Amidst the burning wild fires, devistated California residents sit in FEMA - State coordinated evacuation facilities and drink water and eat food without fear of it running out or being shot trying to get to higher ground. Though the blaze has hit million dollar homes and modest homes alike, the power of race and class in California as a whole has always insured that the state is well cared for in times of disaster. (This does not mean that supplies are well or fairly distributed, as anyone who lived through some of the crisis in the 80s will well remember.)
One thing that California and New Orleans do have in common however, is that Blackwater is ready to “rescue.” In fact, Blackwater has been lobbying to get into San Diego to start their own “border training camp” to privatize border patrolling for years in Congress. All though they have the go ahead from the company from whom they bought the land and the support of many conservative Californians, the fires in the same region may usher in the perfect way to circumvent the opposition.
Using their “credentials” as established “peace keepers” in New Orleans during and after the disaster, they can enter SoCal as aid workers and then, just like NOLA, never leave.
That's just too fucking close to home for me. I grew up in SoCal, I went to college in San Diego, I'm way too familiar with the various numbnuts who want to "seal the border." Bad enough worrying about if my family's in the way of the actual fires (they weren't this time, thankfully). Now you're talking about bringing a fucking fundie neocon mercenary armed compound for the purposes of institutionalized xenophobia and incipient fascism? Oh bitch NO. That's it. Time to wake up. I don't know exactly what that means at this point, but that's IT. NO.
update: oh! it just keeps getting better! via brownfemipower,
Chicago Public Schools is allowing the military to run four of its public schools.
This is apparently "drawing a mixed reaction." According to NPR.
What the fuck does it take?
7 comments:
When I first heard about the fires, I asked my mother (who I was with at the time) "How long do you think it'll be before they bring in Blackwater to help?" but she didn't really understand my question's context.
3 Develop a thug caste
When leaders who seek what I call a "fascist shift" want to close down an open society, they send paramilitary groups of scary young men out to terrorise citizens. The Blackshirts roamed the Italian countryside beating up communists; the Brownshirts staged violent rallies throughout Germany. This paramilitary force is especially important in a democracy: you need citizens to fear thug violence and so you need thugs who are free from prosecution.
The years following 9/11 have proved a bonanza for America's security contractors, with the Bush administration outsourcing areas of work that traditionally fell to the US military. In the process, contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been issued for security work by mercenaries at home and abroad. In Iraq, some of these contract operatives have been accused of involvement in torturing prisoners, harassing journalists and firing on Iraqi civilians. Under Order 17, issued to regulate contractors in Iraq by the one-time US administrator in Baghdad, Paul Bremer, these contractors are immune from prosecution
Yes, but that is in Iraq, you could argue; however, after Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Homeland Security hired and deployed hundreds of armed private security guards in New Orleans. The investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill interviewed one unnamed guard who reported having fired on unarmed civilians in the city. It was a natural disaster that underlay that episode - but the administration's endless war on terror means ongoing scope for what are in effect privately contracted armies to take on crisis and emergency management at home in US cities.
Since I'm bringing Naomi Wolf into this, check out this video posted on ballastexistenz.
thats what i was going to say lisa! well not exactly but i was going to channel Naomi Wolf.
Belle, it gets more surreal every day.
Blackwater? My God.
Sassywho,
I feel like I reference Naomi Wolf every day now.
And Belle, the idea of military run schools like that doesn't give me mixed feelings. I absolutely don't want to see it - not in Chicago, not anywhere. We don't need to put kids under the military's influence at all. Let them choose to go in after they turn 18, but don't hand them over at 13.
This Blackwater West thing predates the fire (& the 16 Sep. Baghdad shootings). There's been pretty intense local opposition to it in San Diego Co. for the last year. It's just the recent confluence of events that's finally bringing it to wider attention.
Blackwater, Pinkertons, Black and Tans, and all those shirts -- how many times to we have to fuck it up before we see history repeating? No matter what the task, you can't expect people of purchased patriotism to have any real kind of value system.
I mean, WTF?
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