"It's a shame it had to happen this way, but this is fantastic!".
So, it took me a while to realize that I work in the same building as one of the most hated companies in America.
Halliburton subsidiary, Kellog, Brown, & Root Services Inc. , aka KBR, lives in my building. I'll tell you, sometimes it just makes me sick to listen in on some of the conversations. Everyday I see them come and go, their red badges attached to their necks, their salesman's suits, their bad cigarette breath; the KBR-force. Hey, it's a living!
I'd always just tried to hold my breath whenever I was stuck in the elevator with the war-profiteers next door. Sometimes, I'd engage the Cheneyettes in light conversation, "Nice Weather... mmmm hmm..". Sometimes, I'd just listen in on their talk of multi-billion dollar Iraqi operations, or oil pipelines through the middle east. Sometimes, I'd hold my breath and wait for the little red floor indicator to read "6", so that I could get out as fast as possible.
This morning, however, I heard something that just confused me, until I put 2+2 together and came up with a deep and abiding rage that I can't seem to shake.
Today, a couple of salesguys were talking and said the following:
"It's a shame it had to happen this way, but this is fantastic!".
Which didn't click with me until I read the paper today:
An Arlington-based Halliburton Co. subsidiary that has been criticized for its reconstruction work in Iraq has begun tapping a $500 million Navy contract to do emergency repairs at Gulf Coast naval and Marine facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina.-- Halliburton Subsidiary Taps Contract For Repairs
Ah ha! Yes, the same group that won a $10.7 bn no-bid contract to logistically support the liars who sent us to war in Iraq, the same group that had to return millions of dollars they overcharged the government, the same group that has no idea what happened to $8.8 bn that disappeared without a trace in Iraq, these are the ones we're going to put in charge of rebuilding New Orleans.
I think I'm gonna to throw up.
Why should the government do anything to protect the lives and property of citizens when it profits corporate cronies so much better when they don't?
But this is the thinking of the "no taxes" crowd, guys like the Bushs, Jerry Kilgore and other radical right-wingers who control our Government. It's better to keep government weak and ineffective in doing for people what they can't do for themselves. It's better to leave people out there on their own, and then give big contracts to private companies to clean it up. See, if the government does it, it doesn't increase GDP, but if the government pays a contractor to do it, GDP goes up. To these latter-day Marie Antoinettes, that's called prosperity.
Yeah, where there's disaster, pain, suffering, misery, war, famine, death, and disease, there you'll find my neighbors, the good folks at KBR rollin' in the dough.
Isn't that just "FANTASTIC"!?