Reconstruction, The Real Looting of New Orleans

The dead have not even been counted yet, and already the vultures are circling the city of New Orleans. My cute friend Marcia Ellen pointed out in her piece yesterday, that Halliburton had already lined up a contract to remove debris from future disasters. But don't you think its a little funny that the former director of FEMA is now a lobbyist for Halliburton?

Joe Allbaugh, the former head of FEMA and also the guy who gave us our new head of Fema, Michael Brown, left the government and started up his own little lobbying gig. It's common practice, it happens all the time, defense contractors hire former generals, college roomates are given government positions way beyond their experience, all the rich white guys with connections take care of the other rich white guys, who contribute so much to the campaigns of our elected officials. We realize that this is the way things work in government, until something like this disaster happens, and then we start screaming, but it's already too late.

You had to figure that the corporations that feed on fat government contracts would smell a large government handout like a shark smells blood in the water. Now the feeding frenzy for corporations close to the White House begins. Its not just Halliburton, but other clients of the former FEMA director turned lobbyist. The Shaw Group and Bechtel (Daddy Bush is on the board) have secured contracts for reconstruction. To assist with the recovery and disposition of the victims of Katrina, FEMA has hired Kenyon Worldwide Disaster Management, a wholly owned subsidiary of SCI, a Houston based funeral home that was involved in a huge scandal in Texas during Bush's tenure as Governor, for improperly embalming the corpses, what ever that means. And can you guess who was the Governor's chief of staff at the time? If you said Joe Allbaugh, you would be correct, and you win a dozen glazed donuts.

The people who expressed shock at the looting in NOLA during the floods are probably the same people who make snide remarks about welfare checks, but say nothing about the huge class of corporate welfare we have created during the Bush Administration. A better idea for the re-building of the city might be one suggested by Naomi Klein (who is also really cute, not as cute as Marcia Ellen, but nearly so) to involve the many residents of New Orleans who now have no jobs, and no income, in the reconstruction of their own city. Of course you will need the specialists to figure out how to protect New Orleans from future floods, but re-building is cathartic for people who have lost everything, and I figure there must be tons of small construction companies ready to go back to work. They can probably do it for half the cost.

Unfortunately, these small local companies and unemployed Americans have no powerful connections to the White House, no lobbyist to represent them. This is the country that we live in, and until we the people demand true reform, this is the America we're stuck with. Just remember that if it can happen in New Orleans, it can happen in Chicago, San Diego, Detroit...it can happen to you or me. It can and will happen as long as we allow it.

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