Shock Without the Awe

If you're interested in the story of Blackwater mercenaries using CS gas on US soldiers and Iraqis, then be sure to listen to Bill Moyers' interview with Jeremy Scahill.   

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. Well, I think we're in the midst of the most radical privatization agenda in our nation's history. We of course see it in schools. We see it in the health care system, in prisons. And now, we're seeing it full blown in the war machine. What I ultimately see as the real threat here is that the system of the very existence of the nation state I think is at stake here. Because you have companies now that have been funded with billions of dollars in public money using that money to then build up the infrastructure of private armies some of which could take out a small national military. And the old model used to be if a company wants to go into Nigeria for instance and exploit oil, they have to work with the juntas forces in order to do that. Now, you can just bring in your own private military force.

Yay!  And good news, they're coming to a neighborhood near you.

On a related note: Don't read Shock Doctrine while exposing yourself to daily news.   It's a bleach and ammonia cocktail.   I've been turned on to Klein's thesis - what she first called "disaster capitalism" since she advanced it in  Bagdhad Year Zero in 2004.  What an eye opener.  Up until I read that article, I had been stumbling around wondering why elections hadn't been held sooner in Iraq, why looting of munitions dumps was allowed, why the whole place was going straight to hell under the watchful eyes of one of the best armies in the world.  After reading Bagdhad Year Zero, it became easy to see that the chaos in Iraq wasn't the result of an absence of planning but was, instead, the plan all along.  When Katrina happened and we saw the same game plan unfold, it was impossible to be surprised.

I'm only about a hundred pages into Shock Doctrine but so far it has been absolutely unrelenting as its gone through the history of the Southern Cone and Indonesia to prove over and over that free market lunacy is a) always a failure and b) never put in place except at the end of a barrel of gun.   The looting process is always the same: seize power, cut social spending drastically, privatize everything, maintain as active an environment of terror as possible without jeopardizing precious trade by attracting the attention of the world's meddling bleeding hearts.   Sound familiar?   

Mmmm ... chlorine.