[Peace-discuss] On New Orleans:

[Chuck Minne]

From: WSWS : News & Analysis : North America

 
Washington’s response to this human tragedy has been one of gross incompetence and 
criminal indifference. People have been left to literally die in the streets of a 
major American city without any assistance for four days. Images of suffering and 
degradation that resemble the conditions in the most impoverished Third World countries 
are broadcast daily with virtually no visible response from the government of a 
country that concentrates the greatest share of wealth in the world.

The storm that breached the levees of New Orleans has also revealed all of the 
horrific implications of 25 years’ worth of uninterrupted social and political reaction. 
The real results of the destruction of essential social services, the dismantling of 
government agencies entrusted with alleviating poverty and coping with disasters, 
and the ceaseless nostrums about the “free market” magically resolving the problems of 
modern society have been exposed before millions.

With at least 100,000 people trapped in a city without power, water or food and 
threatened with the spread of disease and death, the government has proven incapable of 
establishing the most elementary framework of logistical organization. It has failed 
to even evacuate the critically ill from public hospitals, much less provide basic 
medical assistance to the many thousands placed in harm’s way by the disaster.

What was the government’s response to the natural catastrophe that threatened New 
Orleans? It amounted to betting that the storm would go the other way, followed by a 
policy of “every man for himself.” Residents of the city were told to evacuate, while 
the tens of thousands without transportation or too poor to travel were left to 
their fate.

Now crowds of thousands of hungry and homeless people have been reduced to chanting 
“we need help” as bodies accumulate in the streets. Washington’s inability to mount 
and coordinate basic rescue operations will unquestionably add to a death toll that 
is already estimated in the thousands.

The government’s callous disregard for the human suffering, its negligence in 
failing to prepare for this disaster and, above all, its utter incompetence have staggered 
even the compliant American media.

Patriotic blather about the country coming together to deal with the crisis combined 
with efforts to poison public opinion by vilifying those without food or water for 
“looting” have fallen flat in face of the undeniable and monumental debacle that 
constitutes the official response to the disaster.

Reporters sent into the devastated region have been reduced to tears by the masses 
of people crying out for help with no response. Television announcers cannot help but 
wonder aloud why the authorities have failed so miserably to alleviate such massive 
human suffering.

The presidency, the Congress and both the Republican and Democratic parties—all have 
displayed an astounding lack of concern for the hundreds of thousands of people 
whose lives have been shattered and who face the most daunting and uncertain future, not 
to mention the tens of millions more who will be hard hit by the economic 
aftershocks of Katrina.

In the figure of the president, George W. Bush, the incompetence, stupidity, and 
sheer inhumanity that characterize so much of America’s money-mad corporate elite find 
their quintessentially repulsive expression.

As the hurricane developed over two weeks in the Caribbean and slowly approached the 
coast of New Orleans and Mississippi, Bush amused himself at his ranch retreat in 
Crawford, Texas. It is now clear that his administration made no serious preparations 
to deal with the dangers posed by the approaching storm.

In an interview Thursday on the “Good Morning America” television program, Bush 
reprised his miserable performance of the previous day, adding to Wednesday’s banalities 
the declaration that there would be “zero tolerance” for looters.

The president blanched when ABC interviewer Dianne Sawyer asked about a suggestion 
that the major oil companies be forced to cede a share of the immense windfall 
profits they have reaped from rising prices over the past six months to fund disaster 
relief. He responded by counseling the American people to “send cash” to charitable 
organizations.

In other words, there will be no serious financial commitment from the government to 
save lives, care for the sick and needy, and help the displaced and bereft restore 
their lives. Nor will there be any national, centrally financed and organized program 
to rebuild one of the country’s most important cities—a city that is uniquely 
associated with some of the most critical cultural achievements in music and the arts of 
the American people.

Above all, the suffering of millions will not be allowed to impinge on the profit 
interests of a tiny elite of multi-millionaires whose interests the government 
defends.

Later in the day, Bush described the aftermath of the flood as a “temporary 
disturbance.”

The ruthless attitude of those in power toward the average poor and working class 
residents of New Orleans was summed up Thursday by Republican House Speaker Dennis 
Hastert, who declared “it doesn’t make sense” to spend tax dollars to rebuild New 
Orleans. “It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed,” he said.

While Hastert was forced to backtrack from these chilling remarks, they have a 
definite political logic. To rebuild the lives that have been ravaged by Hurricane 
Katrina would require mounting a massive government effort that would run counter to the 
entire thrust of a national policy based upon privatization and the transfer of 
wealth to the rich that has for decades been pursued by both major parties.

Can anyone truly believe that the current administration and its Democratic 
accomplices in Congress are going to launch a serious program to construct low-cost housing, 
rebuild schools and provide jobs for the hundreds of thousands left unemployed by 
the destruction?

Congress has been virtually silent on the catastrophe in the south. It has nothing 
to say, having voted to support Bush’s extreme right-wing agenda of massive tax cuts 
for the rich, huge outlays for war in Iraq and Afghanistan and an ever-expanding 
Pentagon budget, and billions to finance the Homeland Security Department.


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