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<i class="icon-calendar"></i> Tuesday, 05 September 2017 08:20 </span>

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Will the Shock Doctrine Manifest Itself in the Wake of Hurricane Harvey?
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<p><span class="wf_caption" style="margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 5px; float: right; display: block; max-width: 400px; width: 100%;"><img src="/buzzflash/images/images2017_09/2017.5.9_BF_Berkowitz.jpg" alt=" While tragedies and difficult times quite often bring out the best in the character of Americans that help their friends, neighbors and total strangers, however, when there is a crisis of this magnitude -- natural or man-made -- you can almost certainly count on &quot;rapid-fire corporate re-engineering of societies that are reeling from shock.&quot;" width="400" style="margin: auto; float: right; width: 100%;" /><span style="text-align: left; margin-top: 3px; display: block;"> While tragedies and difficult times quite often bring out the best in the character of Americans that help their friends, neighbors and total strangers, you can almost certainly count on "rapid-fire corporate re-engineering of societies that are reeling from shock." (Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/coastguardnews/36949653405/in/photolist-Yi7CDK-WZGrcJ-Y2hLeS-Ye878B-Yd7iSr-WU5SuP-WXr46S-WUSxst-WQfrRq-WZzmUQ-X4boRg-XuJ7Hh-XVW1T8-X3VmVU-XZq8Uu-XC4Ky1-5koUnN-Y16qvC-X2sY3C-WU8wR5-X4btg8-XB1XqQ-Y18jpf-YbwrPH-WT6iUH-X1VEgC-X4dAZR-WVDezW-Y5aWVx-X1VEGs-YaRrL4-Y18joy-Y9vfZ1-Y13VTL-Y9kMkv-Y2ytSw-WZ56NL-WXLb3j-YhiL74-XWYgkf-Yd4Rvx-X1UrAj-XwxQnE-Y2uE3W-XVfoDx-YhAMgz-XT7P3b-XzYAVG-Y8YENz-Y9Mzdc" target="_blank">Coast Guard News</a>)</span></span><strong>BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>"Only a crisis -- actual or perceived -- produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around." – Milton Friedman</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>How will the federal and state and local governments deal with post-Hurricane Harvey recovery? How and who will they deal with the toxic discharge from oil refineries, superfund sites and the raw sewage that is flooding the streets and highways of Houston and other communities? Will climate-change deniers finally take the impact of climate change – a term that Team Trump shies away from – seriously? Will Trump be able to stay focused on recovery issues? Will corporations see this as their golden ticket to vast financial gain? Will homeowners be shoved into toxic mobile homes like many were post-Katrina? Will the homeless be housed? Will a chunk of the public school system be privatized and/or voucherized? Will minorities be forced out of Houston, which, according to recent study by the Pew Research Center, is the most economically segregated city in the United States? What will be done to make the victims whole?</p>
<p>While rain has finally stopped pelting Houston and other parts of the Texas Gulf Coast, thousands of people rescued/evacuated, shelters holding tens of thousands of internal refugees, many thousands will be homeless for the foreseeable future. And, while it is probably too early to think about how the federal and state governments will approach the massive task of recovery – which will undoubtedly take billions of dollars and years to complete -- it might be worthwhile to pull Naomi Klein's <em>The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism</em>, off the shelf – or going out and getting a copy -- dusting it off, and reconsidering its thesis. While tragedies and difficult times quite often bring out the best in the character of Americans that help their friends, neighbors and total strangers, however, when there is a crisis of this magnitude -- natural or man-made -- you can almost certainly count on "rapid-fire corporate re-engineering of societies that are reeling from shock."</p>
<p>From the book jacket of <em>The Shock Doctrine</em>: "At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq's civil war, a new law is unveiled that will allow Shell and BP to claim the country's vast oil reserves. Immediately following September 11, the Bush administration quietly outsources the running of the 'War on Terror' to Halliburton and Blackwater. After a powerful tsunami devastates the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts. New Orleans's residents, still scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened. These events are examples of ...'the shock doctrine': the use of public disorientation following massive collective shocks - wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters - to push through highly unpopular economic shock therapy."</p>
<p>President Donald Trump’s trip to Texas comes less then two weeks after he rolled back the Federal Flood Risk Mitigation Standard, an Obama-era regulation from 2015. According to<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/29/16214558/trump-federal-standards-infrastructure-projects" target="_blank"> Vox’s Ella Nilsen</a>, "The 2015 directive, which never fully went into effect, required public infrastructure projects that received taxpayer dollars to do more planning for floods, including elevating their structures to avoid future water damage and alleviate the burden on taxpayers."</p>
<p>Nilsen pointed out that Trump "characterized his move as repealing an onerous government regulation and streamlining the infrastructure approval process. But he was criticized by both environmental groups and conservatives, who said it made sense to try to protect federal investments."</p>
<p>A recent missive from the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation, the nation’s foremost conservative think tank, and a major contributor to Team Trump’s policy agenda, highlighted its 2007 post-Hurricane Katrina report titled "Grassroots Disaster Response: Harnessing the Capacities of Communities."</p>
<p>The report clearly laid out the conservative think tank’s preferred approach: "Throwing money at states through homeland security grants or turning the responsibility over to the federal government entirely will not make Americans much safer. Instead, Washington should play a limited role, enabling and encouraging states and communities to take the lead by empowering individuals to care for themselves and others during disasters."</p>
<p>On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall near New Orleans, ultimately devastating large parts of the city. More than 1,800 people were killed, and there was at least $100 billion in damage. Neighborhoods that were destroyed by the raging floodwaters, still haven’t recovered. No one who saw the events in New Orleans unfold will ever forget the tragedy of the Superdome, where thousands suffered under oppressive heat, with little food, water, or medical attention.</p>
<p>As of 2013, there were 100,000 fewer black residents then there were in 2000. Whole neighborhoods remain depopulated.</p>
<p>While many have praised New Orleans for coming back after the massive devastation, nowhere is evidence of <em>The Shock Doctrine</em> more readily visible then in post-Hurricane Katrina.</p>
<p>In 2015, The New York Times’ Campbell Robertson and Richard Fausset <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/08/26/us/ten-years-after-katrina.html?_r=0" target="_blank">reported </a>that the city "has been altered, by both a decade of institutional re-engineering and the artless rearrangement that occurs when people are left to fend for themselves.</p>
<p>"Empowered by billions of federal dollars and the big ideas of eager policy planners, the school system underwent an extensive overhaul; the old Art Deco Charity Hospital was supplanted by a state-of-the-art medical complex; and big public housing projects, at once beloved and notorious, were razed and replaced by mixed-income communities with housing vouchers."</p>
<p>The floodwaters have yet to recede. There are so many questions yet to be answered.</p> </div>
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