DISASTER CAPITALISM...

Naomi Klein ...

“When the next hurricane hits, it will be a co-production of Big Aid and Big Box.”

The privatization of the US Military's support functionality (mail delivery, food service, laundry, and more) created the Private (Primate?) Military Industry. Thereby contractors like KBR, the former Kellogg, Brown & Root subsidiary of Halliburton, along with a fornicated stew of security companies scarf up a good percentage of the US Defense budget, to provide the services for which the US armed forces was formerly self-sufficient and self-regulating, for better or worse.

Interesting that Wal-mart corners the market on disaster after-spending. Between Wal-mart and News CO (Fox, Murdoch), you won't need much more than Food CO and Airline CO. Auto CO?

This is a Republican model of non-efficiency, just as were the Savings & Loan scandals of the Eighties. The premise is that the government, by crying “Scandal!” or 'Inefficiency!”, can bring in 'good business practices' and make the response 'more efficient'. The blatant truth is that there is no efficiency, nor ethical standards, to which the current misAdministration will hold itself, contrary to statements by the President of the United States of Hysterica.

Naomi Klein puts the heat of transparency to the feet of the neoconservatives ...

Bail out failing or imploding industries (S&Ls, Chrysler), and the taxpayers will pay (over 500 billion in 1986 dollars); privatize the army, and the taxpayers will pay; and Ms. Klein posits the Republican reformation of disaster relief, and management. Too Big to Fail, now too 'in' with the Admin to be scrutinized or held to contractual performance.

Her points bear rereading.

“If that is the corporate world's track record on slow-motion disasters, why should we expect different values to govern fast-moving disasters such as hurricanes or even terrorist attacks? It's worth remembering that as Israeli bombs pummeled Lebanon not so long ago, the US government initially tried to charge its citizens for the cost of their own evacuations.“

That is true: a friend was in Beirut, and four-copy promissory notes were distributed to those who found themselves 'saved' by Uncle Sam.

Where will a bankrupting government lead its people? How many generations will have to shoulder the burden of the 2002 to 2009 Bush/Republican budget deficits, that added trillions to our National Debt? And how any party could fight back against the Republican media machine, when the slogan “Big-spending Democrats” in this case is an accurate reflection of the Debt-repayment that the next four presidential terms will deal with.

If America doesn't go destitute, with roughly 60 per cent of the world's known nuclear weapons, or phenix itself into a new series of countries...

ZENmud