September 4, 2008 at 05:10:48

Katrina Redux

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By Stephen Lendman (about the author) Page 2 of 4 page(s)

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New Orleans is a metaphor for capitalism's most savage form - outside of war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan. In summer 2005, Katrina wiped out public housing. Erased communities, and let developers replace them with upscale condos and other high-profit projects on choice city real estate. Gentrification writ large. Disneyfication of one of the country's most desirable tourist destinations. Removing poor blacks to make it possible. Assuring most would never return. Remaking New Orleans for profit. Long planned and awaiting a storm to do it. Taking full advantage when it hit.

The Bush administration was heartless with other things on its mind abroad and busy cutting social services budgets at home. It refused emergency funds for public sector salaries so 3000 city workers were fired. Charity Hospital had to close and remains shut. Public transit was gutted and lost half its workers. Most public housing was targeted for removal. Some sits on prime land close to the French Quarter. Developers want it for luxury properties. Katrina (and now Gustav) remade New Orleans to make it possible. It's a window on America's future and business as usual no matter who wins in November. Hopeful optimists be prepared. Disappointment is the operative word for 2009. "Fooled Again," according to Mark Crispin Miller. Democracy here is for the privileged. The rest are to be exploited by neglect and abandonment, then forgotten.

Rules are being hardened. New Orleans is a domestic version of what Iraq pioneered. Creating an open field for capital. Giving administration favorites like Halliburton and Bechtel big contracts. Providing nothing to the poor, disadvantaged and displaced. Importing cheap undocumented labor instead of local workers. Suspending Davis-Bacon Act law that assures prevailing wage rates must be paid on all federally funded or assisted construction projects. Letting developers pay poverty scale instead and deny benefits. Suspending environmental regulations, and dispensing with unwanted people in the way. Assuring the inevitable by leaving New Orleans unprotected, and ignoring FEMA's early 2001 prediction of the three most likely US disasters:

-- a terrorist attack on New York;

-- a major San Francisco earthquake; and the one considered most likely and catastrophic

-- a hurricane and flood in New Orleans.

Experts cited a city below sea level. Vulnerable on the nation's Gulf coast. With inadequate evacuation routes. Poor levy protection. A deteriorating ecosystem from overdevelopment. A catastrophe waiting to happen. Little recollection of when Betsy (in 1965) buried New Orleans under eight feet of water. It at Category 4 entering the Gulf, then downgraded to Category 3 when it struck the city. A future Category 5 one will be disastrous and sure eventually to come.

The city is a bowl ringed by levees, protecting it from the Mississippi to its south and Lake Pontchartrain in the north. At its bottom depth, it lies 14 feet below sea level. Pumping out routine rainfall draws water from the ground. That dries and sinks it deeper. A problem called "subsidence." The city continues to sink. When big storms hit, the bowl fills, and there's no place for water to drain.

Louisiana loses 25 square miles of land a year through erosion. Wetlands are disappearing. Solutions involve huge remediating efforts so far not made. Rebuilding the protective delta. An adequate levee system replacing poorly designed floodwalls not built to standard. Totally overhauling years of planned neglect. Waiting for a chance like Katrina and now Gustav to change the face of New Orleans forever, displace its majority black population, and make the city whiter.

Three years post-Katrina, nearly three-fifths of them aren't back. Most never will be with developers remaking the city into a tourist playground. Housing the wealthy in luxury condos. Keeping out poor blacks in the way. Upgrading New Orleans for profit. "Revitalization" according to city authorities.

Low-cost housing is being phased out. Public transportation as well along with public schools and health facilities that low-income people depend on. FEMA is now exploiting a tragedy and making it worse. Kicking people without homes out of trailers and stranding them on their own.

Bill Quigley is a law professor and Director of the Law Clinic and Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University in New Orleans. He's also been an activist public service lawyer for 30 years - for numerous social issues, including post-Katrina justice.

In an August 26 article, he wrote about the "Katrina Pain Index: New Orleans Three Years Later" and explained the way the city looks today. Some of his data and more are covered below.

-- No Louisiana renters are getting financial aid under the Louisiana Recovery Authority's (LRA) handling of the $10 billion post-Katrina federal Road Home Community Development Block Grant; it's directed to 116,708 homeowners instead and excludes most blacks.

-- No rebuilding plans are in place for the 963 St. Bernard Housing Development units demolished.

-- No data is available to evaluate privatized charter schools; Katrina destroyed half the city's public school buildings; scattered tens of thousands of students and teachers across the country; federal and local authorities jumped on the chance; millions in federal funding went to convert public schools to charter for-profit ones with no debate, input or even knowledge of parents and teachers; all unionized city school employees were fired; then selectively rehired at less pay and fewer or no benefits; New Orleans schools were handed to business; the remaining poor, mostly black population, was disenfranchised; consigned to under-funded schools and denied the education they deserve; 40% fewer special education students (needing extra help) now attend charter schools compared to underfunded public ones; most city schools today are for-profit; plans are for all of them to be.

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I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.

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