Post-Katrina Updates
Michael “Brownie” Brown, that lovable Bush crony who knows nothing about disaster relief, has finally been fired by Bush. Talk about closing the barn doors after the Arabian horses have bolted.
And Brown wasn’t the only Bush crony at FEMA, according to the Washington Post.
Bush has used his authority to set aside the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act which requires federal contractors to pay their employees the “prevailing wage” for said work in the area where the work is being done. Halliburton is among the first to benefit from this latest-among-many Bush administration sops to big business, as it was granted federal contracts almost immediately after Katrina struck.
So what does suspension of Davis-Bacon mean? It means that businesses involved in rebuilding, who were already going to cash in big-time from all the work after Katrina struck, will be able to cash in even more. It also means that people who live in the area, who need to make money to rebuild their homes and their lives are going to get their paychecks slashed, paid the barest minimum the market will bear. Disaster relief for businesses which don’t need it, and wage theft from the people who need it most.
Supporters of the plan say that it will reduce the costs of rebuilding. They do not offer any proof of this whatsoever, though–the fact remains that only the wages for workers is being reduced, not the amount being charged by the businesses for rebuilding. No caps on what can be charged. No limits to profit margins. Now, if Bush had added that kind of restriction, he might at least be able to argue he’s doing it to cut costs. But not now. This hurts workers, doesn’t help cut costs, and hands bonuses to businesses who were already looking forward to flush times.
Along with the GOP’s aversion to raising the minimum wage to anywhere near a living wage and its many corporate welfare giveaways to companies already making record profits, this only reaffirms that the Bush administration loves corporations and hates the average American worker. Is it any wonder that we have a jobless “recovery,” that average incomes are dropping, and Americans are falling into poverty by the millions?
Dr. Ben Marble, an ER physician and new father whose home was destroyed in the hurricane, shouted “Go f*** yourself, Mr. Cheney! Go f*** yourself!” while Cheney was live on camera on CNN. The epithet was a reminder of when Cheney, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, used the same epithet when speaking to Democratic Senator Pat Leahy.
Think what you will of them man, he spoke his mind. And it’s been very rare that anyone harshly critical of the Bush administration has been played willingly by the news media. Cheney said before and after the outburst that he hasn’t heard any criticism, and that this was the first. Well, no wonder: even though Dr. Marble was allowed to leave the scene unmolested, once the news cameras had left, soldiers with M-16s came to Dr. Marble, handcuffed him, and questioned him for 20 minutes.
OpEd News (clearly not an unbiased journal) has the most detailed story here. In short, Marble was in part upset because Cheney’s visit caused him to take a long detour to get to his destroyed house. He was headed home when he came across a barricade 200 feet from his destination. Despite the closeness of his home, he was not allowed through. Then a motorcade honked at him to move, and when he did, the motorcade was allowed through the barricade. Dr. Marble had to take a 20-minute detour to get home, costing him even more in high gas prices that already had him roiled. When he got home and was sifting through the wreckage, he discovered that Cheney’s visit was responsible for his detour, and it was likely Cheney himself was the guy in the motorcade. So he set off to see him and the rest you know.
See the video here, lifted from Toolz Blog.
It seems like having National Guard troops in Iraq did in fact hurt the response time after Katrina hit, by as much as one day, according to Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, Despite Donald Rumsfeld’s indications to the contrary.
According to Josh Marshall, Army recruiters are starting to show their dorsal fins, looking to reach their quotas by finding people devastated by Katrina, looking for jobs. Fresh meat…
I read today over the newswire that the current wage for construction workers in New Orleans is 9.00 per hour. This raises several issues in my mind ,
Why do you need to suspend Davis Bacon in that region?
Where was this figure (AP cited to feds) from?
There are different rates for the construction of homes and commercial buildings, which was appplied?
Before supply side, free marketplace folks hop onto the bandwagon here I point out this Davis Bacon legislation has teeth against fraud ,demands accountabilty and does guarantee a base wage to all employees.There seems to be a willingness to extend the system for contracts followed in Iraq to Iberia LA.
I thought you might enjoy hearing the interivew I did with Dr. Marble. You can find it at http://www.smallworldpodcast.com
Interview with Dr. Ben Marble. We discuss the events of September 8th that led to him telling Cheney off; Vice President Dick Cheney telling Senator Pat Leahy (D) to go fu** himself, his detainment by military police; the destruction of his video of his detainment by military police; placing his video of telling Cheney off on eBay; how eBay removed his auction from their web site. Visit Dr. Ben Marble’s web site, http://www.HurricaneKatrinaSucked.com or listen to his band, Dr. O.
Tim: I’m afraid I don’t know the answers to any of that. I would presume that $9/hr is the low end if what you heard is true, but I am not sure–I have heard the $9 figure bandied about, but more as the wage people would get if the act were suspended.
All I know for certain is that Bush suspended the act so that reconstruction firms could pay people less rather than more, while in no way guaranteeing that those cost reductions would be passed on to those paying for the reconstruction. Essentially a huge payoff to big firms already looking at massive proifits from all the work they’ll be doing (not to mention the no-bid contracts lavished by Bush/Cheney).
Go Fu** Yourself Mr. Cheney UPDATE….
Well the story has received an overwhelming amount of
global mass media coverage on a global scale including
but not limited to Time, Newsweek, Harpers, The Daily
Show, Good Morning America, Letterman, CNN, MSNBC,
Hustler,etc. Rolling Stone even called it the “BEST
TELEVISED SOUND BITE OF THE YEAR”. Our website
http://www.hurricanekatrinasucked.com has had over 900,000
hits as of yesterday. I have received approx. 4000
emails 95% of which have been supportive. I recently
wrote and recorded the dR. O tune ‘GO FU** YOURSELF
MR. CHENEY’ and managed to produce a video for the
same. And the video we shot OURSELVES is taking the
internet by storm with thousands of downloads a day
and that pace is still rapidly growin and so I wonder
have you had a chance to watch OUR video yet???? this
is NOT the 30 second cnn/msnbc video that has been
circulation the web…this is over 30 minutes of
footage we shot ourselves on the day of my encounter
with The Dick that I had auctioned off on EVILBAY.
you should be able to download it here
http://67.11.148.170/THEDAYIQUOTEDTHEDICKTOTHEDICK_WMV.wmv
or here
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=71173067259949866&q=KATRINA+AFTERMATH-
In mid Sept. I had announced that I will be donating
50% of the profits from the EBAY auctions/ sales at
http://www.cafepress.com/benmarblemd to my life long friend
Jay Scully who was the actual cameraman on the day I
ran into The Dick. He and his wife both lost their
jobs due to the storm and they recently had a
premature infant born at 24 weeks who was just finally
allowed to come home i.e. they need help. The other
50% will be donated to the SALVATION ARMY since my
grandmother worked for them for several decades. (I am
not keeping any of it to take away the right wings
ammo in their criticism that I am trying to profit off
of the misery of Katrina even though I did lose my
home and my studio).
I will also be working on trying to make a movie about
Katrina and the aftermath. I have shot about 15 30
minute mini-dvd’s of video starting just before
Katrina hit and I will eventually edit that down into
a film.
My rock bands Yoon ( http://www.my space.com/yoon ) and dR. O
( http://www.my space.com/odro ) have received a ton of
positive feedback and I am in the process of trying to
see about getting some ‘press kits’ to the ‘right
people’ and setting up some gigs in Los Angeles and
New York.
If you can help me to spread my story and/or just want
to talk feel free to email clone9@yahoo.com
Thanks,
Ben Marble, M.D.
ps if you have the time you may find the following
articles interesting to read
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_dr__ben__051004_the_discrepancy_betw.htm
http://opednews.com/articles/opedne_rob_kall_050922_get_to_know_ben_marb.htm
http://opednews.com/articles/opedne_jackson__050909_physician_who_told_o.htm
*I also just found out that a tv production company is
planning on making a ‘made for tv movie’ out of all
the video footage I have been shooting