Documentaries "The Shock Doctrine" and "Life and Debt," and Haiti

Two documentaries on my mind in the wake of Haiti's earthquakes are Stephanie Black's 2001 documentary on Jamaica, "Life and Debt," and "The Shock Doctrine" that just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year. "Life and Debt" gives a step by step view of how and why Jamaica's post-colonial economy is laden with debt, and how as a resource-rich nation, it is rife with extreme poverty in this era of "free market" multi-national corporate globalism. It'll make you sick to your stomach, how small post-colonial nations are carved up and attacked so insidiously on all sides by these multi-nationals, with international political policies and military might they are able to buy to support their insatiable greed. The film is specific to Jamaica but the trends are seen over and over and over again in post-colonial nations that span the Carribean, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Pretty much most of the globe.

"The Shock Doctrine" takes a step back to look at trends that involve a relationship between "shocks" to a society and a "free market" economy. The idea behind the film and Naomi Klein's theory in the book by the same name for which the film is based on, is that after a "shock," whether as a result of military activity or environmental catastrophe, radical changes of some form of authoritarianism is often implemented, leading to the selling of ones nation to privatization. "Disaster Capitalism" is the term for this relationship. A nation is open and vulnerable to foreign interests and/or the interests of private companies are able to manipulate public support. Nations are also literally held at gun point to force the opening of their doors for economic rape and pillage and authoritarianism under the guise of "free markets" led by the doctrines of University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman, who ultimately won a Nobel Prize. Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Pinochet, Thatcher all brought this radical economic philosophy to the fore, and the resulting inequities of societies that were forced to implement it, and extent of environmental destruction, are unprecedented. The role of shock, or disorientation, where a person or society is disconnected from history and sound judgement, is utilized by corporate and imperialist agendas, and is at the heart of Klein's "Disaster Capitalism." An article providing an alternatively nuanced take on disaster and rebuilding via Voltaire's philosophies came out in the Wall Street Journal days after Haiti's earthquake, "Rising from the Ruins" examining a historical view of catastrophe and "progress," and even how trends are vastly different from the past in the wake of Katrina and Haiti.

Within a week of Hurricane Katrina, communities that were dismantled and in a state of flux, were carved up for privatization, from education to real estate. The process of foreign companies coming in to "divvy up the loot" happened within 24 hours of the earthquake in Haiti. A good article that ties in the "Shock Doctrine" and many of the issues addressed in "Life and Debt" specific to Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake can be found here, "The Shock Doctrine for Haiti," in the Socialist Worker.

It's all happening with tsunami-like speed and might. When is this all going to become transparent to the public? Will the public even care enough to organize for change? When is the true disaster of capitalism going to end? Global warming?