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01/22/2006:
"Bush-Linked Florida Company and the Katrina Evacuation Fiasco"
...Why did it take nearly a week for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to mobilize private buses to evacuate thousands of city residents desperately seeking rescue from the horrific conditions in the Superdome, the Convention Center and the open tarmac of Interstate 10?
Clues to that mystery will come in the form of an audit into a FEMA contract for hurricane evacuation services awarded in 2002 to the Federal Aviation Administration. An initial report on the audit, which was quietly opened last October by the DOT's Office of Inspector General, is nearing completion and will be released to the public soon, a DOT official told Reconstruction Watch.
So far, the IG's office suspects that that the FAA "did not verify that the services were performed," said David Barnes, a public affairs officer in the Office of Inspector General. As a result, the IG "has raised questions about the FAA's internal controls."
The audit is also focused on Landstar Express America Inc. A trucking and logistics company based in Jacksonville, Fla., Landstar is a politically well-connected corporation that's risen to the top of the U.S. transportation industry without actually owning any trucks. Chairman Jeffrey Crowe served until recently as head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and last April Florida Gov. Jeb Bush appointed him to his Advisory Council on Base Realignment and Closure.
counterpunch.org
Neoliberalism, Katrina and the Asian Tsunami
The recent controversy surrounding the plan to rebuild New Orleans and the passage of the first anniversary of the Asian tsunami cap a year in which a host of catastrophic disasters caused widespread death and destruction and garnered worldwide media attention. In so doing, these disasters revealed certain fundamental truths regarding economic development in both the developed and developing world. Two of the most well-publicized disasters in particular, the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, exposed the extent to which public welfare and security were undermined by governments' deference to the interests of private profit, militarism, and laissez faire capitalism. These events have opened the door for a fundamental reevaluation of the current neoliberal model of economic development being pursued in the United States and elsewhere.
