Speaking of Shakedowns and Shutdowns...

After Robert Reich just got done telling us that shakedowns and shutdowns were the worst thing that could possibly happen to a government, I bring you an ideological kin making the argument for shakedowns and shutdowns. Awesome.

Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Oh Krugman, you rogue! It’s been too long. This is going to be fun.

Here’s a thought: maybe Madison, Wis., isn’t Cairo after all.

If it takes you a colon, two commas, and an inappropriately antequated state abbreviation to say “I’m wrong,” this might be a good time to crack open The Elements of Style.

Maybe it’s Baghdad — specifically, Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence.

In a middle east where Egypt is drifting towards state-sponsored extremism and Libya—which was a docile house cat in the wake of the invasion of Iraq—is descending into an anarchical bloodbath, are you sure this is the time to take on the only stable republic in the Islamic world?

As many readers may recall, the results were spectacular — in a bad way.

What deft verbal judo! This is the rhetorical equivalent putting “not” at the end of a sarcastic statement. Let’s all watch Waynes World and listen to Nirvana’s “Nevermind.”

…Actually, that sounds awesome.

Instead of focusing on the urgent problems of a shattered economy and society, which would soon descend into a murderous civil war,

So to be clear, this is an argument against nation-building?

those Bush appointees were obsessed with imposing a conservative ideological vision.

Far from the liberal caricature, W was far from a conservative ideologue. Outside of the Bush tax cuts in 2001, he did virtually nothing to decrease the size or influence of government. Why would one believe that he would impose on Iraq what he refused to back domestically?

Indeed, with looters still prowling the streets of Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, the American viceroy,

For the record, viceroy is necessarily a monarchical term (from the latin vice- “in the palace of” and the French roi- “the king”). When you’re criticizing someone for too rapidly dismantling totalitarian institutions, it is downright counterintuitive to simultaneously criticize them for being monarchical totalitarians.

told a Washington Post reporter that one of his top priorities was to “corporatize and privatize state-owned enterprises”

When a government has a stranglehold on the economy, and the government topples, privatizing state-owned enterprises is synonymous with stimulating the economy. That of course leads to jobs and gets looters, vandals, and potential terrorists off the street. I was under the impression that economics was supposed to be your wheelhouse.

 — Mr. Bremer’s words, not the reporter’s — and to “wean people from the idea the state supports everything.”

In other words, the Bush Administration’s goals were to erode the cultural tolerance towards totalitarianism and building the fledgling ideal of self-determination, which is the foundation of a culture in which a democratic republic can take hold. My goodness, that sounds almost like a well thought-out plan!

The story of the privatization-obsessed Coalition Provisional Authority was the centerpiece of Naomi Klein’s best-selling book “The Shock Doctrine,”

Can someone please stop professional writers from turning their columns into 8^th grade book reports on obscure drivel that no one bothers to read? Editors? Executives? Typesetters? Please?

which argued that it was part of a broader pattern.

I’m bored with this book already.

From Chile in the 1970s onward, she suggested,

That does involve the Iranian hostage situation as part of the “control group,” right. Given the Obama Administration’s callow response to the unlawful detention of an American diplomat in Pakistan, I’d say the precedent of indecision and half-measures from the left is far more unsettling. What about Clinton’s complicity with turning North Korea into a nuclear-armed rogue state?

right-wing ideologues have exploited crises

Of course, it was the great Republican thinker Sarah Palin who said “never let a crisis go to waste.” Wait…that doesn’t sound right.

to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises,

Seriously, how’d the Iranian Hostage Crisis get resolved, again?

and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal,

If we wanted to impose an equal society, we’d all be socialists.

less democratic society.

Again, how does an ideology permissive of totalitarian government interference at the expense of individual liberty promote a democratic society?

Which brings us to Wisconsin 2011,

Actually, it takes you to the end of Ms. Klein’s book, which is currently selling it’s 162^nd copy for 85% off at Borders. Congratulations, Ms. Klein. If you want to transition to Wisconsin, you actually have to make the transition, not just state that one occurred.

where the shock doctrine is on full display.

Part of not turning your column into a book report involves avoiding the obnoxious verbiage from someone else’s work and applying it to something wholly unrelated.

In recent weeks, Madison has been the scene of large demonstrations against the governor’s budget bill, which would deny collective-bargaining rights to public-sector workers.

Keep in mind, these are public sector workers. And only select public sector workers at that. Police and Fire workers are excluded.

Gov. Scott Walker claims that he needs to pass his bill to deal with the state’s fiscal problems. But his attack on unions has nothing to do with the budget. In fact, those unions have already indicated their willingness to make substantial financial concessions — an offer the governor has rejected.

Unless these concessions are single-handedly enough to get the state of Wisconsin out of debt (they’re not), then the concessions are less important to the budget than giving the legislature the tools to cut the budget now and in the future.  Which means, if you’re playing America’s favorite drinking game “Paul Krugman is wrong,” you need to take two shots of Jagermeister and switch right shoes with the person sitting to your left. (The rules to this game are really tricky.)

Sadly, since the peace prize was awarded to Obama, I can no longer in good conscious advocate playing the drinking game “Nobel Lauriates are wrong.” Seven people died of alcohol poisoning during the State of the Union.

What’s happening in Wisconsin is, instead, a power grab — an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy.

Well it’s certainly a nice side-effect. The idea of public funds financing public union dues financing partisan political contributions should be loathsome to, well, anyone.

And the power grab goes beyond union-busting. The bill in question is 144 pages long, and there are some extraordinary things hidden deep inside.

It takes some stones to criticize Republicans for overly long bills. 144 pages? That’s 1/16^th the size of Obamacare.

For example, the bill includes language that would allow officials appointed by the governor to make sweeping cuts in health coverage for low-income families without having to go through the normal legislative process.

Funny. That actually was in Obamacare.

And then there’s this: “Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).”

What’s that about? The state of Wisconsin owns a number of plants supplying heating, cooling, and electricity to state-run facilities (like the University of Wisconsin). The language in the budget bill would, in effect, let the governor privatize any or all of these facilities at whim.

Should state government really be a utility company?

Not only that, he could sell them, without taking bids, to anyone he chooses. And note that any such sale would, by definition, be “considered to be in the public interest.”

While I’m not a fan of the language that opens the door to corruption, I understand the reasoning behind it. The language expedites the process considerably, because generally dealing with the government is as slow as it gets.

If this sounds to you like a perfect setup for cronyism and profiteering — remember those missing billions in Iraq? — you’re not alone.

This is an article about unions and you’re mentioning cronyism and profiteering without mention of the stimulus. Of course, that’s cool with me. Just acknowledge your biases.

Indeed, there are enough suspicious minds out there that Koch Industries, owned by the billionaire brothers who are playing such a large role in Mr. Walker’s anti-union push,

Which was completely refuted when a liberal activist called the governor posing as one of the Koch brothers and tricked the Governor into saying…exactly what he says in public.

felt compelled to issue a denial that it’s interested in purchasing any of those power plants. Are you reassured?

Certainly it’s uncomfortable, but is it any more comfortable than Wisconsin tax dollars financing the Democratic Party through the public union siphon?

The good news from Wisconsin is that the upsurge of public outrage — aided by the maneuvering of Democrats in the State Senate,

Well that I agree with, but most of the outrage is coming from the right.

who absented themselves to deny Republicans a quorum

A fancy way of saying “shut down the legislature in a purely anti-democratic technicality.”

--has slowed the bum’s rush.

Great. In the meantime, the people of Wisconsin are due a budget, and the Democrats have taken their ball and gone to an out-of-state protectorate.

If Mr. Walker’s plan was to push his bill through before anyone had a chance to realize his true goals, that plan has been foiled.

Does anyone really believe that Governor Walker didn’t want any attention paid to this bill? He has majority support both in Wisconsin and nationwide.

And events in Wisconsin may have given pause to other Republican governors, who seem to be backing off similar moves.

Really? What’s going on in Indiana and Ohio?

But don’t expect either Mr. Walker or the rest of his party to change those goals. Union-busting and privatization remain G.O.P. priorities, and the party will continue its efforts to smuggle those priorities through in the name of balanced budgets.

Smaller government is the GOP’s priority. They said it throughout the 2010 campaign; this rallying cry was noticeably absent in George W. Bush’s second term, to the detriment of the party. But here’s the question that no one really has an answer for: how does stripping public unions of the right to collectively bargain on benefits hurt Wisconsin? The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t.