Disaster Capitalism

From Naomi Klein's Now is the Time to Resist Wall Street's Shock Doctrine:

I wrote The Shock Doctrine in the hopes that it would make us all better prepared for the next big shock. Well, that shock has certainly arrived, along with gloves-off attempts to use it to push through radical pro-corporate policies (which of course will further enrich the very players who created the market crisis in the first place...).

[...]

We have seen this many times before, in this country and around the world. But here's the thing: these opportunistic tactics can only work if we let them. They work when we respond to crisis by regressing, wanting to believe in "strong leaders" - even if they are the same strong leaders who used the September 11 attacks to push through the Patriot Act and launch the illegal war in Iraq.

So let's be absolutely clear: there are no saviors who are going to look out for us in this crisis. Certainly not Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of the companies that will benefit most from his proposed bailout (which is actually a stick up). The only hope of preventing another dose of shock politics is loud, organized grassroots pressure on all political parties: they have to know right now that after seven years of Bush, Americans are becoming shock resistant.

From SocProf:

Things I NEVER want to hear again:

• Universal health care / fixing the infrastructure would be too expensive.
• You don’t solve a problem by throwing money at it (usually as applied to the policies directed at the poor, minorities, schools and social services).
• Welfare fosters dependency (HA!).
• We need bipartisan solutions (no we don’t, we need no more centrist / conservative BS).
• People have to be responsible for their own actions (usually directed at the poor and especially, non-white poor).
• Moral hazard.
• And anything pertaining to the efficiency and rationality of the market as opposed to the inefficiencies of the government.