Paying to be saved: the future of disaster response
"The Red Cross has just announced a new disaster response partnership with Wal-Mart. When the next hurricane hits, it will be a co - production of the mega-charity with the mega-supermarket.
This is, apparently, the lesson learned from the tragic government response to Hurricane Katrina: the business better respond to disasters.
"In the end, everything will fall into the hands of the private sector," he said, in April, Billy Wagner, emergency management chief for the Florida Keys, currently monitoring Tropical Storm Ernesto. "They have the knowledge. They have the resources. "
But before this new consensus goes any further, it might be time to see where the privatization of disaster began, and where it will inevitably.
The first step was the government's abdication of its fundamental responsibility to protect the population from disasters. Under the Bush administration, whole sectors of government, and in particular the Department of Homeland Security, have been turned into glorified temporary work agencies, with essential functions contracted out to private companies. The theory is that entrepreneurs, driven by the profit motive, are always more efficient (please suspend hysterical laughter).
We saw the results in New Orleans: Washington was frighteningly weak and inept, in part because its emergency management experts had fled to the private sector and because its infrastructure - structures and technology were completely overcome. At least by comparison, the private seem modern and competent (a columnist for the New York Times even suggested FEMA to deliver to Wal - Mart).
But the moon - to - honey did not last long. "Where has all the money?" Ask desperate people from Baghdad to New Orleans, from Kabul to tsunami-struck Sri Lanka. A large part of it was spent on major capital spending these private contractors. Largely under the public radar, were spent billions of dollars of taxpayers' money to build an infra - structure privatized disaster response: the ultra-modern headquarters of the Shaw Group in Baton Rouge, the battalions of equipment to remove land from Bechtel, the campus of 2,400 acres of Blackwater USA in North Carolina (complete with paramilitary training camp and a foot runway). I call it the Disaster Capitalism Complex. All you need in a serious crunch, these contractors can provide it: generators, water tanks, cots, potties, mobile homes, communications systems, helicopters, medicine, men armed ...
This state within a state was built almost exclusively with money from public contracts, including the training of its staff (overwhelmingly former officials, politicians and soldiers). And yet, it's all in the hands of private individuals, taxpayers have no control or complaints about this. So far, that reality has not sunk in because while these companies are getting their bills paid by government contracts, the Disaster Capitalism Complex provides its services to the public on a free.
But therein lies the problem: the U.S. government is losing money, largely thanks to this kind of loony spending. The national debt is 8 trillion dollars, the federal budget deficit is at least 260 billion dollars. This means that sooner than later, contracts will dry up. And nobody knows this better than the companies themselves. Ralph Sheridan, chief executive of Good Harbor Partners, one of hundreds of new companies against - terrorism, explains that "expenditures by governments are sporadic and hit the bubbles." The Insiders call it - her "homeland security bubble."
When it bursts, firms such as Bechtel, Fluor and Blakwater will lose their source primary income. Still have all your equipment, high - technology - giving them the ability to respond to disasters - while the government will have missed this precious ability - but then sell the infra - structure financed by public money at the price they want.
Here's a snapshot of what may occur in the near future: helicopter rides off of rooftops in flooded cities ($ 5,000 per head, $ 7,000 per family, pets included), bottled water and "prepared foods" (50 dollars per person; expensive, but that's supply and demand) and a bed in a shelter (show us your biometric ID - created thanks to a lucrative contract from Homeland Security - and we send - him - we will then count. Do not worry, we have the means: the spying has been outsourced too).
The model is of course the U.S. healthcare system, in which the wealthy can access best treatment in spa-like environment, while 46 million Americans lack health insurance. As emergency response, the model is already working on global pandemic da SIDA: o sector privado ajudou com proeza a criar medicamentos salvadores de vidas (com substanciais subsídios públicos), depois estabeleceu preços tão altos que a maioria dos infectados do mundo não pode pagar o tratamento.
Se esse é o historial mundial do sector privado nas catástrofes em câmara lenta, porque haveríamos de esperar que valores diferentes governassem as catástrofes de actuação rápida, como os furacões e até os ataques terroristas? É bom lembrar que quando as bombas israelitas zurziram o Líbano não há muito tempo, o governo dos EUA inicialmente tentou cobrar aos seus cidadãos o custo das suas próprias evacuações.
A year ago, the poor and working class citizens of New Orleans were stranded on the roofs of their homes waiting for help that never arrived, while those who could pay his ex fled for safety. The country's political leaders claim it was all a terrible mistake, a breakdown in communication that is being fixed. Their solution is to go deeper into the catastrophic road of "private sector solutions."
Unless a radical change of course is demanded, New Orleans will prove to be a glimpse of a dystopian future, a future of disaster apartheid in which the wealthy are saved and all others are left behind. "
KLEIN, Naomi , NO LOGO , August 29, 2006.
in. Alternative Information .
"The Red Cross has just announced a new disaster response partnership with Wal-Mart. When the next hurricane hits, it will be a co - production of the mega-charity with the mega-supermarket.
This is, apparently, the lesson learned from the tragic government response to Hurricane Katrina: the business better respond to disasters.
"In the end, everything will fall into the hands of the private sector," he said, in April, Billy Wagner, emergency management chief for the Florida Keys, currently monitoring Tropical Storm Ernesto. "They have the knowledge. They have the resources. "
But before this new consensus goes any further, it might be time to see where the privatization of disaster began, and where it will inevitably.
The first step was the government's abdication of its fundamental responsibility to protect the population from disasters. Under the Bush administration, whole sectors of government, and in particular the Department of Homeland Security, have been turned into glorified temporary work agencies, with essential functions contracted out to private companies. The theory is that entrepreneurs, driven by the profit motive, are always more efficient (please suspend hysterical laughter).
We saw the results in New Orleans: Washington was frighteningly weak and inept, in part because its emergency management experts had fled to the private sector and because its infrastructure - structures and technology were completely overcome. At least by comparison, the private seem modern and competent (a columnist for the New York Times even suggested FEMA to deliver to Wal - Mart).
But the moon - to - honey did not last long. "Where has all the money?" Ask desperate people from Baghdad to New Orleans, from Kabul to tsunami-struck Sri Lanka. A large part of it was spent on major capital spending these private contractors. Largely under the public radar, were spent billions of dollars of taxpayers' money to build an infra - structure privatized disaster response: the ultra-modern headquarters of the Shaw Group in Baton Rouge, the battalions of equipment to remove land from Bechtel, the campus of 2,400 acres of Blackwater USA in North Carolina (complete with paramilitary training camp and a foot runway). I call it the Disaster Capitalism Complex. All you need in a serious crunch, these contractors can provide it: generators, water tanks, cots, potties, mobile homes, communications systems, helicopters, medicine, men armed ...
This state within a state was built almost exclusively with money from public contracts, including the training of its staff (overwhelmingly former officials, politicians and soldiers). And yet, it's all in the hands of private individuals, taxpayers have no control or complaints about this. So far, that reality has not sunk in because while these companies are getting their bills paid by government contracts, the Disaster Capitalism Complex provides its services to the public on a free.
But therein lies the problem: the U.S. government is losing money, largely thanks to this kind of loony spending. The national debt is 8 trillion dollars, the federal budget deficit is at least 260 billion dollars. This means that sooner than later, contracts will dry up. And nobody knows this better than the companies themselves. Ralph Sheridan, chief executive of Good Harbor Partners, one of hundreds of new companies against - terrorism, explains that "expenditures by governments are sporadic and hit the bubbles." The Insiders call it - her "homeland security bubble."
When it bursts, firms such as Bechtel, Fluor and Blakwater will lose their source primary income. Still have all your equipment, high - technology - giving them the ability to respond to disasters - while the government will have missed this precious ability - but then sell the infra - structure financed by public money at the price they want.
Here's a snapshot of what may occur in the near future: helicopter rides off of rooftops in flooded cities ($ 5,000 per head, $ 7,000 per family, pets included), bottled water and "prepared foods" (50 dollars per person; expensive, but that's supply and demand) and a bed in a shelter (show us your biometric ID - created thanks to a lucrative contract from Homeland Security - and we send - him - we will then count. Do not worry, we have the means: the spying has been outsourced too).
The model is of course the U.S. healthcare system, in which the wealthy can access best treatment in spa-like environment, while 46 million Americans lack health insurance. As emergency response, the model is already working on global pandemic da SIDA: o sector privado ajudou com proeza a criar medicamentos salvadores de vidas (com substanciais subsídios públicos), depois estabeleceu preços tão altos que a maioria dos infectados do mundo não pode pagar o tratamento.
Se esse é o historial mundial do sector privado nas catástrofes em câmara lenta, porque haveríamos de esperar que valores diferentes governassem as catástrofes de actuação rápida, como os furacões e até os ataques terroristas? É bom lembrar que quando as bombas israelitas zurziram o Líbano não há muito tempo, o governo dos EUA inicialmente tentou cobrar aos seus cidadãos o custo das suas próprias evacuações.
A year ago, the poor and working class citizens of New Orleans were stranded on the roofs of their homes waiting for help that never arrived, while those who could pay his ex fled for safety. The country's political leaders claim it was all a terrible mistake, a breakdown in communication that is being fixed. Their solution is to go deeper into the catastrophic road of "private sector solutions."
Unless a radical change of course is demanded, New Orleans will prove to be a glimpse of a dystopian future, a future of disaster apartheid in which the wealthy are saved and all others are left behind. "
KLEIN, Naomi , NO LOGO , August 29, 2006.
in. Alternative Information .
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