Katrina Related Remix

Louisiana 1927

Hell on Earth (NPR)

George Bush Don't Like Black People

Cornel West

The Militarization of New Orleans

"He [President Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks.  They key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to."  -H.R. Halderman, cited in Lockdown America by Christian Parenti

Ottawa Citizen

Notes on Universal Experience and Difference

Project Censored

Reporters Gone Wild

Crooks

New Orleans to be rebuilt without "underclass"

Peter Berkowitz writes:

Our group is mostly white and from Middle America.  They decide that the Blacks (the Convention Center is 99% Black obviously) are planning to murder us to get attention and help.  There is mass hysteria in the group and racism is rampant.  People don't know where to flee.  Rumors are everywhere about murder, rape, etc. There are shots during the night (Thursday? Friday?)  At 2 am, there is a huge explosion across the river and a huge fire.  Smoke pours in from fires in every direction.  There is some nasty racism in our group.  One day, when the hysteria is greatest, a Black man stands up and says -- why do you think these people want to kill you?  They are surviving just the same as you.  Struggling just the same.  Just as desperate as you.  They don't care anything about you.  They are concentrating on surviving, etc.

And lest we forget the larger context...

    Remember this girl in Iraq, her photo taken right after her parents were murdered, before her eyes.

A Democracy Disaster:  Time to File Criminal Charges

Comments

[Alain]

Matt I read the piece about the city being built without an underclass, and it is incredible to me that they openly talk about it being reconstructed with different demographics: What else could they be referring to but race and class? As Alphonse has been pointing out, all of this is happening right out in the open and no one in the media, or other members of the ruling class, are talking about it. Certainly there has been an outcry about the inadequacy of the response, and heartfelt sympathy for the victims, but no one is really looking at the larger picture. To me, the question is how to make this larger plan, this "class cleansing" of New Orleans, the real issue. From Barbara Bush's revolting comments to Bush's incredulous "What went wrong?" there is a huge disconnect between the ruling class's intentions and the mass perception of what is going on.

[Alain]

Matt, as you know Alphonse has been ahead of the curve on so much of this. I think she sums things up rather concisely:

"Now: a city cleansed of the underclass. The greatest slush fund of all time, unregulated, in the hands of the regime. Marshall law. The press barred while the expulsions continue. Slave labour authorized by executive order. Witnesses and survivors interned in camps."
(http://alphonsevanworden.blogspot.com/2005/09/this-aint-funny-mcgee.html#comments)

[anon]

The first link is really the one to click. Good song.

[Adam Kotsko]

If they build the city without an underclass, who is going to wash the dishes at their restaurants, or pick up their trash, or mow their immaculate lawns? Will they just bus them in, or what? Yet again: shoddy planning.

[Matt]

Google, dude. Either that or english and philosophy graduates. Or by bus Latinos, "been cleaning up after you people for years."

[Jodi]

Another dimension of the pervision: seemingly 'serious' debate over whether to rebuild New Orleans at all (entering in academic economics and public policy) as an 'alternative' to rebuilding it without an underclass. So, we get a 'debate' produced by the exclusion/eradictation/evacuation of the poor.

[Matt]

The diagnosis seems to be in: poor black people should never be allowed to congregate together, especially not on television. It wounds our liberal pride, and unnecessarily reminds us of our failure. This is why the anecdotal stories are so important, in addition to having more integrity and transparency than pictures; next time there won't be cameras.

More here: http://alphonsevanworden.blogspot.com/2005/09/one-aim.html