Halliburton in the House!
Will the money that so many believe they are donating to victims of Hurricane Katrina actually land in said vicitims hands? It seems to me that the rebuilding of New Orleans might refer to the clean up & construction of new buildings on some prime real estate — and not to the sustanence of refugees now spread out across the south and midwest. Picture it: the U.S. Government tracking down one million displaced people just to put money in their hands. Um, excuse me.
So who will rebuild? How about Dick Cheney’s bedfellows (& former employers), Halliburton? Yes, lots of things rise to the top, including monetary donations. And how fast! How did that get by us? As we know, lots of things float, and it’s not the future welfare of the penniless evacuated citizens of New Orleans.
First, Ms. Bush distracted us from criticizing her boy’s war by referring to her beautiful mind. Nice move, Ms. Bush. Now, she lets us know that the those staying in the Texas Astrodome are “underprivileged anyway, so this is working really well for them.”
Who will tell me that Ms. Bush just made this stark faux pas without being coached? Anyone? She decided, of her own accord, to let the world know that the new Astrodome residents were poor to begin with, so now they’re better off? I’m not biting. All this distraction happens while government hands scoop in the coffers and hand bags ‘o money over to Halliburton. Were other companies even invited to bid? I’m guessing not.
Wait. Who is running Halliburton now? A former FEMA Director, that’s who. Wait again. How much has Halliburton made from the Iraq war? I’m not sure, but signs say they’ve already been paid “$10.7 billion for Iraq-related government work.”
Our government can’t get recovery efforts in place to save the living and spare them the aftermath, in spite of hurricane predictions, but before we’ve even collected the dead … Halliburton is already cashing in.
Please find a way to donate directly to the victims of Katrina (& lack of gov’t levee protection). Click on this article (& scroll down) to send food and other domestic items directly to The Houston Food Bank.
AMY KING View All →
Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA) Award. Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She co-edited with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She also co-edits the anthology series, Bettering American Poetry, and is a professor of creative writing at SUNY Nassau Community College.
AMY KING 