Capitalism Preserves Profits, Humanity Drowns

[ben.huur]

"Is Bush looking gleefully at the suffering in New Orleans and even
neglectfully adding to it as a psychopathic sadist might? I doubt it. Rather,
Bush worries about tomorrow, not about tomorrow’s ecology, mind you, or its
climate, but about tomorrow’s sociology. Bush ignores prognostications of
natural calamity but listens very hard for the possibilities of social
calamity. Retaining corporate power and profit is Bush’s reason for being.
Maintaining subordination of the many to the few is his business as usual.
Cheney is probably lining up construction contracts.

That’s the subtext of Katrina and New Orleans. That’s why Bush and Co.
reflexively marched lock step into incredible callousness. Accept business as
usual as priority one and all that’s left is different brands of callousness.
And then Bush’s media spinners have to sell Bush’s callousness. So like rabid
sociopaths they try what often works, being tough - "shoot the looters to
kill"
they bluster. Shoot people who are taking food and water and sharing it with
those too old or too young to loot for themselves. Shoot the sick seeking
medicine to survive. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Don’t distribute what’s needed,
heaven forbid. Defend empty stores. Defend empty hotels. Who cares about the
living, after all, a lot of them will soon be dead and the rest silent.

Just to clarify the point, for those who take seriously the admonition to
shoot
the looters to kill - the main looters in our society are corporate owners
who
accrue the products of working people's labor. The shooting gallery, if
fulfilling this instruction were to become popular, would be far more upscale
than the swamp that is New Orleans.

Bush has bloody hands, but beyond Bush, the larger system of business as
usual
guaranteed a catastrophic response to this catastrophe. The accurate Katrina
headline is: Storm Hits, Capitalism Preserves Profits, Humanity Drowns."

Michael Albert, Znet