Put your tinfoil hats on for my theory that the hurricane aftermath was a form of genocide. Katrina itself was not a planned event, but the lack of preparation, and the criminally negligent response by federal agencies designed to administer assets and manpower to disaster areas was not merely the result of massive incompetence.
Hitler blamed the Jews for all the woes of Germany, including losing the First World War, having a monopoly on banking and finance, causing inflation and a depressed economy, and the growth of Communism. The targets of Katrina’s genocide have been depicted as burdens on society and are being blamed for their victimization.
Poor, uneducated blacks are universally resented (especially by their own race), regarded with indifference, or avoided overtly and covertly. Traditionally, African Americans have been their own worst enemies, assisting in their own oppression and destruction. Gangsta Rap is a subversive culture promoting anarchy, murder, and misogyny. Welfare reform (and near extinction) during the last decade was designed to eliminate the generations-long dependence on government aid, but it really served to further sabotage an already crippled group.
So what? Thinks the ruling class. They are expendable, unproductive leeches. That population is a blight on progress. The majority vote Democrat or not at all.
Affluent minority families and most whites had the means to leave New Orleans before the storm, similar to when many wealthy Jews escaped Nazi Germany. Those remaining were considered “subhuman.” The media happily promoted this image with selected video clips of looting and chaos in the streets. It was difficult to sympathize with that group, or with those with the ability to leave the city that chose to ride out the storm, instead. It’s difficult to feel anything but disgust for the “survivors,” especially since many of us have already been taught to despise them.
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Article comments
1 - BLPlummer
Gawd...you and SOOO many others are SOOOOO friggin LAME!
2 - Steve S
Here's a good story of a leader taking charge. Reminds me of Bill Pullman in Independence Day, rolling up his sleeves and doing what needs to be done.
Most people I talk to, think that it isn't a racial thing going on, as much as it is classism. Which I can agree with.
For a long time, I've been thinking that this country is headed towards a civil or cultural war. I'm reading reports now of the MinuteMen no longer going to be unarmed on the border, but armed and patrolling city streets. Streets as far away from the border as Houston.
Seeing someone slink across the desert, it's pretty obvious that they are probably illegal. But what are they going to do on city street corners? Ask everyone for proof of citizenship? Do you carry yours around? I don't carry mine.
They are going to target day laborers, i.e. the poor. How many of the poor in New Orleans paid the ultimate price over the last week for being poor, as the governments did little to nothing? Help wasn't slow to come to this region because of race, it is because of money/class.
The reason why this stuff happens is because the poor are NOT a voting bloc. I see a coming war in this country between the haves and the have nots. I've said it for a long time, although no one around here believes me. Maybe history will. And I can only hope and pray that I'm wrong.
Okay, I'm done with the tin hat for now. Someone else can use it for awhile.
3 - Silas Kain
Where's the MSM telling America about what Al Gore has and is doing? Steve, thank you for that link. That story got to me. You said:
Steve, I believe you and I've said the same thing. Months ago I wrote about the racial divide and the struggle of the poor. I predicted that we were headed for disaster and was discounted as "another ranting fag." Well, here we are. If another hurricane of significance strikes the Gulf Coast before the season is over, we're in for a rude awakening. The winds of the next storm will be nothing like the winds of change in American politics. The last time America was ruled by a George III, there was a Revolution. Well, here we are at President George III. Perhaps it's time for another Revolution.4 - Natalie Davis
I have said much the same as you two. Consider us BC's three ranting fags...
5 - Dave Nalle
Wow, I find this article utterly reprehensible. Am I alone in that?
Dave
6 - Loretta
If you think that's reprehensible, read this:
link
7 - Dave Nalle
Loretta, that link doesn't seem quite as designed to inspire racial hatred as your original post.
The fact that there are a lot of african americans in the poorer, blow sea-level neighborhoods of New Orleans accounts for the composition of the crowds at the convention center.
Well, that and the fact that the mayor abandonned the city and allocated the available buses to evacuate tourists instead of the poor. But he's black and a democrat, so no one seems to be mentioning that.
Dave
8 - loretta
the leadership of New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama,...
Are all named. I think they are all to blame.
9 - Dave Nalle
If you really want to make it a racial issue, the blame lies on society in the south for not advancing black americans as much or as quickly as they have been advanced in the north.
Right now, nationwide, a larger percentage of white americans are below the poverty level than any other ethnic group, yet in the deep south it is the black population which occupies that lowest rung on the economic ladder - which suggests that their northern cousins are particularly well off to drag up the national figures.
This disparity exists mainly in states which were for years dominated by democratic party political machines, and which in many cases are still run that way - Louisiana being a perfect example. The corruption of this political establishment which feeds off the poverty and desperation of the african american population to maintain its power base, is one of the main issues that really needs to be addressed here.
Dave
10 - loretta
I really DON'T want to make it a racial issue, but it was made such by the decisions made by people in charge.
The point of the article is to suggest that perhaps that was intentional.
11 - Dave Nalle
Right, which is exactly why I find the article reprehensible since there's no reason to make that suggestion except to stir up racial hatred for presumably partisan purposes.
Dave
12 - Richs
Loretta,
Actions, or inactions speak louder then words. Bush's for that matter the Republican party has been drowning the poor and middle class for decades.
What you see on TV is how it looks in a literal sence.
It was intentional to cut the funding for the levies, simply to put the money to futher short term political gain.
I hope Condeleza got the perfect shoes she was looking for when others of her own race took there last breath.
Hope Cheney caught the perfect fish while our fellow American children died of starvation.
Hope Bush strumed the perfect tune on a guitar while our thinned out national guard were hardly on the ground in New Orleans.
People are still dieing today.
I hope this brings shame on the Administration, but why should they feel shame when they don't give a damn about Americans?
They only care about money profits, and power.
13 - RJ
"Perhaps it's time for another Revolution."
Cute...
14 - Dave Nalle
It may indeed be time for another revolution, to once and for all break down the entrenched special interests and extremist panderers who feed off the poor and the gullible.
Dave
15 - Gary Brackett
I send you this rather long comment because ‘blogcritics’ will not post this ‘opinion’.
There seems to be many ways to look at the events in New Orleans. I always liked Sid Vicious and his take on things, especially when ‘Anarchy in the U.K.’ came around. Now how can one even think of the ‘anarchy’ in the flooded streets of lower Louisiana as a positive thing! The word anarchy is one of those loaded words meaning different things to different people. It’s usually batted about when situations of chaos have arisen; with bomb throwers, or like here in Italy, the so-called anarchists and their mail bombs. The press likes to vehemently denounce these groups as ‘insurrectionist anarchists’. (Also the ‘anarchist’ Black Bloc whose tactics I do not support!) There is not enough time here to get into the historical roots of the word, much less the history of anarchist movements, its philosophy and the scarce number of anarchist successes (see Kronstadt, Russia 1920’s; Seattle, early 1900’s; Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War). Nor am I interested in any semantic discussions with journalists, right-wingers or Marxists. What I want to talk about is how this disaster, this horrible plague of destruction by Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing chaos puts into high relief the question of who we are for one another as a society, of the modern state (I mean government) and the rule of coercive authority, and also of what we might call the human spirit. More specifically this crisis calls into question the role of the individual and society. These are for me the proper fields of discourse when speaking about anarchy (anarchism).
The plague: the great and crazy French poet and theatre artist and theoretician Antonin Artaud used the metaphor of the plague: The theatre like the plague should strip away the veil of all societal forms: the hypocrisy, the rule of violence, the fragile veneer of social order, the banality of daily life and ALL of its tedious concerns. And equally so, the individual when faced with crisis and a life and death struggle only the real and basic concerns of life matter: the desire to survive. Or perversely one sees exploding to extremes the driving forces that move ones desire, be it gold, sex, power or ego survival.
Anarchist poster : Spanish Civil War
What is important when crisis strikes? What becomes of our cherished ideas, of government, of religion and philosophy, of a life of status and prestige, of property and power? In a crisis of great magnitude all the ruling structures of our culture are laid bare and shown for what they really are: illusions, shells of thoughts and ideas. Just talk! And in the end, when confronted with harsh, brutal, relentless and raw life, such as the plague, or Hurricane Katrina- to use the vernacular: out come our true colors.
If in New Orleans we are surprised at the lawlessness, if we are shocked by the viciousness of individuals, if we are dismayed at the blatant racism, if we are disheartened by the ineffectiveness of government, if we are disgusted by yet another media frenzy feeding upon suffering, if we are left in wonder at the posturing and dallying of our president, if we are baffled by the callousness of the many absurd and ridiculous statements expressed in the press and on the Internet, well then, Katrina is the wake-up call that perhaps we need. For beyond the immenseness of the tragedy and loss of countless persons, the lesson to be gathered from this disaster is that it raises the question of who we are as a people, as a nation, and why have we so miserably failed.
When the forms and structures of our city fall away, the jails, the police, the law, the economies of buying and selling and of work, we are left naked and exposed to the brute reality of just what is a city: and what is a city? Without going too deep into an anthropological survey of its origins, I think we can safely say that a city exists on two basic fronts: one is a state of war where many poor people, and some other less poor people, must work and survive and scramble to procure their basic necessities- necessities which by the way are NOT scarce albeit for a false sense of scarcity created by a system that must create a false sense of scarcity in order to maintain a system of privilege and wealth. And on the other front we have the multitude of citizens who pacifically co-exist with each other: creating, helping, working, loving, despairing, hoping, dying: millions of mostly poor people who simply by reason of their innate goodness get along.
Yet, and it’s a big yet, in our CULTURE, what are the prevailing ideas that guide and influence the behavior and mindsets of these multitudes? Well if we look at “Big Brother” and other reality shows, for example, where to compete, lie, maneuver and basically F___ over your competitor is the way to win; if we examine the prevailing winds that say to be greedy and selfish is the way to get ahead; if we scrutinize conflict where to launch violence against your neighbors is justified; if we see that to get ahead in the world means to step over your co-workers; if we acknowledge that a person’s worth is based on how much one accumulates money and status symbols, we see then that many if not most, aspects of our so called culture are based on the cult of competition, greed and selfish individualism. With the messages that we are bombarded with everyday (not to mention the enormous amount of violence we see, and while I’m at it, thank you NRA, the idea that we have a right to buy and use guns to defend yourself, i.e. that killing is sometimes justified), IS IT ANY WONDER that what we have seen this last week in New Orleans presents the worst characteristics of our culture?!
In simple words, a crisis brings out the best or the worst in us. WE are to blame: not Bush, not the government, not the racism of Yahoo or the media. We have not laid the necessary groundwork of a caring nation. Which do we teach: Everyman for himself, or, All for one and one for all?
To finish: last night I saw the DVD Meet John Doe (by F. Capra). It’s the story of a rising social movement outside of the political mainstream of party politics, of a grass root movement of compassion for the underdog, of getting to know your neighbors (who nobody knows in America); of people solving problems by their own initiative (there was a telling scene of a welfare administrator lamenting that their offices were now becoming obsolete thanks to the work of community organizations, the John Doe Clubs.). This is exactly what is lacking in the USA. There is little sense of helping one another, of self-initiating and not waiting for the government, of creating real communities and extended families and tribes; of a real counter-culture to this culture of selfishness and greed. (All of these positive things DO exist of course, but they are drowned out by mass media and ‘popular’ culture, a veritable swamp of lies and false values.)
When disasters strikes, and I believe we will face other disasters soon enough in this world, be it crisis from energy, ecology or economic, then we will see the great distance between our professed ideas and ideals coming again into sharp relief with our actual behavior. To talk the talk is not enough; we must begin to walk the walk: with our neighbor, the stranger, the immigrant, the person of a different color, or religion or sexuality- to walk, rich and poor together. And hopefully the rich and the many of us who emulate their ethics and morals will let go of this culture of privilege and selfishness that continues to divide us. We see now too clearly just how dangerous and evil this society of the “me-culture” has become. It’s time we started preparing ourselves. Is this asking too much?
16 - Cerulean
I'm with Richs and I see truth in what Loretta is saying. Isn't it remarkable that this happened at the end of the month when many people on welfare, foodstamps or Social Security would have no left? True the black mayor of New Orleans, and the Governor screwed up but there is a larger war on just about everything holy from the right wing in the Federal government. The abyss left by their ruination of public services looks like what you are seeing. The stress of this occurance stripped the veil away. They hate blacks and the poor and needy and are robbing the public treasury for their own enrichment and for their follies. Have you ever seen a natural disaster in America this badly handled? Have you ever seen this many people left in hell? No, and they are mostly black and poor.
17 - Purple Tigress
There's a big difference between a natural disaster and a planned socio-political campaign.
Genocide is: The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.
What Hitler did was genocide.
No one planned Katrina.
In German in the late 1930s and up until the mid-1940s, the rich Jews, homosexuals, intellectuals and communists did not escape the Nazis. Some were turned away from countries like the US because of racism. (e.g. SS. St. Louis).
In America, there is racism and there are poor. Perhaps there is even a sense of class.
However, it find is semantically incorrect to term this hurricane or its aftermath genocide. Chaos isn't planned and it appears that the rescue efforts were less than systemic.
I have heard the comparison to the Titanic and class divisions. This might be more apt.
18 - loretta
Excellent remarks, Gary.
Re: radical words
The reason I used the word "genocide" was to spur thought and debate. If I had been mealy-mouthed and soft soaped it, you'd all have ignored it.
Constantly risking absurdity and death - and remember that as a poet, per Gary's eloquent comments - I have to "strip away" the veneer of pretense and tell you the truth.
Bureaucratic explanations are valid, but only cover one small aspect of a much bigger problem.
I don't honestly believe that the death in New Orleans was a result of literal "genocide," but I do think that there is a form of genocide going on in this country - politically, economically, culturally.
19 - Steve S
Gary, I'm sure there is some other reason why you are having issues with BlogCritics because we have posted faaaaaar more controversial posts than that.
I agree with you, this me-me-me culture is what is destroying us as a nation. I want to maintain the individual ability to prosper, but it needs to be able to be done without having to take the food out of another's mouth.
20 - John Bill
That is the stupidest thing I ever heard. What proof do you have - zero. N.O. has been a disaster waiting to happen for over 100 years. To say we suddenly discovered that there was a problem is beyond stupid. Clinton never fixed the problem, neither did JFK. Are you going to blame them too? How about the Mayor or the Governor? You ought to be ashamed of yourself for writing such nonsense.
21 - Ed Weaver
In the words of Yakko Warner: "Whoa, dumber than advertised."
There is plenty of blame to go around. Primarily belonging to a failure of local and state officials to follow their own emergency plans. And to the stubborness and/or stupidity of people who had the means to escape, but chose not too.
Even now, Gov. Kathleen Blanco has refused to allow the federal government to take control of evacuation efforts.
I'm actually getting sick of beating down all this idiocy. It is rampant. Common sense and reason seem not only wholly foreign to the left, but much like garlic to a vampire. (Yes I did just liken you to bloodsuckers, you humorless twits).
22 - Zochere
When handling your business. Your responsibility, the problems that came after Katrina "don not happen". The decision makers who "we the people" elect are to be accountable. With that said "we the people" are also responsible i.e. citizens of New Orleans. Being aware of what your local elected officals are doing for "we the people's" best interests. If 'we the people" are ignored in a "so called" free country? Then obvious changes must be made for our voices to be heard. Enough of us speak out in frustration and in difference. Yet how many of us take the time to figure out a solution as a collective past "The Matrix"? Dr. Martin Luther King Jr "spoke out" about what i will call "The Matrix". Whites,Blacks,Asians,Hispanics,Native Americans and many more came together. When "The Matrix" silenced his great appeal to the masses. The masses did nothing to confront nor stop "The Matrix". Since his removal from humanity, there have been countless scandals committed by "The Matrix" directed towards "we the people". Yet we as a people White,Black,Asian,Hispanics,Native American's "stay divided". The lesson taught to us by the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not just for the African American. It was the blue print for all humanity in how to stand up against "The Matrix" and be accounted for. "We The People" still have a choice as a people. In today's world no one man or woman can tackle "The Matrix" alone. We must and have to come together as a people as human beings. To prevent situations like "The Aftermath of Katrina" to ever happen again!
23 - Tim Howe
Wheres Huey Long when we need him?! It is soo true that race is the everlasting decider in american politics...this period of civil war II (since the election was stolen by a Republican senate staffer yuppie riot - which shut down the count in Dade County- where was the `rule of law' outrage over that - along with the convulated anti states rights logic of those five GOP pols on the supreme court) Ive worked in street and field politics most of my life and all who do that know what's what...certain types and groups of whites despise the blacks (and the poor) and resent the democrats for helping them. (the aka red voters)
We also know that because of that - we can always rely best on 100 % black neighborhoods to vote for us. This nation is soooooo divided. The haves against the have nots. If you dont see this your blind, stupid or dishonest...there is no other possibility. The portrayal of all the blacks as looters and gun toting rapists and thugs will be the dividing point forever whenever any criticism is raised about how bush and the feds (mis)handled this crisis. But what percentage of the stranded joined in as hooligans? Be real...as usual the media sensationalize...you can bet that if fema and the nat guard (they are the ones who have the stores AND the responsibility)had gotten food and beverage and an answer to the bathroom situation to those people encased in a concrete and wet dome - the horror of the superdome wouldnt of been so horrible...but its now of course...the storyline....and the talking points for all Rush and Sean fans...and another indicator of just how selfish and resentful so many Americans really are. They resent even those who have nothing ....for taking too much.
24 - cam
I came to America seven years ago. Believe me this is a great country. I dont understand how anyone in their right mind (Kanye West obviously is not) could think that the government would purposefully slow the response to this disaster. I am currently in Houston where thousands of the refugees are now located. Do we turn them about because the majority of them are black? No. We welcome them in open arms. We are not living in the 1950's people. I find it hard to believe that minorities have it any harder than the rest of us. We all have the opportunity to get our education and make a life for ourselves. That is what makes America so promising to the immigrants that come here everyday.
25 - Marshall
Kanye West has not said that the government purposefully responded slow to the Katrina Disaster. National guards did have "shoot to kill" orders for looters, and George Bush shows little concern for the impoverished or the Black population of his nation.
But to suggest that Government intentionally tried to kill its own citizens in this situation is the sort of ignorant and absurd discourse that is not necessary and should be ignored. Mr. West brought up the feelings of many (not all) African-Americans in this country. This blog is just reprehensible.