The ongoing tragedy that is all over our television screens at the time of writing is nothing short of obscene. TV stations and tabloids blurt out their sickening one liners and sound bites of ‘Anarchy in New Orleans’ and ‘Looters should be shot on site’.
Whilst it is still unknown exactly how many people have died in the tragedy the government, through their corrupt and sponsored press, rather than accept their share of responsibility for the growing catastrophe, maintain an on going barrage of fuckwitted hatred and slanderous abuse toward those they are supposed to represent. Yes it’s them again folks…the poor and needy.
So what, we can hear you ask, has the government got to do with what’s occurred. Surely it was an ‘act of God’?
Whilst New Orleans and the rest of the region are no stranger to terrible weather conditions, reports were coming out atleast a year ago about the need for government aid to reinvest into strenghthening the waterways and levees in the canals leading from Lake Pontchartrain which protect New Orleans. The response from the Bush administration to a request for at least $78 million to fund the project was to splash out an extraordinarily stingy amount of $10 million. The excuse behind this? The ongoing cost of running the war of terror in Iraq.
Days before the imminent hurricane was to sweep into the region, public officials were seen on tv calling for people to ‘get on outta here today’! This led to the extraordinary scenes of hundreds of thousands of people jumping into their cars and heading out of the area to safety.
One thing the public officials didn’t address was how the majority of the poor were supposed to join into such a biblical rush for cover. Already poverty stricken and without cars or relatives to stay with out of state, what provisions were set up for the evacuation of the most vulnerable? None. This certainly was a New Testament case Bush style of ‘get outa ya bed and walk’!
Three days into the event with the majority of the poor areas of New Orleans covered in water and thousands dead, the only help people could rely on was their own. Frustrated by the lack of help, people ‘criminally’ took whatever measures they could to stay alive, something the state so readily screams at us is nothing other than ‘looting’.
What is interesting about this whole sordid affair is that in 2005, the number of families living in poverty in Louisiana is close to double the national average. New Orleans has one of the highest poverty rates of any of the largest cities in the USA.
According to a report by Total Community Action, a New Orleans public advocacy group,
'nearly one out of three New Orleans residents live below the poverty level, the majority of who are Black'.
A spokesperson for the United Negro College Fund noted that the city's poor live in some of the most dilapidated, and deteriorated housing in the nation. No surprise then that fewer than 40% of the residents in New Orleans and the surrounding area will have flood insurance to rebuild their lives.
The great rush to help the people of New Orleans is amazing to watch. After all it is happening isn’t it? Isn’t it?
Well four warships have been sent down to lend a hand…they should be there in about three days time! And one can only wonder of what use these warships will be.
One could almost be forgiven for believing that there are those who are rubbing their hands with glee at this appauling catastrophe.
‘Black, homeless, no place to go? Howz about a career in the marine corps son? You KNOW it makes sense!’
http://www.londonclasswar.org/news.htm
Whilst it is still unknown exactly how many people have died in the tragedy the government, through their corrupt and sponsored press, rather than accept their share of responsibility for the growing catastrophe, maintain an on going barrage of fuckwitted hatred and slanderous abuse toward those they are supposed to represent. Yes it’s them again folks…the poor and needy.
So what, we can hear you ask, has the government got to do with what’s occurred. Surely it was an ‘act of God’?
Whilst New Orleans and the rest of the region are no stranger to terrible weather conditions, reports were coming out atleast a year ago about the need for government aid to reinvest into strenghthening the waterways and levees in the canals leading from Lake Pontchartrain which protect New Orleans. The response from the Bush administration to a request for at least $78 million to fund the project was to splash out an extraordinarily stingy amount of $10 million. The excuse behind this? The ongoing cost of running the war of terror in Iraq.
Days before the imminent hurricane was to sweep into the region, public officials were seen on tv calling for people to ‘get on outta here today’! This led to the extraordinary scenes of hundreds of thousands of people jumping into their cars and heading out of the area to safety.
One thing the public officials didn’t address was how the majority of the poor were supposed to join into such a biblical rush for cover. Already poverty stricken and without cars or relatives to stay with out of state, what provisions were set up for the evacuation of the most vulnerable? None. This certainly was a New Testament case Bush style of ‘get outa ya bed and walk’!
Three days into the event with the majority of the poor areas of New Orleans covered in water and thousands dead, the only help people could rely on was their own. Frustrated by the lack of help, people ‘criminally’ took whatever measures they could to stay alive, something the state so readily screams at us is nothing other than ‘looting’.
What is interesting about this whole sordid affair is that in 2005, the number of families living in poverty in Louisiana is close to double the national average. New Orleans has one of the highest poverty rates of any of the largest cities in the USA.
According to a report by Total Community Action, a New Orleans public advocacy group,
'nearly one out of three New Orleans residents live below the poverty level, the majority of who are Black'.
A spokesperson for the United Negro College Fund noted that the city's poor live in some of the most dilapidated, and deteriorated housing in the nation. No surprise then that fewer than 40% of the residents in New Orleans and the surrounding area will have flood insurance to rebuild their lives.
The great rush to help the people of New Orleans is amazing to watch. After all it is happening isn’t it? Isn’t it?
Well four warships have been sent down to lend a hand…they should be there in about three days time! And one can only wonder of what use these warships will be.
One could almost be forgiven for believing that there are those who are rubbing their hands with glee at this appauling catastrophe.
‘Black, homeless, no place to go? Howz about a career in the marine corps son? You KNOW it makes sense!’
http://www.londonclasswar.org/news.htm
Comments
Hide the following 23 comments
bad analysis
01.09.2005 23:20
Rapes of women AND children have gone up, because the looters have armed-up and decided to claim that as well as material goods.
But I look forward to hearing your hilarious left wing reasoning behind this increase, probably blaming racists for it or something, as a way of shifting the blame for a black problem onto the shoulders of white people.
Most of the looters I saw on TV were black, most of the reports of armed gangs shooting at people and car jacking were young black males. There are poor white people, asians and mexicans, but it is blacks in all these reports.
But go ahead, give us your entertaining sociology style excuse for this.
thinker
????????????????????????
01.09.2005 23:59
Hmmm, maybe bringing in much needs aid via helicopter, provide medical aid, distubute food and water with aid of the soldiers on board. Kinda blows your whole, government doesn't care about it people theory. Proberbly best we don't mention it. Shhhh
???????????????????????????????????
waiting in wonder
02.09.2005 00:41
that's right .. Will they be stacked with provisions for the good of the people? Will they ferry these people to relative safety? Will they blow the shit out of the poor and sail off to blow the shit out of people in the middle east? Just passers-by.
Time will tell. Looks like a piss in the ocean though.
John Dole
Not very clever
02.09.2005 02:07
Whether that translates into calculated apathy is another matter. Most likely it wasn't seen asa concern until too late, and the military are the only force capable of responding at all quickly enough.
Just because the only reports you see on telly feature black people looting, does not mean the only people doing the looting are black people, or that looting is the primary activity of people there. I imagine it could become (or already be) important, if efforts to provide them with food and supplies, or a way out, are not fully explored. I'm not saying they aren't, or that they won't be, I don't know enough. But it is not unreasonable to assume that if no formal means of satisfying needs are provided, the remaining inhabitants will need to make it up as they go along. With guns, that probably won't make for a pleasant ad hoc society. It may therefore be necessary for people to be present there keeping some kind of order, but treat the symptoms AND the causes, or you're screwed. Hopefully the extra resources can be directed predominantly towards the second aspect.
My experience of television news reporting phenomena like these are not exactly rewarding. For instance, compare the experience of attending a protest march -- lots of people get together, make some noise, have some fun, march through the streets and listen to some speeches of varying quality -- with the news coverage -- thirty seconds or so of some angry people facing off with police, maybe a few bins knocked over, something resembling trouble, maybe even a thrown brick. There are usually very strict time constraints on each report, limiting the amount of footage shown. It is usually the most provocative, like violence, or some other shocking act, at the expense of other, perhaps more characteristic portrayals. And yes, it is often very easy to make sure your 30 seconds doesn't include white people doing anything naughty. I'm not saying that's the case, but I would be quite surprised if there were no white people who were stuck there who hadn't resorted to crime, possibly violent. Implying that black people are more inclined to be violent doesn't vit the evidence. It fits the news reports, but that, as they say, is another story.
Bob
e-mail:
bob_appleyard@yahoo.co.uk
Left and Right
02.09.2005 04:31
It is definitive rightist thinking to suggest that left to their own devices everyone will rape, pillage, loot and murder.
Both are right and wrong because dofferent people are ultimately different. The trouble is that the rapists and pillagers will seek to take control and bully the rest of the population for their own benefit.
Personally I'd choose the tenuously elected governemnt, however bad they are, over a bunch of gangsters.
Paul
To ????????????
02.09.2005 08:16
02.09.2005 00:59
"Well four warships have been sent down to lend a hand…they should be there in about three days time! And one can only wonder of what use these warships will be. "
Hmmm, maybe bringing in much needs aid via helicopter, provide medical aid, distubute food and water with aid of the soldiers on board. Kinda blows your whole, government doesn't care about it people theory. Proberbly best we don't mention it. Shhhh
??????????????????????????????????? *
Yeah waiting a few more days to bring in much needed aid by warship is really going to be effective when it's needed right now isn't it you idiot!
Zac
FEMA
02.09.2005 08:49
Agent X
not ALL TV reports...
02.09.2005 08:53
It is disgusting that poor, desperate, people are blamed by the US govt news, as it appears was portrayed last night by the BBC.
Copernicus
A Typical response
02.09.2005 09:17
I reckon a backlash will spread to other states very soon.
S.E.
Mother Nature works for Bush
02.09.2005 09:48
Military rule, Martial Law and shoot-to-kill are never there when you need them!
Better still... bring in the UN to 'save the day' - not with food, water or amenities, but plenty of vaccines.
Mt. Weather
facts
02.09.2005 10:11
In Boscastle nobody got raped!
thinker
America lead the way, for the third world
02.09.2005 10:51
Having said that i hope this is the first of many natural disasters that will hit Americaca and hopefully next time the rich won't be so lucky. Perhaps then the worlds biggest polluter will start to clean up it's act although I doubt it very much.
But looking at the TV images of the poor people sitting around waiting for their government to come and help them, really pisses me off not just the fact that poor people are suffering what really makes me sick is the fact that these people live in the worlds richest country and yet nothing is being done to help them. While GW Moron is wheeled out to stand in front of daddy moron and Big Bill Blow Job (Clinton) he seems to have more difficulty keeping his idiot grin off his face than reading the lines that have been written for him.
I have personally wiitnessed natural disasters at first hand in south and central america in countries with one millioneth of the resources that U.S has, yet the authorities were there on the case doing straight away doing something, no luxury coaches and other first world tiimmings water in plastic bags (and coca cola for that matter) maybe to get out of the area you had to ride on the back of an open truck for hours on dirt roads in the scorching mid day sun (which was the normal mode of transport anyway). The people pulled together and got on with it and no one was left to rot by the side of the road like are in New Orleans.
What a total embarassment for the worlds big bully UNITED STATES OF AMERICA always harping on about DEMOCRACY and CIVIL RIGHTS ABUSESE perhaps the United only refers to the reach states and when the going gets tough the poor can can take a hike. For me it goes to show that the fast buck masonic mentalilty of the americans aint worth a dry shite .
people still talking about the Left and right scam on this channel, looking at everything as goodies and baddies, should beware not of the extreme left or right but the center left and center right cos they are the ones who get you dead center up the arse hole, yeah getting fucked over by the left is for the radical chic !!
and jolly hockey sticks it's far more credible that being shafted by some hard nosed right wing fuckers.
New Orleans is a good example of what the real issues are all about ..
Fast Buck Rogers
Even the guardian !!!
02.09.2005 11:12
Now guess what most of the poor people of new orleans are mainly black and you'll have no trouble dealing up with the fact that they all live in the poor most neglected areas of the city.
Well as they have been abandoned by their government and they are hungry and don't have anything to lose they go on the rampage looting as much as they can carry. The law of the jungle takes over and the strongest get the rich pickings the weakest and the people who are un able to defend themselves get trodden down and abused in this sector you find women and children. Like during the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia lot's of young muslim girls were kdnapped by Serbian men, some were their neighbours, these girls and women were held as captive sex slaves, as far asI know there no blacks in Serbia.
I thought racist comments were not allowed on IMC ?
Tinker
We would all become looters in that situation or die -reply to "Thinker"
02.09.2005 11:48
1. Did it not occur to you that a lage percentage of the population of New Orleans and area are black so anything shown on TV would bound to show black citizens of this part of America.
2. If you were left homeless, with no help from your government after three days with no water or food (or toilet or washing facilities or fresh clothes etc in the heat)) would you not brake into an empty flooded shop to get that water and food for your family (go on - think about it and give me an honest answer). And if yu did this and were caught on TV would you also not be branded a "looter"!!
The government spent £billions on a war to kill in Iraq but cut the speding on the Sea defences (leveees) in New Orleans that would have saved the living!
See this link:
"No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming" - Sidney Blumenthal
Neil
Neil Williams
Homepage:
http://fightbackuk.blogspot.com/
Lots of coverage
02.09.2005 11:53
SE
"thinker" you're a joke and an unintellectual idiot
02.09.2005 13:27
I'm sure most people would steal to eat or maybe take an item of clothing to change into. Because there's no clean sanitation they can't wash properly. I don't condone greed for unnecessary items in the looting though. Nor do I condone taking people's personal possessions. However, if people take food or clothing or bedding from shops because of a state of emergency then put yourself in their position. I think it your house was destroyed and you had no money and you might do the same.
I noticed that George Bush was condemning all looting at all, but the American Government have left people without even clean water, a necessity for life, and have been slow to react. They are more concerned with property ownership than ensuring the people have enough to survive. Bush's Government have been slow to respond with the aid effort. That's because most poor people didn't vote for Bush.
President Bush seemed more concerned with oil shortages in the Gulf and the price of oil than with people's lives. I know oil affects the American economy, but Americans are greedy with how much of the world's oil they use. In an emergency Bush should have cared more about people starving and dying. But like Tony Blair he was enjoying another holiday and couldn't give up a holiday. But then the Bush family are closely associated with the Saudis, Carlyle Group and oil interests.
Bush said they were acting quickly, but to start an aid effort after days is not good enough with people starving, injured and still dying because of the time the Government took. The American federal Government should have paid for buses to evacuate poor people in advance to avoid a lot of the problems.
To all you lying hypocrites out there with warm homes and a full belly, food, clothing and shelter are the basic necessities of life.
It comes down to oil, power and the rich keeping their wealth
www.indybay.org/news/2004/04/1678405.php
www.hereinreality.com/carlyle.html
the level of discussion has gone down with so many right-wing american comments
No Brains Thinker?
02.09.2005 14:06
What kind of perverted logic is that? Even the BBC are reporting there is evidence of the police joining in the looting, is that leftism fault or years of capitalist ideology and fragmentation of a sense of community?
You cannot compare what happened in a tiny village like Bocastle with what happened in a city the size of New Orleans. If there were 10 000's of poor people stuck without food and water in 100 degrees heat for days in any flooded city of the world, after a disaster like this there would be murders and rapes. The looting, killing and alleged rapes is the product of decades of the systemic destruction of any sense of common community spirit in many US cities and an enormous number of poor people ignored by the US government for decades.
However, it is clear that many ordinary American are trying to help on their own initiative, they unlike their government are a credit to their country. The US administration knew this was coming and have failed. The real lesson as Bakunin points out if you cannot feed people the day after a revolution (or a natural disaster) then you will give way to demagogues and tyranny. The US government failed to understand that in Iraq and has now failed to understand that in New Orleans.
Thinker your obvious just a racist twat - I would guess your BNP.
George Orwell
thinkin?
02.09.2005 14:08
new orleans, you may find if you take off those blinkers, was an already impoverished city abandoned by all but the poorest and sickest people who couldn't leave, drug fiends and troubled people who don't read the papers or do what the governments tells them and arrogant fucks reared on video games and free access to guns who think that the real world can't touch them.
and now they all stuck there together with only what they can grab cos they can't get out, and are surrounded by equally destroyed communities.
little bit of a different situation?
then there is the proportion issue.
how many people affected (and not abandoned) in boscastle - a few hundred, even a thousand or two? in new orleans, up to a hundred thousand. even a simple statistical analysis would reveal the higher incidence of rape in a population of many thousands rather than one or two thousand.
but 'thinker' is clearly one of the professional idiots you increasingly find on here (are they paid or just dumb?)
for the rest of us, open eyed and unpaid to have our thoughts, I just wonder, hope, pray that the good people of the US and beyond will see through the right wing spin on this nightmare and start to press for policies putting real security of people and planet before the false security of 'property' and corporate profits.. and don't let the 'end days' chritian fundamentalist and neo-con loonies carry on running riot and pushing ahead with their 'bring on armageddon' policies
with love and sorrow and solidarity to all those affected by this all too often predicted opening of hell's gates....
wondering
logic
02.09.2005 14:39
(I think a few of us have quite strong emotions round this whole hell scenario.. not surpirising really)
the idea that it is evil to take cds, electrical goods etc in such a circumstance
ok.
thinker can you try, please just try
to imagine that you have lost your home, posessions, and possibly also family and friends.
that you are on the street with no help from the government you paid your taxes to and apparently nothing to look forward to.
you have no food, water, medication, etc.
wouldn't the prospect of 'escape' with music or a film on dvd be kind of nice? when the power is back on..?
ok you have no armchair, tv, front room to listen to or watch it in, but it could be good currency to exchange with someone for food or comfort at a later date.
then there are gangs taking whole electronic systems.
well, apart from the fact that most of them probably had one at home that is knackered and they are not gonna be covered by insurance where the corporatiions are, as (mainly, I assume) poor Southern Blacks, descendants mainly of slaves,many new orleans families have seen if not participated in the raw struggle for survival first hand over centuries. those alive now are the offspring of the survivors.
more recently they've seen the Bush posse on TV break every international law to grab what they want from Iraq and elsewhere in the world. and they are not stupid - they too want something to trade and make a living from. some probably are gangsters taking advantage of others misfortune (just like the Bush posse), but most are not bad people, they just want something, anything, to trade and support their own family/posse with.
but being black and on the bottom of the 'layer cake', the pyramid' of power in an anglo structured saxon nation, when shit hitt fan, they get blamed first.
just thank god that the mass of tv eyes are beginning to shift a little to the 'big boy' gangsters who let this shit happen by redicrecting funds and troops to creater hell in iraq, instead of preventing it in the southern states.
just that
still feeling for them all.
with love
still wondering
that's enough
02.09.2005 14:56
adrian
not surprised
02.09.2005 15:30
Having said that, I think this is a seminal moment for the American empire, the ‘tipping point’ where we finally begin to see the edifice crumble: .the scenes of the families dying of heat, starvation, etc, in the superdome is heartbreaking and remininscent of the third world, the oil economy will be hit and the reconstruction costs will be enourmous, I also think the sight of the ‘refugees' being left to fend the themselves in the richest country in the world won’t be forgotten by A/Americans and enemies of the US around the world.
One ray of light: on the news, despite the repeated cries of ‘anarchy on the streets’ they are showing black people co-operating, sharing what little they have, and some people are trying to protect the most vulnerable.
telsat
Fragile Memories
07.09.2005 04:11
First of all, George Bush isn't the Louisiana National Guard, george Bush isn't the governor of Louisiana, and he isn't the Mayor of New Orleans.
Second of all, I understand that people are stupid, but do they think food and water and transportation were all just going to be beamed into New Orleans by the starship enterprise? Moving those volumes of people, mobilizing the tens of thousands of people required to handle a crisis like this, and the hundreds of thousands of tons of food and water takes TIME.
Third, you can't just drop pallets of food onto packed crowds unless you're ok with killing dozens at a time. You need a landing zone that's clear for planes that can carry supplies, and in order to do that you need to either clear the unsubmerged airstrips of the debris that they're covered in, or you can land further away. Again, either way is going to take time, and you're still trucking things into a submerged city.
Fourth, the reports of rapes are being made BY THE PREDOMINANTLY BLACK PEOPLE IN LOUISIANA. None of the reporters watched people get raped, they were just told this by the victims themselves.
Fifth, the "shoot to kill" orders were given by the BLACK Gen. Honore, and the pleas for martial law were made by the BLACK mayor of New Orleans.
Sixth, the original disaster response teams that went into New Orleans weren't there to respond to the levees breaking, they were there to help survivors of the hurricane. The levee busted open while they were in there. FEMA withdrew its people because drowning the rescuers just to be seen "doing something" is asinine.
Matt
What goes around, comes around!
07.09.2005 15:27
The US govt spends millions on this, billions on that and can't take good care of it's own good people! One instance is after Hurricane Katrina, where the rest of the world (even my tiny island) are sending funds over to help those poor people get back on their feet. For the US govt, however, sending a space shuttle into space, spending God knows how many millions of dollars in the process, is much more of an act for humanity. YeeHaa!!
Another look at the Katrina disaster makes you wonder if the govt saw this as a blessing....to get rid of all that "nuisance" that live down there, once and for all!
A word on the violence : Ofcourse there will be looters or what evers in a situation like that!! For God's sake, they are trying to survive, you Morons !!!!!
Razor