Disaster industrial complex: New Orleans gripped by greed

Disaster industrial complex: New Orleans gripped by greed

http://www.sfbayview.com/neworleans/grippedbygreed092805.shtml

Disaster industrial complex: New Orleans gripped by greed

by Jordan Flaherty

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But the worst damage is what is being done now, this confluence of forces barraging New Orleans and its Diaspora, what some local organizers have referred to as "the Disaster Industrial Complex." This is the perfect storm created by an orgy of greed and opportunism engaged in by the jackals of disaster profiteering.

The list of those who are gaining from our loss is large, and it includes everyone from the heavily armed thugs of Wackenhut Security and Blackwater USA, to the often well-meaning but ineffective bureaucrats of Red Cross and FEMA, to the Scientology missionaries crowding the shelters, to journalists and disaster-gazers taking up a chunk of available housing, to the major multi-nationals such as Halliburton, working in concert with rich elites from uptown New Orleans, seeking partners with which to exploit this tragedy.

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I spoke last night to journalist and organizer Rosa Clemente about the harrowing sights she's seen in shelters from Baton Rouge to Houston. Aside from the aforementioned team of Scientology missionaries, she also saw a National Guard soldier point a gun at a five-year-old, as well as being briefly placed under arrest herself.

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As I write this, I'm sitting at the River Shelter in Baton Rouge, surrounded by National Guard, with a Virginia "Police Command Center" parked in front of me and a Scientologist Mission Center behind me, with news vans parked around, looking for comments on Bush's latest speech.