Disaster Capitalism

Why do we refer to Richard Perle merely as an ideologue -- rather than an arms dealer with an impressive vocabulary?
-Naomi Klein

The HuffPost has a great video and transcript of John Cusack interviewing Naomi Klein about her new book The Shock Doctrine.

Klein explains to Lloyd how people with more connections than scruples use the chaos of disasters as a way to push for government policies that, under normal conditions, would be anathema to the American people. The two examples she gives are privatization in New-New Orleans and, of course, the half trillion dollars that has been lifted out of our pockets to blowup and rebuild Iraq.




In the transcript of their further discussion she details how companies that have made windfall profits from war contracts directly or indirectly paid public figures to push for the invasion of Iraq after 9/11. She mentions Henry Kissinger, George Shultz and others, but my favorite is her above description of how the media mischaracterizes Richard Perle. In fairness, he is very articulate for someone so totally shameless.

I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.

-Perle, 2003


Klein and Cusack's brief discussion drives home the point that the Iraq War is not the disaster for which most Americans see it, but actually a huge success - for certain people. Defense contractors and oil companies have made an unprecedented killing.

Training

Lots of different threads in this post... take a deep breathe between each paragraph, so you can fully enjoy my post.

I started training for the Princeton Review tonight. The big question for me at the moment is will I be able to wake up at 7 in the morning? after going to bed at 3 a.m. the last few nights. We will see. could be a very short training for the Princeton Review if I don't get up in time. I can even make it to Oakwood for some swimming if I can... This is my first job in months... so it would kind of suck if I lost it in one day. but then I would be able to go to services at the Mission Minyan next week. The hip places where I plan to meet my future wife.

If that wasn't my intention in going to pray in SF to, at least meet girls, I would probably pray at the synagogue I grew up in. Wouldn't it be ironic if my (future) wife, was praying there? No, she won't be, because she would use the same logic I did. There aren't that many young people living in Lafayette, unless they are unemployed and sad and pathetic and living with their parents.

If this job thing works out, I should have some money for jdate and some interesting stories... otherwise...(make sure to take a deep breathe, it starts getting jumping here)

I will always have this.... a quote from a SAT essay: The question: Is it always "you don't know what you got till it's gone?" I wrote: "Yeah, no one was saying woo hoo after boarding a plane with a full regular tube of toothpaste and a full bottle of drinking water before 9/11". You don't miss those things you take for granted until they are gone....(remember to breathe)

speaking of 9/11, when the number of troop casualties double the number of deaths in 9/11 will we call it even? (what do they think there are too many patriotic, brave men around and if they weren't in a war, they might lead a revolution and (gasp) impeach the president? (you know the drill, hold it in for at least five seconds, maybe take a couple of deep ones here.)

News flash, on impeachment and why it has been taken off the table. I just talked to my mom, and she told me the party line. The democrats are afraid of messing things up for 2008. I would bet money that is exactly why they don't win in 2008. Leadership takes balls and the democrats have none (or at least less than GOPers). If they felt that the president didn't deserve to be impeached that would be one thing, but to not impeach him, because it makes our life harder, will come back to haunt them. He deserves it. The democrats aren't doing anything anyways. ITMFA, close to Savage's DTMFA, read Savage Love if you don't get the acronym. (you might want to count to ten before continuing, I get a little preachy here).

We, as a country, have gotten so fat (figuratively... well figuratively and literally) that we are afraid to mess up what we have. and therefore we will soon find ourselves with nothing, or maybe just empty lives, like the Romans before their civilization collapsed, bypassed by people and countries that are willing to put it all on the line.