Re: <nettime> Katrina: The Spectre of a Soviet-Style Crisis in the U.S.

[ed phillips <ed@cronos.net>]

Dear Michael,

It might help if we were a little more precise in our descriptions of intra-urban lower 48 states's
regions. I think of course that the growing wealth disparity is incontrovertible and the "agrarian" and
post-industrial economic dead zones are a grim fact.

There really aren't too many opportunities for young people in the economic dead zones and the military is
often a good option, one that at least has the virtue of cultural and capital investment.

The "meth craze" is much exaggerated and is the drug story du jour, an easy and dramatic peg for pop media
consumption. Crack babies are just not that interesting any more I suppose. We now have meth babies; if
you look closely at the stories that crossed the "wires" recently (what a lovely anachronism), you'll see
that those foster care children were made so when their parents got busted for having the temerity to
engage in open source organic chemistry (home cooked from from wal-mart purchased pseudo-ephedrine). I'm
tempted to invoke zizek-style here and say that "here we are confronted with pure ideology": the lost
babies were made by the storyline to be the victims of drug use, not of overzealous state control. The
state here is not some monolithic entity, but those agents entrusted to enforce the laws of our great
congress, and those entrusted with caring for the deep damage done by such reckless experimentation. Those
that break the law by taking organic chemistry into their own hands shall have their assets and their
children seized. Dare you think that you have the autonomy to fiddle with a molecule without corporate
and/or state sponsorship, in short without institutional imprimatur, you will lose even the illusion of
autonomy. But, don't despair, we will blame the evil molecule and those who traffic in and benefit from it
and not you the poor end user and little home cooker. poppycock. ideology.

I'll take 50 cartons of sudafed and 30 cartons of shotgun shells.

I think alternet, of all places, that bastion of new age left-liberal ideology, is going to address some
of the complex story of Wal-Mart. The Simon Head piece in the NY review of books is quite good and Doug
Henwood interviews him on one of his shows.

On Mon, Sep 19, 2005 at 01:43:13AM -0700, Michael H Goldhaber wrote:
> Ricardo,
> 
> If you want statistics, start with the state of education in this country compared
> with other industrialized countries or even China.  Look at the growing general
> state of ignorance re news, the decreasing number of voters, growing income
> inequality, etc.


<...>




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