I’m totally disgusted with the handling of Katrina. I’m just so utterly shocked that things have degraded to this level that I find it hard to talk about.
There are a couple of thoughts that have been spinning around my mind and I need to get them off my chest. I’m utterly amazed that the US federal government did not immediately send busses and other transportation to evacuate. The evacuation was completely voluntary, and therefor exclusively for those who can afford it.
I’ve been hearing people say things such as “well they should have got out, they knew it was coming.” and “we can’t be expected to bail people out for living in environments that are untenable”.
Imagine that you are poor for a moment. How do you leave? Are you going to go the pawn shop and sell some shit really quick? What if you don’t have cash on hand to move your whole family? Are you going to leave them? If/when you get out of the city, where do you go? What if you dont know anyone outside the city. Where do you stay? Are you supposed to listen to the authorities and end up in some prison camp (AKA convention center) with inadequate food water sanitation and patrolled by armed guards?
The kind of elitist/classist thinking that I’ve been seeing expressed is just so utterly perverse. I can hardly believe how often I’m hearing it. And for those of you who are “hard-boiled pragmatists” I have this question for you. If New Orleans was so expendable, why is it that shock-waves are running through the world economy from this? If the poor are really not needed, then why do we have them doing all of the hard labor there? A real pragmatist would realize that the general welfare is in everyones best interests. The Neo-cons don’t preach pragmatism. They preach selfishism.
I’m also distraught about what *I* can do. This has totally made me really think about my decision to leave the US. I really was not happy with the administration, but more generally I was very unhappy with what I view as a general malaise that has been gradually overtaking the American consciousness. Everything has to be justified in terms of immediate short term cash. There is no long term thought. No thought is given to quality of life. No thought is given to things not directly tangible. I had found it more and more distressing as time went on in the US so I felt quite good about my decision to leave.
Now however I’m somewhat torn. Really these types of sentiments occur elsewhere, but they are encountered which much less frequency in Europe. The place is just a lot more civilized. It makes me yearn for that kind of sanity at home. I really feel like the US has some sort of schizophrenia that perhaps it can be jostled out of. Now however, I’m on the other side of the Atlantic bemoaning the fate of all the poor souls who live in the sinking ship that I abandoned, wondering if I should have stayed and screamed with all my might or done whatever was necessary to get things to change course.
I have *honestly* been considering whether I shouldn’t try and start a campaign to evacuate Americans, particularly the poor and people of color to somewhere that they could have a chance to live decent normal lives. Somewhere where they can be educated. Somewhere where they can avoid malnutrition, lead poisoning, asbestos and hundreds of other things that the American federal government doesn’t give a damn about (and is actively pursing means to avoid ever having to give a damn about, ie lawsuits).
OK, call me crazy. But it really does look that bad in my eyes.
Here is a nice uplifting article to read
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1077495.php
The US sends in troops to collect bodies, stand guard and not to feed or evacuate.
Historically when people are starved and sleep deprived and there is no semblance of normalcy things often degrade into situations of violence and riotous behavior. This could have been avoided by bringing resources to bear BEFORE 4 days AFTER the disaster.
I hope with all my heart that people in the states will realize that something has gone horribly wrong with their way of life and demand a change. Not of just of the most obvious current political leader. I’m talking about a real change. A total change of direction.
September 3rd, 2005 at 3:41 pm
Why should the federal government send busses when New Orleans had an entire fleet of them that was left to be flooded?
September 5th, 2005 at 8:29 am
You can still vote from overseas. Otherwise, I’m not sure what good being here does anyway. My cynicism has reached new depths.
October 16th, 2005 at 1:12 am
Hi Gavin,
This is Ian, Liz’s boyfriend. I was really moved by what you wrote so I thought I would let you in on a secret: There IS something being done in the U.S. to generate the exact sort of real change you see as being needed, and it is being accomplished by Lyndon LaRouche’s Political Action Committee and related Youth Movement. This is a secret only because this organization has been blacked out of the so-called “free press”, which is really a Left vs. Right spigot for the financial elite and countercultures. When people are divided amongst themselves, and focusing on the material gratification and social image you correctly identify as a systemic problem, they cannot unite as sublime human beings and bring the justice through political and cultural intervention that is so desperately needed. This movement is dedicated to exposing the corruption in our government from the historical perspective of ideas, and returning the U.S. to a protectionist policy of “fair” trade, infrastructure development, and innovations in the Classical arts and sciences. You can easily do an internet search and find lots of slanders about this campaign, because of the successes of our interventions thus far.
You are absolutely correct about the shockwaves in the global economy. These are shockwaves of a Reimannian type, especially as typified in his 1860 dissertation on that subject. Free-trade has reached its boundary condition, and so that system is collapsing. But what U.S. citizens need to do is NOT evacuate, because our Constitution is unique in its ability to intervene in this process. **The people need to quit their sophistry and act on principle.** Congress is starting to realize it MUST intervene against Dick Cheney, and put this bankrupt system into receivership with the creation of national credit for the public and private sectors, as FDR did, so we can put people back to work rebuilding our basic economic infrastructure, like the port in New Orleans. There is nowhere to run from this collapse, but regardless of where you are you can help by getting involved with these ideas and sharing them with the general population in Ireland. Go to www.larouchepac.com and watch his October 12 webcast. I think/hope you will be pleasantly inspired.
Ian
PS: People who are in America can contact their national legislators, because the LYM is massively affecting Washington D.C. *right now* and that place will never be the same again. Liz and I are in a growing dialogue with Alaska’s legislators, especially Sen. Murkowski and Rep. Young.