Naomi Klein
Interview

 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/23/1338233#transcript

Naomi Klein is the award-winning journalist and author of "Fences and Windows:
Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate" and "No Logo:
Taking Aim at the Brand
Bullies."

NAOMI KLEIN: I guess listening to Juan's introduction; maybe what we're
seeing is an attempt to turn New Orleans into New England. It's really an
extremely radical vision, and I think the context of this is there's something
about natural disasters that brings out a really dangerous apocalyptic side in
the national psyche or in certain people in positions of power where there's
this actual sense that these cataclysmic events are almost redemptive in their
violence.

And we started to hear this very early on after Katrina hit, where, not just
from evangelical Christian sides, we started to hear, "maybe this is
punishment for Mardi Gras and sodomites and we've cleaned the city", but you
hear it from the mayor, Ray Nagin, "for the first time New Orleans is free of
crime and violence and we're going to keep it that way". There's almost a
sense that free of people, the city has become this blank slate. In that
context, this fantasy can be built from
scratch.

The buzzwords to listen for in terms of the reconstruction of New Orleans are
"smaller", "safer". And the idea is that in the city, wealth really buys
altitude, and so the effect of the flood was not at all democratic. The people
who were able to buy land on high ground, their neighborhoods are relatively
unscathed, and many of them never left or have been able to return. The people
who were hit hardest were the people who we saw on television, you know, in
the Superdome. These are the people who lived in the low-lying areas. So, the
idea now is, okay, maybe we won't rebuild those areas at all, and when -- on
September 15, when the mayor said that certain areas are able to be
re-inhabited, this is before Rita presented itself as the threat that it, it
was clear that the people re-populating New Orleans didn't look very much like
the people who lived there before. It was overwhelmingly white, whereas the
people still in shelters were overwhelmingly black. So, I think that the
overall vision is massive land grabs, radical gentrification, and as Jeremy's
piece makes clear, the gentrification is happening with privatized military
force.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, in your article, Naomi, you talk about the areas that
have begun to be repopulated, and you mention the census figures on the racial
breakdowns the French Quarter: 90% white, the Garden District: 89% white,
Audubon: 86% white. And you talk about the attempts to -- the housing that was
vacant in these neighborhoods that is not being used to settle some of those
dislocated. Could you talk about that for a
minute?

NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah. I was really struck, Juan, that there's just been this
general acceptance that because of this geographical quirk of New Orleans
which is that the rich and white live on high ground, and the poor live in
low-lying areas that of course, there is going to be this massive demographic
shift in the city. There's been this acceptance that the people who were
displaced to Houston and are now being displaced again and that have been
scattered across the country will keep moving, because there's really nowhere
for them to return to. This became accepted wisdom very, very quickly. I was
doing some research about the fights over development before the hurricane,
because one of the things that I have noticed in my research is these huge,
cataclysmic events are often opportunities to exploit the dislocation that
happens after a natural disaster to ram through very unpopular
policies.

So I started researching what the battles were in New Orleans before the
hurricane. And, of course, there were very, very fierce, an you know you've
covered this on your show, very fierce battles going on around housing
projects, and gentrification in the city where conflicts between people who
were demanding affordable housing and particularly the tourism sector on the
French Quarter, and over the course of the research, I saw the staggering
feature, which is that the French Quarter, which as you said is 90% white, is
also almost half empty. In the most recent census, and the market hasn't
changed since then, the French Quarter had a 37% vacancy rate, which means
that 37% of the apartments and homes in the French Quarter are sitting empty.
They're sitting empty because the people who own the buildings have decided
that they would rather board up the apartments than take reduced rent, because
they're making enough off the commercial rents, renting to restaurants and
bars and so
on.

So when I saw this massive dislocation happening, and all of these people
saying, "well, there's nowhere for them to return to", I looked at the census
again, and looked at all of these other areas that the mayor has said are dry
and inhabitable and found that there were comparably high vacancy rates in
other areas, like the Garden District and Central Business District. What we
found was that in fact there are 12,000 empty apartments and houses in the dry
areas. Which means that those -- those could be affordable houses for
people.

AMY GOODMAN: Yet, they argue that the authorities -- the authorities argued
there's no infrastructure to support them: no water, no electricity, or the
water is worse than that -- there's water but it's
polluted.

NAOMI KLEIN: I'm not -- you know, I don't think it could happen at this point
tomorrow, but the mayor has said -- and obviously, because it's possible that
the city could flood again, but the context that we're talking about is that
the mayor said these areas are ready to be re-inhabited by the people who
lived there previously. If they're ready to be re-inhabited by the people who
lived there previously, then those apartments could clearly be opened up and
it could be part of the reconstruction process rather than just scattering
people.

And we have heard this demand from community groups like Community Labor
United, demanding the right to return to the city. This is a huge political
issue related to this radical militarized gentrification agenda. Because
people can't fight for their economic and social rights saying you know, we
want schools and hospitals to rebuild. We want affordable housing. They can't
make those demands. They can't fight for their social interests, economic
interests if they're not in the city. If they're scattered, living in
shelters.

So, I think that there can be a fairly short term plan to get people into
those houses. I have talked to some legislators who say it's a pretty simple
process of the city passing an ordinance, and then federal monies being used
to issue Section 8 vouchers to pay landlords 100% of the rent. All that's
lacking, Amy, is really just political will to do it, because this doesn't fit
the Bush Agenda for the so-called "reconstruction of New Orleans", because
that agenda is really treating the city as a laboratory for their so-called
"Ownership Society". So, rather than subsidizing rents, what they're
interested in is this bizarre Urban Homesteading Act, which would auction off
federal land or lottery off federal land and people would build homes on that
land.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Also, Naomi, your article talks about a document that you got a
hold of that deals with some meetings that have occurred to discuss how to
buy, I think it was the Heritage Foundation was involved, to begin to discuss
how to implement some of the conservative movement's programs under the guise
of dealing with the crisis of
Katrina?

NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah. There are two key documents that people should really take
a look at. We're going to have them up on The Nation website and I'm sure we
can have them up on Democracy Now! as well. There's two documents. They come
from the same people, and they're connected. The first one comes from the
Republican Study Group, which is the caucus of Republican lawmakers in
Congress, headed by Mike Pence. It is called the "Pro Free Market Ideas for
Responding to Hurricane Katrina and High Gas Prices." It comes out of a
meeting that took place at the Heritage Foundation on September 15th, where
people from the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing think tanks got
together with the Republican Study Group members, and they brainstormed
thirty-two policy demands to package in as hurricane relief. And we have
already seen several-- this is why I think it should be taken extremely
seriously, is that the first of the demands is automatically suspending
Davis-Beacon prevailing wage laws in disaster
areas.

So it's pretty clear that the people making this list have a direct line to
President Bush. Because that's already been adopted by presidential decree.
The second is to make the entire affected area "flat tax-free enterprise
zone". This is Bush's "Gulf Opportunity Zone" idea, making the whole region a
sort of "Club Med" for corporations to have every tax break they have ever
dreamed of. But it goes on. This is where we, I think, need to get
ready.

They use the excuse of Katrina to talk about everything from opening up
drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to subsidizing -- this is an
incredible, incredible one of their demands -- they want to subsidize oil
exploration, saying that the corporations won't fund this themselves. And then
there's things that we have heard about like they don't want money to be going
directly to public schools for displaced children who are affected by the
hurricane. They want it to go into school vouchers. This is already
happening.

So it's a transfer of wealth from the public realm, a huge transfer of wealth
from the public realm into private hands. So you have this on the one hand.
They issued this on September 13. It's already being adopted into law on
several levels. And then they come up with another document that actually just
came out yesterday, which is the Republican Study Committee's ideas of how to
pay for all of these corporate subsidies that they have
demanded.

They say, "look, we cannot do this -- we cannot pay for so-called "hurricane
relief," and it has very little or nothing to do with the families that were
affected by the hurricane; in fact, it's going to hurt those families.) They
say, "the only way we can afford this is if we make some radical cuts to the
budget." They issue another document, the "RSC Budget Options for 2005", which
says "here's where we are going to make the cuts". Once again, you have the
radical re-victimization of the very people who the money was intended
for.

Their demands are things like: suspend Medicaid's prescription drug coverage.
But more than that, you know, I mentioned the thing that got me was -- I
mentioned the fact that they're demanding subsidization for Big Oil for
exploration that they won't pay for. In this other document where they talk
about how they're going to find the money for all of this corporate welfare,
they say that they should cut all programs, all federal research programs,
into sustainable energy sources. So, here you have the issue that's really at
the core of this disaster, which is global warming and fossil fuels. They're
subsidizing big oil and cutting funding to any alternative energy source
research.



ZNet Commentary

Being Disabled and Poor in New Orleans

September 25, 2005
By Marta Russell

If you are disabled and rich or somewhat well-off and lived in New Orleans you probably got out of the city before the levees broke and flooded some 60% of the parishes.

If you are rich and use a wheelchair you probably had a van with a ramp or car of your own with gas money to get you to safety. If you are blind you likely had a driver with a car to take you to the high lands. If you are deaf, use a cane, walker, crutches, service animal, or have mental health needs and you have money, you also got yourself out perhaps with the help of family.

But if you are disabled and poor in New Orleans you likely had none of these options.

A 911 caller told the operator "I am handicapped and have an 8 month old baby. We are lying on the bed…. the water is coming up fast. We need help."

But no help came.

No help came because there was no planned evacuation for poor disabled residents.

Being disabled and poor meant one's chances for survival were less than one's nondisabled counterparts.

While many of the least fortunate were waiting and hoping for the absent cavalry to arrive on those rooftops at least one quadriplegic could not be pulled up on the roof to semi-safety. He drowned instead.

There were others.

We know that in New Orleans 23.2 percent of residents were disabled persons out of a city of about 484,000 people. There were 102,122 disabled people 5 years of age and older who lived in New Orleans at the time of the flood.

At least half of the disabled persons in New Orleans who are of working age were not employed.

To be disabled and poor in New Orleans and much of the U.S. meant to rely on a variety of government programs such as Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid to help one meet one's daily service and support needs.

Being disabled and poor in one group home for the blind meant staff abandoned one to sink or swim.

Being disabled and poor meant being separated from any type of accessible public transportation before the flood and there was no accessible transportation afterwards.

Being disabled and poor for blind people meant being unable to even get around in one's own flooded neighborhood because one could no longer navigate the environmental landscape.

Being disabled and poor for people with physical disabilities who are over 65 years of age meant being unable to leave one's home, group home, nursing home, or hospital without significant assistance.

Being disabled and poor meant to have lost or become separated from the drugs one relies on daily for diabetes, high blood pressure, and other chronic conditions and have little means to access pharmacies when it became apparent the calvary was permanently absent.

Being disabled and poor for those driven by flood waters from institutions, group homes, or nursing homes meant being housed in less than satisfactory conditions with considerably less than the necessary range of services and supports needed for an unknown stretch of time.

Being disabled and poor meant that one stood a good chance of dying from the insufferable heat as at least 154 patients died this way suggesting that vulnerable people plummeted to the bottom of priority lists if they were on lists at all.

Being disabled and poor for those who have service animals meant not being able rely on those animals outside of the house or group home because these animals cannot navigate safely in the flooded streets.

Being disabled and poor for deaf persons meant being unable to access emergency information through television, radio, TTY, communications for the deaf because public communications systems were compromised and those available through the federal government were holed up outside the city awaiting orders to move into New Orleans.

Being disabled and poor meant being unable to secure life-saving food and water because many were trapped within the confines of inadequate supplied shelters, the convention center, or Super Bowl with all the other evacuees.

Being disabled and poor meant that when you died sitting in your wheelchair some respectful survivor might cover you with a sheet or some plastic.

Being disabled and poor meant that when the first responders at long, long last got to the Super Bowl, disabled persons were forced to leave their wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, and service animals behind, as these were not allowed on the buses.

Being poor and disabled means that one will have to wait months and months - if not years - to replace the wheelchairs and service animals that were taken from them in New Orleans.

Being poor and disabled often meant being evacuated to some nursing home in a strange town where one will have to fight hard to ever acquire the support services to live in the community again.

Being poor and disabled means needing Medicaid yet being relocated to another state where state governors have cut Medicaid to the extent that it is not serving those already enrolled. It is to find out that people are being dropped off the roles by the thousands - not added - when you desperately need your medications.

Being disabled and poor in need of accessible housing means depending upon HUD which has allowed its funding to be cut so thin by the Bush administration that it is pitting the evacuees against the already poor and homeless in need of low-income housing. The Federal agency HUD at the time of this writing has refused to offer any emergency funding to the nations housing authorities that are providing housing assistance to Katrina's victims.

Being disabled and poor meant that if one managed to get to a Red Cross shelter with their wheelchair that the Red Cross would deny one entrance into their shelters because the shelters are not accessible. When the National Organization of Disability advocates went down there to see what was going on, they too were denied access.

We don't have and may never have the data to tell us how many disabled people lost their lives when the waters rose above their heads. We do know that disabled people were disproportionately affected. I'm sure the government does not want the public to know how many disabled persons drowned their bodies bloated floating in the toxic sewer that was once a street or dehydrated, or starved in this preventable catastrophe and its aftermath.

But the tremendous loss of life and ongoing devastation was not at root caused by Hurricane Katrina. It was caused by a corrupt government run by people who saw more profit for themselves and their friends in diverting taxpayer dollars to multi-billion dollar corporate contracts in a senseless and lawless war and doling tax cuts out to the richest people in this nation rather than in buttressing the faulty levee system protecting New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain.

When Bush said, "no one knew the levees would break" he lied. The Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and other scientific experts alerted the nation it needed to devote resources and taxpayer dollars to fix this "accident" waiting to happen. The Times-Picayune, the daily newspaper of New Orleans, published numerous articles during the last two years citing the danger caused by the loss of hurricane protection funds to the war in Iraq.

The Bush administration slashed funds for flood control operations in New Orleans. Bush's war left the Corps of Engineers only 20% of the needed funding to protect New Orleans.

Bush played golf and turned away as hundreds of people - including disabled persons - drowned and starved.

What happened to disabled poor people in New Orleans is nothing less than criminally negligent homicide.

Bush says he is responsible but the question is will the nation hold the man accountable for murder?

Marta Russell is the author of "Beyond Ramps: Disability at the End of the Social Contract" (Common Courage Press)
 http://www.martarussell.com