Five Before Chaos

In my post a few days ago, one of the things that I touched upon was how people are waking up to the fact that in the conservatives’ mad rush to privatize just about every aspect of our economy, that when profit is the ultimate motive, often human needs are pushed to the side with disastrous results, and that when you combine that with having people who are anti-government in power, the problem is compounded to epic proportions. Nowhere was this more apparent than the government’s inept handling of the Katrina disaster. And even more infuriating is the mindset that was all too apparent by those on the right as to how to benefit from the tragedy, as Rick Perlstein’s article over at TomPaine.com clearly illustrates. Jump below the fold for your morning outrage. Don’t spill your coffee…

It’s amazing how hypercapitalists see a silver lining in every cloud. You may remember a few years ago in Michael Moore’s  “Fahrenheit 9-11″ when there was a convention of sorts that was presenting all sorts of new business opportunities from the Iraq invasion, with businessmen openly declaring that the debacle was going to make a lot of people rich. In the Katrina debacle, not only were the vultures circling for economic opportunities, many saw it as a great opportunity to push through the other demented right-wing policies that had nothing to do witth the hurricane. As Perlstein points out:

Tod Linberg, editor of the right-wing flagship “intellectual” journal Policy Review rejoiced. “Bush has what Social Security and tax reform lacked: a real sense of crisis that places his political opponents in an awkward position,” he wrote on September 20, 2005 in the Washington Times. “He can make demands in the name of New Orleans, including demands for substantive policy changes that he could never obtain in the absence of a crisis.”…

Disgraced/corrupt-as-hell former Texas congressman Tom Delay could barely contain himself at the prospect:

Tom DeLay wrote that Katrina “has introduced a valuable forum to promote the triumph of our ideas and solutions for government over the crumbling and outdated policies of the Democrat-controlled Congresses of past decades.”

Yeah, the New Deal was in part responsible for the mess. Riiii-ght. And former senator Jack Kemp was practically drooling:

He called Katrina a golden opportunity on September 6—a “golden opportunity to ‘green line’ the Delta and Gulf Coast with government policies that facilitate and empower the private sector.”

What did he have in mind? Suspending those horrible regulations, such as the Davis-Bacon act, which requires the government to pay the prevailing local wage in construction projects. Kemp also said that “onerous regulations imposed by the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communication Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency could be suspended.” Kemp also called for the suspension of numerous taxes, becuse you just know that in the wake of a disaster of this magnitude, the best thing to do is starve the public coffers even more. To add insult to injury, Kemp, who as of late has worked hard to help asbestos companies wrangle through litigation, quotes, of all people, Bobby Kennedy, in a thoroughly inappropriate context.

Other conservatives saw equally as ridiculous and unrelated opportunities here, such as reintroducing the effort to privatize Social Security and to cut the funding for public broadcasting even more than it already has been.

This is living proof of the fact that there is no tragedy too horrible for the right-wing in power to exploit for personal or political gain. They did it with 9-11, the Iraq War, and Katrina, and you can be damn sure should another tragic opportunity present itself, they’ll be lining up at the trough to benefit their business buddies in any way possible. 

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