Patricia Goldsmith
Last week I caught a glimpse of a local TV news promo warning that the FDA is poised to OK a new drug for diabetes that also sharply increases the risk of heart problems, strokes and death. It was the nights big scare story, very reminiscent of the scandals over Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra. Youll remember that the FDA allowed Vioxx back on the market, even though studies show it may be responsible for as many as 55,000 deaths. It looks like the diabetes drug will win approval too.
But rest assured, theres no danger of easy access to the Plan B morning-after contraceptive. In fact, theres actually been a crackdown on medical doctors latitude in prescribing narcotics for pain relief. The use of medical marijuana, in states that have voted to allow it, is avidly prosecuted, SWAT teams and all.
Behold, life in the post-New Deal, neocon era, with one spectacular regulatory failure after anotheraccompanied by one intrusive, fearmongering initiative after another to make sure we dont ever connect the dots or see the big picture. Big picture? Even with the unprecedented level of corruption, lawlessness, and moral depravity we see all around us, we have to keep coming back to the economics.
But all that has changed. The New Deal is dead. Wealthy transnational economic interests are firmly in control. The New Deal has given way to neo-liberal globalization.
Benito Mussolini said, Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. If that is trueand Mussolini ought to knowthen globalization is nothing less than fascism on a planetary scale.
. . . for people in Central America, this is devastating. Right? I mean, the provisions are very clear: People with HIV and AIDS who need medicine, who use generic drugs will die now, because they will not get generic drugs, because this agreement takes away the ability to produce generic drugs. People in Central America who rely on essential public services, their drinking water, electricity, education, or for instance in Costa Rica, the whole telecommunications system, government guaranteed access, has to be privatized and deregulated under this agreement. Peoples difficult lives will be made much hard, or as Oxfam and the World Bank reported, millions of Central American campesinos, small farmers, who are hanging on by their fingernails as it is, are going to get flattened by this agreement, and there are going to be millions of displaced and hungry people. Talk about instability. I mean, if it takes military killing people to get the thing passed, and you know the results are going to be devastating, destabilizing, economically and socially, as a national security matter, but as a human, moral matter, what this is going to do to Central America is godawful.
And now its happening here. In fact, were well into the process.
A new book, Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy, details some of the strong-arm strategies we see at work, including enacting laws that deliberately ignore or exacerbate problems in order to create crises that justify drastic solutions. That ones called a time-bomb. I would say the time-bomb technique is, in fact, the essence of the Bushitters approach to governance.
Hurricane Katrina is a good example. By ignoring the problem and then making it as bad as possible, the White House group running the disaster operation insured a huge reconstruction operation to benefit corporate cronies. At the same time, they claim that the money required is causing a budget crisis. The budget crisis, in turn, justifies the creation of a so-called Gulf Coast Opportunity Zone.
In spiteor perhaps becauseof increasing public opposition, recent weeks have seen a staggering succession of corporate sweetheart deals passed through Congress, bills that not only give away billions of dollars but shield companies from legal obligations. One law, subsidizing the building of domestic oil refineries, in spite of historic oil company profits, actually calls for citizens who sue oil companies to pay the companies legal fees, win or losevirtually placing oil companies outside the reach of tort law. These are the items that have been on corporations Christmas lists for many, many years; Santa has finally arrived.
I look at Tom DeLays grinning (s)mug shot and I see the fatuous contempt of a Mussolini. He proves that evil is not only banal, its literally an exterminator: DeLay developed a passion for politics when tree-hugging laws put limits on the kinds of poisons he could use in his cockroach business. Personally, I think hes on the insects payroll; theyre the ones who really stand to benefit from his leadership.
With the phenomenon of peak oil, we are at a point where survival demands planning and prioritizing with the needs of the common good in mind. If we dont allocate and protect demonstrably dwindling resources, given our societys total dependence on oil-based products and technology, we are headed for certain destruction. Burning all the remaining fossil fuel on the planet would also jeopardize our survival. Unregulated capitalism, or fascism, is totally unable to defend us against these dangers, because it is the source of the problem.
In that regard, Bushs recent statements concerning the possibility of an avian flu pandemic are extremely disturbing. For an administration dedicated only to making money for its clients, a flu pandemic is a mouth-watering opportunity. Bushs focus on military-enforced quarantines is hardly an appetizing prospect, post-Katrina.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
