recent redundant redundancies

It just occurred to me that what we now see happening in Wisconsin and more recently in Ohio is classic shock doctrine.  For those unfamiliar with Naomi Klein’s book bearing the name, the shock doctrine is seized upon when a rather traumatic event occurs and policies are carried out as a result that are portrayed as being necessary given the extraordinary circumstances.  As the old Rahm Emanuel maxim goes, “never let a crisis go to waste,” and thusly business entities (by way of their benefactor politicians) are given carte blanche to implement measures that wildly benefit their own corporate interests and little to no one else.

 

As has been repeated ad nauseum, we have just (sort of) emerged from the worst recession (the Great Recession, if you will) since that Great Depression we’ve all heard so much about.  The aftershocks of said recession are now being felt across the country as individual states have lost untold amounts of money thanks to the so-called banksters who crashed the economy and the resulting austerity from the federal government, which (gave untold amounts of money to the banksters to keep them afloat) would generally fill in the gaps of in-the-red state budgets (no pun intended, sort of).

 

So this brings us back to the two worst case scenarios in Wisconsin and Ohio, and would-be-bad scenarios in other states like Indiana, New Jersey, etc.  Governors of these states and the party they represent in their state legislatures are attempting to strip the state workers’ unions of their ability to collectively bargain, because golly gee, we’re an in-the-red state!  And seeing as how we are in the red, we certainly mustn’t allow these greedy unions the opportunity of maybe attempting to better their financial lot going forward, even though they have already made concessions that will reduce their benefits considerably (not to mention both states having recently handed out massive tax breaks to in-state corporations).

 

So all told, what we seem to have here in recent current events (as well as redundant redundancies) is the perverse combination of a shock doctrine and right wing projection onto those who are already being mightily screwed by their feudal overlords.  Happy Friday!