Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Naomi Klein, in The Nation chronicles how we’ve moved from “vulgar capitalism” to “sophisticated capitalism.” Ms. Klein is special.
But if the reconstruction industry is stunningly inept at rebuilding, that may be because rebuilding is not its primary purpose. According to Guttal, "It's not reconstruction at all--it's about reshaping everything." If anything, the stories of corruption and incompetence serve to mask this deeper scandal: the rise of a predatory form of disaster capitalism that uses the desperation and fear created by catastrophe to engage in radical social and economic engineering. And on this front, the reconstruction industry works so quickly and efficiently that the privatizations and land grabs are usually locked in before the local population knows what hit them. Kumara, in another e-mail, warns that Sri Lanka is now facing "a second tsunami of corporate globalization and militarization," potentially even more devastating than the first. "We see this as a plan of action amidst the tsunami crisis to hand over the sea and the coast to foreign corporations and tourism, with military assistance from the US Marines."
As Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz designed and oversaw a strikingly similar project in Iraq: The fires were still burning in Baghdad when US occupation officials rewrote the investment laws and announced that the country's state-owned companies would be privatized. Some have pointed to this track record to argue that Wolfowitz is unfit to lead the World Bank; in fact, nothing could have prepared him better for his new job. In Iraq, Wolfowitz was just doing what the World Bank is already doing in virtually every war-torn and disaster-struck country in the world--albeit with fewer bureaucratic niceties and more ideological bravado.
Essentially, these countries are first ravaged by natural disasters or wars; then, the privatizing ghouls move in.
In January Condoleezza Rice sparked a small controversy by describing the tsunami as "a wonderful opportunity" that "has paid great dividends for us." Many were horrified at the idea of treating a massive human tragedy as a chance to seek advantage. But, if anything, Rice was understating the case. A group calling itself Thailand Tsunami Survivors and Supporters says that for "businessmen-politicians, the tsunami was the answer to their prayers, since it literally wiped these coastal areas clean of the communities which had previously stood in the way of their plans for resorts, hotels, casinos and shrimp farms. To them, all these coastal areas are now open land!" http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050502&s=klein
Jim McGovern visits Iraq Same issue of The Nation: He doesn’t like all the lies he’s told, and fears that the Occupation could go on indefinitely, unless…
What worries me almost as much as our misguided policy in Iraq is that so many of my colleagues and so many citizens have become resigned to the fact that the war will go on. Congress is not being inundated with letters and phone calls and faxes and e-mails and street protests demanding an end to our presence in Iraq. President Bush's re-election seems to have taken much of the energy out of the antiwar movement. My recent visit to Iraq only strengthened my belief that this war is wrong. And only renewed, passionate dissent by the American people can end it. http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050502&s=mcgovern
“War on Terror” Progress? No. First, we had the claim that terrorist incidents were declining; the Bushies had to withdraw that claim as it was a statistical lie. Now, with evidence continuing to show such an increase, they’ve declared their solution: they’ll no longer print the statistics! Classy
The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.
Several U.S. officials defended the abrupt decision, saying the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate statistics for the report may have been faulty, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism.
Last year, the number of incidents in 2003 was undercounted, forcing a revision of the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism."
But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11407689.htm
“Nuclear Option” (Filibuster)
Frist apparently needs 4 of 7 undecided Republicans to join his Faithful so as to eliminate judicial filibusters. Senators Susan Collins (Maine), Chuck Hagel (Neb.), Dick Lugar (Ind.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Arlen Specter (Pa.), and John Warner (Va.) are thought to be the swing votes. Collins and Snowe are thought to be leaning to the Democratic position; Lugar and Murkowski are believed to be leaning the other way; Warner, Specter and Hagel’s leanings are unknown / unclear.
North Korea: Reports speculate that Pyongyang is shutting down its nuclear reactor so they can ‘harvest’ the fuel for bombs. The Wall Street Journal notes that South Korea and China continue to expand their connections to North Korea while U.S. policy remains unclear. This seems awfully similar to 3 years ago.
Let them speak:
(1) (Re) Bush:
“The president cares the most about this $10-an-hour person. And what he gets most irritated by is when it is suggested, 'Oh the $10-an-hour person isn't sophisticated enough to deal with a personal retirement account.' "- Allan Hubbard, director of the White House National Economic Council
Now, that’s believable…
(2) The late Daniel Moynihan (1990) observation published in his 1990 book, On the Law of Nations: "A great many people seem to think of law as a kind of self-imposed restraint on America's ability to act decisively or with force in world affairs. This misstates what law is, and obscures the fact that international law can actually enhance the national security of the United States."
Not exactly the Bushies modus operandi
(3) Barney Frank, re House Ethics probes which found he had “behaved inappropriately”, comparing himself to The Hammer:
"I changed my behavior," said Frank. "Tom DeLay changed the ethics committee."
(4) Re: WMD, Deputy AG James Comey expands the definition of WMD, commenting on whether suspects were accused of conspiring to use biological, chemical or nuclear weapons,
"We have not alleged that. But . . . a weapon of mass destruction in our world goes beyond that and includes improvised explosive devices."
Improvised explosive devises = WMD? So, I guess there are WMD in Iraq.
The Familiar: Energy Bill:
The House this week will consider $8 billion in tax breaks targeted to the energy industry at a time when some of those companies are enjoying soaring profits from high consumer prices.
The vast majority of the tax breaks would benefit companies that produce and supply traditional forms of energy, with a large portion going to the oil and natural gas sector. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63958-2005Apr18.html
The Familiar: Candidates for 2008
Hillary, Kerry, John Edwards and now Wes Clark are thought to be likely candidates, along with Mark Warner and Phil Bredesen (Tennessee gov.)
-R
But if the reconstruction industry is stunningly inept at rebuilding, that may be because rebuilding is not its primary purpose. According to Guttal, "It's not reconstruction at all--it's about reshaping everything." If anything, the stories of corruption and incompetence serve to mask this deeper scandal: the rise of a predatory form of disaster capitalism that uses the desperation and fear created by catastrophe to engage in radical social and economic engineering. And on this front, the reconstruction industry works so quickly and efficiently that the privatizations and land grabs are usually locked in before the local population knows what hit them. Kumara, in another e-mail, warns that Sri Lanka is now facing "a second tsunami of corporate globalization and militarization," potentially even more devastating than the first. "We see this as a plan of action amidst the tsunami crisis to hand over the sea and the coast to foreign corporations and tourism, with military assistance from the US Marines."
As Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz designed and oversaw a strikingly similar project in Iraq: The fires were still burning in Baghdad when US occupation officials rewrote the investment laws and announced that the country's state-owned companies would be privatized. Some have pointed to this track record to argue that Wolfowitz is unfit to lead the World Bank; in fact, nothing could have prepared him better for his new job. In Iraq, Wolfowitz was just doing what the World Bank is already doing in virtually every war-torn and disaster-struck country in the world--albeit with fewer bureaucratic niceties and more ideological bravado.
Essentially, these countries are first ravaged by natural disasters or wars; then, the privatizing ghouls move in.
In January Condoleezza Rice sparked a small controversy by describing the tsunami as "a wonderful opportunity" that "has paid great dividends for us." Many were horrified at the idea of treating a massive human tragedy as a chance to seek advantage. But, if anything, Rice was understating the case. A group calling itself Thailand Tsunami Survivors and Supporters says that for "businessmen-politicians, the tsunami was the answer to their prayers, since it literally wiped these coastal areas clean of the communities which had previously stood in the way of their plans for resorts, hotels, casinos and shrimp farms. To them, all these coastal areas are now open land!" http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050502&s=klein
Jim McGovern visits Iraq Same issue of The Nation: He doesn’t like all the lies he’s told, and fears that the Occupation could go on indefinitely, unless…
What worries me almost as much as our misguided policy in Iraq is that so many of my colleagues and so many citizens have become resigned to the fact that the war will go on. Congress is not being inundated with letters and phone calls and faxes and e-mails and street protests demanding an end to our presence in Iraq. President Bush's re-election seems to have taken much of the energy out of the antiwar movement. My recent visit to Iraq only strengthened my belief that this war is wrong. And only renewed, passionate dissent by the American people can end it. http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050502&s=mcgovern
“War on Terror” Progress? No. First, we had the claim that terrorist incidents were declining; the Bushies had to withdraw that claim as it was a statistical lie. Now, with evidence continuing to show such an increase, they’ve declared their solution: they’ll no longer print the statistics! Classy
The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.
Several U.S. officials defended the abrupt decision, saying the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate statistics for the report may have been faulty, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism.
Last year, the number of incidents in 2003 was undercounted, forcing a revision of the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism."
But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11407689.htm
“Nuclear Option” (Filibuster)
Frist apparently needs 4 of 7 undecided Republicans to join his Faithful so as to eliminate judicial filibusters. Senators Susan Collins (Maine), Chuck Hagel (Neb.), Dick Lugar (Ind.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Arlen Specter (Pa.), and John Warner (Va.) are thought to be the swing votes. Collins and Snowe are thought to be leaning to the Democratic position; Lugar and Murkowski are believed to be leaning the other way; Warner, Specter and Hagel’s leanings are unknown / unclear.
North Korea: Reports speculate that Pyongyang is shutting down its nuclear reactor so they can ‘harvest’ the fuel for bombs. The Wall Street Journal notes that South Korea and China continue to expand their connections to North Korea while U.S. policy remains unclear. This seems awfully similar to 3 years ago.
Let them speak:
(1) (Re) Bush:
“The president cares the most about this $10-an-hour person. And what he gets most irritated by is when it is suggested, 'Oh the $10-an-hour person isn't sophisticated enough to deal with a personal retirement account.' "- Allan Hubbard, director of the White House National Economic Council
Now, that’s believable…
(2) The late Daniel Moynihan (1990) observation published in his 1990 book, On the Law of Nations: "A great many people seem to think of law as a kind of self-imposed restraint on America's ability to act decisively or with force in world affairs. This misstates what law is, and obscures the fact that international law can actually enhance the national security of the United States."
Not exactly the Bushies modus operandi
(3) Barney Frank, re House Ethics probes which found he had “behaved inappropriately”, comparing himself to The Hammer:
"I changed my behavior," said Frank. "Tom DeLay changed the ethics committee."
(4) Re: WMD, Deputy AG James Comey expands the definition of WMD, commenting on whether suspects were accused of conspiring to use biological, chemical or nuclear weapons,
"We have not alleged that. But . . . a weapon of mass destruction in our world goes beyond that and includes improvised explosive devices."
Improvised explosive devises = WMD? So, I guess there are WMD in Iraq.
The Familiar: Energy Bill:
The House this week will consider $8 billion in tax breaks targeted to the energy industry at a time when some of those companies are enjoying soaring profits from high consumer prices.
The vast majority of the tax breaks would benefit companies that produce and supply traditional forms of energy, with a large portion going to the oil and natural gas sector. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63958-2005Apr18.html
The Familiar: Candidates for 2008
Hillary, Kerry, John Edwards and now Wes Clark are thought to be likely candidates, along with Mark Warner and Phil Bredesen (Tennessee gov.)
-R
