick or there won't be anything left to capitalize on.