Natural disasters and free market fundamentalism. posted by Richard Seymour

When George W. Bush had the chutzpah to say to international television cameras, without a trace of irony, that America is facing it's greatest natural disaster ever, I wonder if anyone else thought "yeah, one abortion could have prevented it forever".


Nausea.

There are all sorts of reasons to want to see Bush and his entourage handed over to Tawhid wal Jihad, but if they really are holding back aid until Bush arrives for his photo-op, then beheading may very well be too good for the bastards. No wonder New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin is so angry (MP3 file): "I keep hearing that it's coming... this is coming, that is coming... my answer to that is 'BS, where is it?' ... Excuse my French, ladies and gentlemen, but I am pissed! ... They're feeding the people a line of bull, and they're spinning and they're doing nothing." He also describes most of the 'looters' as desperate, trying to survive, with only a few 'knuckleheads' doing some awful things. He also mentions that because drugs are such a problem in New Orleans, you now have people unable to take the edge off their addiction, and some of them now have guns, which is partially escalating the situation. "I don't wanna see anyone do another goddam press conference, put a moratorium on press conferences ... get off your asses and do something and let's fix the greatest crisis that this country has ever faced." Then there's a depressing recounting of just how awful things are likely to be for New Orleans in the future: "It's never gonna be the same again. People won't have jobs, won't have homes..." The interview ends with both Mayor Nagin and the radio host breaking down in tears.


Residents tend a poorly woman.

Some more information on the profiteers of privatisation. I received a very brief, slightly cryptic note in my inbox: "Three words in the 6/04 press release: James Lee Witt. What did he used to do?" So, one question: Who is James Lee Witt? According to the blog, Talk Left, he was FEMA director under Clinton and an all-round good egg. He got down and dirty, and was prepared to do just about anything to mitigate the disasters that accrued down South under Bubba. He's fairly eulogised in that post, probably on account of the American left's infatuation with Clinton. Well, what is he up to these days? He now runs James Lee Witt Associates, which was co-drafted alongside IEM to help run New Orleans' emergency response programmes. His website too seems strangely reticent about its role in the catastrophe, merely directing one to a list of FEMA-approved agencies which can help, and also citing a Letter to the Editor from his eminence, couching a bit of self-puffery in policy advice. This article on the privatisation drive in FEMA and governmental disaster management programmes notes that while James Lee Witt was himself once a staunch critic of Bush's privatisation drives, but shut his gob once his firm won a contract in Orlando, Florida (Jeb Bush country) to help win the city a sizable share of FEMA funding in the wake of Hurricane Charley - yes, they won't just give you the money now. You've got to sell your case to the federal government.

Same e-mailer draws my attention to the Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan, which did predict the dire outcomes that we have seen in New Orleans and elsewhere, but which was neither adequate in its prescriptions nor was followed properly.

Meanwhile Lis Riba writes with some further information about IEM:

How did IEM get such a plum appointment?
Remember Newt Gingrich's (brief) successor Rep. Bob Livingston?

The Livingston Group, the firm of former House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La., also has clients that are marketing new technologies in Washington. Livingston represents Innovative Emergency Management, a Baton Rouge, La., company that specializes in chemical and biological emergency response. The firm has done work with state governments and the U.S. Army; with Livingston's help, company executives were able to pay visits recently to officials from the Defense and Health and Human Services departments.

Source: SELLING SECURITY. By: Stone, Peter H.. National Journal, 12/15/2001, Vol. 33 Issue 50-52, p3864, 3p

Further:

Back in 2000, some congressional hearings by the House Armed Services Committee reveal that IEM apparently has a reputation for offering inadequate and contradictory plans.

CHEMICAL AGENTS AND MUNITIONS DESTRUCTION By: MICHAEL J. BURNEY; DIRECTOR. FDCH Congressional Testimony, 09/21/2000 (Full text here).

CHEMICAL AGENTS AND MUNITIONS DESTRUCTION By: JAMES ELI HENDERSON; REPRESENTATIVE. FDCH Congressional Testimony, 09/21/2000 (Full text here).


MICHAEL J. BURNEY:
"Mr. Chairman, my name is Michael J. Burney and I am the Executive Director of the Calhoun County Emergency Management agency (CCEMA). The CCEMA is an arm of the Calhoun County Commission and is the entity attempting to work with both the Department of the Army and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in an effort to provide maximum protection to the public and the environment during the destruction of the chemical weapons stockpile at the Anniston Army Depot (AAD). This has been an extremely difficult task for the past eleven years. This task has become immeasurably more complex in recent months, as a result of the leak of nerve agent on May 8 and 9 at the Tooele Utah chemical weapons incinerator. The problem has been further compounded by THE RECENT RELEASE OF A NEW PROTECTION ACTION GUIDELINE BOOK FROM INNOVATIVE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT (IEM) WHICH CONTRADICTS EVERYTHING OUR AGENCY HAS PLANNED FOR THE PAST ELEVEN YEARS.
...
The physical proximity of our population center to the incinerator is one major problem. A second very serious problem is our apparent inability to evacuate this population center in the event of an emergency. For the past eleven years my colleagues and I at CCEMA have worked hard to educate the local population about the incinerator and the risks associated with the chemical weapons stockpile. We have attempted to plan for evacuation of our citizens and to collectively protectas many facilities as we feel can not be evacuated or otherwise protected. We have begged the Army, which has all of the information about these agents and this program, for guidelines about the type of emergency preparedness program we should follow. Not once during this eleven year planning period did the Army ever suggest we would not be able to utilize evacuation as a method to protect our citizens. Now that the incinerator is substantially complete, the Army has provided us with A VERY COMPLEX, THICK, UNWIELDY EVACUATION GUIDELINE FROM INNOVATIVE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT (IEM). This report contradicts all of our efforts and suggests that, in most situations, when we sound the sirens, broadcast an emergency warning and issue the tone alerts over the radios in peoples homes, we should tell our citizens to stay in their houses. Do the members of this subcommittee realize what a daunting task that would be? ...

Before the issuance of the IEM report the Army always assured me that we would be able to structure a program to insure a no effects policy was achieved. Now the IEM report says that in the event of a major leak at AAD our citizens will be exposed to agents but not at levels which will kill them. Now that the Army has changed its position on exposure, and that change is considered within the context of our inability to evacuate, I am extremely uncomfortable telling our citizens that we will be able to protect them in accordance with federal law."

JAMES ELI HENDERSON
"Earlier this year, the Army provided us with an evacuation guideline manual. THIS IS A DOCUMENT WE HAD BEEN SEEKING UNSUCCESSFULLY FOR SEVERAL YEARS while construction of the incinerator was underway. The guideline was prepared by Innovative Emergency Management of Baton Rouge, a company that does the vast majority of its business with the Pentagon. The IEM report has several shocking conclusions. According to the report, in more than 90 percent of the computer simulations conducted, those people living in the Anniston, Oxford Saks, Weaver population center - the area which makes up the immediate response zone- will not have time to evacuate in the event of a leak at AAD. The report recommended that the County EMA now tell our citizenry that INSTEAD OF EVACUATING, EVERYONE SHOULD GO INTO THEIR HOMES, CLOSE THEIR WINDOWS AND DOORS, TURN OFF THE AIR CONDITIONERS AND WAIT FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. The report also says, in the event of a leak, the Army is now changing its position and
assuming that our citizens will be exposed to chemical agent but not in a lethal dosage. I am not exactly sure what that means but it sounds
suspiciously like the scenarios that befell our ground soldiers in
Vietnam and Desert Storm. Nobody died from exposure to chemical agents, but several years later there were widespread instances of neurological disorders among those same soldiers.
THE IEM REPORT IS ALSO FULL OF RECOMMENDATIONS THAT DO NOT MAKE ANY SENSE. For example, the report recommends Wellborn Elementary School and Wellborn High School be collectively protected - retrofitted to be able to be sealed shut in the event of a leak. Yet the report says that a family living directly across the street will be safe if they simply close their doors and windows and turn off their air conditioning or heat. The law obligates the federal government to provide maximum protection for our general population and the environment as the Secretary of Defense carried out the mandate to destroy our nation's chemical weapons stockpile. If the school children need to be in a sealed building to be safe, why is the fellow across the road safe going into his home? When I asked the Chief officer of AAD to explain this contradiction to me, he told me he could not answer my question.
IN ESSENCE THEN, THE NEW GUIDELINES ADVISE US TO TELL OUR CITIZENS TO GO INSIDE THEIR HOMES AND PRAY. As a Christian, I believe in the power of prayer, but I also believe our citizens are entitled to know the truth because, as the Bible says, the truth shall set you free. In that regard, the guideline report from IEM provides no discussion about how long people would have to remain in their homes. When I asked the Chief officer at AAD about this, I was told there is no way of knowing how long people would have to stay inside because the amount of agent released would be unknown and the rate at which it dissipates is uncertain. Of course without the answers to these questions our citizens cannot know how much food and water to store nor whether this food and water can be protected from contamination."

All of which free-market fundamentalism has left Louisiana residents starving, without clean water or electricity, having to protest for help, having to steal from one another to survive. The National Guard have been told to shoot-to-kill looters, because property is so much more important than human life.

There is now a double injustice in old ladies being rescued from their attics, as described by Ray Nagin, standing in sewage-filled water up to their necks. Because it is Bush and his entire administration that ought to be neck deep in shit.