On September 7th, before the financial crisis had reached a full head
of steam, I blogged about the Peter G. Peterson Foundation full-page
ad in the N.Y. Times that warned about the burden Social Security and
other "entitlements" placed on the young. The "young" signatories of
the ad turned out to be a bunch of rightwing operatives like Patrick
Wetherille, a frequent contributor to Human Events, a long-time
ultraright magazine.
Peterson, reaching into his deep pockets again, has another full-page
ad in today's N.Y. Times, this time connecting the war on the
remnants of the New Deal with the financial crisis, implying strongly
that the bailouts will make it impossible to afford Social Security,
Medicare, etc.
You can read the ad on the Peter G. Peterson Foundation
website. Under the heading "Think the Current Financial Crisis is
Bad? You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet," it issues these warnings:
"Americans are seeing the heavy price the country pays when our
leaders don't take steps to fix serious and undeniable problems. We
waited for a crisis to hit before anyone moved to act.
"As disruptive and damaging as today's mortgage sub-prime crisis is,
we're looking at a 'super sub-prime' crisis which, if left
unaddressed, will hurt many more Americans - and hurt much worse.
"Our federal government is in a deep financial hole, yet Washington
keeps on digging."
When I read the ad, I couldn't help but think of Naomi Klein's theory
of disaster capitalism, the subject of her latest book "The Shock
Doctrine". Although I have not read the book, I am familiar with her
ideas, which she has been pushing in a variety of venues, from Bill
Maher's television show to the Nation Magazine. Put succinctly, the
theory tries to demonstrate that in case after case capitalist
governments-particularly in the 3rd world-exploit disaster to deepen
the attack on workers and poor farmers. A Village Voice review said
that "Using stirring reportage, she shows the ways that disasters-
unnatural ones like the war in Iraq, and natural ones like the Asian
tsunami and Hurricane Katrina-allow governments and multinationals to
take advantage of citizen shock and implement corporate-friendly
policies: Where once was a Sri Lankan fishing village now stands a
luxury resort."
full:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/10/05/financial-crisis-the-welfare-state-and-disaster-capitalism/
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
