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WHAT:  Digging Deeper XXXVIII: Deeper into Klein: Judith Butler, Greg Grandin, Antonia Juhasz, & John Pilger
WHO:  Led by Mark Jensen
WHEN:  Monday, October 29 and November 5, 12, & 19, 2007 -- 7:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
WHERE:  Mandolin Café, 3923 South 12th St., Tacoma, WA 98405

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United for Peace
of Pierce County (WA)
Study Circle:
October 29 & November 5, 12, & 19, 2007
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DIGGING DEEPER XXXVIII: Deeper into Klein: Judith Butler, Greg Grandin, Antonia Juhasz, & John Pilger

In The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Metropolitan, 2007) leading public intellectual Naomi Klein takes to task the free-market fundamentalist movement inspired by the theories of the late University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman.  It was Friedman, Klein writes, who "first learned how to exploit a large-scale shock or crisis in the mid-seventies, when he acted as adviser to the Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet."  Friedman coined the term "shock treatment" for the reforms introduced in Chile, which were introduced as the solution to an earlier shock, that of severe hyperinflation.  Pinochet introduced a third sort of shock:  an "epidemic of torture that punished hundreds of thousands of people who believed in a different kind of society."  The combination of disaster, radical economic reform, and torture have now appeared together in so many places around the globe during the past thirty-five years that, Klein argues, it is now possible to speak of "disaster capitalism complex," one that stands ready to deal with catastrophe anywhere in return for a hefty fee, in the process pursuing a corporatist political "vision of a fully outsources, hollow government" whose approach to almost any problem is to award public funds through contracts to corporations.

With sixty pages of notes, Klein's book is rich in sources.  Digging Deeper XXXVIII will continue to discuss Klein's views on "disaster capitalism" and the future of "disaster apartheid" it promises while reading four of the books she acknowledges as "of such tremendous and repeated help that endnotes and bibliographies don’t suffice to indicate their importance":

— Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence (Verso, 2004):  "In her most impassioned and personal book to date, Judith Butler responds in this profound appraisal of post-9/11 America to the current U.S. policies to wage perpetual war, and calls for a deeper understanding of how mourning and violence might instead inspire solidarity and a quest for global justice." —Book cover.

— Greg Grandin, Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism (Metopolitan, 2006):  "NYU historian Grandin (The Blood of Guatemala) sketches the vexed course of U.S. relations with Latin America, but focuses on the Reagan administration's involvement in Central America during the 1980s, when it backed the Salvadoran government in a brutal civil war against left-wing insurgents and the Nicaraguan Contras against the Sandinista regime. . . . [T]his timely book offers an analysis of the ideological foundations of today's foreign policy consensus and a cautionary tale about its dark legacy." —Publishers Weekly.

—Antonia Juhasz, The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time (HarperCollins, 2006):  "Exposes a radical corporate globalization agenda that has been refined by leading members and allies of the Bush administration over decades and reached its fullest, most aggressive implementation under George W. Bush — and Bush Agenda adherents plan for it to outlast him.  Juhasz uncovers the history and key role of U.S. corporations in the creation of this agenda — focusing on Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, Chevron, and Halliburton — then presents the Iraq War as its most brutal application to date." —Book description.

—John Pilger, The New Rulers of the World (Verso, 2002):  "Reveals the secrets and illusions of modern imperialism.  Beginning with Indonesia, [Pilger] shows how General Suharto's bloody seizure of power in the 1960s was part of a Western design to impose a 'global economy' on Asia.  A million Indonesians died as the price for being the World Bank's 'model pupil.' In a shocking chapter on Iraq, he allows us to understand the true nature of the West's war against the people of that country.  And he dissects, piece by piece, the propaganda of the 'war on terror' to expose its Orwellian truth.  Finally, he looks behind the picture postcard of his homeland, Australia, to illuminate an enduring legacy of imperialism, the subjugation of the First Australians." —Book cover.

MEETING SCHEDULE -- Mondays from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Mandolin Café, 3923 S. 12th St., Tacoma, WA.

No charge for participation. Some copies available for loan or sale. Contact: Mark Jensen (jensenmk@plu.edu; 253-756-7519).

Regular meetings of United for Peace of Pierce County are held at 6:30 p.m. on 1st Thursdays and at 7:00 p.m. on 3rd Thursdays at First Congregational Church, 209 S. “J” St., Tacoma, WA.

***********************************
United for Peace
of Pierce County (WA)
Study Circle:
October 29 & November 5, 12, & 19, 2007
***********************************