Posted in Activism, Climate Change, Economics, Environment, Equality, Labor Unions

Naomi Klein on Deep Democracy & Social Unionism – Essential for the Earth

   September 4, 2013

Shock Doctrine author Naomi Klein gave an amazing speech this week at the founding convention for the Canadian mega union Unifor. The entire speech can be found here. It isn’t a lengthy speech, and well worth the read for her message resonates as clearly in America or Wisconsin as in Canada. Below are a few inspirational snippets.

We are trying to organize in the rubble of a 30 year war that has been waged on the collective sphere and workers rights. The young people in the streets are the children of that war.

 

Even when there is mass resistance to an austerity agenda, and even when we understand how we got here, something is stopping us – collectively – from fully rejecting the neoliberal agenda.

And I think what it is is that we don’t fully believe that it’s possible to build something in its place. For my generation, and younger, deregulation, privatization and cutbacks is all we’ve ever known.

 

 

We can’t just reject the dominant story about how the world works. We need our own story about what it could be.

We can’t just reject their lies. We need truths so powerful that their lies dissolve on contact with them. We can’t just reject their project. We need our own project.

 

 

EXTRACTIVISM

It’s an approach to the world based on taking and taking without giving back. Taking as if there are no limits to what can be taken – no limits to what workers’ bodies can take, no limits to what a functioning society can take, no limits to what the planet can take.

In the extractivist mindset, labour is a commodity just like the bitumen. And maximum value must be extracted from that resource – ie you and your members – regardless of the collateral damage. To health, families, social fabric, human rights.

The case I want to make to you is that climate change – when its full economic and moral implications are understood – is the most powerful weapon progressives have ever had in the fight for equality and social justice.

 

OVERBURDEN

When I was in the tar sands earlier this summer, I kept thinking about it. Overburden is the word used by mining companies to describe the “waste earth covering a mineral deposit.”

But mining companies have a strange definition of waste. It includes forests, fertile soil, rocks, clay – basically anything that stands between them and the gold, copper, or bitumen they are after.

Overburden is the life that gets in the way of money. Life treated as garbage.

 

 

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20 thoughts on “Naomi Klein on Deep Democracy & Social Unionism – Essential for the Earth”

  2. Agreed. This speech is worth reading more than once. She encapsulates so much in it, it’s really useful (and inspiring) to go over it a few times.

    1. PJ, so glad you oppose fracking.

      “And I think where that really came to a head was over fracking. The head offices of the Sierra Club and the NRDC and the EDF all decided this was a “bridge fuel.” We’ve done the math and we’re going to come out in favor of this thing. And then they faced big pushbacks from their membership, most of all at the Sierra Club. And they all had to modify their position somewhat. It was the grassroots going, “Wait a minute, what kind of environmentalism is it that isn’t concerned about water, that isn’t concerned about industrialization of rural landscapes – what has environmentalism become?” And so we see this grassroots, place-based resistance in the movements against the Keystone XL pipeline and the Northern Gateway pipeline, the huge anti-fracking movement. And they are the ones winning victories, right?”

      Wher are you going to get arrested first? Is it going to be in the Penokees, protesting GTAC? http://wisconsin.sierraclub.org/Penokeemine.asp

      Or will it be at Wisconsin sand mines that are part of the fracking supply chain? http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/sand-mines-in-wisconsin-unearth-environmental-problems-b9966691z1-218315291.html

      You can count on me to send Zach a little money for bail.

    1. So do I, Mikey. Naomi Klein is really one of the finest thinkers of our day. She’s not one to put forth unconsidered ideas. History will regard her with far more respect than her own time, I fear. I do believe she will receive her due credit eventually. I think she’s pointing in exactly the direction we must and will go.

      1. So is it you or PJ who’s the WI Naomi Klein? It sure as heck ain’t Sirota. He single- handedly turned Salon’s comments into a troll infestation with his needlessly inflammatory Boston bomber stories. He lives in Colorado anyway.

        1. My point was that popular cultural status isn’t what is necessary for change. Many people, myself and others here, and around the state, speak of the same ideas as Ms Klein and are ridiculed and ignored. I’ve seen a lot of kill the messenger comments while ignoring the message go on when the message is the same exact message being delivered by the “credentialed, statured celebrity,” and I am certainly not aiming at you as being guilty of that behavior.

          1. Probably debateable whether anyone in the Progressive space possesses pop culture status. I don’t disagree with what happens but I would suggest that a strong, nationally known and published Progressive writer residing in Wisconsin could blast through state media indifference to any idea that challenges neo-liberalism or neo-conservatism (I’m giving too much credit to our local media – they’re not sophisticated enough to recognize either. They defend the status quo period even if it has moved far right.) Heck, even an Ezra Klein of Wisconsin would be helpful! Reading GZ’s post reminds me that he possesses the skill, talent and unique voice to become a strong Progressive authority. But he’d have to clean up his language, discipline himself not to go for the cheap, political points, and embark on a discourse of what Progressive ideas can do for WI families vs. anti-Walker 24X7. And the great one’s don’t engage the trolls or assorted creatures of the deep. They use Twitter to highlight, not necessarily engage.

    2. Me too, Emma. I really wish we had a WI Naomi Klein too. And I whole heartedly agree with you regarding Sirota. He and Salon have slipped below par.

      1. One bright spot has been the addition of Brittany Cooper. Subject matter can be challenging but she writes beautifully and possesses a strong, unusual voice. Unleashing Andrew O’Hehir to write on any subject he wishes was also a good move. Otherwise it’s mostly junk punctuated by an Obama apologist story from Joan Walsh.

  5. PJ, Emma, please rank your top ten magazines.

    If either of you has a bad Sirota article, I’d like to see it. Salon just hired David Dayen, who is excellent and certainly no Obama apologist.

    Brittany Cooper sure sounds like an Obama apologist in “Tavis Smiley gets President Obama all wrong” http://www.salon.com/2013/07/22/tavis_smiley_doesnt_understand_president_obama/ . She neglects, however to mention the elephant in the room. During the “fiscal cliff” debate, Obama took away the holiday on the payroll tax. That took 7.5% away from every working American who makes less than $107,000/year. The pay-roll tax is incredibly regressive. Every dollar earned above $107,000 isn’t subject to the payroll tax. Obama also took away the holiday on the employer’s side of payroll tax. Now they have to kick in 7.5% more for every employee who earns less than $107,000/year.

    While criticizing Smiley on ethnic issues, Cooper ignores that under Obama’s DOJ no one from Wall Street has gone to fail for crashing the economy in 2008 and picks out the nice talking points Obama gave after Trayvon Martin’s death. I agree, they were nice.

    Obama’s been solid on voting rights. On every other issue, he’s imho been indistinguishable from what Romney would have been doing.

    1. I enjoy reading Brittany because she writes flawlessly. That skill is becoming a lost art. I described her stories as challenging and that’s my way of saying I don’t agree necessarily with her positions. As a matter of fact I read quite a few writers and publications that don’t necessarily sync up with all my opinions and I read the Wall Street Journal daily and the Economist weekly. I guess my top 10 would also include the NYT, some of the Post, the Guardian, Harper’s, New Yorker and our own Progressive. I need to find a good west coast publication too. As for that particular column, lpermit me to be a Brittany apologist for a moment. I think Salon assigns writers to a sphere. Within that sphere of writing about the black experience or black female experience, her column works.

      1. If you’re reading the Wall Street Journal, you’re paying Rupert Murdoch.

        If you’re interested in lower federal taxes, sound fiscal and monetary policy, follow @stephaniekelton , hedge fund manager @wbmosler , and the Modern Monetary Theory crowd. Bell-Kelton is a Ph.D. in Economics at UMKC. Mosler didn’t inherit (Abele/Burke) or marry (Walker/Johnson) any money. He made it the old-fashioned way. Mosler’s blog is far better than 99% of what you get in the WSJ. He’s reading the Fed minutes, going over all the numbers with those folks at Goldman Sachs who do not get paid on commission, but get paid to be right.

        If you read them, you’ll learn QE is moving numbers from the checking account (Federal Reserve) to the savings account (Treasury). Nothing trickles down and nothing gets into the credit markets. Don’t think the WSJ has figured that out yet. They still think QE matters. In reality, QE makes credit marginally more expensive.
        https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/stephaniekeltons-podcast/id686533099?mt=2

        The NYT’s still has great reporters, but you’re paying for columnists like David Brooks and Tom Friedman, who along with Judy Miller lied us into Iraq. Their Arts section is still great. They haven’t fallen as far as the Washington Post.

        Jeff Bezos just bought the WaPu, because his main competitor, Google, is so deeply imbedded with the U.S. gov’t. http://bytegeist.firedoglake.com/2013/08/06/will-jeff-bezos-take-on-the-google-online-advertising-monopoly/

        There are a lot of articulate women (who are not 100% European-American) on Twitter talking about their experience as women. @laurenarankin is 100% European-American, but she follows a lot of them. A lot of them follow her. From 5 Sep
        If your feminism defends Miley Cyrus’ right to be sexual but doesn’t criticize her for her racist use of black women as props, it will fail.

        1. Thanks for the tips on who to follow. Yes, the WSJ in particular is cringe-worthy. But a great deal of their content is useful to me professionally and I find aspects of their lifestyle content wonderful. Except Mansion. That section makes me physically ill. Murdoch is no good but those crazy Brits and their propensity for celebrity and royal gossip as well as our own wing nuts will keep his boat floating with or without me.

    2. My top ten favorite magazines?

      1. Cricket
      2. Cobblestone
      3. Spider
      4. Cicada
      5. Muse
      6. Ladybug
      7. Babybug
      8. Ask
      9. Calliope
      10. Chop Chop

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