Thursday, November 27, 2008

Disaster Capitalism

I read an excerpt from a book called The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein here. In it, she describes the actions of people like Milton Friedman in the days, weeks, and months after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Essentially, "within 19 months, with most of the city's poor residents still in exile, New Orleans' public school system had been almost completely replaced by privately run charter schools."

Another excerpt reads:

"For more than three decades, Friedman and his powerful followers had been perfecting this very strategy: waiting for a major crisis, then selling off pieces of the state to private players while citizens were still reeling from the shock."

With this as an example, it seems there's been an evolution within capitalism so that absoultely everything is submitted to a corporation by any means necessary. With this mindset, a natural evolution takes place, and seems to be completely realistic. Here is what I mean:

Waiting for disasters to happen and planning to swoop in with corporate takeovers > Preventing measures to make these disasters impact less (like strengthening the dykes around New Orleans, etc.) > Actually weakening the dykes so that when disaster hits the effect is multiplied > Timing wreckage with disaster to avoid any "miracles" > The creation of "disasters" (terrorist events, wars, the boogie man in Afghanistan, the threat of disaster in the form of a pending epidemic, shootings, and so on... the media loves to help this cause).

My thought is that if there are large groups of people whose "optimism" in the face of "disaster" is actually veiled opportunism, then there are factions within those groups whose greed has been accelerated to the point where the truest form of "survival of the fittest" is evident. This leaves little to no regard for the well-being of the "lower class", or those who haven't been "fit" enough to amass large amounts of wealth. The mindset evolves to "it's their own fault", and they prey on the belief of many in the goodness of people.

This was also seen shortly after the United states "won" the war in Iraq, which was not a declaration of victory, but the sound of a starting gun for the bidding war on contracts in this newly acquired, oil-drenched land. This idea is quite familiar. In fact, it seems to be a trait of some prophetic character, given in Daniel 11:39...

He will attack the mightiest fortresses with the help of a foreign god and will greatly honor those who acknowledge him. He will make them rulers over many people and will distribute the land at a price.

This is disgusting, but sadly relevant to anyone who lives anywhere.

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