Is a term coined by Homer Simpson upon learning that the Chinese use the same word to mean crisis as they do for opportunity, back when the Simpsons were worth watching, but then I digress.

A lot of management training courses and advice columns also stress how good executives can find opportunity in crisis situations.  “Great leaders know that significant opportunity lies in a world turned upside down”, according to an article on Forbes.com. 

A crisis also makes for good news, or at least is good for ratings. 

“Like other cable news services, Newsworld (the CBC’s CNN equivalent) does enjoy periodic spikes in viewership, almost always linked to major news events that supplement its core audience with legions of more transient news-watchers. The quintessentially Canadian political soap opera known as Meech Lake delivered such a spike, as did the horrific events of 9/11, not to mention two Persian Gulf wars, one waged during the presidency of George Bush, père, and the other mainly on the watch of George Bush, fils.
In each case, once the excitement and drama had eased, the Newsworld audience quickly reverted to its customarily modest size. This phenomenon poses a powerful temptation for Newsworld and similar services.

"You want to think about having lots of big events," says Christopher Waddell, director of journalism and communication at Carleton University. "You start turning small events into big events." "

http://www.thestar.com/article/674971

Obviously, the folks in the news industry are all aware of what attracts eyeballs, despite their pious moanings about journalistic integrity, story depth and quality coverage.  For which, as far as I can tell, the English translation is: I’m so much smarter than you, I’m morally superior to boot, and where’s my prune danish, anyways?  As such their opportunities lie in times of crisis, and since they decide is newsworthy it is unsurprising that they can find a crisis or two on a daily basis.

News about the economy is perfect for this, both because it affects everyone and because most people are so startlingly ignorant of even basic economics that they can be easily lead down the primrose path.

“Coverage of the economy is shrouded in gloom at the best of times, on the principle described by the American journalist Gregg Easterbrook: All Economic News is Bad. News is change; change helps some, hurts others; the ones it hurts are the ones we hear from; ergo, AENIB.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2008/12/04/never-let-a-good-economic-crisis-go-to-waste/

The first rule of robbers is to start a fire at the North end of town, and then rob the Bank at the South end of town.  Or, to put it another way, opportunity in crisis, and the incentive to create opportunities by manufacturing crisis, is also true of the Democrats, as we have heard straight from several donkey’s mouths:

“Rule 1: Never allow a crisis to go to waste,” White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told the New York Times right after the election. “They are opportunities to do big things.” Over the weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told an audience at the European Parliament, “Never waste a good crisis.” Then President Obama explained in his Saturday radio and Internet address that there is “great opportunity in the midst of” the “great crisis” befalling America.”

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDUwNzkzNjk0MGFjMzRkNWZkZmE1OWY5MGIwOGFmZmQ=

In a bit of irony, or more accurately psychological projection, Republican/Conservatives are often accused of doing this by the left.  The following blurb is for Naomi Klein’s new book, Shock Doctrine, the Rise of Disaster Capitalism.  I don’t think we need to read the book to know who she’s talking about, but who do you think best fits what’s being described?

“Around the world in Britain, the United States, Asia and the Middle East, there are people with power who are cashing in on chaos; exploiting bloodshed and catastrophe to brutally remake our world in their image. They are the shock doctors. Thrilling and revelatory, The Shock Doctrine cracks open the secret history of our era.”

http://www.naomiklein.org/main

This is one of the most important practical reasons for the symbiotic relationship between the press and Democrats.  The alignment is most perfect as a result of their shared ideological positions: they share the same profit motive to create a crisis and a similar sense of what a crisis usually means: bad things happen due to a lack of government intervention, the solution to which is increased government intervention.  Shared ideology is nice and all, but the reason the press and the Dems are joined at the hips is, like everything else, due to the bottom line.  The constant series of mini-crisis that they jointly create and/or exacerbate, the Gates incident being a good recent example of this, leads to ratings and money for the news shows and to contributions to Dems and their supporting organizations and to votes, which they parley into benefits for themselves and their supporters via the machinery of government.

And if you’d like an example of the trickle-down effect of these pronouncements, look at what my Google search for never allow a crisis to go to waste found, a recent article from an NIH publication entitled: “Mental health and human rights: never waste a serious crisis”, which actually quotes Rahm Emmanuel and uses this maxim to justify its criticisms and formulate proposed responses to the treatment of the mentally ill in Jakarta (the one in Indonesia, not Rhode Island).  These are imitable acts, people, and there are consequences, so cut it out, please, for the sake of the children.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2704170

I’d like to close with another Homer Simpson quote (with added comments in parantheses for the SCDS’rs reading) and by listing the three rules given by the Forbes article.  I think that the Dems and co. are very good at following two of the rules, and a disaster when it comes to the third.  I’ll let you figure out which one that is.

“Never Waste A Crisis.  Great leaders know that significant opportunity lies in a world turned upside down.”

“First, figure out how to survive.”

“Second, ask yourself what you can do now that you couldn't do before. This is the crux of successfully taking advantage of a world turned upside down. How can you position yourself now, so that you will be better off than you were, once the crisis is over?”

“Finally, no whining.”

http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/24/global-crisis-management-lead-management-cx_snj_1124joni.html

Homer: From now on, there are three ways to do things: the right (Conservative) way, the wrong (Democrat) way, and the Max Power (McCain) way.
Bart: Isn't that just the wrong (Democrat) way?
Homer: Yeah, but faster!