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October 11, 2007
Paranoid
I just got Adam a subscription to Harper's magazine for his birthday. It's a good magazine, but the articles are looooong. The issue that just came, though, had a cover story that caught my attention. Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein. It's one of those articles that I'm reading as an opinion piece, I mostly agree with her, though I try not to be a complete pessimist. It's about how the push for privatization in this country has not only led directly to crises like the Katrina disaster, but how these disasters become, in turn, catalysts for further privatization, and how this process is creating two classes of people the world over. The biggest contractors for the Katrina cleanup were those already favored by our government in Iraq. Now, the scariest bit of business, and one I hadn't given much thought to previously, is Blackwater. I hadn't thought about the fact that there is a 20,000 person paramilitary group in this country that is backed by a right-wing government and various right-wing organizations and think-tanks. Somehow Klein paints a pretty bleak picture of the US; a crumbling infrastructure (roads and highways, hospitals, public schools, etc.) ripe for a major disaster, heavily armed and morally ambiguous militia groups ready to "protect us" when the next disaster strikes, and private corporations that have been feeding at the tit of government for years and years ready to provide the good life for those who can afford it when the inevitable happens.
Not good. Not good. I'm not sure how to fix things. I'm really not. I might be moving to Canada.
Posted by mwashburn at October 11, 2007 07:18 AMPosted to Culture & Politics
Comments
Good news! By 2050, Chicago's climate is supposed to be like Florida's, so the Canadian climate will more than likely be like the one you live in now. In other interesting news:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/1008072scuba1.html
Posted by: Jesse at October 11, 2007 11:38 AM
With a name like "Blackwater" it's got to be pure evil. I mean, it sounds like a group that eats babies, for crying out loud. Or some cheese death metal band.
But seriously, I was listening to some of the testimony the other day on Democracy Now and man... scary. They'll keep getting away with murder (literally) until there is a real change in power. It's sick.
Posted by: Carol at October 11, 2007 01:40 PM
That was supposed to be "cheesy" death metal band... but I am sure you knew that.
Posted by: Carol at October 11, 2007 01:41 PM
That's pretty funny, Carol. Maybe, in keeping with the Orwellian nomenclature this administration and the Right in general seems to favor, Blackwater should be called RainbowSprite instead.
Posted by: flygrrl at October 11, 2007 06:50 PM