The Shock Doctrine at City Hall

Ottawa’s recent draft budget report suggests closing 23 community centres, nine libraries, wading pools, reducing bus service, doubling the cost of ice arena rentals, eliminating web-casting of council meetings, cutting public health nurses etc, etc.

Larry o noted that his zero-for-zero campaign "is a war." Indeed, Larry O'Brien has hit it right on the head. His scorch earth policy is an emulation of the “Shock Doctrine:” a clean slate razing of the city and the services it provides. It goes like this. Render the citizens helpless into a state of shock through distortions, and flip-flops; use any tactic necessary to disorient them, unbalance them; bring them child-like state, and then, slowly, on that clean slate, rebuild the state, in your image, into a empty shell which has been completely gutted and outsourced (à la Calian). This tactic so wonderfully exposed in Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism has become the new mantra of right-wing ideologues. Larry 0’s brainless blunder has brought the Doctrine to City Hall. O’Brien’s constant flip-flops and distortions, amount to tactics of psychological warfare used against Ottawa’s citizens to bypass and overcome the democratic process.

There is a second dimension to this. The Shock Doctrine is a democracy avoidance strategy premised on violence. Now, in the urb, violence does not necessarily equate troops with guns in the city. But violence can be more subtle: it can enacted through a disempowerment of rights. The health of cities is entirely dependant on quality services such as libraries, health clinics, housing, recreation. Without these basic services the city is an empty shell, and the marginalized get pushed further into the fringes of society. Meanwhile, the cities enforcers are getting a 9% increase in their already massive budget – no questions asked. You get the idea.

Any voices of reason in this insane debate? "In a real economic business sense, the cost of providing the services is cheaper than not providing the services," Rev. Brian Cornelius, the minister at First United Church said. "It's pay a little bit more now or a lot more later, and taxpayers should realize this."

Gutting the city for 52 cents a day? I say we need to overcome this shock by recovering our narrative. Thankfully the people at People for a Better Ottawa have started the reclamation.