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Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.
Here’s a thought: maybe Madison, Wis., isn’t Cairo after all. Maybe it’s Baghdad — specifically, Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence.
As many readers may recall, the results were spectacular — in a bad way. Instead of focusing on the urgent problems of a shattered economy and society, which would soon descend into a murderous civil war, those Bush appointees were obsessed with imposing a conservative ideological vision. Indeed, with looters still prowling the streets of Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, the American viceroy, told a Washington Post reporter that one of his top priorities was to “corporatize and privatize state-owned enterprises” — Mr. Bremer’s words, not the reporter’s — and to “wean people from the idea the state supports everything.”
The story of the privatization-obsessed Coalition Provisional Authority was the centerpiece of Naomi Klein’s best-selling book “The Shock Doctrine,” which argued that it was part of a broader pattern. From Chile in the 1970s onward, she suggested, right-wing ideologues have exploited crises to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises, and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society.
Which brings us to Wisconsin 2011, where the shock doctrine is on full display.
Read the full article at The Times...
61 Comments so far
Show AllThank you, Mr. Krugman, for making this significant connection. I've noticed that few economists will touch on it, while the parallels it raises are striking and sinister. The revelations of "The Shock Doctrine" are like the 3rd rail of modern economic discussion... kind'a reminds me of the way the miltary "budget" is also perceived as an untouchable Sacred cow.
There's so much to feel grief about... as Jensen's remarkable essay (published today on CD) attests, the key issue--which may render all our political discourse moot--is the declining state of the great Mother Earth, Gaia/Pachamama, that we, along with all living beings, depend upon. Jensen sees the big picture and how all the facets relate back to the web of life itself.
Thank you, Siouxrose. Krugman is one of my heroes and I get defensive when others seem overly critical of him.
Greg, while Krugman is candid in many respects he still tends to absolve Democrats and Obama from much of his toughest criticism, AND more importantly, he has yet to address the seminal economic conspiracy crime of the corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE which hides behind the facade of its 'bought and owned' TWO-Party "Vichy" sham of faux-democratic government, which financial crime is massive 'looting' of our social, environmental, and human existence via 'negative externality' dumping.
The hidden, and unreported by most economists, largest tax on average Americans is the tax that the corporatist Empire silently imposes via 'negative externality' dumping theft.
Negative externality cost dumping is far greater than the phony profits of all US corporations, and in the recent so-called "financial crisis" (which was really the largest theft in human history) amounted to at least $13 Trillion.
As a Nobel laureate economist, Krugman is certainly aware of this biggest and most deadly financial crime in history, but unlike fully candid Nobel economists like Joseph Stiglitz and George Akerlof, Krugman has never been fully candid about this existential crime knowingly committed by the ruling-elite's global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE.
In fact, Krugman has never even acknowledged the existance of such Empire, which several of his NYT fellow columnists have had the guts and candor to address.
It is precisely in the arena of economic crime that this Empire is most dangerous to human society, and would be most easily confronted if economists like Krugman were more honest and forthcoming with the citizens they portend to alert.
Until Krugman shows more candor about the key financial crimes of this Empire I can not take his lesser revelations too seriously.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
"Liberty over violent empire" Party headquarters
We here at CD have the freedom to rail against anything and everything. Ain't it great! Yes, negative externalities is a huge issue, and if humans had any common sense and interest in the future, it would be an extremely important issue. BUT, with human's limited attention span and inherent greed, now is not yet the time to tackle this issue. I do hope that time will come soon. The hour is getting late.
Good points Siouxrose... it was surprising to witness Krugman citing Klein & her book.
Krugman is a liberal economist still quite wedded to the Democratic Party and a cautious Keynesian perspective. Klein's thesis is actually quite radical -- especially her depiction of Milton Friedman and his ideological role in aiding fascist regimes intent on "free market" reforms.
'Economist Milton Friedman once said, "Only a crisis produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. " Naomi Klein examines some of what she considers the most dangerous ideas—Friedmanite economics—and exposes how catastrophic events are both extremely profitable to corporations and have also allowed governments to push through what she calls "disaster capitalism."
Klein writes in the introduction to "The Shock Doctrine" that "The history of the contemporary free market was written in shocks." She argues that "Some of the most infamous human rights violations of the past thirty-five years, which have tended to be viewed as sadistic acts carried out by anti-democratic regimes, were in fact either committed with the deliberate intent of terrorizing the public or actively harnessed to prepare the ground for the introduction of radical free-market reforms."'
These 'reforms' have also been occurring in the U.S. but at a slower and gentler pace since they don't have outright fascism here. (Yet.) The Democratic and Republican Party (the singular is intentional) play good cop, bad cop when it comes to pushing through these economic reforms-- which include attacks on unions, public institutions, (other than the military, the national security state, the Federal prison system), transfers of wealth from the Middle Class to the oligarchy, etc.
Clinton played his role in welfare reform, pushing through NAFTA 'free trade' deals, deregulation of big finance (Rubinomics) eliminating the Glass-Steagall Act, etc. Clinton and Greenspan also played a key role in adjusting the CPI to hide inflation and restrict the flow of social security payments & other 'entitlements' to the little people.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-phillips/lies-damn-lies-and-govern_b_113277.html
So yes the Republicans are ready to use tire irons to crush unions and steal public property but Obama is there to "work" with them on wage freezes for public employees, tax breaks for the rich, social security 'reform', etc. He needs to coddle and placate his wealthy patrons at Goldman Sachs, Citibank, etc. if he expects to get funded for 2012.
Are some members of the Democratic Party good people? Of course. Those Wisconsin Democrats standing up to Scott Walker are showing great courage & tenacity.
And Obama? I think we know whose side he is on.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/24/obama-wisconsin_n_827770.html
I share your surprise with Krugman: I am pleased. In many aspects, his analyses have been astute. I look forward hopefully to seeing his analysis free from the task of defending a Democratic party whose leadership has abandoned Roosevelt, moderation, and what coalition it did once have with those of us to the left of that.
We can work to make the democrats better, or we can let things get worse. Some may think there is another choice. I do not. And letting things get worse is just as likely to end in horror as it is to lead to a real turn around.
A few days back Krugman actually called the US an oligarchy in a NYT article, and now he is calling out the Republicans for union busting. If he keep this up, the NY Times, AKA mouthpiece for the oligarchs and the government, is going to fire his ass. The Oligarchs that the paper represents, sure don't want us USA'ns to start walking like Egyptians.
Maybe he should start looking for a job over at Mother Jones' so he can leave the NYT under his terms...
The NYT is probably the best we can hope for in a society such as ours. NYT also had a recent article that clearly pointed out the Koch influence and especially in Wisconsin. Do remember that the NYT has traditionally had a non right-wing approach. I think there are a growing number of elites who are troubled by the right wing and their middle class destruction approach. After all, with no middle class, who will buy their paper?
"The NYT is probably the best we can hope for in a society such as ours."
Sadly I agree.
"Do remember that the NYT has traditionally had a non right-wing approach."
IHMO that was probably more true in the past than it is in recent history. They lost a lot of credibility with me after they printed articles by Judith Miller, who was an unfiltered mouth piece for the Bush administration's lies about the wars.
Just this week we found out that they sat on the info that would have shown that Obama was lying when he said the guy who shot those two people in Pakistan was a diplomat.
Add to that the hatchet job I heard their Chief editor do to Assange on NPR a few weeks back, and I just don't trust the paper to report honestly on issues where the government is involved. Personally if I ever got my hands on any leaked government documents concerning corruption, the NYT would be the LAST place I would go to to have it published.
On you last point about a growing number of elites being troubled by the right wing attacks on us, all I can say is I hope you are right, because it's getting pretty bad out here.
Conservatives have railed against the NYT forever over their liberalism. While that seems fairly ludicrous to us, the have and do on occasion give us some decent journalism. Judith Miller was certainly a black mark on their credibility. We do have to remember that major newspapers are never going to report the news in a manner which will satisfy you and I.
I have been reading the NY Times on a daily basis (not Sunday) since the summer of 1969. For the most part I have been comfortable with its positions, though at the present time I would consider it to be slightly right of center.
The "left-wing rag" characterization by the right-wing is laughable. Would a left-wing rag have called for Janet Reno to appoint a special prosecutor for the Clintons? And on a regular basis? A left-wing rag would not have castigated Clinton as the Times did over Monica Lewinsky.
The Judith Miller business was not its finest hour, but I did not respond to Bill Keller's interview about Wikileaks the way you did. I thought his response was sensible. Assuange is doing good things, but he is not a god.
Right-wing characterizations of the NYT as a left-wing rag are quite laughable. But there's little to be done if, as Steven Colbert is fond of pointing out, facts about the world have a notorious left-wing bias.
In terms of actual reporting the McClatchy Newspapers do a much better job than the NYT. After Judith Miller and the NYT's shilling for the Bush Invasion of Iraq it's hard to see them as an example of anything near the best we can hope for, even in a society such as ours.
NC-Tom, the NYT in general has certainly never been a "traitor to its class" as FDR was accused of having been --- and would have actually been if he had not dumped Henry Wallace.
Yes, Tom, as I noted elsewhere here, Krugman sometimes prods 'the powers that be', but not in his area of expertise, economics.
Other NYT columnists, including; Charles Blow, Nick Kristof, and Bob Herbert are more consistently progressive than Krugman --- although none have the expertise to do the job of exposing this corporate/financial Empire that Krugman, so far, refuses to do.
As you note, Tom, there has been a somewhat surprising amount of candor among columnists lately, although one should take Tom Rall's advice to heart from his newest and fantastic "The Anti-American Manifesto", where he warns, "Authoritarianism masquerading as liberal democracy, is actually more formidable a political adversary than a totalitarian state" --- which is certainly a comment that Sheldon Wolin (author of "Democracy Incorporated; Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism") would fully second.
However, Tom, thanks greatly for your reference to Krugman using the taboo word 'oligarchy' recently --- which I will view with an open and progressive mind.
Per your suggestion that Krugman (and his columnist peers) may need to 'hedge' their options (as Chris Hedges did), I would look forward with delight to a scene at the NYT similar to the ending scene of "Casablanca" in which Paul, Bob, Charles, and Kris would walk off bravely into the night to confront the current Empire (as Rick and Capt. Renault did to fight the Nazi Empire) saying "this could be the start of a great friendship".
Until than, Tom, "we'll always have Paris".
Best,
Alan
Um - - - - - Munich Hall Putsch?
the arabs habe shown us a way out of debt servitude - get out in the streets and express yourself
we begin to see it in wisonsin
if people stick together we can't be stopped
william butler yeats wrote his epic poem the second coming after the first world war - which was set up by the banker's (read rothschilds) who funded all sides to their great prophit. he was mortified by the utter devastation and loss of life in this pointless massacre
"TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
a pyre by the way is the length of rope a falconer uses to release the bird. as he lets out more rope the pyre widens
these days, as in those, the best lack conviction and we truly see the worst full of passionate intensity
the neoliberal economic theory was developed at the university of chicago - by the little scum milty freidman - the u of c is owned and controlled by the rockefellers and it is their bully pulpit
in reality - it is one shit skool
The word is gyre, as you quote from the poem, not "pyre". A pyre is a bundle of fuel, usually wood, used for burning at a funeral, A funeral pyre. A gyre is a circular or spiraling motion, not a rope. Yeats' image was that of the falcon's flight spiraling skyward so that it could no longer hear the falconer. This leads to things falling apart, anarchy, etc. As for the best lacking all conviction--that may have been true in Yeats' day but these days it's more complicated. Some of the best lack conviction while many of the best have quite a lot of conviction. Some of them are full of passionate intensity, even, along with many of the very worst.
A good number of the worst of the worst, like the followers and defenders of Scott Walker, don't have much conviction, they're just going along for the fascist ride into madness and self-destruction. Like Horace, who posts here all the time just to annoy progressives and lefties. Also, the Rothschilds reaped a profit from WW1, not a "prophit."
don't tase me dude over a typo - hope you got the point anyway
i know what a pyre is by the way but thanks for the outreach. i know what a tire is, a choir, a liar, a spire and a flyer as well
i can also conspire, perspire, enquire and retire
after all of that though i may need to take a short nap
I worry about the "rough beast."
I thought Yeats was referring to "gyre" and not "pyre", perhaps I am confused.
The failure of the neocon-fascist AmeriKKKan wet dream in Iraq must be obvious to everyone except the Bush/Cheney/Condi/Rummy/Wolfowicz/et al cabal that created the Iraq-Frankenstein monster. Nonetheless, the same greed-crazed thinking from the extremist right wing led by the likes of the Koch brothers, Karl Rove and the rest of the right-wing crazies tenaciously continues their demented schemes within AmeriKKKa's borders.
The fledgling movement that is emerging in Wisconsin is the nation's last hope. Unless and until more enlightened cohorts ban together for general strikes, boycotts and all non-violent resistance, the Empire will succeeed in turning the working class into a serfdom.
I don't go along with "last hope" necessarily, but now is the time for all good men to stand up for their country. Everyone must do something, even if it's just a chat with a neighbor or 2.
Paul is headed in the right direction, but still missing a bit of the map.
The "crises" being exploited are usually generated by the same forces as well. And of course, they are ready with the "solution". It's a classic demonstration of the Hegelian Dialectic.
Wasn't it just a couple of days ago that we learned the Ministry of Propaganda has been running their brain-washing programs on our own politicians?
One Love, courtesy of Big Brother.
Obama is no progressive. He is a Free-Market conservative furthering the Reagan Revolution. Economically, he's a disciple of Milton Friedman. His rhetoric soothes those who consider themselves progressive or liberal, but his actions satisfy the whims of the wealthiest, most powerful people the world has ever known.
And yet some of his actions drag us in the correct direction: health coverage for more and taxpayer savings to boot; less discrimination of gays/lesbians; hasn't started any new stupid wars yet.
those saving's I believe are from cutting into medicare rates - and his monetary policies are causing uprisings around the globe -
Medicare/medicaid costs must be contained in some fashion, either cuts or tax increases, or both. You way overstate problems from "his monetary policies." He and the Fed do the best they can with republican opposition.
Greg R
Your right about cost containment for Medicare etc and I would favor tax hikes on the wealthy, closing corporate tax loopholes, stopping oil subsidies, forcing oil and mining leases to reflect "Fair Market value" and transaction fees on Derivatives coupled with a cap of $1 million on beneffits.
As for the Fed, years of low or Zero Interest rates created the "Bubble" and neither party oppossed this suicidal and rampantly speculative policy which lead to the crash.
Obummer put the same idiots in his cabinet who caused it shortly after election. I knew the campaign rhetoric about "Change" was all lies then, and nothing he's done since, with the possible exception of DADT, contradicts that conclusion.
Peace.
I lay the Fed blame with Greenspan, who should have raised rates, but apparently didn't want to hurt the economy while Dubya was in power.
Health coverage through a transparently UnConstitutional Mandate forcing citizens to buy a corporate product?
Certainly not worth the precedent it sets ( no, you can choose not to drive).
Certainly has expanded Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and we shall see if he invades Libya through NATO.
Right you are Mr. Ford!
I saw a panel of Law Profs and Judges on Cspan who said the Mandate could spell the end of Federalism, which is a terrible "Precedent" as you said, although they thought SCOTUS would go along. Our lying mulatto president is just a whore for the insurance companies and despite being a Constitutional Law expert, wipes his black ass with this document at every turn. Single Payer would obviate this odius course, but Aetna wouldn't like it,.
Wouldn't your comment be better without the needless references to race? Perhaps you should, instead, suggest that Obama is a traitor to the poor and working poor who happen to be comprised of a greater proportion of people of color than in the wealthy class. This puts race into a constructive perspective. Ending this discrimination could only make the country, and world, better.
I think the conservatives' relentless efforts to install their regimes ubiquitously is analogous to the one-celled animal consuming all the other ones around it and reproducing itself ad infinitum. It has no ability to perceive that it's destroying the web of life it depends on. The universe has given us the intelligence and altruism to find another way, but it remains to be seen if we will choose that path. And the clock is running.
Remember, when you've eaten everything else, Soylent Green remains.
I can see the propaganda now, after all pensions have been cut along with any other services for the poor and elderly:
"Seniors, make your final, valuable, contribution to your country and your people now. Report to your nearest Euthanasia Center. Your contribution will help others live.
"Long live Big Brother!"
Newly elected Governor LePage here in Maine is using the Shock Doctrine as well. According to him, Maine also has run out of money and drastic steps need to be taken to get rid of "waste" and to make our state more attractive to business. Governor LePage’s sixty-three recommendations include: repealing a law that passed unanimously in the Senate last year (LD 1662) to protect children’s health from sulfur dioxide pollution; abolishing the Board of Environmental Protection; and opening up 30% of Maine’s North Woods to development. See here the laws that LePage would weaken or eliminate: http://www.nrcm.org/documents/Laws_threatened_by_LePage_RR1.pdf
No need to 'outsource' any longer....
During the Obama healthcare debates Palin and the tea party started a smokescreen with the "death panels" nonsense. Strange that now that so many of that ilk have gained seats in the political halls of power they have become the "death panels". Their single minded desire to cut social programs will result in the inevitable death of many. This time the elderly are not singled out, only the poor.
I love Paul Krugman's concise summary of Naomi Klein's "shock doctrine." It consists of right wing ideologues exploiting real crises "to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises, and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society."
Today Wisconsin. 2003 in Paul Bremer's Baghdad. And twice, unforgettably, in the not too distant past in Washington DC.
In the hysteria following the 9/11/01 destruction of the World Trade Center and the anthrax paranoia that led to physical closure of the House and Senate office complexes for several weeks, Congress passed the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (Afghanistan) resolution and the USA Patriot Act. There were no hearings, and scarcely any floor debate.
It was no coincidence that this orchestrated pressure cooker of a political environment produced an endless, mindless "global war on terror" which inserted a sprawling US military presence (with a life all its own) that now stretches from Asia to the eastern edge of Europe. It also spawned a parallel, often highly classified militarization of the domestic (Homeland Security) front which shredded the Bill of Rights' protections against torture, warrantless surveillance of the citizenry by regular cops and faceless spies, and indefinite incarceration without criminal charges or jury trial. That was the shock doctrine in action in spades.
Phase II came at the tail end of the Bush/Cheney regime's formal hold on executive power.
The great Wall Street banking crisis and economic meltdown in the fall of 2008 led to a similar legislative convulsion in time of systemic panic broadcast in prime time. Trillions of tax dollars were frantically shuffled into the coffers of the super wealthy in the name of warding off another Great Depression, no strings of accountability attached. The big dogs were bailed out and unleashed to devour the puppies in the inevitable wave of foreclosures, business failures and bankruptcies that followed while the invisible hand of the marketplace worked its wonders. Like the institutionalized war on terror, the effects of that 2008-2009 episode of disaster capitalism remain very much with us, defining the nation's new, post-traumatic economic normalcy.
The agenda in Madison, in Baghdad, and in Washington DC were all drafted in fine print detail well before the dramatic moments of crisis actually hit.
At curtain call, it should be time for the authors to finally step forward, certain to receive a standing ovation from the good seats, catcalls from the peanut gallery, and perhaps their moment of long overdue recognition from the angry crowd growing outside in the streets.
Bill from Saginaw
The real USA 'shock doctrine' from the Upper Class was this:
Because 'capitalism' succeeded, the majority of Americans slowed their consumption. We can only own so many cars, big TVs, furniture, etc.
So the 'capitalists' crashed the economy for said majority, (think of it as just like what we did to Iraq, except the bombs dropped here were neutron,) stripping us of as much material wealth and goods as possible, (still stripping, actually,) - we lost our homes, cars, jobs, pensions, dignity - with the plan being to sell it all back to said majority as the economy 'recovers.' IOW, they put us on a diet until we get skinny and hungry enough to start over-eating again.
Except, this time, the economy isn't going to recover. 20 million jobs are gone forever, there's nothing on the near - or far - horizon to fill that gap, and the environment is poisoned and depleted. Plus, this 'shock doctrine' has turned millions against over-consumption as a way of life.
That's why the Upper Class is trying to steal Social Security and Medicare - because there's just not that much left to steal before the system collapses completely.
Sadly, said majority of Americans are still in the 'shock' part of the doctrine, and it's likely they'll fail to shake it before it's too late...
Basically the Cato Institute Bill in Wisconsin, New Mexico and other States is about stealing public education for Charter Schools besides crushing Unions.
Add Michigan to your list. The Detroit Public School system is in emergency state control, and it was recently announced that due to budgetary constraints, K-12 schools in Detroit will feature 60 students per classroom. Already the rumblings are heard that the Charter School alternative is the route to go to avoid a completely dysfunctional system of public education.
Bill from Saginaw
frank, the "Upper Class" (as you say), the "Power Elite" (as Mills says), the ruling-elite class, and more importantly the ruling-elite global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE through which these sociopaths monopolize power, is structured in such as way that it MUST keep looting "in widening gyre" (to continue an analogy raised herein).
The global Empire must continue to loot, just as a Ponzi scheme must continue to suck in more assets (and asses) --- or it will collapse.
It is only though understanding of the crooked and ultimately destructive nature of such Empire, and its utter dependence on 'negative externality' form of looting, that the economics of Empire can be confronted, excised, and solved before that "slouching beast" of extinction can be avoided for us all.
There is no hope that the 'powers that be' the ruling-class of the global Empire will themselves react and pull back from the brink of existential disaster. As Alan Greenspan fearfully noted in his Congressional testimony, "I'm shocked, shocked" that the system was not even detoured by its own destruction.
After all, we're dealing with a ruling-elite global Empire of sociopaths --- who are not detoured even by the certainty of its own systemic death.
These idiots are doing the equivalent of stealing gold chandeliers from the Titanic on their way down.
Where are they going to spend it when the world extinction that they are causing catches up with them?
Can you swim to your palace in the Caribbean with gold chains around your neck?
Their 'winning' is like cancer 'winning'. What do they think it means to 'win' if you destroy the whole host environment?
Parasitic behavior is not normal for humans, except the tiny minority of sociopaths.
Thus, those of us, the vast majority of sane Americans within the belly of this Empire, are the only ones who can confront this Empire in its lair.
Michael Porter of HBS in the Harvard Business Review has very recently proffered a great idea, "The Big Idea; Creating Shared Value" that strikes at the economic heart of this distorted corporate/financial/militarist Empire:
http://hbr.org/2011/01/the-big-idea-creating-shared-value/ar/1
The key to defanging this beast is to address the crime of 'negative externality' looting. And it would be wonderful if Krugman would support this economic solution to Empire.
http://www.opednews.com/Diary/Externality-Assessment-Com-by-Alan-MacDonald-110110-603.html
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
"Liberty over violent empire" Party headquarters
Paul Krugman realizes things are going to get real ugly in the USA for the elite real soon. I don't think the elite in New York City with their multimillion dollar apartments will be spared. The poor in NYC know exactly where the rich live. And 150,000 cops on the force can't stop the crowds if they do a Libya/Egypt in New York. Indeed, a lot of those cops, thanks to Bloomberg, will be part of the torch and pitchfork unit.
I don't see crowds from Bushwick marching into lobbies on Park Avenue. But I do hope that we will see some Wisconsin-like actions. One is planned today for 11 AM. As you say, police and firefighters are not necessarily against workers' rights. Most of them are related to people who work in civilian occupations, often in the medical field. On Democracy Now, Amy Goodman interviewed the police and fire union presidents, who were supporting the demonstrations.
Our Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo do not advocate taking away workers' rights, and selling off the public wealth like Walker does. They are more subtle and less provocative. They do seek to impose much hardship on the ordinary people using the excuse of budget necessities, combined with a complete unwillingness to make Wall Street pay its fair share. They want the unions to "willingly' give up benefits and working conditions. This form of governance does not provoke as much outrage as the tactics of Walker, the sudden imposition of measures that even 61% of Wisconsin Republicans did not expect and do not approve.
There is a lot of hoop-la about Carmelo Anthony returning to New York. Ironically, the city recently closed the day care center he attended in Red Hook where a friend of mine had worked. They did not have to take away the collective bargaining rights of the workers there. They just laid them off. This is the "I feel your pain" style of disaster capitalism.
Seems like the reality of economic self-interst has finally hit "the base" and perhaps people who drank the Repug-Foxicon koolaid are finally coming to their senses. Just heard that a school board in RI is laying off ALL its teachers. After years of demonizing teachers, perhaps this action was a bit premature and will backfire just like the Wisconsin end run to destroy the last bastion of power against the Right wing agenda.
My hope is that enough people will be personally affected by the lies (demonization of public workers, "illegals, etc.) to ignite a long-overdue backlash. The next step is to show why there are deficits: Housing bubble engineered by criminal conspiracy among Fed/Banks/Finance/Wall Street/ failure to regulate, combined with long-term reduction or stagnation of wages, dependence on credit, and the resultant gains made by corporations and the ultra rich at the expense of everyone else. Now is the time to hammer this home. The blame is not that of public workers, including teachers, and their unions. It's thirty years of delusional growth and transfer of wealth from the middle and working classes to the corporations and ultra rich, combined with policies of endless war that only serve to create another generation of enemies that will cost more lives and more billions of dollars..
Very good, Paul. Now put that wonderful mind of yours to work imagining prosperity during a gradual decline to entropic balance; with world-wide liberty and justice for all, justice for the future, and justice with nature. We're talk'n about a new way of walk'n, the game is to find the path from here-and-now to a rational economy and specie survival that includes much more pursuit of happiness time. Can you fit in a 15 - 20 hour work week so everyone has jobs ?
New World Order? NO, Same Old World Slave Owners Association on steroids.
I hear you Matthew Scott, and it is easy to opt out of this by appealing to climate/ecoogical/environmental imperatives (if I read you correctly), but who do you think offers the greater hope of realizing the kind of transformation you are seeking: Kock Bros, Massey Energy, Citigroup/Chevron/Exxon/Hardon/ etc., or bottom-up revolution by people who just may get it and just may want to be less "efficient" (read more work for less pay) and who may be seeking a more equitable and less destructive distribution of existing resources and who may be less invested in the energy hegemony of oil and gas and who may be open to new and less destructive ways of living? It's just a possiblity, and we all have to work towards that end, but at least this represents an opening that hasn't appeared until now..
"L. Paul Bremer, the American viceroy, told a Washington Post reporter that one of his top priorities was to “corporatize and privatize state-owned enterprises” — Mr. Bremer’s words, not the reporter’s — and to “wean people from the idea the state supports everything.”
It's nice to see the basis of US foreign, and domestic, policy since the beginning of the cold war so plainly stated.
The reason why this is US policy is because the US oligarchy finds it far more difficult, or impossible, to exploit state-owned enterprises and the socialist countries, such as Libya, that have them. So their policy is, wherever possible, to bring these enterprises and countries down.
Since state-owned enterprises and socialism are what the US oligarchy likes least, an excellent way to oppose the oligarchy would be to give them large doses of what they like least.
If the gatherings in Wisconsin et al would advocate for state-owned enterprises and socialism, in addition to stating their opposition to the union busting tactics of Walker and others, their activism might be doubly effective: a more general rallying point would be established for use in demonstrations in the future.