NOLA
I had been too paralyzed to string thoughts together this week, initially because of sadness about the beautiful city I lived in for six years, where my children were born, then by mounting horror. But I saw a panel discussion with David Brooks, who gave some unsettling context.
He is furious at Bush. But he sees a bigger pattern. In an article he shows how often major political upheavals have followed disasters like these. They tear the skin away from the flesh of society, and reveal the sinew and bone underneath. They rip off the veneer and expose the rot.
This, to Brooks, is the "anti-9/11."
On 9/11 we were hit, and Giuliani stepped forth. There was resolution. The US was the wounded party, and the whole thing generated, as well as shock, a gritty sense of pride in the USA.
This time it was clear that, in a comparable disaster, all systems and structures of government failed. Government itself did not work. The Feds did nothing. The New Orleans Local and Louisiana State Government, having known the levees would not stand a cat-5 hurricane, nonetheless had no plan at all about what to do if one happened - no plan except to blame the weakness of the levees on Congress's withholding money for improvements. There was no plan for evacuating the poor, the car-less, the sick. Our system broke the crucial social contract - it failed to protect the weakest and powerless first, and did it in the most graphic, televisable, way. The helpless were all but abandoned as the system protected only the privileged. That may often be true, but on television this week, it was inescapable and deadly.
Evacuation = Own a car.
It revealed, said Brooks, that for decades and decades all layers of elected government have been working against the public interest. Unlike the solidarity and pride after 9/11, Americans look on this, see the TV pictures, and are ashamed.
This is the USA? Reporters compare it to Haiti and Baghdad. Is this the best that can be done by the new, hideously expensive, department of homeland security? Priorities are clear. O'Reilly shouts at Sharpden, but the dead and dying and starving and dehydrated and dispossessed are overwhelmingly not just poor, but black.
Government has been in service to the principle of protecting private interests rather than public interests. Republicans claim that protecting private interests IS protecting the public interest. It is axiomatic Republican Doctrine that the welfare of the country is identical to the welfare of the unbridled business class, the unrestricted business institutions and corporations. - "What's good for General Motors is good for America". - The Democrats deserve blame as much as the Republicans, since the Democrats straightened the Mississippi when that should not have been done, damaged the crucial protective wetlands, and participated in all the institutional injustices so starkly revealed by this disaster.
Brooks felt Katrina was going to prove as crucial a watershed in American history as the earlier floods he mentioned, and that although he cannot say what form it will take, this event will precipitate major, major political and governmental change. Our leaders display a combination of indifference and incompetence. The USA, as it has been revealed to the USA, will not be tolerated by the USA.
Another panelist soberly concluded by pointing out that we have had two disasters so far - the hurricane, and then the unexpected flood. But there are three more to come. The first will be the death-toll; the body count, compounding the shame we all feel already. The second, though it seems shameful even to mention it in the same paragraph, is the cost. The billions of dollars it will cost to recover and repair, not just the physical fabric, but the lives of an entire large cityfull of people. And the third is the slow revelation of the huge disruption it has caused to a major section, and essential component, of our country.
The only emerging object of admiration is the state of Texas; the unaffected close neighbor state, with the enterprising and generous people of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio.
My Web Home Page is to be found here.
My pondering music blog is to be found here.
He is furious at Bush. But he sees a bigger pattern. In an article he shows how often major political upheavals have followed disasters like these. They tear the skin away from the flesh of society, and reveal the sinew and bone underneath. They rip off the veneer and expose the rot.
This, to Brooks, is the "anti-9/11."
On 9/11 we were hit, and Giuliani stepped forth. There was resolution. The US was the wounded party, and the whole thing generated, as well as shock, a gritty sense of pride in the USA.
This time it was clear that, in a comparable disaster, all systems and structures of government failed. Government itself did not work. The Feds did nothing. The New Orleans Local and Louisiana State Government, having known the levees would not stand a cat-5 hurricane, nonetheless had no plan at all about what to do if one happened - no plan except to blame the weakness of the levees on Congress's withholding money for improvements. There was no plan for evacuating the poor, the car-less, the sick. Our system broke the crucial social contract - it failed to protect the weakest and powerless first, and did it in the most graphic, televisable, way. The helpless were all but abandoned as the system protected only the privileged. That may often be true, but on television this week, it was inescapable and deadly.
Evacuation = Own a car.
It revealed, said Brooks, that for decades and decades all layers of elected government have been working against the public interest. Unlike the solidarity and pride after 9/11, Americans look on this, see the TV pictures, and are ashamed.
This is the USA? Reporters compare it to Haiti and Baghdad. Is this the best that can be done by the new, hideously expensive, department of homeland security? Priorities are clear. O'Reilly shouts at Sharpden, but the dead and dying and starving and dehydrated and dispossessed are overwhelmingly not just poor, but black.
Government has been in service to the principle of protecting private interests rather than public interests. Republicans claim that protecting private interests IS protecting the public interest. It is axiomatic Republican Doctrine that the welfare of the country is identical to the welfare of the unbridled business class, the unrestricted business institutions and corporations. - "What's good for General Motors is good for America". - The Democrats deserve blame as much as the Republicans, since the Democrats straightened the Mississippi when that should not have been done, damaged the crucial protective wetlands, and participated in all the institutional injustices so starkly revealed by this disaster.
Brooks felt Katrina was going to prove as crucial a watershed in American history as the earlier floods he mentioned, and that although he cannot say what form it will take, this event will precipitate major, major political and governmental change. Our leaders display a combination of indifference and incompetence. The USA, as it has been revealed to the USA, will not be tolerated by the USA.
Another panelist soberly concluded by pointing out that we have had two disasters so far - the hurricane, and then the unexpected flood. But there are three more to come. The first will be the death-toll; the body count, compounding the shame we all feel already. The second, though it seems shameful even to mention it in the same paragraph, is the cost. The billions of dollars it will cost to recover and repair, not just the physical fabric, but the lives of an entire large cityfull of people. And the third is the slow revelation of the huge disruption it has caused to a major section, and essential component, of our country.
The only emerging object of admiration is the state of Texas; the unaffected close neighbor state, with the enterprising and generous people of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio.
My Web Home Page is to be found here.
My pondering music blog is to be found here.
©ajm 2005
posted by Andrew Massey | Saturday, September 03, 2005
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