I don’t know about you but what seems to me unmistakable in today’s world is a widespread cultural trend which emphasizes the idea that beliefs are more important than facts and facts are simply those things you believe.  It’s a sort of infantile age in which people cocoon themselves within fantasy worlds where ideology governs the mind and what was once regarded as logical is now regarded as illogical.

From economic policies that irrationally emphasize austerity over stimulus, to an almost non-existent concern for our environment on which we, and our economies, depend for survival.

As usual it’s the people in positions of privilege that hasten to benefit.  While the ongoing aftermath of hurricane Sandy continues, the vultures are once again descending to do what their small minds have been well-educated to do: exploit the vulnerable when they are at their weakest.

No one addresses this trend better than author and activist Naomi Klein, as she does in her recent article in The Nation:

“Yes that’s right: this catastrophe very likely created by climate change—a crisis born of the colossal regulatory failure to prevent corporations from treating the atmosphere as their open sewer—is just one more opportunity for more deregulation. And the fact that this storm has demonstrated that poor and working-class people are far more vulnerable to the climate crisis shows that this is clearly the right moment to strip those people of what few labor protections they have left, as well as to privatize the meager public services available to them. Most of all, when faced with an extraordinarily costly crisis born of corporate greed, hand out tax holidays to corporations.”

Klein describes this as the Shock Doctrine, and in the case of Sandy, various profiteers from Wal-Mart to insurance lobbyists have already entered the discussion to suggest more privatization of public services and the further erosion of community level economies.

Like those who cruise around devastated neighborhoods looking for opportunities to loot the defenseless, corporate ambition understands no limits.  While Klein is correct that the super wealthy can currently shield themselves from the effects of climate change through access to privilege and technology the rest of us are denied, I think it’s possible the longer term effects will be so overwhelming even extreme wealth will prove an insufficient defense.

In the meantime she suggests that the emergence of and reliance upon more localized economies and a public demand for much more corporate regulation would go a long way in empowering the vast majority of us who occupy the real world, and not the gilded cocoons of Wall Street speculation.

Where is Bertrand Russell when you need him?

 

“Love is wise, hatred is foolish…”