Agreeing With Naomi K

Well. Who'd have thought it? Naomi Klein writes a good piece in the Guardian. She argues that instead of becoming a place for business to exploit workers "low wages, low taxes, more luxury condos and hotels" New Orleans should become a city for the people most damaged by Katrina.

Reconstruction for the people. Reconstruction by the people.

Before the flood, this highly profitable vision was already displacing thousands of poor African-Americans: while their music and culture was for sale in an increasingly corporatised French Quarter (where only 4.3% of residents are black), their housing developments were being torn down. "For white tourists and businesspeople, New Orleans's reputation means a great place to have a vacation, but don't leave the French Quarter or you'll get shot," Jordan Flaherty, a New Orleans-based labour organiser told me the day after he left the city by boat. "Now the developers have their big chance to disperse the obstacle to gentrification - poor people."

Here's a better idea: New Orleans could be reconstructed by and for the very people most victimised by the flood. Schools and hospitals that were falling apart before could finally have adequate resources; the rebuilding could create thousands of local jobs and provide massive skills training in decent paying industries. Rather than handing over the reconstruction to the same corrupt elite that failed the city so spectacularly, the effort could be led by groups like Douglass Community Coalition. Before the hurricane, this remarkable assembly of parents, teachers, students and artists was trying to reconstruct the city from the ravages of poverty by transforming Frederick Douglass senior high school into a model of community learning.

Indeed. It is far better to empower people by giving them responsibility and power to reconstruct the city than by giving big juicy contracts to organisations such as Halliburton.

Go and read the splendid piece from Naomi Klein.