So why did the U.S. Occupation go so badly? One could name a host of reasons, but certainly a huge one is an obvious blind spot in the theory of American exceptionalism:
>> "It was this theft of Iraq's reconstruction funds from Iraqis, justified by unquestioned, racist assumptions about U.S. superiority and Iraqi inferiority -- and not merely the generic demons of 'corruption' and 'incompetence' -- that doomed the project from the start. (p. 347) ... It was straight-up corporate gorging on state coffers." (p. 355)
"[The Bush Administration} had commissioned a kind of country-in-a-box, designed in Virginia and Texas, to be assembled in Iraq. ... Iraqis did not see the corporate reconstruction as 'a gift': most saw it as a modernized form of pillage," in cahoots with a corrupted Iraqi government bureaucracy. (p. 347) At that point, a huge number of those disenchanted, angry Iraqis joined the armed rebels.
RENTING-BACK ESSENTIAL SERVICES
So what lies in store for the future, now that so many major countries are little more than national-security police states, with their traditional governmental public-service functions outsourced or otherwise "disappeared"? Klein looks into her crystal ball:
>> "The next phase of the disaster capitalism complex is all too clear: with emergencies on the rise, government no longer able to foot the bill, and citizens stranded by their can't-do state, the parallel corporate state will rent back its own disaster infrastructure to whomever can afford it, at whatever price the market will bear. For sale will be everything from helicopter rides off rooftops to drinking water to beds in shelters." (p. 319) Blackwater providing armed guards in post-Katrina New Orleans was just the tip of the iceberg (p. 421), or Sandy Spring, GA., where the entire city government is run by the private corporation CH2M Hill.
>> "But the [disaster] industry has far greater ambitions, including privatized global communication networks, emergency health and electricity...the contracting-out of police and fire departments to private security companies...and the ability to locate and provide transportation for a global workforce in the midst of a major disaster. ... [We are witnessing] the expansion of the narrow military-industrial complex into the sprawling disaster capitalism complex. Today, global instability does not just benefit a small group of arms dealers; it generates huge profits for the high-tech security sector, for heavy construction, for private health-care companies treating wounded soldiers, for the oil and gas sectors -- and of course for defense contractors." (p. 420)
And the stock markets reflect that reality, rising as disasters occur. Says Klein: "Shock-therapy 'reforms' have been the crack cocaine of financial markets." (p. 87)
COUNTERING THE GREED MERCHANTS
Can anything be done to counter the rise of the national-security/disaster-capitalism states? Klein says the blowback is already happening against disaster-capitalism all over the globe, but is most clearly evident in Latin America where leaders and populations are rebelling against U.S. hegemonic desires and harsh IMF policies. They are learning to "build shock absorbers into their organizing models," Klein writes. (p. 453)
In Europe, two countries (France and Holland) rejected the European Constitution, the French because they saw that document as "the codification of the corporatist order," what they called "savage capitalism." More and more grassroots-generated collectives are being started in Brazil to reclaim unused land, and in Argentina hundreds of bankrupt companies "recovered" by their workers have been turned into democratically-organized cooperatives. (p. 455)
These are small steps, to be sure, but they may represent strong, active anti-disaster capitalism tectonics about to emerge. Certainly, the appearance of this brilliantly argued book is a giant and necessary step in turning this country, and the world, around.#
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked as a writer/editor for the San Francisco Chronicle for two decades, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). To comment: crisispapers@comcast.net .
First published by The Crisis Papers and Democratic Underground 4/15/08. www.crisispapers.org/essays8w/klein.htm
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked for two decades as a writer-editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org).
Much of our problem today is the poor accounting for risk. The emphasis on performance devoid of measuring the risks taken to acheive it rewards gamblers at the expense of good risk management.
The true costs are not measured. Risk management incorporates process. Should we reward somebody who ran unaceptable risks such as sprinting across a busy road without looking just because he/she got to the finish first?
Also risk management is about future profits, our current accounting techniques generates dangerous short-termism as it treats good risk management as an expense thereby reducing profits which presents as bad performance.
The economic costs of increased risk of social disruption and climate change are irrelevant if your only interested in this years profits.
by
kwalsh (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 221 comments)
on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 3:07:09 AM
I cannot say how many articles I have written here and letters to editors elsewhere in major news Media wherein I have spelled out THE EVILS OF PROFITEERING ON HUMAN TRAGEDY. Prime among them are profiting by Medical and drug compamnies or any necessity of life.
I blame the current horrors, though I am a deist on Organized Religion. The segment of the New Testament Matt. 4:1-11 The Temptation in The Wilderness, maps out the way in which men of honor and common sense should live and isolates selfish, Blind Ambition and self-serving behavior. The church choose to ignore it because without it they could pander for the donations of those with great wealth which they knew was, except in great rarity, gained through selfish and criminal enterprises. Instead they focused on the one thing by which they could effectively grasp all humans, especially women, who could control their men with it, as soon as they wiped away polygamy-sexual behavior. The day they did that, they separated themselves from honesty and God.
As a result Avaristic men feel justified in damaging others, even eliminating them to serve their own purposes. They will never turn away from that now. Behold the pope of my born into religion, who twice wrote to bishops, once as Cardinal Ratzinger, more than once as pope, certifying a threat of virtual de facto excommuication of those who voted for anyone who advocated abortion. I am as much against abortion as he is, but I would not vote for Bush because I knew what followed closely behind him-Hell, in the form of the New World Order "Crazies." I was among the first back in 2001 to call them fascists, and later followers of Mein Kampf, of which the new world order papers are a thinly disguised version. If I were given to know not to vote for the beast, why if the pope is of God, was he not so enlightened? because he heads one of the largest corporations on the planet. True some good is done by the dedicated priests which take the vow of poverty, but much harm is also done by alliances with corporate and political evils. he could have condemned in strong measures, as did his predecessor this war, but he offered too little and too late, only now speaking against it.
Constantine, refused baptism until he was on his death bed so he go one with his evils and could confess and wipe away his sins at the very last moment-hypocrisy! And now we see it renewed as the Barn door is closed after the horses have left to plunder the world.
by
Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo (144 articles, 1 quicklinks, 95 diaries, 1311 comments)
on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 7:04:00 AM
Naomi's book is one of four recommend in: see below:
Hats off to Colleage Weiner - fine article. Disaster Capitalism is one in the four book course suggested in:
Sunday, December 2, 2007 HOPING TO REFORM CAPITALISM MAKES YOU COMPLICIT IN ITS INIQUITIES/4 Books (4 comments) Whatever one wants to call whatever takes its place, it is the inhumanity, murderous criminal insanity, of totally materialist, mindless capitalism that we are living through right now. Those of us who merely try to make it a bit less monstrous, are more acquiescent to its continuance, than to its being replaced with something more intelligently human. Extricate mind from complicity in Capitalist Crime with a four book course!
Might like to check out our OpEdNews Discussion Group and the article below
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 "Capitalism - a threat to life on Earth" OpEdNews Discussion Group 1 of 3 Lead Articles" (15 comments) Capitalism Presents Itself as Unreformable, by Definition Marginalizing Ethics and Social Well-being. This article completes the four lead-in articles for the OpEdNews Disscussion Group, "Capitalism – a threat to life on Earth", following Richard Mynich's, "Capitalism as the Engine of Global Crisis", Cameron James' Why I Say Capitalism is the Problem, & JJ's HOPING TO REFORM CAPITALISM MAKES YOU COMPLICIT IN ITS INIQUITIES
by
Jay Janson (83 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 93 comments)
on Monday, April 21, 2008 at 12:12:53 AM
Prof. Weiner's in depth synopsis recommended for posting in
OEN Discussion Group "Capitalism - a threat to life on Earth"
as basic research book review of Naomi Kein's "Shock Doctrine" Corporatism in Extremis
Thanking Prof. Weiner, There are now so many excellent expose and explanatory works, a fine concise synopsis one can file and refer to for those in a personal time bind is so helpful.
servidor, jay janson
by
Jay Janson (83 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 93 comments)
on Monday, April 21, 2008 at 2:44:47 PM
6 comments
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