Who benefits from Katrina?
POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Thursday, September 15, 2005 17:06
VIEWED: 1954
PAGE 1 of 3
Just as there clearly wre hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of losers from Katrina, there are also... well, winners. Joseph All baugh, the former head of FEMA under Bush, recently registered as a lobbyist for Kellog,Brown&Root (a subsidiary of Halliburton) and the Shaw corporation.
Quote:www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/10/katrina.contracts.reut/index.html
At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.
Apparently, Bush thought it would be a shame if Federal contractors couldn't get maximum profit out of this disaster, so he decided to drop the wage floor as low as it could go:
Quote:money.cnn.com/2005/09/08/news/economy/katrina_wages.reut/?section=money_latest
President Bush issued an executive order Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage.
The vultures are swooping in. So...
Please don't think they give a shit.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Don't forget the Bottled Water Trust.
(Yes, I posted this just to bug you. Have a nice rage)
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Wow. Now THAT was trite! Go watch TV Geezer. We already know you don't give a shit.
Please don't think they give a shit.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Wow. Now THAT was trite! Go watch TV Geezer. We already know you don't give a shit.
Please don't think they give a shit.
I do give a shit, but not 24/7 (thats called diarrhea). It's just that your unremittingly earnest gloom and doom paranoia (see "diarrhea", above) wears on me to the point that I need a little levity now and then. I can't help it if you're such a convenient straight-man (no gender or sexual preference discrimination intended).
Now back to the ball game!
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I understand Halliburton also has contracts to rebuild New Orleans. Don't have a link,tho....
(Ps: Ignore the fools and maybe they'll go away.)
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
What has happened to my RWED?
Signy, I am very grateful for the excellent research and fact-checking you have done on this site over the past two weeks, well really, for the past three years of course. There's so much information out there, it can be hard to sift through and find the really important stuff, it's hard not to miss crucial bits. You and Rue, along with your foreign correspondents (Citizen and GinoB, for instance), your op. ed. department (7% and Ruxton--glad to see Ruxton back on the show, thought he'd left for good), and your comic relief (where did you find that hilarious fellow with the absurdly self-aggrandizing handle? His act would be so chilling if he weren't so hilarious. If I ever plan to write an update of Doctor Strangelove, I know who to base Col. Jack Ripper on.) have changed all that for me. People in my life come to me now for updates about the important things happening in the world at large because of your tireless commitment to reality.
But in the last couple days things have gotten pretty messed up. When I read the title of this thread yesterday morning, I was not looking forward to the content. I'd assumed that this would be the inevitable "If we don't minimize the reality of our losses to Katrina, the terrorists are winning" post. But it wasn't. I'm very relieved that the admin. and it's apologists have yet to use Katrina to market their favorite show, The War on Terror. It gives me hope that the unavoidable reality of Katrina will bring their 4 year old house of canards (couldn't resist 
) tumbling down about their heads.
Signy, in your effort to find rhetorical footing on the sifting shores of Terra Neoconica you've lost your own moral compass, prolly just left it in your other pants. There comes a point when anger turns poisonous and begins to turn righteousness into something more ghoulish.
"Who benefits from Katrina?" The obvious answer is NO ONE. Not Cheney and not his unnamed buds at Halliburton. To suggest anything else, would be to indulge in the kind of "axis of evil" rhetoric made famous by the very men you're criticizing. Nothing is solved by demonizing the opposition other than absolving you of responsibility. After all, what can we mere mortals do in the face of such powerful and evil men, Signy? The moral highground is 7 feet under water.
But the real answer to your question that we are all working toward, you in particular with your unfailing commitment to getting to the truth, is this: ALL OF US. All of us who still live must benefit from Katrina.
The truth of what has been happening since Katrina continues to come out and the admin. and it's friends have had precious little with which to combat that flood. The best they've got is a fly-by of some submerged buses; and no tie-in with the War on Terror other than the uncomfortable fact that a lot of troops and equipment that should have been here weren't.
I remain hopeful that the people of the United States have had enough of The Big Lie. I'm hopeful in no small part due to the work you and others like you have done to track down the truth and get it out.
Don't lose heart, Signy. Can't you see? We're winning.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Thanks HK. I DO get a little intense. Diahrrheal, some would say.
I admit to being frustrated by people who can put dying of thirst "on hold" for a football game. Must have been a lesson learned in triage- "Ya win some, you lose some." (nudge, nudge)
TO the rest of your post- At the moment I respectfully disagree. But I'll be happy to discuss this with you at some further date when my emotions aren't so raw and I've given it further thought. No offense given?
Please don't think they give a shit.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
None taken. There's a quote from one of my favorite books of all time, The Painted Alphabet by Dianna Darling, goes something like this: "What is most important in a catastrophe is right action." When the shit hits the fan, that's when doing what is kind and sober is most important. Also, my signature is a constant reminder that people are who they are for a lot of reasons that are quite beyond their control.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Mind, just cause some folk don't say much doesn't mean they do not value reading these intelligent (well, mostly.. some.. not so much) discussions from well thought out people, regardless of where their own opinion lies.
Although since the topics of recent have been so grim, imma inject a little humor here.
http://redwing.hutman.net/%7Emreed/
I'm sure it will amuse the hell out of anyone who reads this section of FFF.net
-Frem
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME