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Disaster Profiteering: Purging the Poor in the New New Orleans
Blackwater Down: Fresh From Iraq, Private Security Forces
Roam the Streets of an American City With Impunity
Big, Easy Iraqi-Style Contracts Flood New Orleans
Pacifica Station KPFT Weathers Hurricane Rita
Disaster Profiteering: Purging the Poor in the New
New Orleans
We speak with writer and author Naomi Klein about what some
are calling the real looting of New Orleans. In this week's
cover story in The Nation magazine, Klein reports on how the
city's poorest evacuees are being kept out of thousands of
perfectly livable empty homes. [includes rush
transcript]
Hurricane Rita is now just a day or so away from the US
coast and more than 1.8 million people are being told to evacuate
Gulf Coast communities, particularly in Texas and Louisiana.
For many, it is a horrible nightmare that has struck twice.
And as Rita bears down on the US, the devastation of Katrina
remains. A lot of attention has focused on the government's
failures to protect the people of Louisiana and the question
that still looms over all of this is if New Orleans was New
England, would this have been allowed to happen? Well, as
calls increase for an independent investigation into the Bush
administrations handling of the hurricane, the wealthy elite
of Louisiana, politicians and corporations are moving ahead
with what may best be termed an agenda of disaster profiteering.
Today, we are going to take an in-depth look at what some
are calling the beginning of the real looting of New Orleans.
The cover stories of this week's Nation magazine examines
what has been happening behind the scenes as wealthy business
leaders meet with politicians and government officials, plotting
a path to rebuild New Orleans their way. Meanwhile, these
same forces have brought in some of the most feared private
security companies in the world to protect their interests.
- Naomi Klein, award-winning journalist and author of "Fences
and Windows: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Globalization
Debate" and "No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand
Bullies."
- Read Naomi Klein's article: "Purging
the Poor"
Blackwater Down: Fresh From Iraq, Private Security
Forces Roam the Streets of an American City With Impunity
In this week's cover story in The Nation, Democracy Now!
correspondent Jeremy Scahill reports on how mercenaries from
private security firms like Blackwater USA and BATS are patrolling
the streets in New Orleans. [includes rush transcript]
In his article in The Nation, Jeremy Scahill writes:
"As business leaders and government officials talk openly
of changing the demographics of what was one of the most culturally
vibrant of America's cities, mercenaries from companies like
DynCorp, Intercon, American Security Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut
and an Israeli company called Instinctive Shooting International
(ISI) are fanning out to guard private businesses and homes,
as well as government projects and institutions. Within two
weeks of the hurricane, the number of private security companies
registered in Louisiana jumped from 185 to 235. Some, like
Blackwater, are under federal contract. Others have been hired
by the wealthy elite"
- Jeremy Scahill, Democracy Now! correspondent.
- Read Jeremy Scahill's article: "Blackwater
Down"
Big, Easy Iraqi-Style Contracts Flood New Orleans
As Katrina's flood waters recede, government contractors
are flowing into the Gulf Coast and reaping billions of dollars
in pre-bid, limited bid, and sometimes no-bid contracts. We
speak with Pratap Chatterjee, managing editor of CorpWatch.org,
about his latest article titled "Big, Easy Iraqi-Style
Contracts Flood New Orleans." [includes rush
transcript]
In it, he writes, "In Iraq, limited accountability,
corruption, massive cost overruns, and devastating failures
fed the chaotic mess that has followed the 2003 fall of Baghdad.
Nonetheless, the largest Katrina contracts have been won by
many of the same politically connected companies that oversaw
that failed reconstruction. And it is perhaps no coincidence,
since many of the same people in the Army Corps of Engineers
are awarding them-and in much the same manner: as open-ended,
no- or hastily bid contracts with guaranteed profit margins."
Pacifica Station KPFT Weathers Hurricane Rita
As hurricane Rita bears down on the Gulf Coast, we go to
Houston to speak with the staff of Pacifica Radio station
KPFT - one of the few radio stations still broadcasting in
the city. [includes rush
transcript]
It is now estimated that some 2.5 million people are in
the process of fleeing their homes in the Gulf coast region
of the United States, as Hurricane Rita careens towards the
country. Residents trying to escape Houston, the nation's
fourth largest city, crowded highways and sat in enormous
traffic jams that lasted for hours. One of the few radio stations
still broadcasting from Houston is Pacifica Radio's KPFT.
- Renee Feltz, News Director of Pacifica Radio station KPFT.
- Duane Bradley, General Manager of KPFT
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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