THE SHOCK DOCTRINE ~ DISASTER CAPITALISM

Appearing at New Orleans' Loyola University the Saturday before the 2nd Anniversary of Katrina was writer and activist Naomi Klein, whose forthcoming book (September, 2007) is titled THE SHOCK DOCTRINE: DISASTER CAPITALISM.
We know something about Disaster Capitalism 'round these parts these days as public housing residents and other renters are denied the right to return, and now with huge insurance bills and huge increases in property tax assessments it appears the powers that be in that predatory capitalism realm are trying to force even middle-class homeowners out of New Orleans. Every third house is for sale, while economic opportunity is being denied to all except the elite, it seems........
I think Klein has it right on this one, from the events in NYC on 9/11/01, to Iraq in '03, to Katrina in '05 ~ the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting not only poorer but displaced, forced to be come nomads.......

Naomi Klien speaks at Loyola Law School

RESIST DISASTER CAPITALISM WITH DISASTER COLLECTISM
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Two years on from Katrina I believe that a social economy approach is necessary to mitigate the abuses of the private market and to hold the disaster capitalists at bay.....
Presently New Orleans Department of Economic Development is in a shambles, with the 3rd Director in as many years having just recently resigned. I don't think this is an accident, but rather a covert initiative on the part of the private marketeers, the neoliberal FREE marketeers...their idea of free markets is lots of profits for them "For FREE" and screw everyone else......
these cats that view the world in terms of a Winner- Loser scenario.....when they talk about how much opportunity there is on the Gulf Coast now they are speaking of the $BILLION$ of dollars in Gulf Opportunity Zone money for rebuilding and manuvering so New Orleans' economic development apperatus is disabled allows them to tap into that money much easier -- to take the money and run.......as they have done in so many other places. And it makes it more difficult for the grassroots to tap into these funds and do something significant - more community and broad-based......
These tactics stifle collectivism at a time when it really needs to be encouraged and facilitated.
With more homeless in New Orleans than before Katrina, we need to think in different terms, outside the capitalist-consumerist box and maybe consider co-housing initiatives and collective and cooperative worker-owned businesses. This is where our economic development funds should be going, instead of funding NFL franchises.........instead they're making it it so ordinary people are worried about trying to rebuild, scrambling every day through low-wage jobs to come up with a few bucks to pay the rent, or for homeowners ~ scrambling to pay hugely inflated insurance and property tax bills....... this way folks are knocked-off balance and can't afford to pay attention to what is really going on, let alone actually exercise their democratic civil rights and liberties to try to organize and work together to make things right for themselves, their families and their neighborhoods and communities. Tactics of racial and economic division are being employed in New Orleans, producing more poverty, classism, racism, economic injustice, crime...........Divide and Conquer tactics that seem to be coming from the Republican White House through U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's office here.......as every well-respected and trusted populist black Democrat is indicted.......as they go after the state's film office as well as ordinary people as 'corrupt'. I believe the White House and the Republican party is corrupt and worse, Sneaky &Predatory, as evidenced by the rich and republican getting richer and the poor getting poorer.................ARM YOURSELF WITH THE TRUTH!
DON'T BELIEVE FOR ONE MINUTE THEY TRYING TO HELP NEW ORLEANS!