Naomi Klein is one of the sharpest observers of our culture, and from a particularly savvy GenX perspective, and she's fucking brilliant on a bad day, and now she pins the generational angst that really rankles in this economic 9/11:
Consider that in North America, everybody under the age of 40 grew up being told that the government can't intervene to improve our lives, that government is the problem not the solution, that laissez faire was the only option. Now, we are suddenly seeing an extremely activist, intensely interventionist government, seemingly willing to do whatever it takes to save investors from themselves.
That's from her piece in The Guardian last Friday.
It may not be entirely bad news, though, at least for those of us who realize that the current pain may bring a better future, if only in the distant long run:
Now that it's clear that governments can indeed act in times of crises, it will become much harder for them to plead powerlessness in the future.
...
And now that nationalization is not a dirty word, the oil and gas companies should watch out: someone needs to pay for the shift to a greener future, and it makes most sense for the bulk of the funds to come from the highly profitable sector that is most responsible for our climate crisis. It certainly makes more sense than creating another dangerous bubble in carbon trading.
But it won't happen if we don't work for it:
None of this, however, will happen without huge public pressure placed on politicians in this key period. And not polite lobbying but a return to the streets and the kind of direct action that ushered in the New Deal in the 1930s. Without it, there will be superficial changes and a return, as quickly as possible, to business as usual.
Cuz why should anything ever be easy for Generation X?
Check out Klein's terrifying book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism -- yeah, "Disaster Capitalism" -- for more. Also available from Amazon.co.uk. Cuz the U.K. is in it as deep as the U.S. is.
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