Now The REAL Looting Begins

The Nation's October 10, 2005 issue (published online on September 22, 2005) is all about the new brand of corporate carpetbaggers descending on the waterlogged Crescent City, looking to remake it into a playground for the rich while shoving aside the 70% of the residents that are black. Here's some of the things I learned: -- Areas like the French Quarter and the Garden District -- you know, the places that DIDN'T flood? -- have plenty of vacant housing in good shape to immediately resettle 70,000 of the 200,000 evacuees (the French Quarter alone, which just happens to be the whitest and driest part of the city, has a vacancy rate of 37%), but the landlords would rather the places stay vacant than lower their rent rates. -- 150 mercenaries from Blackwater, one of BushCo's key components, are in New Orleans looting apartments, but since they're white people it's OK. Other gun-for-hire companies are present, and sometimes they're a little too quick on the trigger -- which further complicates things for an already-overworked local police force. Just part of the looting by three-piece suits going on.