Shock Doctrine at work in AZ

To get an idea what modern conservatism has become, take a look at our little test bed here in Arizona. With the exit of Janet Napolitano to the Obama administration and a looming economic crisis, it was the perfect opportunity for our mouth-breathing Republican state congressmen and a pliant new Republican governor to gut education and social programs in the so-called interest of reducing the state budget deficit. Classic disaster capitalism - use crisis and disasters to push through your free market agenda, reduce government and eliminate social programs. Legislators hide behind the deficit, saying that cuts in all programs are needed. The public is blinded by the crisis and lets it happen. Included are:

• a $300 million cut to education


• $25 million cut to state parks, including at least 5 park closures


• cuts to libraries and museums


• "layoffs and furloughs for state workers, and elimination of a welfare program for disabled people waiting for Social Security benefits"

But not all the news is bad. Some programs didn't get cut ... they even got a boost. Guess which:

"Not everything was red ink: The budget package includes $1.6 million for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to use for immigration enforcement ..."

You fucking hypocrites. It's not about balancing the budget. It's about pushing your agenda. Shit on those not able to defend themselves and prop up xenophobic sociopaths. I guess they have their priorities straight.

We're in hell. Janet! Please come back!

"Privatized Tyranny"

On his last day of work, Alberto Gonzales, with a straight face, said the following:

"Over the past two and a half years, I have seen tyranny, dishonesty, corruption and depravity of types I never thought possible ... I've seen things I didn't know man was capable of."

And that was just Dick Cheney he was talking about. You should have heard what he said about Bush! Sorry ... I kid. Gonzales did say those words and they hold a lot of truth. But, just not in the way that he intended.


Speaking of tyranny and depravity, check out the great short film, Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein and Alfonso Cuaron (of Children of Men fame). It does a good job of showing how some leaders use the period of collective shock after disasters to ramrod through those policies that they could not get passed in peaceful times. It compares that to shock treatment and to torture and the effect those methods have on the subject.

"Only a crisis, real or perceived, produces real change." -- Milton Friedman

Mr. Friedman was an advocate of using those times to push through free market policies that wouldn't stand a chance of passing during peaceful times. Guess who liked Miltie and his concepts of "privatized tyranny"? Yep - Nixon, Reagan, Bush. Milton Friedman -- the guy who once commented that "there is no poverty in America".

"The free market is socialism for the rich - [free] markets for the poor and state protection for the rich." -- Noam Chomsky