The Real Hurricane Looters Have Only Just Begun

First off, yeah, much to my chagrin, I'm quoting Jesse Jackson. But he (as he often is) is right!

But while the victims are simply trying to get their bearings, the barracudas are circling. Naomi Klein, who witnessed this in Iraq, calls it 'disaster capitalism.' Congress has appropriated $62 billion already. Hundreds of billions more will be spent on reclaiming the Gulf Coast, rebuilding and relocation. The feeding frenzy has begun.

Already Halliburton is on hand with a no-bid contract for reconstruction. Fluor, Bechtel, the Shaw Group - Republican-linked firms - are lining up for contracts. Lobbyists like Joe Allbaugh, close friend of George Bush, and James Lee Witt, close friend of Bill Clinton - both former heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency - are advising their corporate clients to get teams on the scene. Normal rules of contracting and competition are being waived in the emergency. Big bucks are on the table. It is a time to be wired politically.

The ideologues are in the hunt, too. Newt Gingrich is circulating memos calling for turning the region into a massive enterprise zone, slashing corporate taxes, reducing regulations. The oil lobby is pushing for drilling in Alaska and off the shores of the United States. Right wing activist Grover Norquist calls for cutting taxes on the wealthy even more to stimulate the economy. Arizona Republican Rep. Jeff Flak suggests conservatives use the crisis to try out their favorite ideas - vouchers for education and health care.

President Bush characteristically issued an executive order effectively lowering the wages of reconstruction workers - and hiking the profits of their companies. He wiped out the requirement to pay prevailing wages in the disaster region, apparently thinking that $9 an hour for construction workers was too high a price to pay. The government can save money, no doubt, by exploiting illegal immigrant labor.

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We shouldn't let disaster capitalists make a killing while those who suffered the greatest devastation are left out of the mix. We need a serious plan to rebuild vital infrastructure, to make New Orleans sustainable, to develop affordable housing and mass transit, to rebuild schools. Tax breaks and enterprise zones will end up building floating casinos and luxury condos. We need public investment, linked to a Civilian Construction and Conservation Corps that gives priority to housing, hiring, training and putting to work the poor people who lost.

The Bush administration's inaction and indifference after Katrina hit abandoned the poor and added to their suffering. It would be tragic now if action by the Republican Congress and the Bush administration added to the misery. These people already have had their past swept away by Katrina's furies. We should ensure that their future is not erased by right wing ideologues rewarding disaster capitalists and excluding those who suffered the most from the deal.

In more than one heated discussion with a redneck type, I've charged that the same folks who will try to get the death penalty for a nigga that stole their wallet, will cower helplessly in a corner if their pension plan is gutted, an insurance company gives them the shaft, a contractor bilks them or a company lays them off with a pittance of a severance. They never seem to realize that thievery is thievery and that corporate greed wreaks far more damage and costs them exponentially more than some random thug who, for whatever reason, takes up petty theft.

So, while people like Karen Hughes claim that the world will remember the looting of plasma TVs, average Americans will stand by - without action or complaint - and watch the greedy rich line their pockets with profits from this disaster.