An atheist from the age of thirteen or fourteen, I am now wondering if there aren't really a bunch of all powerful beings somewhere up there dishing out justice to the ignorant and wicked.
I really should apologise- that was crass and undeserved. Lets face it, the victims of these "extreme weather events"- aren't going to be the rich, god-fearing, white folk. Nope, they're going to be the poor, neglected, likely-disenfranchised brown people. Greg Palast will explain.
But, hey! The aftermath of the storm is going to be a perfect opportunity to do a little social engineering and get rid of those brownies and all the other pikey scum who inhabit such premium bits of coastal real estate in distinctly unprofitable and economically undesirable ways, with implausible excuses like "my family has lived here for twelve generations".
Addition:
Photos of the effects of the hurricane are available here.
Apparently, according to photo #27, the hurricane caused losses of between $8 and 18 billion.
But, hey! The aftermath of the storm is going to be a perfect opportunity to do a little social engineering and get rid of those brownies and all the other pikey scum who inhabit such premium bits of coastal real estate in distinctly unprofitable and economically undesirable ways, with implausible excuses like "my family has lived here for twelve generations".
Addition:
Photos of the effects of the hurricane are available here.
Apparently, according to photo #27, the hurricane caused losses of between $8 and 18 billion.
I heard a programme on the World Service a couple of weeks back looking at how New Orleans has recovered. They found there has been a bit of social engineering, but the good kind.
ReplyDeletethere was a fear that the city would become Mallsville, but the megacorp folks seem a tad scared of losing any new investment in Katrina pt2, whereas the local food growers are the ones with bonds to the area so worked hard.
They had fresh local organic veg in the markets within a month of Katrina, and several of those markets have really expanded.
Organic veg doesn't help evicted tenants find anywhere to live. Most of the poor evictees probably can't afford to shop at such places anyway.
ReplyDeleteThe disaster was used to push through a whole raft of unpopular economic and social policies that were unrelated to the recovery effort. Reconstruction funds were diverted away from community-based work and became a slush fund for the likes of Halliburton et al, fresh from the ruins of Iraq and ready to do another shoddy reconstruction job whilst accruing enormous profits.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/09/hurricanekatrina.usa4
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-klein/the-shock-doctrine-in-act_b_77886.html
A little local produce doesn't really register on this scale.