Television news for the last 48 hours has looked like an endless re-broadcast of "Mad Max", without the cars. As I watched the starvation, the terror, the elderly and children dying in the heat, I started to wonder if this is really some horrible mistake or if this is the fulfillment of decades of planning.
The entire right-wing, libertarian, conservative approach to government is "less is more". We hear ideas like "starving the beast", or how George Bush wants to shrink government so small that he can drown it in a bathtub.
How well they have mobilized the nation against it's own protections. Environmental protections, consumer protections, worker protections, economic safeguards, transportation, infrastructure, education; all have been eviscerated by a conservative movement hell-bent on cutting down the power of government.
I wonder today if it's been worth it. Did each of our paltry tax break checks make up for our soaring educational and health care costs. Did small farmers really prosper after the repeal of New Deal protections under the "freedom to farm act", or have they all but disappeared? When we heard that $8.8Bn had gone missing in Iraq, it didn't resonate with people. I wonder how much that money would mean today to the people of New Orleans.
The recent pork-filled energy bill monstrosity is probably the greatest ticking timebomb in history. What it did was deregulate public utilities, so that now massive multinationals and business conglomerats will be able to take advantage of their steady income streams. In 10 years maybe sooner, as business interests privatize reward while passing economic risk on to consumers, we will see the first utilities start to go bankrupt. This was a trillion dollar giveaway to big business at the expense of individual Americans.
Does anyone still believe that Iraq happened for any reason other than elite econmic interests? Does anyone still believe that the conservative movement has any interest in this nation other than robbing its riches for a new aristocracy? When we look at New Orleans today, and see how FEMA has completely failed in its mandate, how Homeland Security has completely failed, how the Bush Administration has left thousands and thousands to survive or die, can any of us really believe that this was unintentional?
The Bush doctrine has been to shrink government, to reduce our individual reliance on government and leave it for Americans to fend for themselves. If the GOP and the conservative movement can survive the political fallout of this incredible disaster, they will point to it as a triumph of governmental streamlining.
There are no mistakes here. The conservative movement sold us on smaller government, and now we have smaller government for people, bigger government for monopolists.
Meanwhile, New Orleans Drowns and Burns.