Who is Naomi Klein?
Since the publication of her book No Logo in 2000, Naomi Klein has become the spokeswoman and unofficial leader of anti-globalization. Naomi Klein was born in Montreal on 5 May 1970. Klein’s family background is one of political activism. Her father was a Vietnam War protester, and her mother is a filmmaker who achieved critical success with an anti-pornography film. Klein’s grandfather was fired after labor organizing within the Disney organization. Before No Logo hit the bestseller list, Naomi Klein was an unknown journalist, but her book, which has won two major awards and took four years to write, became the bible of the anti-globalization movement. No Logo has been described as a visionary book that explains exactly the power, corruption, and manipulative marketing techniques of large corporations. The book takes an in depth look at the big brand names that are omnipresent in today’s consumer worshiping society. No Logo was held up by many activists as validation for protests, suc
The New Yorker profile by Larissa MacFarquhar answers that question in unwittingly revealing ways. Klein is a second-generation red-diaper baby, the grandchild of American Communists who eventually underwent a bitter disillusionment. Her father was a Vietnam war protester who moved to Canada with his wife-to-be, an activist filmmaker, to avoid the draft; her mother later became part of a Canadian taxpayer-funded feminist film studio and made documentaries on left-wing causes. In view of Klein’s obsession with the idea that capitalism’s evil gurus use trauma to force change on unwilling populations, it is perhaps ironic that her own change into an activist was precipitated by traumatic experiences. As a teenager, Klein rebelled against her hippie, toy-gun-banning parents. According to MacFarquhar, “two catastrophic events erased her animus toward her parents and their politics.” First, when she was 17, her mother suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed for months. Then, in Klein’s fir
