Few of us will admit to it but because of Katrina, we are becoming a more socialistic citizenry. Most of us will see this as natural and good because, despite our indoctrination into competitive economics, we are kindhearted, loving, and altruistic people. When we see others suffering and in need, we respond immediately and instinctively by offering our help, our food, and by opening our homes. Most of us want to eliminate all human misery, and we will happily accept and adopt any programs that lead to that end – whether they qualify as socialistic or not -- because most of us intuitively reject the alternative. Capitalism may yet prove to be the best economic system ever devised, but it is the exact wrong one needed now. We realize that trying to profit from someone else’s suffering is immoral. Most of us know this – but not all. Some of us will try to exploit the tragedy of Katrina in order to reap a financial windfall. This is exactly what the Bush administration and their corporate friends are preparing to do.

Halliburton, Bechtel, and their ilk, are already positioning themselves for lucrative government reconstruction contracts. George W. Bush immediately suspended the Davis-Bacon Act, which was established in 1931 to guarantee a fair wage to workers employed by companies under government contract. Our President, the so-called “compassionate conservative”, who was so confused and inert immediately after the storm, is focused and energized now – enough so that he can callously strip workers of their fundamental rights. He sees an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for his political allies, and by suspending this law, he has made it legal for them to gain even larger profits by paying slave wages to their hirees. This is a travesty against the victims of Katrina, a crime against those thousands of displaced people who want and need to rebuild their own homes and cities, and an insult to every hard working American man and women.

Americans have to insist that this economic rape of our fellow citizens, and the theft of our taxes, end before it starts. To manage the aftermath of Katrina correctly and compassionately, we have to go back to the kind of government programs that pulled our country out of the Great Depression. We need Work and Health programs for the unemployed of the Gulf region. We need guaranteed “living” wages, and we need to award government contracts in the Gulf only to local and regional small businesses. No charitable donations or taxpayer monies intended for the stricken areas should be allowed to leave the local economies. And no one should ever be allowed to profit from this tragedy.