GRITtv: Naomi Klein explains it all for you. Again.

We're experiencing another domestic episode of Klein's "Shock Doctrine" right now as Americans adjust to dramatically higher gasoline prices and our ruling classes agitate for "opening" all the protected areas to immediate petroleum drilling operations. Congress makes a pathetic attempt to say, "Wait a minute, uhhh..." and get steamrolled.

Of course, "drilling" in these protected areas is not at all what the oil companies and the ruling class are after; what they want -- plain as day -- is control of the resources in these protected areas. Thus, they are able to drive prices -- and profits -- higher by controlling market product. This is a replay of the Enron-led fraud that drove California and western states' energy prices through the roof in 2000-2001. There was no "shortage" of energy; there was, however, market control and manipulation to push prices higher and ever higher, and what amounted to a protection racket run by the electricity giants: pay up or go dark. Worked like a charm. Enron had used the tactic all over the world, before its eventual collapse, and that tactic has been the governing premise of the Bushevik regime from the get go.

We've become so used to it, however, that now, when yet another episode "shock" is under way, very few recognize what's going on, that we've been down this path before, and that we can (theoretically) stop it.



Jeff Madrick and Bhairavi Desai join the discussion.

Some observers are asking: since the tactics of the Shock Doctrine work so well (and they do) why don't We, the People turn them right back on the Neo-Cons and Friedmanites and give them a little of their own medicine?

Since we are conditioned to be passive consumers rather than citizens, and maintaining our passivity is crucial to the success of the ruling classes, actually performing the turn about is well beyond the public's capability right now. But if the signs of economic collapse we see around us make it impossible for the masses to fulfill their social role, by making it impossible for them to consume, we may just have the trigger that will spark the revolt against neo-con, neo-liberal, and Friedmanite control.