This much I know

Naomi Klein, writer

I do occasionally buy Starbucks but only in really desperate situations - for example, if I'm getting off an overnight flight and it's the only coffee at the airport.

I have some early stroller-level memories of being taken on women's marches by my mother. She was a feminist filmmaker, and I remember people watching films in our living room and crying. I got the idea that journalism should aim to start a discussion from her.

I think there's nothing more unpleasant than a disaffected lefty. It's the people who did believe you should try to change the world, then decide not to and have to rationalise that choice who become really bitter.

At a very young age it had to be explained to me why we were Canadian when our whole family was American, and that involved stories of why my father didn't want to fight in Vietnam and dodged the draft. I thought these stories of escape and lying to get across the border were so exciting.

I come from a very secular Jewish family - we had religion as culture but not as faith.

My grandfather was one of the strongest influences on me. He was an animator at Disney and was blacklisted for union organising. It destroyed his life. But he never lost his love for the characters and the films, and he would delight me and my friends by drawing Donald Duck and all the characters. As a kid there was this separation between loving Disney and knowing that it ruined Grandpa's life. I guess it taught me that brands are multilayered, and you can hate the corporation without losing sight of the real appeal of the product.

Being cynical about political parties is not apathetic, it's just smart.

My generation were critics. We could talk about what was wrong with the pictures, but the younger generation would go out and change the pictures. It was very small-scale activism - culture jamming, ad busting - but they had a sense of optimism and engagement that we didn't. As an act of faith, I decided that this was going to be the next big movement; it was either that or nothing, so I started writing No Logo

I consider myself very lucky that I happened to write a book just at a movement's moment. I had no idea that Seattle [site of the 1999 anti-globalisation street protests] would happen while the book was at the printers. It's not an experience I expect to replicate in my life.

The attacks on me in that period didn't ever feel personal. I just became an easy target for people who wanted to attack the movement. The media needed to create figureheads.

My father once said to me: 'If you go out on a limb, don't saw it off.' My mother told me that objectivity means 'I object to your activity', which I've always liked.

I met my husband [filmmaker Avi Lewis] by interviewing him. It was 1993 and the middle of an election campaign which we were both covering. I realise that is unspeakably wonky.

The thing I can't stand the most is the ex-lefties who have to hate today's activists because they represent a reproach to the choices they have made. When I find myself doing that then I'll truly fall into despair.

· The Shock Doctrine is out now, published by Penguin at £8.99