US media hails martial law general in New Orleans

By Bill Van Auken

It is not merely a matter of turning to the military out of expediency, however. There are deep concerns within America’s financial oligarchy about the country’s political stability. The gulf separating the super-rich at the top of the economic ladder—who control both major parties—and the great majority of American working people has become so great as to render any form of democracy unworkable.

The storm that hit New Orleans brought this social chasm starkly into the open and, with it, the potential for social upheavals. The greatest fear within the American establishment is that out of this deepening crisis there will emerge a mass political challenge to the profit system. These are the conditions in which a martial law general is being offered as an “icon of leadership.”