Tuesday, March 9, 2010

conservatism is another name for disaster.

"The problem wasn't just that the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq) was understaffed, it was also that it was staffed by people who lacked the baseline belief in the public sphere that is required for the complex task of reconstructing a state from the ground up. As the political scientist Michael Wolfe puts it, "Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon. If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are unlikely to do it very well." He adds, "As a way of governing, conservatism is another name for disaster."

It certainly was in Iraq. Much has been made of the youth and inexperience of the U. S. political appointees in the CPA - the fact that a handful of twentysomething Republicans were given key roles in overseeing Iraq' $13 billion budget. While there is no question that the members of the so-called brat pack were alarmingly young, that was not their greatest liability. These were front-line warriors from America's counter-revolution against all relics of Keynesianism, many of them linked to the Heritage Foundation, ground zero of Friedmanism since it was launched in 1973.

- Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine:The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
ISBN 978-0-676-97891-8

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