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Resistance See other Resistance Articles Title: Robin Hood in Reverse: Corporate and Government Looting of the Gulf Coast Robin Hood in Reverse: Corporate and Government Looting of the Gulf Coast By Bill Quigley t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor Monday 13 November 2006 Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. On the Gulf Coast, the reverse is happening. Federal, state and local governments are teaming up with corporations and developers to systematically steal hurricane relief funds from the poor to enrich themselves. Billions of dollars were given to help the communities damaged by Katrina. The people gave this money to help the working, elderly and disabled people of the Gulf Coast rebuild and restart their lives after Katrina. The need is still great. Over 300,000 people remain displaced from the City of New Orleans alone. Hundreds of thousands of others on the rest of the Gulf Coast are also not home. Over 80,000 families in Louisiana are living in FEMA trailers. Texas says they have 250,000 displaced people, and Georgia reports another 100,000. Tragically, money that was supposed to go to those in need is instead being diverted by federal, state and local politicians and corporations who have swooped down on these billions and are taking them for other purposes. Example one: Congress allocated $10.4 billion through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program to rebuild Louisiana. By law, over 50% of these funds are supposed to benefit low and moderate income people. As of November 1, 2006, only eighteen people have actually received any of this money to fix up their homes, out of over 77,000 homeowners who have applied for assistance. Yes, only 18! Louisiana cannot get the money to those in need, but it has managed to start paying a corporate management company, ICF International, $756 million over the next three years. This is very big for ICF, whose total revenue in 2005 was $177 million. While tens of thousands of homeowners wait for assistance, renters are not even on the list. Not a single dollar of CDBG money is allocated directly to any of the renters devastated by Katrina, despite the fact that over 50% of the people in New Orleans were renters. Example two: Louisiana is giving $200 million in CDBG federal hurricane relief funds to bail out a private utility corporation, Entergy New Orleans. This corporation pleads poverty despite being a subsidiary of its parent, Entergy Inc., which reported a net cash flow of $777 million dollars for the third quarter of 2006. Worse, Louisiana is saying this $200 million in CDBG funds counts as a contribution to the low and moderate income people of New Orleans - most of whom have not even made it back to the city. Example three: US Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which has taken over the local Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), is seeking millions in hurricane relief tax credits to demolish over 5000 apartments. Since Katrina, HUD and HANO have barred thousands of families from returning to their apartments. All the renters are African-American. Most are mothers and grandmothers. Some are elderly and disabled. Private apartments are out of the question as rent in the New Orleans area is up nearly 80% over last year. These apartments are safe and could have already been repaired, but almost all the maintenance workers were fired. A professor from MIT recently inspected the apartments and declared they are structurally sound and are in better shape than most of the rest of the housing in New Orleans. Residents still living in Texas and Georgia are pleading to return to their apartments and promise to clean up the apartments themselves if only the government will take the bars off the doors and windows. Developers and the agencies want to tear these apartments down and build other mixed income housing. They say there is only a short window of opportunity available to get hurricane tax credits to demolish and redevelop so it does not make financial sense to repair the apartments. After taking millions in hurricane relief money, will the developers still provide affordable housing to 5000 families? Absolutely not. HUD flatly says that everyone who lived in these apartments before Katrina will not have a home after the developers are finished. Public housing residents remember a 1600-apartment development was demolished before Katrina and only 100 families have been allowed to live in the new place. A hopeful sign is that Amnesty International USA has joined in on the side of local residents and affordable housing allies. AIUSA has mounted a campaign calling on people across the country to "stand with Katrina survivors and call for HUD to stop the destruction of housing for low-income residents." Meanwhile, disaster profiteering continues. The Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 was established by Congress to rebuild the communities devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. So far, this has been used to subsidize all kinds of private projects, including the building of a mall for Target and JC Penny in Lafayette, expanding an auto dealership in Baton Rouge, and converting a plantation in Livingston into a hotel. This corporate plundering follows the path taken in the immediate days after Katrina, when politically connected corporations were given hundreds of millions of no-bid contracts: Ashbritt Inc., of Pompano Beach, Florida, has received contracts worth over $579 million for debris removal from Army Corps of Engineers despite apparently not owning a single dumptruck. [1] Ashbritt had only recently paid $40,000 to the lobbying firm Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, which had been run by Mississippi governor and former National GOP chair Haley Barbour. The owners of Ashbritt gave $50,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2004. [2] Ceres Environmental, of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, was given a $500 million contract for debris removal in Louisiana by the Corps on September 16, 2005. Additional contracts bring the company up to $555 million. In the previous 4 years, the company had received a total of $29 million in government contracts. [3] The Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance lists the company as a provider of "yard waste compost and horticultural potting soil." [4] Circle B Enterprises was awarded $287 million in contracts for housing by FEMA, despite not even being licensed to build homes in its own state of Georgia and filing for bankruptcy in 2003. [5] The company does not even have a web site. Other corporations profiting off the devastation include Bechtel, Blackwater, CH2M Hill, Fluor, Halliburton subsidiary KBR and many others. There has been no real oversight of these misdeeds. The only criminal charges filed have been against individuals who ripped off programs for a couple of hundred or a few thousand dollars. Most recently, the Department of Justice triumphantly announced to the press that they had issued an indictment for abuse of Katrina funds - of a man who illegally received Katrina unemployment benefits while still working! Meanwhile, hundreds of millions are being diverted without a peep from the government. The people of New Orleans and the Gulf coast are fighting against the robbing of the poor and the looting of hurricane relief funds, but the clock is ticking. Before long, there will be no money left. The generosity of those who contributed to help those harmed by Katrina will be snugly in the pockets of developers and corporations. Affordable housing will remain scarce. The working poor, the elderly and the disabled will remain displaced. The next disaster will occur, and this will happen again. Support the people and community organizations of the Gulf Coast in this fight. Raise righteous and holy hell! Join with Amnesty International USA in the human rights campaign to stop the demolition of affordable housing. Ask your federal elected officials for an immediate investigation into the looting of the Gulf Coast. We need your help, before all the money is gone. [1] Patrick Danner, "Ashbritt Cleans Up in Wake of Storms," December 5, 2006, Miami Herald. [2] (Matera, "Profiles of 12," P 4) [3] http://www.taxpayer.net/budget/katrinaspending/contracts/ceres.pdf [4] http://www.moea.state.mn.us/rpdir/rpbrowse2.cfm?CatgID=17 [5] Washington Post, "Emergency Housing Contractor Hired by FEMA Lacks License," October 5, 2005. -------- Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He can be reached at Quigley@loyno.edu. If you want to know more, check out http://www.justiceforneworleans.org and look at the CorpWatch report, "Big, Easy Money: Disaster Profiteering on the American Gulf Coast."
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#1. To: Kamala (#0)
What? Government proves inefficient at distributing charity? Special interests prove themselves more adept than mere peasants, at obtaining the government funds? This is unprecedented!
What are the priority issues of our nation? # Iraq # 911 # New Orleans # Illegal Immigration # NAFTA # Repeal of the Patriot Act # Whatever I left out I'm asking for your input in order to get a general concensus of what the priority issues are. What are your top THREE?
All men die. Not all men truly live. Live for something, rather than die for nothing.
See question above.
All men die. Not all men truly live. Live for something, rather than die for nothing.
Iraq Patriot Act 1/2, Real ID, Military Commissions Act, etc Mark The FBI, rather than trying to prevent a terrorist attack, was merely gathering intelligence so they would know who to arrest when a terrorist attack occurred.— Robert Wright - Former FBI agent "At temperatures above 800º C structural steel loses 90 percent of its strength. Yet even when steel structures are heated to those temperatures, they never disintegrate into piles of rubble, as did the Twin Towers and Building 7."-http://www.911research.net
1. Banking 2. Money 3. Constitutional government All or most of the others would resolve themselves when we address these three issues and fix them.
“The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge, and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal.” James Fenimore Cooper
# Iraq # 911 # New Orleans # Illegal Immigration # NAFTA # Repeal of the Patriot Act # Whatever I left out 1. Restoration of Habeas and Equal protection (repeal of the torture bill) 2. Repeal of the Patriot Act 3. Restoration of fiscal sanity in the gummint' budget.
the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.
more rope ping
# Iraq # 911 Sorry I missed this request earlier.
all according to plan....... .......Katrina A 'Man-Made Storm' For Profits "....Today, Tesla's SCALAR technology is being used by the U.S.A., Russia, Japan and possibly others to create Weather Weapons of Mass Destruction. Since the People have not been made aware of this amazing technology, the individuals {the Illuminati}, who control the world's major governments, can use Scalar technology "for profit" without being detected by the over six billion human beings on Planet earth............ The Illuminati and their government agents, Bush, Blair,Cheney, Rice, Putin, Sharon etc. etc. all play their roles in the Illuminati's hideous agenda of total control of Planet Earth. They do not care or have any compassion for the millions and possibly billions of humans who will have to be killed for the Illuminati to achieve their SICK agenda. Hurricane Katrina and the destruction and suffering it has caused is just one example of the SICK Illuminati minds who are behind the scenes manipulating these catastrophic wars and events on their way to achieve what they call their "Great Work of Ages". The Bush/Cheney and the Illuminati gang and their connected associates all stand to benefit financially from Hurricane Katrina to the tune of hundreds of billions and over the long term, TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS. They will reap the huge profits from higher oil prices. They will get the billions of dollars in contracts to rebuild New Orleans and all the other areas devastated by this "storm". They will be able to buy the devastated property for pennies on the dollar. Their banks will receive huge amounts of interest on the loans that will be made to the U.S. government, corporations and individuals who will need the financing for rebuilding. Their similar horrific insane "destroy and rebuild" plan "for profit" was used in WW l and WW ll and is currently being used in Afghanistan and Iraq. Lie, cheat and murder on a global scale>>>this is the sick, insane,satanic Illuminati way, unfortunately for humanity. WAKE UP ALL HUMAN BEINGS IN AMERICA AND THE WORLD! ...."
Micah 4:13 says to arise and thresh, and God will help us take their ill-gotten gain, [and put it to better use, such as by using it to heal the nations, including our own.] I'd say the #1 priority, then, is waking up the people to their heritage that has been hidden from them [ Galatians 3:16-29, http://www.historicist.com/ojnj/ojnj6.htm ], and the conspiracy and war that has been waged against them. Their Achilles heel: "....Let us, above all, make it impossible for Christians to be reunited, or for non-Christians to join the Church; otherwise the greatest obstruction to our domination will be strengthened and all our work undone. Our plot will be unveiled, the Gentiles will turn against us, in the spirit of revenge, and our domination over them will never be realized. Let us remember that as long as there still remain active enemies of the Christian Church, we may hope to become Master of the World . . . And let us remember always that the future Jewish King will never reign in the world before Christianity is overthrown . . . " (London Catholic Gazette, February, 1936; and in Paris Le Reveil du Peuple). luther.htm" Speeches delivered at the B'nai B'rith Convention in Paris
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