Iraq in America: Parallels and Connections to Katrina

[beetbox]

Iraq in America: Parallels and Connections

New Orleans is not the only toxic sludge pool in sight. Let's not forget the toxic sludge pool of Bush administration policy which came so clearly into view as Katrina ripped the scrim off our society, revealing an Iraqi-style reality here at home. Unlike conquered and occupied Iraq, the strip-mining of this country in recent years has taken place largely out of sight. While Baghdad was turned into some kind of dead zone of insecurity, lack of electricity, lack of gas, lack of jobs, lack of just about everything a human being in a modern city has come to expect, American cities -- until last week -- stood seemingly untouched in what was still proudly called "the world's last superpower." But just out of sight, the coring, gutting, and dismantling of the civilian governmental support system of the United States, that famed "safety net," was well underway. Bush administration proponents and conservative ideologues had long talked about "starving the beast"; but, until Katrina hit, it remained for many Americans at best a kind of political figure of speech.

Now we know for real. The beast has been starved; or rather, the beasts have been fed and the much-maligned part of the state that protected its citizens with something other than guns has been starved. What Katrina's course through Mississippi and Louisiana revealed was the real meaning of starvation.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=19806

[TheFriar]

1. scrim, good word for their facade

look up kakistocracy!

[magellan]

2. Excellent read

I liked this bit myself:

Over the last years, just about everything of a helping nature that is governmental, other than the military, has begun to be starved or stripped by the looters of this administration -- set loose in Washington rather than Baghdad or New Orleans. If you want a signal of this, we should all be wincing every time the President gets up, as he did the other day in the presence of his father and Bill Clinton, and shakes the tin cup, urging "the private sector" and generous citizens to fill in -- an impossibility -- for what his administration won't pony up.

Now, I always give willingly and without need of 3-ring circus acts (replete with elephants). But I'm still missing something here re Rethugs and their aversion to socialized-anything. What's the difference between the government paying out and the government asking us as a collective to pay out? Isn't it ALL our money?

[beetbox]

3. You gotta get your mind right

How dare you think that your labor entitles you to bear the fruit. This is capitalism:Socialized burdens-Privatize the benefits.

We will be sending our re-programmers to your domicile shortly. In the meantime do not forget to take your soma.

[magellan]

4. lol, thank you for the chuckle, beetbox

Laughter's hard to come by recently and seems so disrespectful in light of things, but I appreciate it in any case. Your graphic brings tears to my eyes again. Bring them re-programmers on, I got a baseball bat with their names on it.