Donald Trump threatening to declare a national emergency in order to get his desired wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, with or without Congress' cooperation, is another clear sign of the continued rise of Disaster Capitalism.
source: Picpedia.org
In the 2007 book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein, it is described how neoliberal western governments use national crises to push through policies while citizens are too pre-occupied with the cause of the emergency to offer any resistance to those new laws and regulations; in many cases, especially when safety or the economy are at stake, governments declare such a national emergency with the explicit approval of the people. There's an immediate threat to the nation, so it's best to give the government the tools they ask for to make us or our economy safe again. I'll link the documentary, based on the book, at the end, and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't read the book (I haven't; I watched the documentary and listened to several speeches by Naomi Klein about the subject) and is interested to know how governments have used this strategy in the past.
Now it's those criminal Mexicans who need to be kept outside; Trump unashamedly says that if he keeps that border open, "we're gonna be crime-ridden, and it's gonna get worse and worse"... His words, not mine; Mexicans are apparently criminals... But that aside, Trump is threatening to declare a national emergency to get that wall done, and he says it like he means it. In a world where Naomi Klein didn't have to write her book about the Shock Doctrine, this threat may have had an impact, but since the national emergency is the rule rather than the exception, there's actually nothing new under the sun. This is even reported on by the mainstream media, as illustrated by this headline in Time Magazine online: The U.S. Has Been in a Constant State of National Emergency Since 1979. Here’s Why
In the U.S. there are currently 31 national emergencies active and running, renewed each year and starting in 1979 when Jimmy Carter signed one such emergency in relation to the Iran hostage crisis. Then came twelve years without a single national emergency under presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, which is remarkable. But when Bill Clinton came in office the ball really started rolling: he signed six emergencies. That's followed by eleven under George W. Bush, the most important on September 14 2001 after the 9/11 attacks, and ten under Obama. These are only the ones that are still in effect; in total 58 national emergencies have been declared since the National Emergencies Act was signed into law in 1976 by president Gerald Ford. James Corbett lists them all in his latest New World Next Week report, starting at the 8:45 minute mark:
Government by Emergency
Human minds don't function at their best when plagued by immediate emergencies; we don't call it a state of "shock" for no reason. In the immediate aftermath of a disaster, as well as in the anticipation of an immediate disaster, our brains switch to it's crisis-solving mode, pushing to the background all long term considerations when making the decisions necessary to solve the immediate problems. Right after 9/11 not only the Americans, but the whole world gathered behind George W. Bush's cry for revenge. And since then the threat of another sudden terrorist attack has been used by governments all over the world to push through laws and policies detrimental to our personal freedoms.
Nowadays I get the feeling that the state of shock, is becoming our default demeanor as we're constantly being reminded of multiple threats to our future well-being; if it's not the Mexicans, it's the terrorists, or the climate. I remember that in my country there were several emergency measures taken by the government after the 2008 financial crash; in order to minimize it's effects on our economy, several state building projects, like new roads, bridges, schools and so on, were executed earlier than planned. In order to do that, several environmental laws and regulations had to be circumvented, because at the time the economy was ready to collapse, so it was given priority. I wonder if the environmental laws are still suspended to this day...
The Shock Doctrine [2009] Documentary by Naomi Klein
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