from counterpunch.org
A Reverence for Property Over People
New Orleans After Katrina
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Tuesday night, as water rose to 20 feet through most of New Orleans,
CNN relayed an advisory that food in refrigerators would last only four
hours, would have to be thrown out. The next news item from CNN was an
indignant bellow about "looters" of 7/11s and a Walmart.
The reverence for property is now the underlying theme of many
newscasts, with defense of The Gap being almost the first order of duty
for the forces of law and order. But the citizens looking for clothes
to wear and food to eat are made of tougher fiber and are more
desperate than the polite demonstrators who guarded The Gap and kindred
chains in Seattle in 1999. The police in New Orleans are only
patrolling in large armed groups. One spoke of "meeting some
resistance," as if the desperate citizens of New Orleans were Iraqi
insurgents.
Also on Tuesday night the newscasts were reporting that in a city whose
desperate state is akin the Dacca in Bangladesh a few years ago, there
were precisely seven Coast Guard helicopters in operation. Where are
the National Guard helicopters? Presumably strafing Iraqi citizens on
the roads outside Baghdad and Fallujah.
As the war's unpopularity soars, there will be millions asking, Why is
the National Guard in Iraq, instead of helping the afflicted along the
Gulf in the first crucial hours, before New Orleans, Biloxi, and Mobile
turn into toxic toilet bowls with thousands marooned on the tops of
houses.
The greatest concern for poor people in these days has come from
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who fresh from a chat with Fidel
Castro, has announced that Venezuela will be offering America's poor
discounted gas through its Citgo chain. He's says his price will knock
out the predatory pricing at every American pump. Citgo should issue to
purchasers of each tankful of gas vouchers for free medical
consultations via the internet with the Cuban doctors in Venezuela.
No politician in America has raised the issue of predatory pricing as
gasoline soars above $3. The last time there was any critical talk
about the oil companies was thirty years ago.
Maybe the terrible disaster along the Gulf coast will awaken people to
the unjust ways in which our society works. That's often the effect of
natural disasters, as with the Mexican earthquake, where the laggardly
efforts of the police prompted ordinary citizens to take matters into
their own hands.
-----Original Message-----
From: Carrigan, Jacqueline A <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 11:08:43 -0700
Subject: TEACHSOC: Re: One more thing
The news accounts seem to be bemoaning the looting, but they fail to
point out
that these are people abandoned in the city who need to subsist and
there is no
one there to sell them what they need. One paper mentioned that they
were
stealing diapers and food and presented this as problematic! Jackie
________________________________
From: [email protected] on behalf of chasinb
Sent: Wed 8/31/2005 11:05 AM
To: Del Thomas Ph. D.
Cc: Brian Copp; [email protected]
Subject: TEACHSOC: Re: One more thing
While media commentators were bemoaning the looting and showing the same
footage over and over, not a word about the oil companies. There are an
obvious number of points to be made here. Barbara Chasin
