[E-rundbrief] Info 272 - M. Parenti: Free Market Killed New Orleans

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 272 - Michael Parenti: How the Free Market Killed New 
Orleans.

Bad Ischl, 3.9.2005

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

===========================================================

How the Free Market Killed New Orleans*

By Michael Parenti

The free market played a crucial role in the destruction of New Orleans and 
the death of thousands of its residents. Armed with advanced warning that a 
momentous (force 5) hurricane was going to hit that city and surrounding 
areas, what did officials do? They played the free market.

They announced that everyone should evacuate. Everyone was expected to 
devise their own way out of the disaster area by private means, just as the 
free market dictates, just like people do when disaster hits free-market 
Third World countries.

It is a beautiful thing this free market in which every individual pursues 
his or her own personal interests and thereby effects an optimal outcome 
for the entire society. This is the way the invisible hand works its wonders.

There would be none of the collectivistic regimented evacuation as occurred 
in Cuba. When an especially powerful hurricane hit that island last year, 
the Castro government, abetted by neighborhood citizen committees and local 
Communist party cadres, evacuated 1.3 million people, more than 10 percent 
of the country's population, with not a single life lost, a heartening feat 
that went largely unmentioned in the U.S. press.

On Day One of the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, it was already 
clear that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American lives had been lost in 
New Orleans. Many people had "refused" to evacuate, media reporters 
explained, because they were just plain "stubborn."

It was not until Day Three that the relatively affluent telecasters began 
to realize that tens of thousands of people had failed to flee because they 
had nowhere to go and no means of getting there. With hardly any cash at 
hand or no motor vehicle to call their own, they had to sit tight and hope 
for the best. In the end, the free market did not work so well for them.

Many of these people were low-income African Americans, along with fewer 
numbers of poor whites. It should be remembered that most of them had jobs 
before Katrina's lethal visit. That's what most poor people do in this 
country: they work, usually quite hard at dismally paying jobs, sometimes 
more than one job at a time. They are poor not because they're lazy but 
because they have a hard time surviving on poverty wages while burdened by 
high prices, high rents, and regressive taxes.

The free market played a role in other ways. Bush's agenda is to cut 
government services to the bone and make people rely on the private sector 
for the things they might need. So he sliced $71.2 million from the budget 
of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, a 44 percent reduction. Plans to 
fortify New Orleans levees and upgrade the system of pumping out water had 
to be shelved.

Bush took to the airways and said that no one could have foreseen this 
disaster. Just another lie tumbling from his lips. All sorts of people had 
been predicting disaster for New Orleans, pointing to the need to 
strengthen the levees and the pumps, and fortify the coastlands.

In their campaign to starve out the public sector, the Bushite 
reactionaries also allowed developers to drain vast areas of wetlands. 
Again, that old invisible hand of the free market would take care of 
things. The developers, pursuing their own private profit, would devise 
outcomes that would benefit us all.

But wetlands served as a natural absorbent and barrier between New Orleans 
and the storms riding in from across the sea. And for some years now, the 
wetlands have been disappearing at a frightening pace on the Gulf' coast. 
All this was of no concern to the reactionaries in the White House.

As for the rescue operation, the free-marketeers like to say that relief to 
the more unfortunate among us should be left to private charity. It was a 
favorite preachment of President Ronald Reagan that "private charity can do 
the job." And for the first few days that indeed seemed to be the policy 
with the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina.

The federal government was nowhere in sight but the Red Cross went into 
action. Its message: "Don't send food or blankets; send money." Meanwhile 
Pat Robertson and the Christian Broadcasting Network---taking a moment off 
from God's work of pushing John Roberts nomination to the Supreme 
Court---called for donations and announced "Operation Blessing" which 
consisted of a highly-publicized but totally inadequate shipment of canned 
goods and bibles.

By Day Three even the myopic media began to realize the immense failure of 
the rescue operation. People were dying because relief had not arrived. The 
authorities seemed more concerned with the looting than with rescuing 
people. It was property before people, just like the free marketeers always 
want.

But questions arose that the free market did not seem capable of answering: 
Who was in charge of the rescue operation? Why so few helicopters and just 
a scattering of Coast Guard rescuers? Why did it take helicopters five 
hours to get six people out of one hospital? When would the rescue 
operation gather some steam? Where were the feds? The state troopers? The 
National Guard? Where were the buses and trucks? the shelters and portable 
toilets? The medical supplies and water?

Where was Homeland Security? What has Homeland Security done with the $33.8 
billions allocated to it in fiscal 2005? Even ABC-TV evening news 
(September 1, 2005) quoted local officials as saying that "the federal 
government's response has been a national disgrace."

In a moment of delicious (and perhaps mischievous) irony, offers of foreign 
aid were tendered by France, Germany and several other nations. Russia 
offered to send two plane loads of food and other materials for the 
victims. Predictably, all these proposals were quickly refused by the White 
House. America the Beautiful and Powerful, America the Supreme Rescuer and 
World Leader, America the Purveyor of Global Prosperity could not accept 
foreign aid from others. That would be a most deflating and insulting role 
reversal. Were the French looking for another punch in the nose?

Besides, to have accepted foreign aid would have been to admit the 
truth---that the Bushite reactionaries had neither the desire nor the 
decency to provide for ordinary citizens, not even those in the most 
extreme straits. Next thing you know, people would start thinking that 
George W. Bush was really nothing more than a fulltime agent of Corporate 
America.

------- Michael Parenti's recent books include Superpatriotism (City 
Lights) and The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press), both available 
in paperback. His forthcoming The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories Press) 
will be published in the fall. For more information visit: 
www.michaelparenti.org.

This message has been brought to you by ZNet (http://www.zmag.org). Visit 
our site for subscription options.


Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
     Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
     Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
     Wolfgangerstr. 26, A-4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
     fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
     Impressum in: http://www.begegnungszentrum.at
Spenden-Konto Nr. 0600-970305 (Blz. 20314) Sparkasse Bad Ischl, 
Geschäftsstelle Pfandl
IBAN: AT922031400600970305    BIC: SKBIAT21XXX