Journalist and iconoclast Christopher Hitchens drew quips and pointed comments from every author who appeared with him at the Enwave Theatre on Saturday, June 10. The author of god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (“god” appears in lower case on the cover) was followed by Naomi Klein, who linked religious extremism and capitalism in The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

Religion is reducing society to barbarism and beggary, said Hitchens.

“See how the Muslims slaughter each other, blowing up each others’ mosques.” He soon turned his attention to evangelists Pat Robertson and Billy Graham: “racist tub-thumpers, fantasy merchants, frauds, shakedown artists, the greatest friends of the Zionist extremists,” he said.

Hitchens’ book aims to encourage those who would fight to keep the gains made by the enlightenment, by the separation of church and state, and by the advance of science, said Hitchens, who advocated humanism in religion’s place.

“The knowledge and ability to do the right thing is innate in us,” he said. “It’s part of our human solidarity. It’s common to all societies. Without it, we would never have evolved to this stage.”

Klein built on Hitchens’ comments, speaking of the “mutually reinforcing cycle between market fundamentalism and religious fundamentalism.” She sees the Iraq war as a manifestation of radical ideology: the impulse to build a perfect democratic nation.

“It’s not nation-building, it’s nation-creating,” she said, adding that all creeds suffer from the urge to remake others to fit their own ideals.

Klein elaborated on what she calls “disaster capitalism,” the capitalist propensity for exploiting tragedies.

Klein added her voice to the multitudes who have accused the Bush administration of using the 9/11 attacks and subsequent fearful mindset to radically change the nature of the state. “Nothing is debated in the fog of the war, ” she warned.

Klein’s textbook example of disaster capitalism: the first benchmark the Iraqi parliament must meet before receiving reconstruction funds is the passing of oil laws, drafted with the “help” of oil companies.

Klein also gave examples of profiteering from natural disasters: in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, developers fantasized about closing down public housing, she said. Four days after the tsunami in Sri Lanka, the government passed water privatization laws. Waterfront reconstruction was forbidden-except for hotels and resorts. And wealthy Floridians can now “evacuate in style” with HelpJet, a company for those who want to “turn a nightmare into a vacation.”

Klein believes that shock tactics are ineffective in the long run, saying that 26,000 protests occurred in China last year, more than 20 years after the bloody Tiananmen Square demonstrations.

“You’re not winning an argument, you’re just terrorizing people,” she said. “Shock wears off.”