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Steven Rafferty's avatar

Messrs. Agamben and Schmitt - meet Mr. Simon Clarke and Ms. Naomi Klein.

Your analysis is spot on. If anything, you could turn the volume up to 11 on the argument that this is the merging of the economic interests of the few with the physical security of the nation state.

Reading Klein or Clarke into the final section would help. Recommending that people go and watch Treme would be another way to make that case.

What capitalism did to New Orleans in the wake of Katrina is what they're hoping to do to all of us. Only they're the storm, the clean-up, and the Disney-fication of the nation all rolled up in one co-mingled mess of Robber Baron and Reverse Republican.

Too stupid for subtlety . . . Too cocksure to care . . .

I can't think of any theorists, mythologies, or parables that gesture towards what can be done if/when Hubris doesn't end in an Icarus event because it's executed by a flock and by fiat.

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Decolonize Accounting's avatar

Thanks, I've never watched Treme, but for sure the Disaster Capitalism she penned in Shock Doctrine, applies to the US as much as it does to the rest of the world. I have no doubt that the same profiteering that occurred with Katrina inspired the finance/insurance cabal to create loss and damage funds and catastrophe bonds in climate finance.

Love this! "I can't think of any theorists, mythologies, or parables that gesture towards what can be done if/when Hubris doesn't end in an Icarus event because it's executed by a flock and by fiat." I think you know my response: graft new wings, not to fly higher, but to fly differently... that's the ecological economic response :)

There's a foundational story in Hawaii that sort of addresses this. Hi'iaka and Pele. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/60279/60279-h/60279-h.htm (Chapter XXXVIII)

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Steven Rafferty's avatar

I made it as far as "she is invincible, she has become a spirit" . . .

I need to spend some time on that . . .

;)

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Decolonize Accounting's avatar

haha. that one flew by me, but we're talking about gods here, so I suspend logic.

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Steven Rafferty's avatar

Logic is overrated sometimes . . . Right now, I'm way more interested in truth and wisdom

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Steven Rafferty's avatar

Also . . . thanks for sending the link to Gutenberg . . . I could almost smell the book when I saw the image of the cover . . . I miss the Philosophy Library at USC!

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Decolonize Accounting's avatar

Aloha Lorin, so good to hear from you. Thank you!

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Lorin Bacon's avatar

Mahalo nui Arnie. I have understood many bits & pieces of this scenario similar to ingredients on a plate. But here you have rolled it into the burrito that I can bite and digest. I appreciate your insights.

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Lorin Bacon's avatar

Mahalo nui Arnie. I have understood many bits & pieces of this scenario similar to ingredients on a plate. But here you have rolled it into the burrito that I can bite and digest. I appreciate your insights.

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