Customer Reviews

Stormy Weather: Katrina and the Politics of Disposability (Radical Imagination Series)

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"Stormy Weather" by Henry A. Giroux is a penetrating and compelling analysis of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. Mr. Giroux places the event within its historical context in order to illuminate how the U.S. has been digressing away from democracy and towards authoritarianism. Intelligently applying Michel Foucault's concept of 'biopower' to discuss how the state chooses to exercise sovereign control over its citizens, Mr. Giroux presents an exceptionally powerful deconstruction and critique of the frightening world that neoliberalism has spawned. Mr. Giroux's erudite and passionate commentary also proposes how we might begin to reclaim our lost democracy.

The book has two chapters. The first discusses how the suffering of the poor in New Orleans underscores how neoliberalism has found it more convenient to dispose of populations considered to be economically unproductive than to care for them. Mr. Giroux contends that the media images of the poor, sick and elderly among the predominantly African-American populations who were left to fend for themselves exposed the persistence of racism. Mr. Giroux suggests that neoliberal policies that sacrifice the public interest in favor of privatization schemes and tax cuts for the wealthy are to blame for eroding the social compact where public works projects are gutted and large sectors of the population are marginalized, inlcuding those who were simply unable to leave New Orleans without access to private transportation. Suggesting that the government's response to the disaster was not simply a matter of incompetence but "malign neglect", Mr. Giroux discusses how security forces later cleansed the city of its poor in order to allow redevelopment for the benefit of corporate interests.

While much of this has been commented upon by others, a distinguishing characteristic of Mr. Giroux's work is his methodical peeling of the layers of the onion to connect the Katrina tragedy with the inner logic of the neoliberal economic system. To that end, the second chapter discusses the increasingly authoritarian practices of the U.S. government under the Bush administration. Mr. Giroux believes that preemptive war, spying, torture and illegal detentions are proof that the U.S. has embraced militarization as a domestic and foreign policy solution; this is intended to quell dissent and promote a market fundamentalism dedicated to consumerism and free markets where the rich are rewarded and the poor are punished. However, the author hopes that the outrage stirred by the Katrina disaster will compel citizens to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy and work cooperatively to restore justice and democracy.

I highly recommend this insightful, timely and powerful book to everyone.

I don't often write reviews but felt I had to for this. This book is a complete debacle. It is a prime example of what happens when someone on the extreme political left uses a national disaster to fuel their own agenda and opinion. Or rather I should say it is what happens when someone tries to write an entire book based around the ignorant, self-loathing comment of one Kanye West, "George Bush does not care about black people." Haha. The author has trouble actually writing anything in the novel (more like a long essay) that is genuinely original or thought-provoking. Literally every two or three paragraphs are punctuated by half a page of quotes dialogue from a pundit or liberal publication that just explains again everything he took 3 pages to already tell us. His sources are neither scholarly or reputable. Not to mention the fact that this is a novel written about race relations and politics in America by a WHITE CANADIAN. I could go on for pages upon pages about how much of an atrocity the writing style but won't here for the sake of clarity. Let's just say that Mr. Giroux's pocket thesaurus must have been working double duty. Also, it is apparent he lacks even the grammatical understanding of a 3rd grader as his use of run on sentencing borders on the absurd. I am looking as I type this at once sentence that goes on (without exaggeration) for about 3 pages, restating 4 times the same opinion. And THAT my friends is what this is: a work of fiction, hearsay, and bias. Please do not read it as fact. If I was not forced to read this sorry excuse for writing for a class I don't think I could truly appreciate how warped the far left has become. The author is a puppet and this is just one of his many works that uses an event to fuel his agenda. Read if you want an understanding at how far our country has fallen because of social dependence on the government and the gimme attitude that shapes the left. Read it if you are done figuring out how to help yourself and others and just want the government to provide everything for you and control your life. Read it if your an ignorant, politically blind, socially unaware person.