Important Announcements

CURRENT INFORMATION: go to our Facebook group "Waco Friends of the Climate." 1) Beginning Jan. 2025, our focus has been on resistance to Donald Trump, since his policies are our greatest threat to the climate. Thus, we are not having monthly meetings at this time. We hope to hold monthly meetings in the future. Visit our Facebook group for current activities, Waco Friends of the Climate. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1330231820335851 2) Our role in the resistance includes a weekly protest at the pedestrian bridge in Waco, Valley Mills Dr. & Bagby Avenue, each Sunday, 1:00pm-2:30pm. We began the protest in March 2025 and it has been carried on weekly for over one year. We provide huge, highly visible banners. Please join us. RESISTING FASCISM, ONE SUNDAY AT A TIME. 3) Because of the sad passing of our webmaster, Harrison Ward, we have not been able to keep the website up to date. For the most current information, please visit our Facebook group, Waco Friends of the Climate : https://www.facebook.com/groups/1330231820335851 4) To join our email list and be informed of actions, activities, and campaigns, email our Director Alan Northcutt at anorthc@aol.com 5)Free "climate crisis is here" yard signs may be obtained by emailing anorthc@aol.com. Delivery of signs is available. Help raise awareness of the climate crisis, deeply needed in Waco. 6) Winners of the "Sixth Annual Climate Crisis Art Exhibit" may be found in the Archives, April 2023. Some incredible climate art may be viewed.

Progressive Film Series: September 13, 2012

The Shock Doctrine

Thursday, September 13, 2012
Poppa Rollo's Pizza
West-bank Meeting Room
703 N. Valley Mills, Waco
6 pm: Pizza and business
6:30: Film and discussion
Run time: 78 minutes



Naomi Klein published The Shock Doctrine in 2007.  Collective traumas, wars, coups, nautical disasters, terrorist attacks:  these kinds of events put people into a state of shock.  We regress to a state of childish malleability, and easily believe our leaders when they claim to be protecting us.  One of the first people to identify the phenomenon was Milton Friedman, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1976.

Friedman advised politicians to implement painful economic reforms (massive tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation, privatization of the public sphere) immediately after crises, before people had a chance to regain their composure.  He called it shock treatment, and Klein argues that it has become the “shock doctrine.”

Using extensive archival footage, directors Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross reveal the power of Klein’s words and the need for resistance.

This film is particularly relevant to us because of the ongoing crisis in the United States, with the move from the Right to initiate "shock treatment" through the electoral process.  This movement began with the Reagan Revolution, was intensified by 911 and our reaction to it, and has accelerated in recent years with the economic meltdown at the end of the Bush years.  The upcoming election in this country could very well result in the ultimate triumph of radical conservatism and the implementation of the "shock doctrine" in the United States.

Email to anorthc@aol.com to be placed on the Friends of Peace email list. 

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