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Re: Fw: The Shock Doctrine in Action in New Orleans

I can't speak to the economics and returns of health care, but the idea that people will put their own money into providing education doesn't exactly terrify me.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: GERALD BRACEY <gbracey1@verizon.net>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 8:08 am
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: The Shock Doctrine in Action in New Orleans


"The emergence of HMOs and hospital management companies created enormous
opportunities for investors. We believe the same pattern will occur in
education."


Mary Tanner

Lehman Brothers



----- Original Message -----
From: <aburke5054@aol.com>

To: <arn-l@interversity.org>

Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2007 12:35 AM

Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: The Shock Doctrine in Action in New Orleans



The wonder of paranoid thinking as manifested in conspiracy theories is

how it subsumes all facts into its twisted view of the world. Is NCLB

spending more money on the public schools and encouraging states to

spend more money on their public schools? Sure, because it's a plot to

privatize the schools. Before Katrina the Big Easy had one of the most

inefficient and corrupt systems of public education in the nation. How

much of that do you really want to re-create post-Katrina? Why not try

radically different ways of doing things? Is a plot to privatize the

NO schools really the only explanation for what's happening in NO?


I am a hard sell on the argument that God, in allowing natural

disasters, has become a co--conspirator in efforts to limit government.

Somehow I missed that in Paradise Lost, but if it's true, it's one

hell of a plot.


I have not read Saltman or Klein, but it's almost as if they, or you,

feel that somehow the "public sector" should be the default for

everything that goes on in American life and that the "private sector"

should count itself lucky to exist on the leavings. This seems to me

to stand American philosophy of government, if not American history, on

its head.


Lastly, Federal budge expenditures are approximately 20% of GDP, and

when you throw in spending by state and local government, it's pretty

hard to argue that the public sector is not getting its fair share of

the American pie.


Art


-----Original Message-----

From: GERALD BRACEY <gbracey1@verizon.net>

To: LiteracyForAll@yahoogroups.com; arn-l@interversity.org

Sent: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 5:50 pm

Subject: [arn-l] Fw: The Shock Doctrine in Action in New Orleans



Ken Saltman's "Schooling and the Politics of Disaster" appeared a

little

ahead of Klein's disaster capitalism book, The Shock Doctrine, but the

message is the same: Disaster Capitalism uses natural or man made

disasters

to dislodge the functions of the public sector and transfer them to the

private sector.



It's all part of the plan, Art.



Jerry



----- Original Message -----

From: <moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG>


To: <PORTSIDE@LISTS.PORTSIDE.ORG>


Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2007 4:48 PM


Subject: The Shock Doctrine in Action in New Orleans






http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-klein/the-shock-doctrine-in-act_b_77886.html



Huffington Post


December 1, 2007





The Shock Doctrine in Action in New Orleans





By Naomi Klein





Readers of The Shock Doctrine know that one of the most


shameless examples of disaster capitalism has been the


attempt to exploit the disastrous flooding of New


Orleans to close down that city's public housing


projects, some of the only affordable units in the


city. Most of the buildings sustained minimal flood


damage, but they happen to occupy valuable land that


make for perfect condo developments and hotels.





The final showdown over New Orleans public housing is


playing out in dramatic fashion right now. The conflict


is a classic example of the 'triple shock' formula at


the core of the doctrine.





* First came the shock of the original disaster:


the flood and the traumatic evacuation.





* Next came the 'economic shock therapy': using the


window of opportunity opened up by the first shock


to push through a rapid-fire attack on the city's


public services and spaces, most notably it's


homes, schools and hospitals.





* Now we see that as residents of New Orleans try


to resist these attacks, they are being met with a


third shock: the shock of the police baton and the


Taser gun, used on the bodies of protestors outside


New Orleans City Hall yesterday.





Democracy Now! has been covering this fight all week,


with amazing reports from filmmakers Jacquie Soohen and


Rick Rowley (Rick was arrested in the crackdown). Watch


residents react to the bulldozing of their homes here:


http://tinyurl.com/29vnl7





And footage from yesterday's police crackdown and


Tasering of protestors inside and outside city hall


here:http://tinyurl.com/yo3s8t





That last segment contains a terrific interview with


Kali Akuno, executive director of the People's


Hurricane Relief Fund. Akuno puts the demolitions in


the big picture, telling Amy Goodman:





This is just one particular piece of this whole


program. Public hospitals are also being shut down


and set to be demolished and destroyed in New


Orleans. And they've systematically dismantled the


public education system and beginning demolition on


many of the schools in New Orleansâ?"that's on the


agenda right nowâ?"and trying to totally turn that


system over to a charter and a voucher system, to


privatize and just really go forward with a major


experiment, which was initially laid out by the


Heritage Foundation and other neoconservative think


tanks shortly after the storm. So this is just


really the fulfillment of this program.





Akuno is referring to the Heritage Foundation's


infamous post-Katrina meeting with the Republican Study


Group in which participants laid out their plans to


turn New Orleans into a Petri dish for every policy


they can't ram through without a disaster. Read the


minutes on my website.





For more context, here are couple of related excerpts


from The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster


Capitalism:





The news racing around the shelter [in Baton Rouge]


that day was that Richard Baker, a prominent


Republican Congressman from this city, had told a


group of lobbyists, 'We finally cleaned up public


housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God


did.' Joseph Canizaro, one of New Orleans'


wealthiest developers, had just expressed a similar


sentiment: 'I think we have a clean sheet to start


again. And with that clean sheet we have some very


big opportunities.' All that week the Louisiana


State Legislature in Baton Rouge had been crawling


with corporate lobbyists helping to lock in those


big opportunities: lower taxes, fewer regulations,


cheaper workers and a 'smaller, safer city'â?"which


in practice meant plans to level the public housing


projects and replace them with condos. Hearing all


the talk of 'fresh starts' and 'clean sheets,' you


could almost forget the toxic stew of rubble,


chemical outflows and human remains just a few


miles down the highway.





Over at the shelter, Jamar Perry, a young resident


of New Orleans, could think of nothing else. 'I


really don't see it as cleaning up the city. What I


see is that a lot of people got killed uptown.


People who shouldn't have died.' He was speaking


quietly, but an older man in line in front of us in


the food line overheard and whipped around. 'What


is wrong with these people in Baton Rouge? This


isn't an opportunity. It's a goddamned tragedy. Are


they blind?'





A mother with two kids chimed in. 'No, they're not


blind, they're evil. They see just fine.'





At first I thought the Green Zone phenomenon was


unique to the war in Iraq. Now, after years spent


in other disaster zones, I realize that the Green


Zone emerges everywhere that the disaster


capitalism complex descends, with the same stark


partitions between the included and the excluded,


the protected and the damned.





It happened in New Orleans. After the flood, an


already divided city turned into a battleground


between gated green zones and raging red zones-the


result not of water damage but of the 'free-market


solutions' embraced by the president. The Bush


administration refused to allow emergency funds to


pay public sector salaries, and the City of New


Orleans, which lost its tax base, had to fire three


thousand workers in the months after Katrina. Among


them were sixteen of the city's planning staff-with


shades of 'de Baathification,' laid off at the


precise moment when New Orleans was in desperate


need of planners. Instead, millions of public


dollars went to outside consultants, many of whom


were powerful real estate developers. And of course


thousands of teachers were also fired, paving the


way for the conversion of dozens of public schools


into charter schools, just as Friedman had called


for.





Almost two years after the storm, Charity Hospital


was still closed. The court system was barely


functioning, and the privatized electricity


company, Entergy, had failed to get the whole city


back online. After threatening to raise rates


dramatically, the company managed to extract a


controversial $200 million bailout from the federal


government. The public transit system was gutted


and lost almost half its workers. The vast majority


of publicly owned housing projects stood boarded up


and empty, with five thousand units slotted for


demolition by the federal housing authority. Much


as the tourism lobby in Asia had longed to be rid


of the beachfront fishing villages, New Orleans'


powerful tourism lobby had been eyeing the housing


projects, several of them on prime land close to


the French Quarter, the city's tourism magnet.





Endesha Juakali helped set up a protest camp


outside one of the boarded-up projects, St. Bernard


Public Housing, explaining that 'they've had an


agenda for St. Bernard a long time, but as long as


people lived here, they couldn't do it. So they


used the disaster as a way of cleansing the


neighbourhood when the neighbourhood is weakest...


This is a great location for bigger houses and


condos. The only problem is you got all these poor


black people sitting on it!'





Amid the schools, the homes, the hospitals, the


transit system and the lack of clean water in many


parts of town, New Orleans' public sphere was not


being rebuilt, it was being erased, with the storm


used as the excuse. At an earlier stage of


capitalist 'creative destruction,' large swaths of


the United States lost their manufacturing bases


and degenerated into rust belts of shuttered


factories and neglected neighbourhoods. Post-


Katrina New Orleans may be providing the first


Western-world image of a new kind of wasted urban


landscape: the mould belt, destroyed by the deadly


combination of weathered public infrastructure and


extreme weather.





Since the publication of The Shock Doctrine, my


research team has been putting dozens of original


source documents online for readers to explore subjects


in greater depth. The resource page on New Orleans has


some real gems.


______





Naomi Klein is the author of many books, including her


most recent, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster


Capitalism, which will be published in September.Visit


Naomi's website at www.naomiklein.org, or to learn more


about her new book, visit www.shockdoctrine.com .





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