The Battle For Paradise, Naomi Klein

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The Battle For Paradise applies the insights Namoi Klein shared in her important book, Shock Doctrine, to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. In what she calls Disaster Capitalism, state actors collude with ideologues and business interests to enact radical, unpopular policies and programs while the populace is preoccupied with some crisis. The Patriot Act is an example, passed during the 911 trauma, as is the dismantling of the New Orleans' public school system and public housing in the wake of hurricane Katrina.

Puerto Rico was already in crisis when Maria struck. The island is essentially a U.S. colony, the inhabitants having no right to vote nor representation in Washington DC, although they have U.S. citizenship. Puerto Rico provided low-wage workers for off-shore factories, attracted also by low taxes. These tax laws expired in 2006 creating a devastating flight of companies to even cheaper labor and tax locales. The government's response was to borrow money. Of course, eventually payback falls due. The next step, as Greece can tell you, is austerity. The U.S. congress passed PROMESA, a law that created a 7-member panel, 6 of whom did not live on the island, to oversee island finances, holding veto power over elected officials. This ploy is not restricted to colonies, it has been used in Michigan by that conservative governor to aid in the general project among the rulers to expand the third world to the whole world. Many islanders refer to this measure as a coup d'etat and the panel as La Junta. Their predictable solutions are privatization of public resources, cuts to pensions and services, schools... the course big capital would have us believe is inevitable and the only road back to stability. Stability always translates into a reassuring climate for the 1%.

Puerto Rico has a history also of resistence. The dictum that, “we are many they are few”, empowering to the many, fearsome to the few, plays out across the planet. The many have strength in numbers, the few have resources to obfuscate, confuse, divide since they mostly control the discussion via ownership of the media, disproportionate influence on government and other institutions. In Puerto Rico's case the many are in various states of economic trauma while the few meet in plush hotels and plan to turn the island into a gated tax haven for the well-heeled.

But not quite all are traumatized. Some of the population came through Maria more successfully than others. While much of the island still lacks electricity, some small areas had solar and this is up and running. Organic farms fared better than the mono crop agriculture that was completely wiped out. These community activists seek alternatives to the corporate way which has rendered the island heavily dependent on food imports and fossil fuel, centralized energy grids. The Battle of Klein's title is here, the capitalist money-chasing, elitist greed enthusiasts - the few – versus the people, an old old story, an ancient struggle, nearly always won by the few... but not always.

Klein has done a video on the subject also, of the same title.