The thousands of inert human corpses floating on or submerged beneath the water in New Orleans could just as easily be those of living beings housed in care centers hundreds of kilometers from the city, and even though confronted by an uncertain future, at least still be alive. How many dreams, hopes, loves, endearments, plans and experiences are now buried forever, not really beneath the flood, a consequence that was widely predicted would occur if a large hurricane struck the mythical city of the Mississippi, but rather buried by the insensibility of the gang now governing in the United States, by its marriage to capital, by its undervaluing the lives of the poor. We won't consider here other perspectives on and causes of this debacle but just the high cost in lives and human suffering and the destruction of a priceless piece of the cultural patrimony. Let's center on one aspect: was there an effective plan of evacuation and the political will to make it work so that not even a single person would die? This is the least that one could expect from the richest and most powerful country in the world, one that possesses more than adequate means of transport and that dedicates billions of dollars supposedly to preserve the security of its citizens.
But no, the slogan of the authorities was "Save yourself if you can!" as they pretended ignorance of those, mostly blacks, who did not have cars or money or a place to which to escape. Indeed, tens of thousands, are now accused of having chosen to remain. Some drowned and others went days stricken by hunger and thirst in locales where no one came to rescue them. When the indolence of the authorities before this drama turned into a huge national scandal that gravely threatened the image of Bush II, aid slowly began to flow.
We should not be surprised that this would occur in a capitalistic system, where the main thing is the accumulation of wealth for a minority. In the current stage of capitalism known as neoliberalism, this seminal trait of the system has been exaggerated to the extreme with the "weakening" of the government, the replacement of a politics of social assistance by that of the "invisible hand" of the market, the replacement of what were once public services with the good will of the corporations and the non-profits. What a grotesque spectacle it was to see the two, Bush and William Clinton, begging private donations from the White House, center of a power that wastes in enterprises of death thousands of times more than that which is required to rebuild New Orleans and to sustain the dispossessed during the time necessary for reconstruction. The people of the imperium who exempt millionaires and huge businesses from taxes, who maintain hundreds of military bases around the world, who occupy countries for the benefit of a few, how grotesque it was to see them begging for crumbs for the damned.
The disaster of New Orleans reveals the profound moral crisis that cuts through the State and the dominant class of the United States. During recent decades, and particularly during the government of the "eternal vacationer," funds for health, social security, community services and even for the agency in charge of protection against disasters have been severely cut. All the resources are insufficient where the politics of war is the main concern, and this is why the dikes that held back Lake Ponchartrain were not reinforced. The influence of this fanatically greedy cult also explains how hundreds of square kilometers of wetlands--indispensable for the ecological equilibrium of the area and to protect the city from storm surges--were sacrificed to real estate speculation. Under Bush, who refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the dangers of global warning are held in contempt in order not to prejudice the exorbitant gains of the US oil companies. As a consequence, the temperature of the sea continues to rise, a fact that makes probable more and more hurricanes of this unusual intensity. In sum, it wasn't Katrina that destroyed New Orleans; it was greed, racism, and the government's abandonment of its responsibilities.
This disaster also reveals the existence of the growing third world inside of the superpower, an existence whose magnitude has made it possible for the middle class of the US to see it for the first time on their TV screens. This is a reality that will not interest the mainstream media nor please those enjoy the privileges of the "American way of life," but it is a time bomb that could explode the system.
"New Orleans and the Time Bomb," by Angel Guerra Cabrera, La Jornada, September 8, 2005
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