12.9.05
The class war in action
Mercenaries descend into New Orleans to guard the houses of the rich.
There have been no major repairs to the infrastructure leading into or out of New Orleans since the hurricane hit. Yet the rich - the same scum who "Libertarians" and other assorted Republican ideologues want to see shouldering the burden of public assistance - can somehow manage to bring an army, not of social-work volunteers, but of goddamn mercenaries to protect their own little mansions from looters.
And it was impossible for the federal government to bring in relief workers and transportation to get the hostages in the Superdome and the convention center out of the city?
The Guardian article informs us that some mercenaries
...had been hired by Jimmy Reiss, a descendant of an old New Orleans family who made his fortune selling electronic systems to shipbuilders. They had been flown by private jet to Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, and then helicoptered to Audubon Place....
What the Guardian doesn't tell us is that Reiss is one of the racists who wants to see a "New Order" (i.e., ethnic cleansing) take place in New Orleans:
The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."
This, my friends, is the class war in action. Reiss (weiss?) is not the only one who wants to see a gleaming, white New Orleans take the place of the one that the Republicans allowed to be destroyed. They want to clear the place out of the poor people (excepting the absolut minimum that have to be there to serve Hurricanes to tourists and martinis to Reiss and his sick little band of assholes).
The Guardian articles ends with this observation by one of the mercenaries:
"I spoke to one of the other owners on the telephone earlier in the week," Yovi said. "I told him how the water had stopped just at the back gate. God watches out for the rich people, I guess."
Funny (and not "ha ha" funny) how that works.
Mercenaries descend into New Orleans to guard the houses of the rich.
There have been no major repairs to the infrastructure leading into or out of New Orleans since the hurricane hit. Yet the rich - the same scum who "Libertarians" and other assorted Republican ideologues want to see shouldering the burden of public assistance - can somehow manage to bring an army, not of social-work volunteers, but of goddamn mercenaries to protect their own little mansions from looters.
And it was impossible for the federal government to bring in relief workers and transportation to get the hostages in the Superdome and the convention center out of the city?
The Guardian article informs us that some mercenaries
...had been hired by Jimmy Reiss, a descendant of an old New Orleans family who made his fortune selling electronic systems to shipbuilders. They had been flown by private jet to Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, and then helicoptered to Audubon Place....
What the Guardian doesn't tell us is that Reiss is one of the racists who wants to see a "New Order" (i.e., ethnic cleansing) take place in New Orleans:
The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."
This, my friends, is the class war in action. Reiss (weiss?) is not the only one who wants to see a gleaming, white New Orleans take the place of the one that the Republicans allowed to be destroyed. They want to clear the place out of the poor people (excepting the absolut minimum that have to be there to serve Hurricanes to tourists and martinis to Reiss and his sick little band of assholes).
The Guardian articles ends with this observation by one of the mercenaries:
"I spoke to one of the other owners on the telephone earlier in the week," Yovi said. "I told him how the water had stopped just at the back gate. God watches out for the rich people, I guess."
Funny (and not "ha ha" funny) how that works.
