Michael Parenti: How the Free Market Killed New Orleans

[Karmadillo]

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-09/03parenti.cfm

The free market played a crucial role in the destruction of New Orleans and the death of thousands of its residents. Armed with advanced warning that a momentous (force 5) hurricane was going to hit that city and surrounding areas, what did officials do? They played the free market.

They announced that everyone should evacuate. Everyone was expected to devise their own way out of the disaster area by private means, just as the free market dictates, just like people do when disaster hits free-market Third World countries.

It is a beautiful thing this free market in which every individual pursues his or her own personal interests and thereby effects an optimal outcome for the entire society. This is the way the invisible hand works its wonders.

There would be none of the collectivistic regimented evacuation as occurred in Cuba. When an especially powerful hurricane hit that island last year, the Castro government, abetted by neighborhood citizen committees and local Communist party cadres, evacuated 1.3 million people, more than 10 percent of the country's population, with not a single life lost, a heartening feat that went largely unmentioned in the U.S. press.

<edit>

In their campaign to starve out the public sector, the Bushite reactionaries also allowed developers to drain vast areas of wetlands. Again, that old invisible hand of the free market would take care of things. The developers, pursuing their own private profit, would devise outcomes that would benefit us all.

more...

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. kick

[TrogL]

2. people rented busses to get out

...and they got hi-jacked by the National Guard.

So much for the free market.

[PurityOfEssence]

3. Free marketeers recognize that some people should simply die

This truly is the point. To simply tell people "leave now" is ridiculous. It shows total disregard for those without the means or physical ability to get out out of the way. How does one get there, and where's "there"? Is it a serious expectation to tell poor urban dwellers to figure out where they're going to live and how to get there?

We are a mean and selfish nation, and it's only getting worse.

[snappyturtle]

7. It's part of the New...

World Order! Get ready! They only need a certain number of poor to do the dirty jobs. I almost feel sorry for the evacuees that have children and were sent to Houston.....I have relatives in Houston and from what I've been told, the Houston public schools are nothing to write home about. But pretty soon the "good" schools will all be private and the public ones worse than ever. It's a whole other subject....but I have a theory about it. :cry:

[Boomer]

4. The free market

sees no value in the common good.

Greed insures that high short-term profits are more attractive than stable long-term prosperity for all.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Thank you!

-----------------------------------------------------
Save New Orleans, then save this country!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm

[warrens]

6. This guy has it right

1. 3 million people evacuated, and not one person died. Missing the opportunity a good free enterprise system would make use of to shed the sick, the old, the feeble, and useless nonworker children.

[MsTryska]

8. damn straight......

i had made a post voicing a similar sentiment earlier today.


Will the free-marketeers see the lesson tho? or are the rest of us gonna have to keep getting smacked up until they do?


nominating.

[Karmadillo]

9. Kick

nt