There have been so many assholes profiting off human suffering in the past several years, its easy for some to get lost in the crowd. It’s even easier if they are not well know to begin with. Here’s a guy who deserves a bit of attention. His name is Finis Shellnutt. He is, at the very least, an ignorant piece of shit. At worst, he could even make the entire Republican House look respectable all by himself. Anyone who suspects something sketchy went down in regards to Katrina will definetly want to check this guy out.
It’s easy to suspect foul play these days. And when a Bush is somehow linked to the problem, its quite reasonable to focus on them. However, the Bush family aren’t the only bad people in this country. With allegations that the levees were blown, the first instinct is to suspect this adminastration. but in this case, I think a more reasonable place to look would be on a more local level. And of course, you always follow the money.
We remember all the bogus stories about looters that Fox news ran. Unfounded rumors and what not. But at least once, they had a detailed first hand account.
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/...
Shelnutt came to Hopsicker’s attention when he popped up last weekend in a Katrina feature on Chris Matthew’s Hardball year-end review. Coincidentally – hey, it happens – Shelnutt was also a principal source of the rumours of looters shooting police.
From the FoxNews transcript of the September 2 O’Reilly Factor:
O’REILLY: And on the phone from the French Quarter, 53-year-old businessman Finis Shelnutt, who’s surrounded by looters….
You’re on St. Louis Street. That’s high ground in the French Quarter. No water in the street. But what’s the looter factor there? How many of them are there and what are they doing?
SHELNUTT: Bill, it started off I guess the night after the hurricane the looting started. And the police were chasing looters a block away from me. And a couple of looters stopped and shot a policeman in the head – in the forehead and killed him.
Shelnutt continues, describing how he was trapped by the “human volcano” of looters, until a sympathetic O’Reilly says “we’re going to get you help.” Hopsicker found Shelnutt to be the source for at least two reports on FoxNews which spread the poisoning meme that looters were menacing citizens in zombie-like packs and shooting police.
Well, my first instinct is to wonder why he was still in the city to begin with. I guess he was to stupid to heed the warnings and evacuate. I’m also curious as to why he decided to call Fox News. If he just saw an officer get shot, the police would be the normal people to call. Even if local lines were down, I would think the state police would certainly be an option, especialy with the French Quarter being unflooded. Any corpse would not have floated away. With a public statement on record, you’d think someone would have asked him to file a police report.
In light of these suspicious allegations, Hardball still found him to be important enough to bring in. One would hope that Tweety would call him on those allegations. But, as we all know, this is the “Liberal media” and conservatives don’t get the luxury of fact checks and follow up questions.
But, to backtrack, a few days after his desperate plea for help to O’Riley, we see Finis pop up again, this time in Germany’s Das Spiegel. (link expired)
New Orleans – Finis Shellnut is wealthy and he isn’t hiding it, even in the difficult times following the Katrina disaster. The 53-year-old real estate magnate sits in front of one of his buildings in the French Quarter, enjoying a chilled bottle of French champagne.
The man is a walking glitz machine, from the diamonds on his Rolex to his gold-framed glasses to the silver cross dangling on his chest under his half-open shirt. Shellnut is doing well these days, extremely well. He senses a lot of post-Katrina business coming his way. “Our party’s about to get going again,” he says. He sits next to a flyer depicting his face and advertising his phone number. “The storm destroyed a great deal,” he says, adding, with a smile, “and there’s plenty of space to build houses and sell them for a lot of money.”
Shellnut wasn’t particularly hard-hit by the storm and the flooding in New Orleans. “My real estate is in the city’s better neighborhoods,” he says, clearly pleased with himself, “a tree fell down here and there, but otherwise everything’s just fine.”
Pissed off yet? Well, cue up you favorite vulgar insult cause you’ll need it.
Despite all the chaos and destruction, the storm and the floods came with a silver lining for people like Shellnut. “Most importantly, the hurricane drove poor people and criminals out of the city,” he says, “and we hope they don’t come back.”
Shellnut has even conjured up ancient Gallic legend to support his theory of Katrina’s supposedly sanitizing effects. He says that the name “Katrina” once symbolized a kind of cleansing process that only leaves behind the purest elements of a society.
Ok, now that thats out of your system, time for the big one. Courtesy of my hometown San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/...
“Katrina is the best thing to ever happen to this city,” said 53-year-old Finis Shelnutt, who owns a French Quarter restaurant and now spends his day sitting alone at a table outside hoping to sell a cold beer or soda to journalists or rescue workers passing by.
Telling of the deep-rooted divide that exists between black and white and rich and poor in this Southern city, Shelnutt said the storm created an opportunity to clean up New Orleans, which is filled with “slums and too many bad areas.”
He hopes the city builds a golf course or two where the poor neighborhoods, home to mostly black people, are still underwater.
“Change is good,” Shelnutt said, denying it was a race issue. “They will find there is a better world elsewhere, like in Houston or Atlanta.”
I’m thinking of that special word I usually reserve for Barbera Bush. What a “See You Next Tuesday”. I mean, even David Duke was pissed off at what happend during Katrina, and this Shellnutt prick is practicly pitching a tent in his pants. Its ironic this guy dwells in the French Quarter. I think Americans should think twice about calling the French wimps. The last time anyone talked this kind of shit in France, they chopped their heads off.
I find it very interesting that the source of the debunked tales of looting and murder come from a local multi-millionare real estate bigshot, the guy most likely to profit off this. He struck me as a bit too happy with what occured. He certainly seems to have given alot of forethought into what he could do with that real estate if only that part of town were “cleansed” of the poor.
A lot of people are quick to dismiss claims that the levees were blown. I just don’t understand why so many claims from the people who lived there are outright dismissed. Is it because talking heads from the “Libral Media” use a sarcastic tone of voice when they mention it, or because those honest right wing partisans say “don’t be ridiculus”. We tend to forget that the vast majority of people in this country don’t give a shit about politics. Does anyone realy think that poor, underemployed, undereducated people pay much, if any attention to national politics. I don’t think that people who just had their whole world wiped of the map, have no idea weather friends and family are alive, haven’t eaten or bathed in days, and have literarly nowhere to go would be thinking like Karl Rove and trying to find a way to spin this with the media in order to smear the Bush administration. I doubt they are running around getting their stories straight and comming up with talking points for a media blitz. I don’t belive they are looking to take advantage of the situation so they can gain …ummm, whats in it for them again? Well, never mind. I think its far more likely these people were in a deep state of shock none of us can fathom. If they were cohearently thinking at all, it would probably be about food, sleep, shelter, where they will live , who else is alive, ect. Thats a bit more likely than thinking up bullshit stories.
And mabey the levees didn’t blow up. But taking a serious look is not an unreasonable request. And I don’t see a reason why Finis isn’t someone worth looking in to. At the very least be we’ll just be pointing out to America what scum those with power realy are.
