Talk:Naomi Klein

What kind of *feedback* did she get from Nike?

• Nike's response to No Logo used to be at http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/labor/nologo_let.shtml but it was deleted ( intentional or not ) when Nike redesigned their site. When it was available I read it .. and the message was "we don't agree with what you say in the book" basically. -- pty 21:39 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

• • The archive.org copy is linked from the discussion page at Talk:No_Logo. It's quite a fascinating read, actually, with interesting obfuscatory views of Klein's figures (without actually disputing them), and a lovely circular justification of why labour costs comprise so little of the retail value of their products. Almost masterful in its eviltude. :)

RE: An aunt of Klein's is married to architect Daniel Libeskind.

Actually, DL's wife is Nina Lewis-Libeskind (Stephen Lewis's sister and Avi Lewis's aunt). Nina is only Klein's aunt through marriage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.77.37.48 (talk) 00:16, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Is she Jewish?

Maybe we could add in if she is or not.

• Ummm... why? -- User:Ants

She says her first public speaking engagement was her bar mitzvah, where she addressed racism issues. But we could leave that out if it is controversial to identify one's religion or ethnicity.Bdell555 20:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

"controversial" isn't quite the right word for identifying religion and "ethnicity" only when it isn't Christian or white. -- 71.102.136.107 00:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Does the mp3 link really work? Im not able to find it on the given page? --Aryah 02:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

ON NAOMI KLEIN BEING JEWISH

In Chapter Four, Naomi Klein mentions a UN resolution which included group slaughter based on political affiliation its definition of genocide - that it can be genocide when a group is killed, not because of race, ethnicity or religion but because of ideological differences (pp. 119-120). Naomi Klein then goes on to point out the danger of any political or economic movement which “requires a monopoly of ideology” and perceives competing ideologies as “distortions”, “filth” or “disease” which need to be amputated - either from the person or from society. In passing, Naomi Klein mentions Residential Schools, a practice which many First Nations leaders describe as “cultural genocide” because its purpose was to strip Native children of their language and cultural identity ( http://afn.ca/article.asp?id=3324 ).

On page 135, Naomi Klein quotes “Fritz Klein,” a Nazi doctor who shares her last name (and her father’s profession) justifying the slaughter of those who, like Naomi Klein herself, were born Jewish. There were many in the Nazi regime who could have supplied Naomi Klein with a similar quote who did not share her last name, so this inclusion of a villain who shared her own surname seems deliberate. Similarily, in an interview on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos, Naomi Klein states that her book is not about preaching her ideology and that she agrees with all criticisms of her work – presumably including criticisms levied by those who hate everything Naomi Klein stands for. This chapter seems to be about Naomi Klein facing the possibility that any ideology can become corrupted, in the fashion which she describes, when it perceives itself incapable of coexisting in a society with other ideologies.

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1667 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.77.37.48 (talk) 07:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Iraq Reconstruction

Re: "Baghdad Year Zero: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia" - it would be useful to point out that Klein's theory in this article has been overtaken by events. That is, with the three elections in Iraq in 2005 and the formation of a government in 2006, the structure of the Iraqi goverment and its economy are determined by Iraqis, not by some Bush administration neocon plan, as imagined by Klein.

• • Um, what's that? You're completely wrong, my dear neo-con troll. Here are some LAWS in fact passed by Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority that totally contradict your utterly false and misleading claim: Soon after the occupation of Iraq, United State created the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). CPA was to act as a provisional government until such a time as Iraqis could hold an election and create a government. Mr. Paul Bremer was given the full power to do as he liked. "The CPA is vested with all executive, legislative and judicial authority necessary to achieve its objectives, to be exercised under relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, including Resolution 1483 (2003), and the laws and usages of war. This authority shall be exercised by the CPA Administrator."

Mr. Bremer was appointed the President, the parliament and the Supreme Court. He immediately started issuing orders that in effect were laws. There are a total of 100 orders. I can only list a few here to make my point. Some of his interesting orders are as follows:

• "Order No. 39:allows for: (1) privatization of Iraq's 200 state-owned enterprises; (2) up to100% foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses; (3) "national treatment" - which means no preferences for local over foreign businesses; (4) unrestricted, tax-free remittance of all profits and other funds; and (5) 40-year ownership licenses. Thus, it forbids Iraqis from receiving preference in the reconstruction while allowing foreign corporations - Halliburton and Bechtel, for example - to buy up Iraqi businesses, do all of the work and send all of their money home. They cannot be required to hire Iraqis or to reinvest their money in the Iraqi economy. They can take out their investments at any time and in any amount.

•"Orders No. 57 and No. 77 ensure the implementation of the orders by placing U.S.-appointed auditors and inspector generals in every government ministry, with five-year terms and with sweeping authority over contracts, programs, employees and regulations.

•"Order No. 17 grants foreign contractors, including private security firms, full immunity from Iraq's laws. Even if they, say, kill someone or cause an environmental disaster, the injured party cannot turn to the Iraqi legal system. Rather, the charges must be brought to U.S. courts.

•"Order No. 40 allows foreign banks to purchase up to 50% of Iraqi banks.

•"Order No. 49 drops the tax rate on corporations from a high of 40% to a flat 15%. The income tax rate is also capped at 15%.

•"Order No. 12 (renewed on Feb. 24) suspends "all tariffs, customs duties, import taxes, licensing fees and similar surcharges for goods entering or leaving Iraq." This led to an immediate and dramatic inflow of cheap foreign consumer products - devastating local producers and sellers who were thoroughly unprepared to meet the challenge of their mammoth global competitors."

So nope: Iraq is pretty much a puppet neo-colonialist state in occupation and not independent and self directed. Just read those laws passed! Klein is correct in her observations and you are incorrect. The source of my information above is Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar of Norway, which is part of his article "US vs. Iran" ironically. His article is on the www.zmag.org website for anybody who wants to read it. Thanks for reading! (Quite shocking those laws as itemized above, isn't it?). And by the way personally I think Naomi Klein is a most excellent writer and commentator, among the very best in fact. Keep up the great writing Naomi! Zamboni driver 22:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't believe people haven't sabataged this enough to get it locked. I'm not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing. It means either people aren't reading her books, or people are reading her books and liking them.

"Irakees"? New Orleans "tsunami"??? Haha... At least get your basic facts / spelling / references right before doing your part to propagate a conspiracy theory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.89.161 (talk) 05:28, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and the US government plotted to turn over the country's oil fields to BP and Shell? Another simple fact-check would reveal that those are European companies, which the US govt / CPA virtually shut out of reconstruction contracts for several years following the invasion. If you wanted to believe in an oil conspiracy theory, can I suggest you use Exxon, an American oil company? That would actually make "sense". 67.186.89.161 05:33, 1 October 2007 (UTC)s

the US Government wants to control the oil in the middle east not necessarily use it. the U.S. wants to control the world if you control the recourses you control the world oil is just a tool —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.62.142.38 (talk) 03:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Becoming a Feminist

She credits her wake-up call to feminism as the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre of female engineering students.

If the psycho killer had credited Satan as his motivation instead, would she have considered Satanism? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.17.182.210 (talk) 14:59, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Aside from the fact that your comment has nothing to do with improving the article, it doesn't make any sense. -- 71.102.136.107 00:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

A source for Naomi Klein's education, crediting the Montreal Massacre for her latent feminism is her interview on The Hour. Seems that Klein did not finish her degree because of her writing - The Hour presents the information very quickly:

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1667

I think that Naomi Klein blames her own embarrassment in school soon after her mother's film "Not a Love Story" came out for initially distancing herself from her parent's activism. Read somewhere that this was the case but forget where.

There should be a separate section for each of her two books and her movie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.77.37.48 (talk) 23:12, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Education?

The article has a section titled "Education" yet doesn't give any information about her education. AxelBoldt (talk) 18:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know but her sister teaches anthropology, I believe, at the University of Oklahoma. A left of center professor of mine had to call Naoimi out, when she came to OU to speak about her then upcoming book, on her claim that Haiti became a failed state because of American capitalism, which is just not supported by the facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.110.172.111 (talk) 21:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Naomi Klein's interview on The Hour lists her education and how it was interrupted.

"American Capitalism" may have been a poor choice of words on Naomi Klein's part since what the book talks about are policies imposed on other countries which go way beyond what was ever implemented in the United States. The school of thought which these policies are based on came from the US and, in some cases, so did the pressure to implement them (though one can argue that Multinational Corporations don't strictly belong to any country).

Klein's husband's family are very adamantly anti-Marxist/anti-Communist and, it seems that a bit of that has rubbed off on Klein as well - in her book, she tends to see Communism and Conservatism as equally prone to Corporatism. Her husbands grandfather was the one who kept Marxist influences out of the NDP and her husband's great-grandfather left Poland because he was threatened by the Soviets over his union activism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Lewis —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.77.37.48 (talk) 23:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Criticism

Various criticisms have been posted previously concerning Klein's views and theories. Why have these been purposefully edited out? These were documented accounts, i.e. The Rebel Sell and others. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fetternity (talk • contribs) 21:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

misrepresenting sources

Robert Cole did not dismiss the book as a leftist rant. what he actually wrote was, "The Shock Doctrine is lucidly written and comprehensively researched, but leans heavily on partisan contributions from the cuttings library and the blogosphere. Ultimately it fails because it is too easy to dismiss as a leftist rant." please don't misrepresent the views in sources Marshmellowgoggles (talk) 18:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

If you want to include reviews form Klein's website please find direct sources for them. Personal websites are not reliable sources for self-praise. -- Vision Thing -- 20:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

May 2008 article in Rolling Stone

Naomi's written a long article on Chinese security politics, the companies, both Chinese and American, that enable them, and how western countries are increasingly similar. Seems like something to add to the article, but I feel like I can't word it well enough. Meneth (talk) 13:57, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, she starts of the article calling prosperity and economic freedom "crack cocaine", and that both seems to be the only thing noteworthy in that article as well as a good summary on her political views. --Regebro (talk) 15:01, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Name Dropping

A massive liost of people who liked her work is without useful content. If Adam Smith or Milton Friedman were to get such treatment, it would fill the page. Larklight (talk) 18:19, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, but it's not easy to do something about that. The book *did* receive a lot of praise, and it is hard to make "substantial praise". It's easy to to substantial criticism, though. :) It would be nice if we somehow could reorganise this section (and in fact, move it to The Shock Doctrine where it belongs) in a way that more accurately reflects the reality of the criticism and praise while being NPOV. Suggestions welcome. --Regebro (talk) 18:38, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The section is not without merit- which is why I didn't delete it. However, a massive list of names *is* without merit, which is why I took that bit out. In way of suggestions, my first is to remove the useless list, and the second is to actually talk about the content of the book, rather than simply say it's amazing. If this isn't POV feasible, becuase it appears all the comments about content are negative, the non-contnent concerned ones can go after the content-concerned ones.

Thirdly, I think the line about endnotes should also go. I've got a copy of Free to Choose here (Friedman), and it's got 16 pages of endnotes, in on quite large pages. I don't think it's really notable, and it makes her look a lot more well-grounded than she is. Larklight (talk) 18:58, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I find the fact that Subcommandande Marcos praise of the book is referenced on the Shock Doctrines homepage notable for one. If murderous terrorist supported what I wrote I would try to keep quite about that. ;) I agree about the end-notes. As Norberg hypothesizes, she may not ever have read most of the texts in her endnotes, but only been feed the quotes out of context by her twelve researchers. --Regebro (talk) 19:08, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

:) Unfortunitly, I can't revert the anon anymore, I think I'm already over the 3RR limit. I think elucidating on the 20page report might be a good idea, I've just read it, and it seems far fairer to Friedman Larklight (talk) 19:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I think not calling Cown an economist is fine, (to the anon) Larklight (talk) 13:30, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Mixed reviews?

"The book has received mixed reviews from Alexander Cockburn of CounterPunch,[25] Shashi Tharoor in the Washington Post,[26] and Tom Redburn in the New York Times.[27]"

What exactly is mixed with CounterPunch and New York times reviews? I can't see they say anything particularily positive? --Regebro (talk) 20:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

If you want, we'll drop the counterpoint one? And I've reworded the NYT one. Larklight (talk) 19:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems reasonable to me. --Regebro (talk) 06:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

from counterpunch: "Klein's outrage is admirable. Her specific exposes across six decades of infamy are often excellent, but in her larger ambitions her metaphors betray her."

from ny times: "Friedman’s association with Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator, was indeed the worst stain on his career. His defense that his economic advice to Pinochet was no different from what a doctor might give a government on how to deal with an outbreak of AIDS is not very persuasive.

Moreover, it is no secret that capitalism does not require a democratic political system to thrive: China is proof of that. Ms. Klein is not alone, either, in pointing out that many governments serve to protect the interests of the rich, and that as inequality grows, the threat rises that the establishment will turn to undemocratic means to thwart the will of the majority.

Ms. Klein exposes the hypocrisy behind those who promote free enterprise but accept autocratic regimes to carry it out, which makes her book a useful corrective to some of the uncritical celebrations of the spread of globalization since the collapse of the Soviet empire.

But her argument constantly overreaches, because her goal is not really to tame capitalism so much as to taunt it."

from washington post: "Despite its limitations, The Shock Doctrine is a valuable addition to the corpus of popular books that have attempted to rethink the big ideas of our post-Cold War age. Francis Fukuyama's notion of the "end of history" -- the idea that all societies would be governed by liberal democracy and free markets -- started the process of reflection; Samuel Huntington's concept of the "clash of civilizations" underpinned much of the anxiety that followed the realization that reports of history's demise were exaggerated. Thomas Friedman's celebration of the flatness of the globalized world is now countered by Klein's argument that when disasters flatten societies, capitalists see opportunities to profit and spread their influence. Each thesis has its flaws, but each contributes to the contest of ideas about the shape and direction of our current Age of Uncertainty. For this reason, and for the vigor and accessibility with which she marshals her argument, Naomi Klein is well worth reading."

what exactly of these do you not feel befits the definition of "mixed"?