New Orleans - Who stands to benefit?

There’s been quite a debate going on these past few days in the Nurse’s Lounge about all the hidden agendas which will be perfectly served by the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, and the surreal behaviour of the Federal authorities who didn’t lift a finger for two and a half days after the hurricane passed, thereby ensuring maximum havoc, disruption and disorientation for the victims who were too dirt-poor to get out.

We’ll never know how many people would still be alive if the U.S. Administration hadn’t purposefully condemned those people to inevitable death, and had instead done the job they were elected to do, which is to care for the people of the United States… ALL of them, not just the fat, corrupt, greedy, racist elite who paid to have that blithering, psychopathic chimp installed in the Whitehouse to do their criminal bidding.


Despite all the lies and spin gushing out of the Whitehouse Lying Machine to the contrary, the Administration was told in graphic terms before the hurricane hit exactly how much damage was going to be done.

It’s a matter of documentary fact:

Warnings were loud and clear - but still the city drowned

“If there is a smoking gun in the Gulf Coast wreckage, it is the hurricane warning issued by the New Orleans office of the US National Weather Service soon after 10am on August 28, the eve of Katrina’s arrival.

“Devastating damage expected,” the warning stated. “Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks . . . All gabled roofs will fail . . . All wood-framed low rising apartment buildings will be destroyed . . . Power outages will last for weeks . . . Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards . . . Trees will be snapped or uprooted. Only the heartiest will remain standing.” Another forecast, issued six hours later by the National Hurricane Centre in Florida, said that the levees in New Orleans could be “overtopped”, and predicted the precise depth of flooding that would result.

A day later the city drowned. Hundreds, if not thousands, have died in the chaos. Some casualties were inevitable but many were not, and this much is clear about those in authority who might have minimised the losses: they had been warned.

With hindsight, it is clear that the seeds of what one Republican senator called yesterday the “woeful” government response were sown with shoddy planning. Despite decades of lobbying by local politicians and media for stronger levees, those that ruptured on the night of August 29 had been built by the Army Corps of Engineers to withstand only a Category 3 hurricane. Katrina was a Category 4.

Despite calls since the September 11 attacks for a comprehensive new evacuation plan for New Orleans, the one in place last week had last been updated in 2000, according to the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. The vaguely worded plan stated that “the primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles” even though an estimated 100,000 residents did not own their own cars.

It was also implemented by Ray Nagin, the Mayor, too late for buses to reach those without cars, or to prepare the Superdome to receive them. By the time he did, on August 28, it was clear from the National Hurricane Centre’s flood warnings that federal assistance would be needed swiftly and on a huge scale. Yet it took four days to materialise, largely because of the inertia of the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

…Read full article HERE

Quite what Inmate Bush and his lick-spittle flunkies think they’re going to achieve by making statements like “No-one could possibly have guessed this was going to happen” and “No-one could have predicted the levees would break” is beyond me. They’re lying through their back teeth, and everyone knows it.

Then there’s the rather strange matter of Upsidedownland.

“…I thought I'd find out for myself exactly which Louisiana parishes were and were not included in George W. Bush's declaration of emergency effective August 26th, which you can also reach by clicking the map itself.

I checked the parish map against the White House's own press release, posted on their own site. I have tried to figure out how this is my own mistake, but I can't find it. And the results are frankly so bizarre I had to make the graphic in order to properly show you.

Welcome to upside-down-land: the areas at risk for Katrina were quite remarkably the areas not included in Bush's declaration of emergency.

What the hell?

Compare and contrast with the full and specific statewide list of parishes and the services they will receive issued after the storm hit.Is this really what Bush authorized before the storm hit? Are they really that incompetent?

…full article HERE

You’ve got to admit that to the untrained eye it might look like someone powerful and maliciously has been quietly setting up the whole "what-if" scenario - knowing beyond doubt that "The Big One" would hit New Orleans one day soon - to ensure maximum chaos, destruction, loss of human life and massive national dispersal of the poor black population, who have long been an irritating thorn in the porcelain-white foot of the Ruling Elite.

You see… Rich White People loathe Poor Black People, because Poor Black People tend to get stroppy about the fact that they’re still massively discriminated against, and they get treated like shit ALL the time. Nothing really changes. The rich elite have put on a facade of caring ever since Kennedy upset the racist applecart in the 60's, and now here's a chance for a bit of pay-back.

Rich White People, who cower in their obscene Gated Communities, are frightened of contact with Poor Black People, because they know that the Poor Black People probably hate their guts, and they know they’re guilty of disgraceful racism and bigotry towards them.

Because of its notorious place in American history, the region has a very high proportion of poverty-struck African Americans, and this has become a matter of distaste to the White Elite who have OTHER plans for the area, now that “God” has created the scenario which justifies imposing Martial Law, evacuating all the remaining Poor, and bulldozing all their Public Housing Neighbourhoods. The Black Problem for them is about to turn into a very profitable land-grab, and believe me when I say that Delroy and Letisha won't be let back in…


White Rich elude Orleans chaos, don't want poor blacks back

"The green expanse of Audubon Park, in the city's Uptown area, has doubled in recent days as a heliport for the city's rich -- and a terminus for the small armies of private security guards who have been dispatched to keep the homes there safe and habitable. Mr. O'Dwyer has cellphone service and ice cubes to cool off his highballs in the evening. By yesterday, the city water service even sprang to life, making the daily trips to his neighbor's pool unnecessary. A pair of oil-company engineers, dispatched by his son-in-law, delivered four cases of water, a box of delicacies including herring with mustard sauce and 15 gallons of generator gasoline."

How do they want the city rebuilt?

"The power elite of New Orleans -- whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. -- insist the remade city won't simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.

"The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."
Not every white business leader agrees, Cooper notes.

"Some black leaders and their allies in New Orleans fear that it boils down to preventing large numbers of blacks from returning to the city and eliminating the African-American voting majority. Rep. William Jefferson, a sharecropper's son who was educated at Harvard and is currently serving his eighth term in Congress, says, "This is an example of poor people forced to make choices because they don't have the money to do otherwise," Mr. Jefferson says.

…full article HERE

So we see here quite clearly that the wealthy whites are threatening to up sticks and bugger off to Maryland if there’s so much as a whiff of all those nasty black people being allowed to come back home, where they and their ancestors have lived ever since they were brought over the ocean as slaves. No conscience. No shame. No morals. White Capitalist Pigs.

But what keeps these White Masters in the area, anyway? Yep! You should have known, silly. Oil, Refineries and Shipping, with barely a whiff of cotton!

Rebuilding New Orleans for Big Oil

It sounds callous to even suggest it, but what if they were actually using the disaster to get rid of thousands of inconvenient poor, black people and to demolish an entire city? What would be accomplished to benefit Bush/Cheney and their friends?

The port where New Orleans sits is one of the most important on the Gulf Coast, if not the most important. A huge amount of oil, gas, and other commerce moves through this port. On top of this, for years now, the Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) industry has been trying to get past strict environmental regulations to try to establish a LNG terminal somewhere along this coast, but has run into nothing but roadblocks. It's just too damn dangerous to have such a facility located anywhere near so many people. It has its own inherent dangers, being that there would be such a huge amount of explosive gas moving through the area, but it would also be certain to attract terrorists.But what if they could get rid of one of the biggest roadblocks, the people?

Enter Hurricane Katrina, and you have the perfect opportunity.

We haven't heard from Dick Cheney through this entire ordeal. Suddenly he emerges from his Wyoming hideaway, and he is being dispatched to New Orleans to oversee the reconstruction. How telling. How convenient. Just the man for the job, that is, if it involves furthering the interests of Big Oil/Gas rather than rebuilding for the little people, and poor black ones at that.

President Bush's own mother recently toured the Houston Astrodome and remarked that all those poor people housed there are "so much better off" now than what they're used to, and that many want to stay in Texas!

From the beginning of the evacuations, many of us were skeptical that these hurricane victims would ever be allowed to return home. Barbara Bush's comment should be a big signal to us of the intentions of our government to prevent these people from returning. I expect we'll hear one excuse after another as to why it's not "safe" or "expedient" for these evacuees to return to New Orleans.

It shouldn't come as a big surprise as we watch New Orleans transformed into the biggest oil/LNG port on the Gulf of Mexico.Perhaps they'll throw in a few big convention centers and rebuild a portion of the French Quarter so the rich, like our president in his youth, can continue to have their playground and meeting place.

…see original article HERE

Still… it must have been so comforting for all those poor bastards that the Bushes finally deigned to be photographed with the more 'presentable' victims. Hell, even Poppy and Barb stooped to get their lily-white hands momentarily soiled for the noble cause of Photo Opportunism.

How lucky you Americans are to enjoy such super-duper Patronage from ALL the Bush family in times of National Crisis. Who needs Vague Kings and Cruel Emperors, eh?