The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Directed by Michael Winterbottom (2009)
Film Review
Based on Naomi Klein’s best-selling book by the same name, this documentary explores predatory capitalism’s use of psychological trauma to crush human rights and forcibly transfer vast sums of money from the poor to the rich.
Like the book, the documentary begins with Dr Ewan Cameron’s CIA-funded research at McGill University into the long term effects of shock therapy, sleep deprivation and other deliberately inflicted trauma. The Agency would incorporate Cameron’s findings in their Kubark counterintelligence interrogation (ie torture) manual. They went on to use Kubark to train fascist South American military officers at the School of the Americas and to interrogate random prisoners (the vast majority were never charged) at Guantanamo and Iraqi prisons.
The film also explores the “economic shock therapy” developed by the late University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman. Friedman was a master at exploiting natural and contrived disasters to impose the kind of extreme free market reforms that crush unions and wages, shut down or privatize public services and create massive unemployment – while simultaneously transferring obscene amounts of wealth from the working and middle classes to the rich.
Friedman and his cronies seized the opportunity to put their predatory theories into practice when the CIA helped overthrow democratically elected governments in Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina; during the neoconservative regimes of Thatcher and Reagan; in Russia after the Berlin Wall collapsed; in New Orleans after Katrina; in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami; and in Iraq after 9/11.
I wonder if Klein’s statement preaching to Choir is all that is happening. the banksters cover-up is getting more and more sophisticated and funded with likes of technologies super rich tax free foundations getting the last word.
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Perhaps. To Klein’s credit both the book and the film are over 7 years old.
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May not be related but I think interesting http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/861278 and http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/860434
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Maybe off topic but there is something funny not doing Autopsy’s http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/860434 and http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/861278
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Dr. Bramhall, I read her book last year and was shocked on learning what we had faced in South America was all a well-designed plot in corporate take-over. Sadly, I see it all happening again in present day Brazil. Different tactics, same result.
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Yes, indeedy. I just finished a book on the role of missionaries post World War II in aid of this takeover. It makes for pretty ghastly reading.
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LET ME FIRST SAY THAT I DO NOT AGREE WITH ANY POLITICAL SPECTRUM; AS i AM A BIBLICAL PERSON YOU MAY SAY, BUT I CAN SEE WHERE ALL GOVERNMENTS ARE FAILING.
http://sentinelblog.com/2016/03/31/one-out-of-three-americans-cannot-afford-food-or-rent-episode-932a-youtube/
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Very interesting links, futuret. Thanks for sharing.
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“Athens (AFP) – Greece on Saturday demanded “explanations” from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after WikiLeaks said the lender sought a crisis “event” to push the indebted nation into concluding talks over its reforms.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/greece-wants-imf-explanations-over-wikileaks-report-official-113146703.html?nhp=1
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https://seeker401.wordpress.com/2016/04/02/the-company-that-bribed-the-world/
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