Naomi Klein: Climate change and "disaster capitalism"

Credit: Susanne Miller, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Public domain image. 

Naomi Klein suggests the current climate crisis is a chance to make our world more equitable. That, Naomi insists, would be "a once in a century chance." In this recently published article, Naomi mentions her personal climate change wake up call, and I'm thinking it's about time for all of us to wake up to our endangered planet:

These remarks are adapted from a speech by Naomi Klein on Monday at "Now is Not the Time For Small Steps: Solutions to the Climate Crisis and the Role of Trade Unions" at Salle Olympe de Gouges.

PARIS -- Here is what we know about what to expect from the official climate negotiations.
The deal that will be unveiled in less than a week -- likely to much fanfare and self-congratulation from politicians and an overly deferential press -- will not be enough to keep us safe. In fact, it will be extraordinarily dangerous.

The targets that the major economies brought to Paris lead us to a future of 3-4 degrees warming -- those are the Tyndall Centre's numbers -- not 2 degrees, as was pledged in Copenhagen. Two degrees is how our governments defined "dangerous warming" in the Copenhagen Accord.

And we also know from leading climate scientists like James Hansen that 2 degrees is too high. Indeed we know from lived experience that the amount we've already warmed the globe is too much. We are already living the era of dangerous warming. It is already costing many thousands of lives and livelihoods -- from the Philippines to Bangladesh to Nigeria to New Orleans to the Marshall Islands.

Speaking about climate change as if "dangerous" is a place far off in the distance is nothing less than, as my friend Kumi Naidoo put it yesterday, "subliminal racism." And it's getting less and less subliminal every day. 

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Milbank: Obama is Killing the Progressive Movement

Anyone want to replace Michelle in this photo?

The solicitation I received today from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee offered the chance to win an opportunity to have my photo taken with Barack Obama. Opting to unsubscribe from the DSCC’s mailing list, I included a message giving my reasons why I left the Democratic Party a year ago and re-registered as non-affiliated. I listed the usual: sexism, misogyny, ageism, Rules Committee violations, rigged convention and in general, the party’s eager embrace of the tactics of left-wing extremists - whatever it took to nominate Obama.

I’d even become ashamed to describe myself as liberal or progressive, so I had only mixed feelings when I read Dana Milbank’s opening line in today’s Washington Sketch, “President Obama is just killing the progressive movement.”

Milbank reports:

For the past few years, liberal activists have gathered in Washington each spring for the Take Back America conference, where speaker after speaker -- Obama sometimes among them -- would give rollicking denunciations of the Bush administration before packed rooms of partisans.

But now that Obama has actually taken back America, the activists at this year's gathering feel a bit like the dog that finally caught up with the car. Organizers changed the name from Take Back America to America's Future Now, but that didn't prevent a sharp decline in participation.

At sparsely attended sessions this week at the Omni Shoreham, the progressive leaders debated whether they should shift their efforts to defending Obama, or fighting him when he strays from liberal doctrine. "It was easy taking back America," Robert Borosage, the conference organizer, told about 250 of the faithful at yesterday's closing luncheon. "Now we have to remake it. . . . That's the hard work."

Apparently so. Speakers at the closing session exhorted the liberals to take back America -- from Obama. "The president of the most powerful country in the world is doing all right, but there are a lot of people in this country who are not doing all right," writer Naomi Klein told the crowd. "Obama is making us stupid," she added. "Love can make you stupid."

Comparing last year’s energy at the conference to this year’s lethargy, Milbank writes:

Hickey estimates attendance dropped from 2,500 last year to 1,500 this year, and even that may overstate things. At yesterday morning's four concurrent "issue briefings," 585 chairs were set out. Only 213 of them were occupied, including just 15 for the session on global warming. "Radio row" was quiet, the "TV Terrace" was empty, and two people sat typing on "Blogger Boulevard."

"It's been much less busy this year," said a guy in the nearly empty exhibit hall who was handing out stickers from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force saying "Power is Sexy." Nobody was shopping at the book kiosk in the middle of the room, where the titles leaned toward the battles of the George W. Bush years: "The Constitution in Crisis . . . a Blueprint for Impeachment." "The Uprising." "Plunder and Blunder." "The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule."

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The Idolatry of Obama Leads to Loss of Hope

Author Naomi Klein

As one who takes my faith seriously and practices daily spiritual disciplines such as mindfulness meditation, it’s been my lot over the past two years to tell euphoric Obama supporters from time to time that I don’t need a charismatic politician to give me hope; my hope springs from deep within myself.

So it was with some amusement and a good deal of satisfaction this afternoon (don't know how I missed this earlier) that I came across Naomi Klein’s Lexicon of Disappointment for Obamafanland in which she offers a few variations on the word hope.

Klein writes:

Whatever the last straw, a growing number of Obama enthusiasts are starting to entertain the possibility that their man is not, in fact, going to save the world if we all just hope really hard.

This is a good thing. If the superfan culture that brought Obama to power is going to transform itself into an independent political movement, one fierce enough to produce programs capable of meeting the current crises, we are all going to have to stop hoping and start demanding.

The first stage, however, is to understand fully the awkward in-between space in which many US progressive movements find themselves. To do that, we need a new language, one specific to the Obama moment. Here is a start.

Hopeover. Like a hangover, a hopeover comes from having overindulged in something that felt good at the time but wasn't really all that healthy, leading to feelings of remorse, even shame. It's the political equivalent of the crash after a sugar high. Sample sentence: "When I listened to Obama's economic speech my heart soared. But then, when I tried to tell a friend about his plans for the millions of layoffs and foreclosures, I found myself saying nothing at all. I've got a serious hopeover."

Hoper coaster. Like a roller coaster, the hoper coaster describes the intense emotional peaks and valleys of the Obama era, the veering between joy at having a president who supports safe-sex education and despondency that single-payer healthcare is off the table at the very moment when it could actually become a reality. Sample sentence: "I was so psyched when Obama said he is closing Guantánamo. But now they are fighting like mad to make sure the prisoners in Bagram have no legal rights at all. Stop this hoper coaster--I want to get off!"

Hopesick. Like the homesick, hopesick individuals are intensely nostalgic. They miss the rush of optimism from the campaign trail and are forever trying to recapture that warm, hopey feeling--usually by exaggerating the significance of relatively minor acts of Obama decency. Sample sentences: "I was feeling really hopesick about the escalation in Afghanistan, but then I watched a YouTube video of Michelle in her organic garden and it felt like inauguration day all over again. A few hours later, when I heard that the Obama administration was boycotting a major UN racism conference, the hopesickness came back hard. So I watched slideshows of Michelle wearing clothes made by ethnically diverse independent fashion designers, and that sort of helped."

Hope fiend. With hope receding, the hope fiend, like the dope fiend, goes into serious withdrawal, willing to do anything to chase the buzz. (Closely related to hopesickness but more severe, usually affecting middle-aged males.) Sample sentence: "Joe told me he actually believes Obama deliberately brought in Summers so that he would blow the bailout, and then Obama would have the excuse he needs to do what he really wants: nationalize the banks and turn them into credit unions. What a hope fiend!"

Hopebreak. Like the heartbroken lover, the hopebroken Obama-ite is not mad but terribly sad. She projected messianic powers onto Obama and is now inconsolable in her disappointment. Sample sentence: "I really believed Obama would finally force us to confront the legacy of slavery in this country and start a serious national conversation about race. But now he never seems to mention race, and he's using twisted legal arguments to keep us from even confronting the crimes of the Bush years. Every time I hear him say 'move forward,' I'm hopebroken all over again."

Hopelash. Like a backlash, hopelash is a 180-degree reversal of everything Obama-related. Sufferers were once Obama's most passionate evangelists. Now they are his angriest critics. Sample sentence: "At least with Bush everyone knew he was an asshole. Now we've got the same wars, the same lawless prisons, the same Washington corruption, but everyone is cheering like Stepford wives. It's time for a full-on hopelash."

In trying to name these various hope-related ailments, I found myself wondering what the late Studs Terkel would have said about our collective hopeover. He surely would have urged us not to give in to despair. I reached for one of his last books, Hope Dies Last. I didn't have to read long. The book opens with the words: "Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up."

And that pretty much says it all. Hope was a fine slogan when rooting for a long-shot presidential candidate. But as a posture toward the president of the most powerful nation on earth, it is dangerously deferential. The task as we move forward (as Obama likes to say) is not to abandon hope but to find more appropriate homes for it--in the factories, neighborhoods and schools where tactics like sit-ins, squats and occupations are seeing a resurgence.

Political scientist Sam Gindin wrote recently that the labor movement can do more than protect the status quo. It can demand, for instance, that shuttered auto plants be converted into green-future factories, capable of producing mass-transit vehicles and technology for a renewable energy system. "Being realistic means taking hope out of speeches," he wrote, "and putting it in the hands of workers."

Which brings me to the final entry in the lexicon.

Hoperoots. Sample sentence: "It's time to stop waiting for hope to be handed down, and start pushing it up, from the hoperoots"

At the Huffington Post, Klein invited readers to contribute to a more complete lexicon, and she received 700 or so comments. Read more.

A Political/Spiritual Epiphany in the Dentist’s Office

Photo credits: bevshoenberger.com

Due to a busy schedule I’ve not posted much lately. I was guest speaker on Sunday at a local Twin Cities Unitarian Universalist church, and I was occupied Monday organizing my mindfulness meditation group. I just got back this afternoon from my six-month check up at the dentist’s office, and I’m going out later this evening to help with fundraising at the seminary where I earned my master’s in divinity degree.

No doubt you’ve already glimpsed the thread of spirituality running through the above list of activities. No? I’ll bet you don’t get the spiritual connection with the dentist’s office.

Let me explain. I’ve been seeing the same dentist at least twice a year for about the past eight years. Dr. Fuller and I never fail to get into an intense political discussion while he’s completing my check up. He’s fair, though. He removes the gadgets and allows me to speak when it’s my turn.

A lot had happened since my visit last July, but we zeroed in on the economy and quickly moved to discussing Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine.” Dr. Fuller was putting his tools away, when I mentioned we’d managed to thoroughly depress ourselves this time around. That’s when I told him I was starting a mindfulness meditation group in my neighborhood. Startled, he replied, “That’s the only way out of this. A lot of people have told me they’re doing the same thing.”

Could the global financial meltdown be moving us toward a deeper appreciation of the spiritual? Just a thought.

Video: Naomi Klein on Obama

This video of Naomi Klein on holding Barack Obama accountable provides interesting insights on what being progressive actually means. Klein offers revealing information about the Obama team’s plans and strategies. For example, she talks about how the team’s chief economist, Jason Furman, defends the low wages Walmart pays its employees.

The Making of a Blogger

A techie, I’m not. Nor am I receiving kickbacks for promoting online services. But about 10 years ago, I fell in love with the Internet — and that’s despite the fact I’m still without high-speed access.

As technologically impaired as I am, even a partial list of the ways my computer helps me manage my life is impressive: online banking, getting directions, keeping up with Minnesota weather, and Googling important stuff for my latest post on Katalusis.

But here’s a secret: online news sources have long intrigued me more than any other magic on the Web.

I’ve been a news junkie from an early age. It all started when my older brother Kenneth shipped out with the 124th Infantry Division for combat duty in Korea. Until the day he returned home, my family listened to the news on the radio every hour on the hour.

By dint of repetition my impressionable young mind retained for years odd bits of trivia; for example, Michael V. DiSalle of Toledo, Ohio was the price administrator under President Harry Truman.

(In between news broadcasts, I followed the Cleveland Indians, but don’t get me started on baseball statistics; that’s not an issue where I care to engage Alan Greenspan.)

Most important, sitting in the family circle and listening for news from the Korean battlefield taught me how events on the other side of the globe affect every waking moment of our lives. I’ve been addicted to knowing what’s going on in the world ever since.

I thought I’d died and gone to news junkie heaven when I discovered I had daily access to online versions of the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, CNN, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune, and the London Times, to name just a few.

And that was way before I discovered the blogosphere, a wide-open territory where I’ve not even begun to learn my way around. I’m ashamed to admit I was introduced to blogs on the front pages of the mainstream media where I’ve met the likes of Dan Froomkin and Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post and Mike Nizza at the New York Times.

Incidentally, at the rate it’s going, the MSM may soon co-opt the blogosphere; I hear the New York Times now hosts 30 plus blogs on its pages.

A complete MSM takeover would be unfortunate. The ongoing Alan Greenspan travesty is just one good example why an independent blogosphere is essential. When word of Greenspan’s memoir first broke in the Washington Post with Bob Woodward’s review of The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, I was as stunned as anyone else by this quote from Greenspan, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

The 81-year-old former chairman of the Federal Reserve has stifled the nascent controversy by treating his rationale for the invasion of Iraq as if it were just, well, common sense: “What?” the oracle of American finance deftly exclaims, “Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil reserves in the Middle East!”

For in-depth coverage, I usually begin my day with at least an hour-long fix of breaking news from the wire services and analyses of current events by respected commentators. Since Greenspan’s original remark about the war was first published, I’ve been waiting in vain for the media — mainstream or otherwise — to challenge the ethical and moral right of one nation to invade another to secure their oil supplies.

The Huffington Post came through the other day. While comparing Greenspan’s Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World to Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,
Huffington notes Klein’s challenge to Greenspan on Democracy Now.

In response to Greenspan’s justification for taking out Hussein to stabilize the world’s oil supply, Klein asks, “"Are you aware that, according to Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions, it is illegal for one country to invade another over its natural resources?"

Evidently Greenspan was unaware of the applicable international law. And I’m left wondering how many American citizens are as oblivious as he is. More important, how many care?

I launched Katalusis in late August, so I’ve only been blogging for about a month. But this particular issue seems made to order for an independent blogosphere, and I’m hoping my fellow progressive bloggers will rise to the occasion and sound the alarm.