(The former head of Central Command, Admiral William Fallon, said there would be no attack on Iran on his watch; he was forced out, and CheneyBush lackey Petraeus was moved over from Iraq.)
BURMESE MILITARY'S "OPPORTUNITY"
"The shock doctrine" is not employed solely by American governments and multi-national corporations. In Burma (Myanmar), the military junta ruling that country, having just put down a potential revolt led by Buddhist monks, clearly is terrified that a coup might be organized by individuals or organizations who want to bring aid into the country to help the residents in the wake of the cylone disaster. And so they're keeping those aid workers out of the country, thus putting at risk the lives and health of hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring into Rangoon and elsewhere in search of medical care, food, shelter.
The effect of the disaster and the Burmese government's insufficient response to it means that a good share of the junta's political opposition is now dead or dealing with the aftermath of the huge, rampaging storm. In other words, the disaster offers a great "opportunity" for the ruling elite to settle old scores by continuing to repress the opposition and to remake the affected areas as they wish. (There have been reports, unconfirmed, of bodies of monks being found in the cyclone rubble -- burned in a suspicious manner -- mixed in with the tens of thousands of other corpses found floating in the rice fields and ditches and rivers.)
The long time-delay in getting food, water and shelter to the hundreds of thousands of displaced survivors of the cyclone is reminiscent of the way the Bush Administration dilly-dallied with regard to the post-Katrina period in New Orleans and Mississippi. In her book, Klein used the Katrina experience as a perfect example of "disaster capitalism" in the U.S.: A government watches a natural catastrophe wipe out an entire population sector, and lets the catastrophe play out over days and weeks and months -- with large numbers of citizens abandoning their homes, forced to go elsewhere for adequate assistance -- and then giving no-bid contracts to Blackwater and Halliburton and KRB for the reconstruction phase, in accord with social planning as laid out by the ideologues in the White House.
In Burma, the government may not be operating out of an exactly similar motivation, but the result appears to be much the same: using a natural calamity to reshape the economic, political and social future of the affected region for their own political and economic aims.
NATURAL RESOURCE SHORTAGES
As for the huge worldwide "run" on commodities -- especially important staples such as wheat, rice, oil -- already local greed-merchants and multi-national companies are salivating at the prospect of selling, at exhorbitant rates, food and shelter and clothing and oil and the like. They will be literally "making a killing" on the backs of the starving, the poor, the dispossessed.
In so doing, in line with Klein's "shock doctrine" and "disaster capitalism" theses, these elite forces will be re-shaping the politics, economies and social arrangements of these countries for generations, both to consolidate and expand their reigns of power and to benefit themselves and their rapacious, greedy supporters.
In short, when catastrophes are being dealt with, it doesn't seem to matter what the operating governmental system is, be it fascist, communist, dictatorial, democratic, etc. By and large, the power/economic/political elites see the unfolding tragedies of their citizens as "opportunities" for expansion of control, for ways to eliminate or dilute their opposition, for fattening the bank accounts of their large-corporation supporters in rebuilding and reconstructing these devasted societies, in line with their own greed agendas.
This is the world that only will change when these elites and systems are systematically confronted, changed, or overthrown by citizens operating under a different moral system, who decide they've finally had enough.
It would be more effective, of course, if a strong progressive movement were to develop overnight in America to affect such wide-sweeping reforms in this country. However, removing Republicans from the White House in 2008 at least would be a significant sign of the beginnings of the public's strong desire for significant changes.#
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked as a writer/editor at 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 5/13/08. www.crisispapers.org/essays8w/shockdoctrine.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).
Everybody that has kept up with real news (not MSM ) has known for years these retired Generals, military annalists, and other hired experts were lying to support the Bush/Chaney war. Though some posters would rather beat up on MMFA when it was actually the NYTs that broke the story
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GUY P. FRASER (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 64 comments)
on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 11:25:14 AM
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