A friend who didn’t like that Kristen McQueary op-ed any more than anyone else did (myself excluded) has just introduced me to the idea of “disaster capitalism,” which is what we get when societies are shocked into disarray and submission and right-wing economic and political forces seize the moment. Here’s a video of the author Naomi Klein explaining disaster capitalism, which it appears she coined. And here’s AlterNet’s Adam Johnson arguing that its “dark heart” was just exposed by Kristen McQueary in the Tribune. (The headline to Johnson’s piece asks, about McQueary, “most evil op-ed ever?”)
I apologize to Rivlin for being careless with nuances. But these nuances don’t make the case Adam Johnson seems to take for granted, that powerful right-wing forces welcomed the deaths of “thousands” and were only sorry “it didn’t happen soon enough.” (Soon enough for what?)
I concluded one of those pieces by observing, “A writer cannot assert that his words were misunderstood. He must answer for every level of meaning. He can never plead innocent.”
