Fwd: Playing the Destabilization Card at Home and Abroad

[Guest guest]

Playing the Destabilization Card at Home and Abroad

 

 

 

perhaps there are other forces in play than the DNC . . .

 

Ric

 

 

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=98894

 

Though it's been little noted, their program in the United States has

been hardly less based on playing the destabilization card. As their

minions in occupied Iraq were intent on radically " privatizing " -- that

is, destabilizing -- the Iraqi government and economy, so they have

been intent on radically privatizing (and destabilizing) the American

government and economy. Recently, Frank Rich of the New York Times

wrote a striking column, The Road from K Street to Yusufiya, on exactly

this, pointing out that " nearly 40 cents of every dollar in federal

discretionary spending now goes to private companies. " It hardly

mattered to them that they were essentially emptying civil government

of its can-do powers; that they were replacing those hated bureaucrats

in Washington with even less competent bureaucrats linked to private,

crony corporations of their choice. As Rich put the matter:

 

" [T]he Bush brand of competitive sourcing, with its get-rich-quick

schemes and do-little jobs for administration pals, spread like a

cancer throughout the executive branch. It explains why tens of

thousands of displaced victims of Katrina are still living in trailer

shantytowns all these months later. It explains why New York City and

Washington just lost 40 percent of their counterterrorism funds. It

helps explain why American troops are more likely to be slaughtered

than greeted with flowers more than three years after the American

invasion of Iraq.

 

" The Department of Homeland Security, in keeping with the Bush

administration's original opposition to it, isn't really a government

agency at all so much as an empty shell, a networking boot camp for

future private contractors dreaming of big paydays… "

 

Caesar's Palace

 

The top officials of this administration are remarkable gamblers and

optimists. They have also proven remarkably single-minded in playing

the destabilization game. If they are in the Roman-Empire business,

don't think Augustus, think Caesar's Palace. Like so many gambling

addicts, they've never run across a situation in which they're

unwilling to roll the dice, no matter the odds. They just give those

dice that special little rub and offer a prayer for good luck, always

knowing that this just has to be their day.

 

Medicare, roll the dice. Social security, roll the dice. Tax the poor

and middle class by untaxing the rich, no problem. Wipe out what's left

of the checks and balances of the American system in favor of a theory

of an all-encompassing " commander-in-chief " government, roll those

dice. Launch endless, Swift-Boat-style, bare-knuckle campaigns of fear,

lies, and fantasy (accompanied by gerrymandering and vote-suppression

schemes) meant to install Republicans in power for decades to come, no

matter the cost to the political system -- don't wait, toss 'em now!