Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear.
Naomi KleinRead
As I was writing 'The Shock Doctrine', I was covering the Iraq War and profiteering from the war, and I started to see these patterns repeat in the aftermath of natural disasters, like the Asian tsunami and then Hurricane Katrina.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights how patterns of profiteering and exploitation reemerge in times of crisis, whether in war or natural disasters.
In this quote, Naomi Klein reflects on her experiences while writing 'The Shock Doctrine', elucidating how the same economic and social patterns of exploitation emerge during various crises, including the Iraq War and natural disasters like the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Klein suggests that the disruption caused by these events is often exploited by those who seek to profit, revealing a troubling cyclical nature of human behavior in the face of catastrophe.
Themes
ProfiteeringCrisisExploitationWarNatural DisastersPatterns
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech addressing economic reforms, one might mention this quote to illustrate the dangers of exploiting crises.
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Everybody that's trying to get anything progressive done in this country knows that the biggest barrier is getting money out of politics.
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I think I would say that there is absolutely no way to reconcile an austerity agenda with climate action. Our political class needs to understand that the fight against austerity and the fight for climate action are the same fight.
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I think the fossil fuel industry is genuinely freaked out by the combination of the price collapse, the divestment movement, and that fact that renewable energy is getting so cheap so fast.
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