Katrina, the devastation of much of the Southern US, and the far too slow relief responses have dominated the media, both mainstream and citizen, these past few days. Some of the reports have been so hard to read and understand. Below are just a few responses that I've read which have struck me, as well as some links to the emerging citizen journalism/citizen media resources.
[X] Bitch, Ph.D has two poignant posts, one with a very confronting image, and another which captures the sentiment of so many US citizens who are appalled at the lack of leadership and action by their president:
Well, it looks as if Bush and the goddamn troops and some goddamn supplies have finally started arriving. Too late for the babies that died of dehydration, the old people that died of neglect, the sick people who died because there was no medical care, no supplies, no help.[X] David Brooks in the NYTimes 'The Storm After the Storm' highlights the political ramifications of Katrina's aftermath:
Civic arrangements work or they fail. Leaders are found worthy or wanting. What's happening in New Orleans and Mississippi today is a human tragedy. But take a close look at the people you see wandering, devastated, around New Orleans: they are predominantly black and poor. The political disturbances are still to come.For the rather blatant racism even in mainstream press coverage, see these two juxtaposed AP articles.
[X] Dave Winer's very raw comparrisons with Sept 11, and shock at life-as-usual in so much of the US also struck home.
[X] Wired News has an article about Scipionus.com and interview with the creators Greg Stoll and Jonathan Mendez. Scipionus.com describes itself as:
Katrina Information Map - This map is intended for the use of people affected by Hurricane Katrina who have or are trying to find information about the status of specific locations affected by the storm and its aftermath.It uses Google Maps and allows ordinary citizens to maps of the Southern states, creating a citizen-generated data-map of everything from reports about the water levels in specific regions to information about the whereabouts and safety of people who, until a week ago, lived in houses now gone or severely damaged. One such tag simply reads:
Hyw 11 Camps; All Gone[X] The Interdictor - A livejournal transformed by survivors with a generator and internet connection: "This journal has become the Survival of New Orleans blog. In less perilous times it was simply a blog for me to talk smack and chat with friends. Now this journal exists to share firsthand experience of the disaster and its aftermath with anyone interested."http://forms.belointeractive.com/sharedcontent/
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Article comments
1 - Kurt
Well written, devastating critique of our insane priorities and massive failures. I cannot believe that a dying American citizen would refuse help from a Cuban doctor; any refusal of help because of political reasons is, indeed, murder most foul, and must be punished as such.
2 - Patrick
The Mayor of New Orleans showed just how ill equipped he is for the job the other day. During a time when his city was literally drowning and it's citizens had descended into the 21st Century version of "Beyond the Thunderdome", what was the Mayor doing? Was he leading his police and fire departments? Was he taking to the airwaves trying to quell the already unruly air that had taken over the city in the form of individual thugs and gangs? No, this ill equipped mayor (how did he get elected in the first place? goes on national TV and had a complete meltdown. Blaming everyone for not getting his city the help it needed. Please correct me, but this man should have been leading the charge, and his fire and police departments, but they had long ago turned tail and run themselves, leaving the mayor to lash out at anyone, and any camera, that was convenient. Mr. Mayor only needs to look in the mirror to see where the blame lies for New Orleans failure to act, when they had been warned for two days that this was not going to be just a "typicla" storm. Mr. Mayor should have been mobilizing his fire and police departments and gotten ahead of this mess. Instead, he chose to do what so many are doing and will do n day sand months to come; blame someone else for his failure to lead.
3 - WTF
It was the mayor of New Orleans, whose plan was approved, and executed. Yet that same mayor is pointing all of his fingers in every direction and every one else but himself.
So are the seated members of the U.S. Senate and House of Reps from Louisiana.
Perhaps this will lead to what obviously everyone wants. The federal government to institute a state of Marshall Law prior to an event. Take charge before, during and after.
Is that what they're saying? That the local and state juristictions are NOT up to the task or the responsibility? That only the Federal government should take charge?
Perish the thought. The only reason the federal government is taking so much shit from the inept local and state authorities and the PRESS is that it is very convenient to do so.
It would be interesting to see the fed march in and take charge... round up everyone, load them on to mass transit, cattle like, strip search, confiscate, and arrest unlawful individuals, corral them in stockcades for their own protection. Then after the event hold all the illegals, ex-cons, parole violators, petty thieves, escaped prisoners, deadbeat dads, traffic violators with unpaid tickets. Finger print, blood/DNA type everyone. Innocualte... in one great mass. Wow. Wouldn't that just shut everyone up.
Is that what you want?
Really?
4 - Tama
WTF said: "It would be interesting to see the fed march in and take charge... round up everyone, load them on to mass transit, cattle like, strip search, confiscate, and arrest unlawful individuals, corral them in stockcades for their own protection."
Instead, the inept and half-hearted attempts at Federal assistance appear to have led directly to thousands of people being locked in a stadium with no water, no plumbing and an increasing number of dead bodies for more than five days.
5 - Kurt
OK, that makes twice; I hate to be "that guy," but it is MARTIAL Law, as in Military, not Marshall Law, as in British guitar amps. Sorry, but really...
6 - WTF
Sorry, and thanks for the correction, although I have an affinity for Marshall amps... plus I type (not keyboard) pretty damn fast.
7 - WTF
I think Koeppel said it best the other night... that for the US government to barrel into a state and take over is in direct conflict with statute (U.S. Code) which is law, which is supreme and protects states from unabashed federal intervention.
That said... can someone out there remember the exact legal term?
Anyway, the FED has to be asked in at the request of a state administration, normally a governor. Sounds trite and too official? Well, that's the LAW. The fed had to prod Louisiana to ask them to come in and help.
I don't know if I agree, but they (the FED) did follow regulatory statute.
That should be a promising note. Unfortunately in the case of Louisiana the legislature, including state and federal representative must be stupid. When Koeppell brought the subject to the U.S. Senate rep (I can't remember his name) Koeppel received a "deer in the headlights look" and backpeddling blabber for about 3 minutes. It was a most interesting exchange.
Jim Marshall
8 - 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.
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?
9 - Cerulean
That statement by Senator Landrieu is horrible and damning. I can't believe that they refused all that help. Shocking. It really hurts me to think of help being offered like that, as Americans would do, and it is getting bolixed up. That really pisses me off. FEMA is incompetent. It is unforgiveable.
10 - Temple Stark
>>The fed had to prod Louisiana to ask them to come in and help.
Link to back up your statement?