Answer my question or you won't be a member of this forum long enough to read the respond and answer it. Your decision is required now!
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The Official Paracast Political Thread! — Part Four
- Thread starter Gene Steinberg
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Bob Watson
Paranormal Adept
time to break out the RAID!
A can should be delivered shortly.
11thDimensionAlien
Skilled Investigator
You mean this quote from me? Let me clarify... I speak with emotional words not meant to be taken literally "word for word" as a statement of fact. It is well known McCain does not like Trump, and McCain has attacked Trump many times already.
McCain is a MIC right wing hawk and a Cold War veteran. I understand he wants to pressure the Russians with NATO on their borders. That is what I mean by warmongering and threatening the Russians. The agreement the Americans made with Gorbachev were that we would not move NATO into countries up against Russian borders.
Trump wants to deescalate tensions with the Russians. I hope Trump can do it. Hillary and McCain were certainly acting to escalate tensions with the Russians by their own words and ideas. That's why I voted for Obama, rather than vote for McCain. He was and is definitely more dangerous, IMO.
Gone and quickly forgotten.
SRL+
Paranormal Adept
As it turns out the disastrous Muslim ban was hatched in part by Steve Bannon.
This is just the beginning of what I suggested many moons ago as Trump’s pit of perpetual misery.
Questions multiply over Bannon’s role in Trump administration
This is just the beginning of what I suggested many moons ago as Trump’s pit of perpetual misery.
Questions multiply over Bannon’s role in Trump administration
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Tyger
Paranormal Adept
Last weekend I watched 'Wall Street' from the late 80's. I found the IMDb comments about Gordon Gekko interesting - in light of Trump.
Wall Street (1987) : Why guys loved Gordon Gekko
LINK: Why guys loved Gordon Gekko - IMDb
TEXT from Original Poster's comment:
Another comment elaborates:
Wall Street (1987) : Why guys loved Gordon Gekko
LINK: Why guys loved Gordon Gekko - IMDb
TEXT from Original Poster's comment:
"I know Oliver Stone was dismayed when people, and guys in general, expressed admiration and even downright love for the character of Gordon Gekko. He wanted the viewer to see Gordon as the villain and not as some kind of hero. Carl Fox was suppose to be the hero, not Gordon Gekko.
Here are some ideas I have had for some time as to why Gordon was so popular and Carl was not.
The 80's were an unfortunate time of downsizing and outsourcing. The virtues as exemplified by Carl Fox of being an honest, hard-working, blue collar type of guy were becoming out-dated. Carl Fox seemed to represent exactly the kind of guy who would be subject to being laid off or outsourced. The virtues of a Carl Fox were no longer respected by society.
Gordon's father was basically a blue-collar type of guy also who died of tax bills and a heart attack. In this awful new world, having the virtues of a blue-collar guy just didn't cut it anymore. There was no longer safety in virtue, of being an honest, hard worker. There was only safety in money and having a huge amount of it.
Gordon himself wasn't a rich kid, he attended City College of New York, not Harvard or Yale. At a time when rich kids were dropping out of college and doing drugs and engaging in wild sex, Gordon would have been working his way up from the bottom in the financial world. The death of his father would have had a huge impact upon him, he probably decided that he would become so rich that what happened to his father would never happen to him, and his becoming extremely rich would in some way become payback for what was done to his father.
A guy viewing this movie in his twenties is basically put into the position of Bud Fox, he is presented with two fathers here and he has to choose which one he is going to emulate, Gordon Gekko or Carl Fox. The movie lets us know that Carl Fox is not quite cognizant of the changes around him, he still calls spaghetti, spaghetti instead of it's new fashionable name, " pasta ". Carl acknowledges that he is old-fashioned and out-of-date.
Gordon Gekko on the other hand comes across as very smart and fashionable, he eats at the finest places and knows value in art when he sees it. There is nothing a young man dreads more than to be expected to follow the advice of someone who is out of date with the times, between Gordon and Carl, Gordon wins hands down.
In Carl's era, proving that you were a man meant that you worked hard and sweated with the best of them, in Gordon's era it meant that you had a really big bank account. Oliver, I think made the mistake of not portraying Gordon as some spoiled rich kid who partied while at Yale, who then learned that cheating was the way to make even more money than he had already inherited from his wealthy family. Instead, [Oliver] inadvertently portrayed a character who represented the American Dream, of coming from an impoverished background who through hard work and a willingness to break rules, became a dominant force in finance.
As the economic gulf between the rich and the poor has widened and the middle-class has become more and more decimated, the appeal of Gordon over Carl has only become stronger.
Here are some ideas I have had for some time as to why Gordon was so popular and Carl was not.
The 80's were an unfortunate time of downsizing and outsourcing. The virtues as exemplified by Carl Fox of being an honest, hard-working, blue collar type of guy were becoming out-dated. Carl Fox seemed to represent exactly the kind of guy who would be subject to being laid off or outsourced. The virtues of a Carl Fox were no longer respected by society.
Gordon's father was basically a blue-collar type of guy also who died of tax bills and a heart attack. In this awful new world, having the virtues of a blue-collar guy just didn't cut it anymore. There was no longer safety in virtue, of being an honest, hard worker. There was only safety in money and having a huge amount of it.
Gordon himself wasn't a rich kid, he attended City College of New York, not Harvard or Yale. At a time when rich kids were dropping out of college and doing drugs and engaging in wild sex, Gordon would have been working his way up from the bottom in the financial world. The death of his father would have had a huge impact upon him, he probably decided that he would become so rich that what happened to his father would never happen to him, and his becoming extremely rich would in some way become payback for what was done to his father.
A guy viewing this movie in his twenties is basically put into the position of Bud Fox, he is presented with two fathers here and he has to choose which one he is going to emulate, Gordon Gekko or Carl Fox. The movie lets us know that Carl Fox is not quite cognizant of the changes around him, he still calls spaghetti, spaghetti instead of it's new fashionable name, " pasta ". Carl acknowledges that he is old-fashioned and out-of-date.
Gordon Gekko on the other hand comes across as very smart and fashionable, he eats at the finest places and knows value in art when he sees it. There is nothing a young man dreads more than to be expected to follow the advice of someone who is out of date with the times, between Gordon and Carl, Gordon wins hands down.
In Carl's era, proving that you were a man meant that you worked hard and sweated with the best of them, in Gordon's era it meant that you had a really big bank account. Oliver, I think made the mistake of not portraying Gordon as some spoiled rich kid who partied while at Yale, who then learned that cheating was the way to make even more money than he had already inherited from his wealthy family. Instead, [Oliver] inadvertently portrayed a character who represented the American Dream, of coming from an impoverished background who through hard work and a willingness to break rules, became a dominant force in finance.
As the economic gulf between the rich and the poor has widened and the middle-class has become more and more decimated, the appeal of Gordon over Carl has only become stronger.
Another comment elaborates:
"I remember hearing about an interview where Stone said he was dismayed about the way Gekko ended up being idolized. Stone wanted to portray him as fundamentally evil, someone who would commit serious crimes and destroy lives in order to get wealthy, he wanted Gekko to be a villain instead of a hero. I think Stone portrayed that well, I just don't think he analyzed the climate of the country as well as he could have. I think the OP is correct, but I also think there is another factor. Michael Douglas was amazing in the movie, extremely charismatic. Douglas has such magnetism that people end up looking up to this charismatic figure, which is sad. People who cheat and swindle to gain their fortune should not be idolized.
I don't think Stone screwed up, I think it is more that Douglas was so outstanding.
Gekko is at least partially based on Ivan Boesky. Boesky even delivered a greed is good type speech at one point.
There are other posts - but in my reading - Donald Trump definitely sprang to mind as a 'type' from the 80's that the film 'Wall Street' was definitely (or could be) targeting.I don't think Stone screwed up, I think it is more that Douglas was so outstanding.
Gekko is at least partially based on Ivan Boesky. Boesky even delivered a greed is good type speech at one point.
Tyger
Paranormal Adept
Mexico Offers To Pay For Pest Control Service To Remove ‘La Cucaracha Naranja Gigante’ From The White House - January 27, 2017
LINK: Mexico Offers To Pay For Pest Control Service To Remove 'La Cucaracha Naranja Gigante' From The White House
LINK: Mexico Offers To Pay For Pest Control Service To Remove 'La Cucaracha Naranja Gigante' From The White House
Tyger
Paranormal Adept
Link supplies video with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman's interview with John Bonifaz.
Hundreds of Thousands Sign Petition to Impeach Trump for Violating Constitution over Biz Interests
LINK: Hundreds of Thousands Sign Petition to Impeach Trump for Violating Constitution over Biz Interests | Democracy Now!
TEXT Excerpted: "Donald Trump’s presidency is less than a week old, but some attorneys say a case for impeachment can already be made. We speak to John Bonifaz, who says Trump has violated a part of the U.S. Constitution that bars Trump from receiving payments from foreign governments. The effort is being led by Free Speech for People and RootsAction."
Hundreds of Thousands Sign Petition to Impeach Trump for Violating Constitution over Biz Interests
LINK: Hundreds of Thousands Sign Petition to Impeach Trump for Violating Constitution over Biz Interests | Democracy Now!
TEXT Excerpted: "Donald Trump’s presidency is less than a week old, but some attorneys say a case for impeachment can already be made. We speak to John Bonifaz, who says Trump has violated a part of the U.S. Constitution that bars Trump from receiving payments from foreign governments. The effort is being led by Free Speech for People and RootsAction."
Tyger
Paranormal Adept
Apologize if I've already posted this - heavy read.
Karl Rove's Prophecy - Karel Van Wolferen - January 23, 2017
LINK: Karl Rove’s Prophecy
Karl Rove's Prophecy - Karel Van Wolferen - January 23, 2017
LINK: Karl Rove’s Prophecy
TEXT Excerpted: "[We're very pleased to run this provocative new piece by Karel van Wolferen, who has spent decades as one of Holland's most distinguished international journalists.]
In a famous exchange between a high official at the court of George W. Bush and journalist Ron Suskind, the official – later acknowledged to have been Karl Rove – takes the journalist to task for working in “the reality-based community.” He defined that as believing “that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” Rove then asserted that this was no longer the way in which the world worked:
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” (Ron Suskind, NYTimes Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004).
This declaration became popular as an illustration of the hubris of the Bush-Cheney government. But we could also see it as fulfilled prophecy. Fulfilled in a manner that no journalist at that time would have deemed possible.
In a famous exchange between a high official at the court of George W. Bush and journalist Ron Suskind, the official – later acknowledged to have been Karl Rove – takes the journalist to task for working in “the reality-based community.” He defined that as believing “that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” Rove then asserted that this was no longer the way in which the world worked:
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” (Ron Suskind, NYTimes Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004).
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Tyger
Paranormal Adept
President Trump hits majority disapproval in record time, Gallup finds - January 29, 2017
LINK: President Trump hits majority disapproval in record time, Gallup finds
LINK: President Trump hits majority disapproval in record time, Gallup finds
TEXT: President Trump's actions during his first week in office have appeared to be aimed at the voters who already supported him, not at reaching out to the rest, and that's taken a rapid toll on his support, which was already historically low.
Gallup, which has measured job approval for presidents for decades, shows Trump's approval so far at 45%, with 48% disapproving. That's an average of several days' polling.
The daily trend lines are not kind to the new administration. As of Saturday, 51% of Americans disapproved of Trump's performance.
That's a record for the speed of getting to majority disapproval.
By comparison, President George W. Bush hit majority disapproval six months into his second term, in June 2005, and remained in negative territory for the rest of his tenure.
President Obama did not hit 51% disapproval until August of 2011, during the crisis over the federal debt ceiling that summer. His approval rebounded later that year, but he had a second period of majority disapproval during late 2013 and much of 2014. He ended his term with widespread approval and 37% of Americans disapproving.
Gallup, which has measured job approval for presidents for decades, shows Trump's approval so far at 45%, with 48% disapproving. That's an average of several days' polling.
The daily trend lines are not kind to the new administration. As of Saturday, 51% of Americans disapproved of Trump's performance.
That's a record for the speed of getting to majority disapproval.
By comparison, President George W. Bush hit majority disapproval six months into his second term, in June 2005, and remained in negative territory for the rest of his tenure.
President Obama did not hit 51% disapproval until August of 2011, during the crisis over the federal debt ceiling that summer. His approval rebounded later that year, but he had a second period of majority disapproval during late 2013 and much of 2014. He ended his term with widespread approval and 37% of Americans disapproving.
Tyger
Paranormal Adept
Former KGB general who helped MI6 spy compile the Donald Trump dirty dossier who has been found dead in the back of his car amid claims of a Kremlin cover up - 28 January 2017
LINK: Kremlin 'covered up the murder of a former KGB chief' | Daily Mail Online
LINK: Kremlin 'covered up the murder of a former KGB chief' | Daily Mail Online
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According to the news down under yesterday, anti US sentiment in Russia is down by 57 perecent, some guy there is even minting bullion with his face and the words in trump we trust.
As for the muslim ban, some of the western politicians who are squeeling about it dont give a crap about muslims. What bothers them is the idea the sentiment will spread to their constituents. If the US can do it then so can they if the people elect someone with the will to do so.
This will be his first and biggest test, if the US courts scuttle this they will have neutered him politically and he wont recover from it.
As for the muslim ban, some of the western politicians who are squeeling about it dont give a crap about muslims. What bothers them is the idea the sentiment will spread to their constituents. If the US can do it then so can they if the people elect someone with the will to do so.
This will be his first and biggest test, if the US courts scuttle this they will have neutered him politically and he wont recover from it.
SRL+
Paranormal Adept
I’ve found the economic fallout interesting, as one single individual could wreak so much international havoc in a week.
“Australian shares tumbled more than 1 percent, while New Zealand pulled back 0.6 percent.”
Global shares, dollar retreat on Trump travel ban, weak U.S. GDP
“Australian shares tumbled more than 1 percent, while New Zealand pulled back 0.6 percent.”
Global shares, dollar retreat on Trump travel ban, weak U.S. GDP
We ain't seen nothin' yet. Who will benefit from Trump's plan for 'rebuilding infrastructure'? Not working people or out-of-work people, but rather corporations and contractors. Read Naomi Klein's account of what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, a clear forecast of what is to come from Trump and the Republicans.
"Get Ready for the First Shocks of Trump's Disaster Capitalism"
Naomi Klein
The Intercept
WE ALREADY KNOW that the Trump administration plans to deregulate markets, wage all-out war on “radical Islamic terrorism,” trash climate science and unleash a fossil-fuel frenzy. It’s a vision that can be counted on to generate a tsunami of crises and shocks: economic shocks, as market bubbles burst; security shocks, as blowback from foreign belligerence comes home; weather shocks, as our climate is further destabilized; and industrial shocks, as oil pipelines spill and rigs collapse, which they tend to do, especially when enjoying light-touch regulation.
All this is dangerous enough. What’s even worse is the way the Trump administration can be counted on to exploit these shocks politically and economically.
Speculation is unnecessary. All that’s required is a little knowledge of recent history. Ten years ago, I published “The Shock Doctrine,” a history of the ways in which crises have been systematically exploited over the last half century to further a radical pro-corporate agenda. The book begins and ends with the response to Hurricane Katrina, because it stands as such a harrowing blueprint for disaster capitalism.
That’s relevant because of the central, if little-recalled role played by the man who is now the U.S. vice president, Mike Pence. At the time Katrina hit New Orleans, Pence was chairman of the powerful and highly ideological Republican Study Committee. On September 13, 2005 — just 14 days after the levees were breached and with parts of New Orleans still underwater — the RSC convened a fateful meeting at the offices of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Under Pence’s leadership, the group came up with a list of “Pro-Free-Market Ideas for Responding to Hurricane Katrina and High Gas Prices” — 32 policies in all, each one straight out of the disaster capitalism playbook.
Vehicles form a line at an Exxon gas station off of Interstate 55 in Jackson, Miss., Aug. 30, 2005. The station was one of the few in the city with both power and gas one day after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
Photo: Rick Guy/The Calrion Ledger/AP
To get a sense of how the Trump administration will respond to its first crises, it’s worth reading the list in full (and noting Pence’s name right at the bottom).
What stands out in the package of pseudo “relief” policies is the commitment to wage all-out war on labor standards and on the public sphere — which is ironic because the failure of public infrastructure is what turned Katrina into a human catastrophe. Also notable is the determination to use any opportunity to strengthen the hand of the oil and gas industry.
The first three items on the RSC list are “automatically suspend Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws in disaster areas,” a reference to the law that required federal contractors to pay a living wage; “make the entire affected area a flat-tax free-enterprise zone”; and “make the entire region an economic competitiveness zone (comprehensive tax incentives and waiving of regulations).”
Another demand called for giving parents vouchers to use at charter schools, a move perfectly in line with the vision held by Trump’s pick for education secretary, Betsy DeVos.
All these measures were announced by President George W. Bush within the week. Under pressure, Bush was eventually forced to reinstate the labor standards, though they were largely ignored by contractors. There is every reason to believe this will be the model for the multibillion-dollar infrastructure investments Trump is using to court the labor movement. Repealing Davis-Bacon for those projects was reportedly already floated at Monday’s meeting with leaders of construction and building trade unions.
Back in 2005, the Republican Study Committee meeting produced more ideas that gained presidential support. Climate scientists have directly linked the increased intensity of hurricanes to warming ocean temperatures. This connection, however, didn’t stop Pence and the RSC from calling on Congress to repeal environmental regulations on the Gulf Coast, give permission for new oil refineries in the United States, and to greenlight “drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”
All these measures are a surefire way to drive up greenhouse gas emissions, the major human contributor to climate change, yet they were immediately championed by the president under the guise of responding to a devastating storm.
The oil industry wasn’t the only one to profit from Hurricane Katrina, of course. So did a slew of well-connected contractors, who turned the Gulf Coast into a laboratory for privatized disaster response.
The companies that snatched up the biggest contracts were the familiar gang from the invasion of Iraq: Halliburton’s KBR unit won a $60 million gig to reconstruct military bases along the coast. Blackwater was hired to protect FEMA employees from looters. Parsons, infamous for its sloppy Iraq work, was brought in for a major bridge construction project in Mississippi. Fluor, Shaw, Bechtel, CH2M Hill — all top contractors in Iraq — were hired by the government to provide mobile homes to evacuees just 10 days after the levees broke. Their contracts ended up totaling $3.4 billion, no open bidding required.
And no opportunity for profit was left untapped. Kenyon, a division of the mega funeral conglomerate Service Corporation International (a major Bush campaign donor), was hired to retrieve the dead from homes and streets. The work was extraordinarily slow, and bodies were left in the broiling sun for days. Emergency workers and local volunteer morticians were forbidden to step in to help because handling the bodies impinged on Kenyon’s commercial territory.
And as with so many of Trump’s decisions so far, relevant experience often appeared to have nothing to do with how contracts were allocated. AshBritt, a company paid half a billion dollars to remove debris, reportedly didn’t own a single dump truck and farmed out the entire job to contractors.
People wait for assistance after being rescued from their homes a day earlier in the Ninth Ward as a small fire burns after Hurricane Katrina, Aug. 31, 2005, in New Orleans.
Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Even more striking was the company that FEMA paid $5.2 million to perform the crucial role of building a base camp for emergency workers in St. Bernard Parish, a suburb of New Orleans. The camp construction fell behind schedule and was never completed. When the contractor was investigated, it emerged that the company, Lighthouse Disaster Relief, was actually a religious group. “About the closest thing I have done to this is just organize a youth camp with my church,” confessed Lighthouse’s director, Pastor Gary Heldreth.
After all the layers of subcontractors had taken their cut, there was next to nothing left for the people doing the work. For instance, the author Mike Davis tracked the way FEMA paid Shaw $175 a square foot to install blue tarps on damaged roofs, even though the tarps themselves were provided by the government. Once all the subcontractors took their share, the workers who actually hammered in the tarps were paid as little as $2 a square foot. “Every level of the contracting food chain, in other words, is grotesquely overfed except the bottom rung,” Davis wrote, “where the actual work is carried out.”
In Mississippi, a class-action lawsuit forced several companies to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in back wages to immigrant workers. Some were not paid at all. On one Halliburton/KBR job site, undocumented immigrant workers reported being wakened in the middle of the night by their employer (a sub-subcontractor), who allegedly told them that immigration agents were on their way. Most workers fled to avoid arrest.
This corruption and abuse is particularly relevant because of Trump’s stated plan to contract out much of his infrastructure spending to private players in so-called public-private partnerships.
In the Katrina aftermath, the attacks on vulnerable people, carried out in the name of reconstruction and relief, did not stop there. In order to offset the tens of billions going to private companies in contracts and tax breaks, in November 2005 the Republican-controlled Congress announced that it needed to cut $40 billion from the federal budget. Among the programs that were slashed were student loans, Medicaid, and food stamps. In other words, the poorest people in the United States subsidized the contractor bonanza twice: first, when Katrina relief morphed into unregulated corporate handouts, providing neither decent jobs nor functional public services; and, second, when the few programs that directly assist the unemployed and working poor nationwide were gutted to pay those bloated bills.
Jenny Bullard carries a pair of boots from her home, which was damaged by a tornado, Jan. 22, 2017, in Adel, Ga.
Photo: Branden Camp/AP
This is the disaster capitalism blueprint, and it aligns with Trump’s own track record as a businessman all too well.
Trump and Pence come to power at a time when these kinds of disasters, like the lethal tornadoes that just struck the southeastern United States, are coming fast and furious. Trump has already declared the U.S. a rolling disaster zone. And the shocks will keep getting bigger, thanks to the reckless policies that have already been promised.
What Katrina tells us is that this administration will attempt to exploit each disaster for maximum gain. We’d better get ready.
Portions of this article were adapted from “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.”
Klein summarizes some of what she writes above in this interview from last weekend's Womens' March in this video clip:
Get Ready for the First Shocks of Trump’s Disaster Capitalism
"Get Ready for the First Shocks of Trump's Disaster Capitalism"
Naomi Klein
The Intercept
WE ALREADY KNOW that the Trump administration plans to deregulate markets, wage all-out war on “radical Islamic terrorism,” trash climate science and unleash a fossil-fuel frenzy. It’s a vision that can be counted on to generate a tsunami of crises and shocks: economic shocks, as market bubbles burst; security shocks, as blowback from foreign belligerence comes home; weather shocks, as our climate is further destabilized; and industrial shocks, as oil pipelines spill and rigs collapse, which they tend to do, especially when enjoying light-touch regulation.
All this is dangerous enough. What’s even worse is the way the Trump administration can be counted on to exploit these shocks politically and economically.
Speculation is unnecessary. All that’s required is a little knowledge of recent history. Ten years ago, I published “The Shock Doctrine,” a history of the ways in which crises have been systematically exploited over the last half century to further a radical pro-corporate agenda. The book begins and ends with the response to Hurricane Katrina, because it stands as such a harrowing blueprint for disaster capitalism.
That’s relevant because of the central, if little-recalled role played by the man who is now the U.S. vice president, Mike Pence. At the time Katrina hit New Orleans, Pence was chairman of the powerful and highly ideological Republican Study Committee. On September 13, 2005 — just 14 days after the levees were breached and with parts of New Orleans still underwater — the RSC convened a fateful meeting at the offices of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Under Pence’s leadership, the group came up with a list of “Pro-Free-Market Ideas for Responding to Hurricane Katrina and High Gas Prices” — 32 policies in all, each one straight out of the disaster capitalism playbook.
Vehicles form a line at an Exxon gas station off of Interstate 55 in Jackson, Miss., Aug. 30, 2005. The station was one of the few in the city with both power and gas one day after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
Photo: Rick Guy/The Calrion Ledger/AP
To get a sense of how the Trump administration will respond to its first crises, it’s worth reading the list in full (and noting Pence’s name right at the bottom).
What stands out in the package of pseudo “relief” policies is the commitment to wage all-out war on labor standards and on the public sphere — which is ironic because the failure of public infrastructure is what turned Katrina into a human catastrophe. Also notable is the determination to use any opportunity to strengthen the hand of the oil and gas industry.
The first three items on the RSC list are “automatically suspend Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws in disaster areas,” a reference to the law that required federal contractors to pay a living wage; “make the entire affected area a flat-tax free-enterprise zone”; and “make the entire region an economic competitiveness zone (comprehensive tax incentives and waiving of regulations).”
Another demand called for giving parents vouchers to use at charter schools, a move perfectly in line with the vision held by Trump’s pick for education secretary, Betsy DeVos.
All these measures were announced by President George W. Bush within the week. Under pressure, Bush was eventually forced to reinstate the labor standards, though they were largely ignored by contractors. There is every reason to believe this will be the model for the multibillion-dollar infrastructure investments Trump is using to court the labor movement. Repealing Davis-Bacon for those projects was reportedly already floated at Monday’s meeting with leaders of construction and building trade unions.
Back in 2005, the Republican Study Committee meeting produced more ideas that gained presidential support. Climate scientists have directly linked the increased intensity of hurricanes to warming ocean temperatures. This connection, however, didn’t stop Pence and the RSC from calling on Congress to repeal environmental regulations on the Gulf Coast, give permission for new oil refineries in the United States, and to greenlight “drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”
All these measures are a surefire way to drive up greenhouse gas emissions, the major human contributor to climate change, yet they were immediately championed by the president under the guise of responding to a devastating storm.
The oil industry wasn’t the only one to profit from Hurricane Katrina, of course. So did a slew of well-connected contractors, who turned the Gulf Coast into a laboratory for privatized disaster response.
The companies that snatched up the biggest contracts were the familiar gang from the invasion of Iraq: Halliburton’s KBR unit won a $60 million gig to reconstruct military bases along the coast. Blackwater was hired to protect FEMA employees from looters. Parsons, infamous for its sloppy Iraq work, was brought in for a major bridge construction project in Mississippi. Fluor, Shaw, Bechtel, CH2M Hill — all top contractors in Iraq — were hired by the government to provide mobile homes to evacuees just 10 days after the levees broke. Their contracts ended up totaling $3.4 billion, no open bidding required.
And no opportunity for profit was left untapped. Kenyon, a division of the mega funeral conglomerate Service Corporation International (a major Bush campaign donor), was hired to retrieve the dead from homes and streets. The work was extraordinarily slow, and bodies were left in the broiling sun for days. Emergency workers and local volunteer morticians were forbidden to step in to help because handling the bodies impinged on Kenyon’s commercial territory.
And as with so many of Trump’s decisions so far, relevant experience often appeared to have nothing to do with how contracts were allocated. AshBritt, a company paid half a billion dollars to remove debris, reportedly didn’t own a single dump truck and farmed out the entire job to contractors.
People wait for assistance after being rescued from their homes a day earlier in the Ninth Ward as a small fire burns after Hurricane Katrina, Aug. 31, 2005, in New Orleans.
Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Even more striking was the company that FEMA paid $5.2 million to perform the crucial role of building a base camp for emergency workers in St. Bernard Parish, a suburb of New Orleans. The camp construction fell behind schedule and was never completed. When the contractor was investigated, it emerged that the company, Lighthouse Disaster Relief, was actually a religious group. “About the closest thing I have done to this is just organize a youth camp with my church,” confessed Lighthouse’s director, Pastor Gary Heldreth.
After all the layers of subcontractors had taken their cut, there was next to nothing left for the people doing the work. For instance, the author Mike Davis tracked the way FEMA paid Shaw $175 a square foot to install blue tarps on damaged roofs, even though the tarps themselves were provided by the government. Once all the subcontractors took their share, the workers who actually hammered in the tarps were paid as little as $2 a square foot. “Every level of the contracting food chain, in other words, is grotesquely overfed except the bottom rung,” Davis wrote, “where the actual work is carried out.”
In Mississippi, a class-action lawsuit forced several companies to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in back wages to immigrant workers. Some were not paid at all. On one Halliburton/KBR job site, undocumented immigrant workers reported being wakened in the middle of the night by their employer (a sub-subcontractor), who allegedly told them that immigration agents were on their way. Most workers fled to avoid arrest.
This corruption and abuse is particularly relevant because of Trump’s stated plan to contract out much of his infrastructure spending to private players in so-called public-private partnerships.
In the Katrina aftermath, the attacks on vulnerable people, carried out in the name of reconstruction and relief, did not stop there. In order to offset the tens of billions going to private companies in contracts and tax breaks, in November 2005 the Republican-controlled Congress announced that it needed to cut $40 billion from the federal budget. Among the programs that were slashed were student loans, Medicaid, and food stamps. In other words, the poorest people in the United States subsidized the contractor bonanza twice: first, when Katrina relief morphed into unregulated corporate handouts, providing neither decent jobs nor functional public services; and, second, when the few programs that directly assist the unemployed and working poor nationwide were gutted to pay those bloated bills.
Jenny Bullard carries a pair of boots from her home, which was damaged by a tornado, Jan. 22, 2017, in Adel, Ga.
Photo: Branden Camp/AP
This is the disaster capitalism blueprint, and it aligns with Trump’s own track record as a businessman all too well.
Trump and Pence come to power at a time when these kinds of disasters, like the lethal tornadoes that just struck the southeastern United States, are coming fast and furious. Trump has already declared the U.S. a rolling disaster zone. And the shocks will keep getting bigger, thanks to the reckless policies that have already been promised.
What Katrina tells us is that this administration will attempt to exploit each disaster for maximum gain. We’d better get ready.
Portions of this article were adapted from “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.”
Klein summarizes some of what she writes above in this interview from last weekend's Womens' March in this video clip:
Get Ready for the First Shocks of Trump’s Disaster Capitalism
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So now you'll see how any terrorist act, even one committed by a Christian right-winger who is a Trump supporter, will be accused of having Muslim leadings:
Far Right Media Cite Rumors And Fake News Outlets To Erroneously Report Canadian Mosque Attacker Was A Muslim
Far Right Media Cite Rumors And Fake News Outlets To Erroneously Report Canadian Mosque Attacker Was A Muslim
Tyger
Paranormal Adept
Is America Experiencing A Fast Moving Coup?
TEXT: "Published on Jan 30, 2017: On tonight’s Big Picture, Thom talks to Attorney David Halperin and Alex Lawson of Social Security Works about Trump appointing Steve Bannon to the National Security Council, and reaction to Trump’s Muslim ban and protests across the country. Then, Thom discusses the future of the Paris climate agreement under Trump with Keya Chatterjee, executive director of the U.S. Climate Action Network."
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