Citizen or Consumer

In a nation of radical individualist there seems to be no room for a national organization that addresses disasters on the scale of Katrina. In the 1950s there was a semblance of national thinking with the organization other wise known as Civil Defense. The reason for that of course was the nuclear threat and cold war jitters. When I was 14, my across the street neighbor built a big underground fallout shelter. There were six children in that family. There was only one in a town of 6,000. Think about it.

So. We have somewhat nationalized national preparedness by developing FEMA and then comes the establishment of Homeland Security. FEMA was at one time a truly federal and nation wide approach to disasters of scale. Homeland Security on the other hand is a radical class and political reactionary construct that is filled with political hacks and sadistic wannabes who are able to demand that you remove your shoes before boarding a passenger aircraft. We are becoming a nation of incarceration and prison guards. All this is of course privatized and meets all the specifications of a particular political worldview. Look in any daily newspaper and you will find ersatz universities offering courses and degrees in Criminal Justice and Incarceration Management. An industry is being created. It is a private industry and comes with share holders. Share holders must be satisfied and so the de jure criminalization of a broader range of behaviors must be instituted. The effect is the ever widening institution of consurmerization. We are no longer are considered citizens even by government. We have long been considered to be consumers and market segments by classic private and "publicly" held institutions of commerce. A system is now emerging that is no longer government as a shared responsibility of citizens but is now rather as a sanctioning agency owned by whoever has the most money and the best connections.

So, back to the question, "Who is in charge?"

It is no longer you , Citizen. Government is the shared responsibility of citizens. It is not something that just fell to earth and took over. It is not some thing that is separate and apart from a greater collection of individuals with shared interests. We fought a bloody and lengthy civil war to decide if we would be a confederation of states with individual interests or a nation of a whole with shared interests. The emergence of the movement of privatization of the functions of government is in fact the resurgence of confederation and privilege for special interests. The only connecting values they share is the protection of wealth and position. The drift in that direction can last only so long. Our national experience trauma and prosperity is cyclic and self adjusting. One must read or be taught the history of the U.S. as a nation to understand how that works. The civilizations out of which this nation emerged were cyclic and self adjusting until they chose or were forced not to be. Our story continues.