Disaster Profiteering: Purging the Poor in the New New Orleans

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" ( http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051010/klein )

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