- The disaster in New Orleans has created an opportunity
for land speculators and developers alike, much in the way corporations
see the third world.
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- The disaster in New Orleans has created an opportunity
for land speculators and developers alike, much in the way corporations
see the third world. Only in our case has the Supreme Court already set
up the legal framework for doing so. With two Bush appointees in the works,
a land grab is only a matter of time.
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- Take for example, the case in Lakewood Ohio, where occupants
of perfectly inhabitable housing were forced to leave their homes through
a court order, so that the government could turn the property over to private
developers, under the guise of "the public good". An article,
published on a CBS website over a year ago states, "Cities across
the country have been using eminent domain to force people off their land,
so private developers can build more expensive homes and offices that will
pay more in property taxes than the buildings they're replacing."
(Eminent Domain: Being Abused?, 60 Minutes)
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- In Lakewood, the houses were not even "blighted".
In the case of New Orleans, where many homeowners will be declaring bankruptcy,
and wanting to liquidate property, speculators will be waiting around to
snatch up land deals. New Orleans is ripe for "redevelopment".
And just like Baghdad, Halliburton gets the contract for "reconstruction",
though many from the South will argue that many places never recovered
from the blight caused by the Civil War.
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- It is clear the eminent domain is being used as a means
of transferring wealth to developers; a wealth redistribution scheme for
the rich. The Supreme Court, in their recent decision concerning a case
in New London, Connecticut, has endorsed this. An AP report quipped, "Cities
may bulldoze people's homes to make way for shopping malls or other private
development, a divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday [June 23rd, 2005],
giving local governments broad power to seize private property to generate
tax revenue." What this will mean for the poor is an eventual spike
in rents, ensuring that many poor folks will never return to their urban
home.
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- The privitization schemes have yet to materialize in
full, but this, too, is a matter of time.
-
- These land redistribution schemes have been played out
over and over in other places, through international corporation and lending
institutions, with the legal support of local governments. In many case
in this hemisphere, with few options available, people took matters into
their own hands. Similar conditions present themselves in New Orleans--people
desperate for basic needs, governments that are complicit in land grabs,
and US corporations always willing to make the "investment".
It makes one wonder what the real reason for so much security and so little
food in post hurricane Katrina was. Starving out and controlling a possible
armed insurrection, in the wake of denial of food, water, and medical supplies,
may be what proof lies in some classified memo yet to be released.
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- http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/09/325009.shtml
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