Abraham Lopez

US National Government and Politics

David Hubert
November 25, 2014
Profile
Naomi Klein: Changing Liberals
Canadian social activist, Naomi Klein, is the author of the number one New York Times
bestseller, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster and Capitalism. Published in over thirty
different languages, The Shock Doctrine has over one million copies. Naomi Klein is an awardwinning journalist and columnist for The Nation and The Guardian. She is also a member of the
board of directors for 350.org, which is a global movement to resolve the ongoing climate crisis.
Naomis most recent critically acclaimed book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the
Climate, was published in September 2014 and already holds the place of fifth bestseller in New
York Times. In addition, several newspapers and magazines such as Newsweek, The Los Angeles
Times, El Pais, and The New Statesman, have included Naomis writings in their publications.
On May 5, 1970, Naomi Klein was born into a political family in Montreal, Quebec.
Growing up, Naomi was instantly drawn to advertisements and brand names. She was very
materialistic, and she idolized the popular Barbie doll. Naomis interest in logos lead her to
fabricate them on to her clothing, in attempt to make them look similar to the actual article.
When she got older, she attended the University of Toronto where she started writing for The
Varsity, which was the student newspaper at the time. After only a short time of being part the
newspaper, Naomi started a huge controversy because she wrote an article called, Victim to
Victimizer. This article was about how Israel should stop occupation for the Palestines and for
the women in the country. Being a feminist activist, Naomi emphasized the cease of occupation
in women, which resulted in death threats towards her. Nonetheless, Naomi stuck to her beliefs

through major criticism. An event that completely changed Naomi was the massacre at the
University of Montreal in 1989. A man who was frustrated for not being accepted into the
engineering school, shot and killed fourteen women because he thought they had taken his place.
This fueled Naomi and made her views on equal rights for women even stronger, leading her to
write many articles regarding the issues of inequality, which eventually got her an internship at
the Toronto Globe and Mail. She quickly got recognized for her writing talent and got hired to
become editor for This Magazine, and later became a journalist for The Nation and The
Guardian.
Naomi has written on a variety of issues, one being on the war in Iraq. She argued that
the Bush administration did have a set plan to build an unconstrained free-market economy after
the invasion. From this, she inspired the 2008 film War, Inc. During the Gaza War in January
2009, Naomi supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which was to
become a global movement to end apartheid in South Africa. The following summer, she
traveled to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza to promote the campaign. Since 2009, Naomi has
moved her attention to environmentalism.
Throughout Naomis working experiences, she acquired new ideas that changed her
views on globalization. Globalization has increased the worldwide use of technological,
economic, and cultural association between nations. An economist by the name of Milton
Friedman once said, "Only a crisis produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that
are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around" (Democracy Now!). Naomi takes a step
forward and examines some what she thinks are the most dangerous ideas contained in
Friedmanite economics. Published in 2007, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster and
Capitalism analyzes free-market capitalism and how it was not achieved democratically, but

through an exploiting catastrophe of what she refers to as the shock doctrine. She argues,
"Some of the most infamous human rights violations of the past thirty-five years, which have
tended to be viewed as sadistic acts carried out by anti-democratic regimes, were in fact either
committed with the deliberate intent of terrorizing the public or actively harnessed to prepare the
ground for the introduction of radical free-market reforms" (Nally et al.).
Naomis greatest contribution is to further our understanding of the uncontrollable and
greedy forms of capital accumulation under neoliberalism. As she disagrees with the economic
decisions regarding the global market, she believes that both the World Trade Organization
(WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are based on a double standard. In her speech
at the International Conference on Globalization in Ghent, Belgium on October 30, 2001 she
said, "when it comes to rich countries, rules are for other people (Naomi Klein). By this she is
specifically referring to the South African attempt to try to construct patented AIDS medication,
but cannot because they are blocked by the WTO.
In This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, Naomi calls climate change an
existential crisis for the human species. She argues that the most profound threat humanity
has ever faced: the war our economic model is waging against life on earth (This Changes
Everything: The Book). Naomi believes that climate change sends powerful messages through
natural disasters such as fires, floods, storms, and droughts. Before it is too late, we must take a
leap to change our world. She emphasizes on how we have been told that we will be saved by the
market, but instead it is they who are pulling us further down as a nation. The Book Review
comments:
Naomi Klein applies her fine, fierce, and meticulous mind to the greatest, most
urgent questions of our times. Her work has changed the terms of the debate. I

count her among the most inspirational political thinkers in the world today.
(This Changes Everything: The Book)
Naomi addresses that the problem is targeted towards capitalism, finding resources, and
exploiting them. Most of the time we are blind to this because we are locked in, politically,
physically, and culturally under this type of government. Naomi defines this issue saying, "We
lack the collective spaces in which to confront the raw terror of ecocide (Conversation: Naomi
Klein).
Naomi Klein has heavily influenced people all around the world, and continues to do so
today. How is it possible for us to know about climate change, and forget? How can we know
about something so impacting, and pretend like it is not even happening? As Naomi uses the
term disaster capitalism, specifically in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster and
Capitalism, she argues to rebuild the public sphere, strengthen our communities, and work with
dignity. To create change, we must build coalitions with people rather than corporations. We
need to be willing to sacrifice the basic principles of solidarity, from the fenceline community in
Richmond, California, to Brazils carbon forest. As The Shock Doctrine changed the way we
perceived austerity, This Changes Everything debates the devastating truth of what is already
upon us. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says, Naomi Kleins words and knowledge run deep, inspiring
change and the need for immediate action (This Changes Everything: The Book).
Works Cited
"Biography." Naomi Klein ::. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
MARK, JASON. "Conversation: Naomi Klein." Earth Island Journal 28.3 (2013):
45-47. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
Nally, David, et al. "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism - By Naomi
Klein."Geographical Journal 174.3 (2008): 284-287. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17
Nov. 2014.

"The Shock Doctrine: Naomi Klein on the Rise of Disaster Capitalism." Interview by Amy
Goodman and Juan Gonzlez. Democracy Now! N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2014.
"THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING: THE BOOK | This Changes Everything." This Changes
Everything. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2014.