Katrina

[Otto]

"Adrian Wooldridge, co-author with John Micklethwait of an excellent 
study of conservative America, The Right Nation, anticipates just such a 
sentiment. "The big losers among Republicans will be the neocons," he 
says. "The hubris of thinking America could reshape the world, creating 
a democracy in hostile territory, when it can't even keep order in an 
American city - that hubris has just been punctured in a big way." Now 
it will be images of Katrina which are foremost in the public mind, 
replacing the four-year-old memories of 9/11. The "global war on terror" 
could well lose its place as the all-consuming, number-one priority.

Indeed, all previous assumptions are now up for grabs. Since Ronald 
Reagan's election in 1980, conservatives have won the argument for a 
shrunken state, one that taxes and spends less. That neoliberal model - 
with its emphasis on privatisation and deregulation - has spread across 
the world, often imposed on countries that did not want it. It continues 
to split the European Union, with France and others insisting that their 
own social model is superior.

Katrina has reopened that debate in neoliberalism's motherland. Suddenly 
progressive Americans detect an opening, a chance to speak up for active 
government, even for taxing and spending. The hurricane has made their 
case immediate and simple: you can only neglect the public realm for so 
long. Do so for a generation and the levees will brake."
*Jonathan Freedland, Wednesday September 7, 2005, The Guardian 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk>*
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1564223,00.html


	

	
		
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