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they did three weeks after the hurricane. Negligent damage liabilities and rebuilding obligations were thrown into the Dumpster of the bankruptcy courts, and the holding company walked away. But don't worry, Entergy the holding company is doing quite well, posting a big 24% leap in earnings for the third quarter, a profit it attributes to "weather." So who's to blame for losing New Orleans?
That's easy. It was Franklin Roosevelt. New Orleans was the victim of the New Deal, according to New York Times columnist John Tierney, in "Losing that New Deal Religion." The free market flat-worlder's argument goes like this: The idea that government's job is to protect you is gone with the wind, drowned in the Mississippi. Government's the problem, and the solution is... Wal-Mart. Turn FEMA into WEMA, the "Wal-Mart Emergency Management Agency." That's a quote. Let the market do it, let the market save us. Louisiana's Republican Senator David Vitter was so excited by the idea of selling off the government, "privatizing," that he introduced a bill at high tide to do just that, "privatize" emergency planning. But Senator Vitter, didn't Joe Allbaugh tell you? New Orleans hurricane planning was privatized.
You should remember Allbaugh from Chapter 4: The Con. It was Allbaugh, as Governor George Bush's Chief of Staff who, in 1997, handled the Governor's personal emergency: His office allegedly called the Texas Air Guard to let them know that Karen Hughes would be dropping by to "make sure there's nothing in there [Bush's war file] that'll embarrass the Governor." Under Bill Clinton, the Emergency Management Agency was run by emergency managers. That was the dull way to do it.
In 2001, Bush made Joe Allbaugh FEMA's chief and the two of them converted the agency into something more exciting, a front-line command center in the War on Terror, dissolving the agency into the Department of Homeland Security. And that's when the unexciting emergency planning work was put up for sale. (Allbaugh quit in 2003 and turned the Wal-Marted FEMA over to his old college roommate, Michael Brown, an executive with the Arabian Horse Association.) It wasn't in the Times, but a year before the hurricane, the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA signed a half-million-dollar contract with a private operator to write up "a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan for the City of New Orleans," says the press release. Their plan was innovative. We know it was innovative because the work was handed to a company called "Innovative Emergency Management." Innovative Emergency Management, said a company release, had "teamed" with expert James Lee Witt, the renowned Clinton FEMA chief, which was good news for New Orleans. The bad news was, it wasn't true. Witt, despite IEM's press release, said he was not part of the Innovative "team."
No matter. Innovative Emergency Management's founder, president and CEO, Madhu Beriwal, I believe, owns an umbrella and she's an exceptionally experienced donor to the Republican party. She has more campaign committee citations, including donations to Senator Vitter, than evacuation plans to her name. Maybe she has extraordinary credentials for saving a city from flood, but when we called seeking her experience and credentials, we got nothing.
IEM's press release, besides the fib about Witt, made this utterly truthful point: Given this area's vulnerability and elevation...a plan that facilitates a rapid and effective hurricane response is critical. Amen to that.
So I called IEM in Baton Rouge to see their critical and innovative plan that was supposed to be complete well before Katrina's landfall. The Wal-Mart of disaster prep couldn't get me a copy. In fact, they couldn't say if they had it. Nor if the City of New Orleans had it. Or if Senator Vitter or anyone had it or if it existed.
Could they tell me the name of someone at FEMA who had the evacuation plan? They hesitated, so I prompted, "Well, who do you call if there's an emergency?" The question stumped them. And it stumped FEMA, which wouldn't provide me a copy. The problem, I was informed, was that they couldn't confirm it existed.
There is nothing new under the sun. A Republican president going for the photo op as the Mississippi rolls over New Orleans. It was 1927, and President Calvin Coolidge sent Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, "a little fat man with a notebook in his hand," who mugged for the cameras and promised to build the city a wall of protection. They had their photos taken. Then they left to play golf with Ken Lay or, rather, the Ken Lay railroad baron equivalent of his day.
In 1927, the Democratic Party had died and was awaiting burial. As depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin Roosevelt, called for, of all things, balancing the budget.
Then, as the Mississippi waters rose, one politician, the state's electricity regulator, stood up on the back of a flatbed truck rigged with loudspeakers, and said, roughly, "Listen up! They're lying! The President's lying! The rich fat jackals that are drowning you will do it again and again and again. They lead you into imperialist wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope, and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they drown your kids. I say, Kick'm in the ass and take your share of the wealth you created." Huey Long was our Hugo Chávez, and he laid out a plan: a progressive income tax,
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