America Stripped Bare: Privilege vs. Survival (See Kanye)

Support the People of New Orleans:
Sept. 7 National Day of Emergency Action

Join a protest on September 7 see below for details of protests in Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle - or organize one in your community or on your campus. List your event on the A.N.S.W.E.R. website! www.pephost.org/Sept7localaction

What is taking place today in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is a crisis rarely seen in this country. It has provoked an outpouring of concern for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Millions of people across the United States and around the world are watching in horror at both the scale of suffering and the lack of response by President Bush and the U.S. government. Thousands are dead or missing; millions have been displaced or lost their jobs and homes.

The African American community in New Orleans has been especially hard hit, and on top of massive death and suffering has been the victim of vicious racist scapegoating at the hands of government officials and the corporate media. The real "looters" in this crisis are the big oil companies that are making super-profits by jacking up the price of gas and oil all over the country.

It is becoming clearer every day that this crisis goes far beyond a "natural disaster." The massive death and destruction did not have to happen as a result of the hurricane; rather it is caused by a government that prioritizes profits, war and conquest over human needs. The danger that a hurricane posed for New Orleans and the region had been known and discussed for years-with no significant preparations taken. Funds were diverted from securing the levees to pay for the war in Iraq and the protective wetlands were sold off to the developers.

Global warming is a major factor in the big increase in tropical storms, particularly Hurricane Katrina, which developed from a minimal hurricane to one of the largest and most powerful ever recorded because of the extremely high water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico. Still, the Bush Administration continues to contemptuously turn its back on evidence of climate change and stands by its position to cancel the Kyoto Accord.

Before the hurricane struck, the government issued a mandatory evacuation order with a "free-market approach." In other words, people were ordered to leave, but the means for evacuation were not provided. It was the poorest sectors of the working class and predominantly the African American community that did not have the means to leave and endured the greatest personal suffering. Even days after the hurricane the U.S. government has refused to commandeer all available buses and send them to transport people out. With the city awash in a sea of sewage and chemicals, the contemptible director of FEMA, Michael Brown, had the gall to then accuse those who have suffered the most: "I think the death toll may go into the thousands and, unfortunately, that’s going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings." (September 1, CNN)

The Bush administration has spared no resource in waging its war against Iraq, taking more than $200 billion from the people of the United States to do so. It spared no resource in destroying the entire city of Fallujah last November. But when it comes to confronting this "natural" catastrophe, the Bush administration has been criminally derelict. Bush’s relief package of $10.5 billion which equals just 7 weeks of the cost of the occupation of Iraq is completely inadequate. As people, including babies and the elderly, go without food and water, and corpses lie in the street and float in the water, Bush has presented a meager and dilatory response.

The government is preparing to bail out the oil companies, insurance companies, other big corporations and casinos. Big Oil is also using this catastrophe as an opportunity to line their pockets. Working people in the United States need to stand with the victims of this crisis and demand that the government provide both short and long-term assistance to those who have lost everything.

Stop Racist Scapegoating of the Victims Jail the Real "Looters" the Big Oil executives Money for People’s Needs, Not for War Stop Bush’s War Against the Poor at Home and Abroad

Washington DC: 5 pm at the White House. Call 202-544-3389 or email dc@internationalanswer.org for more information.

San Francisco: 5 pm at Powell & Market Sts. Call 415-821-6545 for email sf@internationalanswer.org for more information.

Los Angeles: 6 pm at the Westwood Federal Building (Veterans & Wilshire). Call 323-464-1636 or email la@internationalanswer.org for more information.

Seattle: 5 pm at Westlake (Pine near 4th). Call 206-568-1661 or email seattle@internationalanswer.org for more information.

Join a protest on September 7 or organize one in your community or on your campus. Let us know if you are planning a protest in your area. Fill out the Event Listing Form (www.pephost.org/Sept7localaction) as soon as you make your plans and your event will be listed on the A.N.S.W.E.R. website.

http://internationalanswer.org

"Nice Shot Mr. President" Exhibition below par as Bush art stolen

Scotsman, United Kingdom
JOANNA VALLELY

A PAINTING of George W Bush playing golf while Iraq burns has been stolen from a city cafe.

The artwork, which was the centrepiece of an exhibition by a Polish artist, was taken from the Forest Cafe in Bristo Place. And now another exhibition in Poland of the artist’s work is to go ahead without the painting.

The stolen artwork was today described as the most politically provocative piece at the Bristo Place exhibition and organisers believe this is why it was taken. The painting, entitled Nice Shot Mr President, depicts Mr Bush teeing off on a golf course.

In the background there are bombs exploding and four figures including a US soldier and an Iraqi man cradling a child. At the side of the picture there is a speech bubble which says: "Nice Shot Mr President!"

The artist, 21-year-old Mikolaj Kownacki, came especially from Krakow where he is an art student, to exhibit in Edinburgh. The exhibition began on August 25 and was supposed to last until last Monday, but organisers decided to shut the show a day early after the theft of the star attraction.

The artist has now returned to Poland, but his friend Joanna Skrzypek, 25, who lives in Tollcross, helped set up the exhibition. She described how the painting had become a hot topic among visitors to the volunteer-run cafe and gallery.

She said: "People were talking a lot about the painting, which was the most provocative in the exhibition, and many people liked it.

"There was a party in the cafe on Saturday night and when we went to check the exhibition on Sunday evening, the painting was gone."

Ms Skrzypek added that the painting was worth £500 and was intended to be part of another exhibition in Poland later this month. The A3-size pop art-style painting was reported missing to the police on Monday and was not insured. The art exhibitions are run by volunteers Kasia Wroblewski and her boyfriend Marcin Guzik, who have been running the gallery at the cafe since March.

Ms Wroblewski, who described the theft as "unfortunate", said the gallery had no insurance cover for the artworks. She added: "We are not responsible if things get damaged or stolen. It’s the first time a painting has been stolen since I have worked there."

City arts impresario Richard Demarco said the theft of the painting was "an absolute tragedy". He said: "In a funny sort of way it should make the artist feel he has achieved something.

"He should try and take consolation in the fact that it was obviously a very good work that someone liked it so much they had to steal it."

A police spokeswoman said: "If you are approached by someone trying to sell this distinctive painting please contact police."

The Golden 72 Hours: Bush’s Vacation from Reality

C. L. Cook
PEJ News
September 2, 2005

Well known to any familiar with disaster relief, the "Golden 72 Hours" refers to the timeline where catastrophe becomes desolation. Over the first 72 hours of the unprecedented natural destruction reaped against the continental U.S., the federal infrastructure did nothing.

While the leader of the nation strummed guitar in San Diego, sneaking in a round of golf on Wednesday, the message to "Outre" Americans was: "You’re on Your Own."

This lame abandonment comes after the billions of dollars diverted in recent years to the military and Homeland Defense, and drastic cuts to budgets requested for the shoring up of New Orleans’ defensive network of levees.

Now, with roving gangs, reportedly heavily armed thanks to the easy availabilty of firearms at such family centered vendors as WalMart, and tough talk coming from governing figures in the form of deployments of "Shoot-to-Kill" National Guard troops to curb looting and lawlessness, it reveals an impression of impending calamity none of the "punditocracy" wish to examine; it discloses a race/class war in America, poised to leap wild-fire across the country.

New Orleans is one of America’s "majority black" cities. Wealth disparity and high unemployment levels make the tourist Mecca a poster child of all that’s worst about the emerging economic order of America in the 21st century. But, the disaster unfolding in Louisiana cannot be looked at solely through an economics lens.

Just across the waters in Cuba, a country economically ravaged by serial illegalities on the part of the United States, was too hit by the Katrina, with more than a million Cubans being safely evacuated beforehand. There, in a nation driven to its economic knees for decades, they still managed to care for the people.

But, this is really an expression of intent.

The Cubans, unlike those ruling today’s America, believed it the duty of government to pursue the well-being of the people. Clearly this is a concept the illegitimate leadership currently ensconced in Washington, D.C. today do not share. The ragged and off-colour survivors of Katrina, not provided an avenue for escape before the fact, denigrated by the press for their shiftless determination to disobey evac. orders, are now threatened with a Fallujah-like assault. One politico apologist even managed to recycle the language uttered by U.S. military flacks prior to one of the horrendous "shoot-to-kill" assaults on the Iraqi city of Fallujah saying those remaining in the city are criminals, "the worst of the worst." It sounded like an "Open Season" declaration.

So, is an ’American Fallujah" to be expected next?

The situation in New Orleans, so hauntingly familiar when viewed from the comfortable distance created by the media and the television glass separating it from we fortunates for away, reminds of the effects of the "Bush Doctrine." Now, as the scenes once reserved to those far-flung places are being burned into America’s self-consciousness, it begs the question:

"Will this horror serve as catalyst for further examinations of America’s policies at home, and abroad?"

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. He also serves as a contributing editor at PEJ News.

United States of Shame

NY Times Sept. 3, 2005
by MAUREEN DOWD
Stuff happens.

And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal stuff happens.

America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it’s happening in America.

W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn’t dry. Bye, bye, American lives. "I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," he told Diane Sawyer.

Shirt-sleeves rolled up, W. finally landed in Hell yesterday and chuckled about his wild boozing days in "the great city" of N’Awlins. He was clearly moved. "You know, I’m going to fly out of here in a minute," he said on the runway at the New Orleans International Airport, "but I want you to know that I’m not going to forget what I’ve seen." Out of the cameras’ range, and avoided by W., was a convoy of thousands of sick and dying people, some sprawled on the floor or dumped on baggage carousels at a makeshift M*A*S*H unit inside the terminal.

Why does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who could have known?" excuses.

Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs.

Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.’s prewar reports.

Who on earth could have known that New Orleans’s sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy’s uneasy fishbowl.

In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Not only was the money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq.

Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.

Just last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced how they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. Imagine the feeble FEMA’s response to Katrina if they had not prepared.

Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn’t know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.

Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job."

It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo’s on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.

When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.

When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.

Who are we if we can’t take care of our own?

E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com

America stripped bare: Privilege vs. Survival

The Age Australia
By Julian Borger
New Orleans
September 4, 2005

AMERICANS were yesterday waking up to the painful truth that hurricane Katrina had dramatically exposed the racial and economic fault lines that exist between blacks and whites in the world’s richest and most powerful nation.

Under enormous pressure to accelerate the relief effort, President George Bush was confronted by angry African-American refugees and acknowledged for the first time that the Government’s reaction was "not acceptable".

He toured areas devastated by the storm and stopped to hug survivors as some reports said the death toll could rise to 10,000.

Across America, black pressure groups were seething with anger over the Bush Administration’s slow response to the disaster and politicians were reaching for the race card.

New Orleans’ black Mayor Ray Nagin lashed out on Friday. "I have no idea what they’re doing. But I will tell you this: You know, God is looking down on all this, and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price. Because every day that we delay, people are dying and they’re dying by the hundreds, I’m willing to bet you."

The hurricane had no target, but in the aftermath it was clear that the victims - who are suffering a horrifying lack of rescue and care - were mostly black and mostly poor, unable to flee the city before the storm because they had no means.

So many photographs from the devastation of New Orleans show the same faces: Desperate. Grief-stricken. Black.

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson said racial injustice and indifference to black suffering was at the root of the disaster response. "In this same city of New Orleans where slave ships landed," Jackson said, "where the legacy of 246 years of slavery and years of discrimination, that legacy is unbroken today.

"There is a historical indifference to the pain of poor people, and black people ... we seem to adjust more easily to black pain."

Last night, many refugees at last found some peace inside the Astrodome in affluent Houston, Texas. The dome was hailed as the eighth wonder of the world when it opened in the mid-’60s. America’s first roofed mega-stadium, it was a symbol of the nation’s self-confidence.

Now in its dotage, abandoned by the sporting world and downgraded to a part-time convention centre, it has become a showcase for a very different and less advertised side of America - the black underclass of many southern cities. "We in Louisiana have always known we were near the bottom of the totem pole," said Deborah Taylor, a baby-faced 29-year-old office assistant, one of the 15,000 or so refugees to reach Houston in the past 24 hours. "Now we can say we truly are at the very bottom."

President Bush’s $A14 billion aid package wasn’t enough for Mr Nagin. "It’s too doggone late!" he said.

He later met President Bush and seemed calmer, but vowed to keep the pressure on.

When 80 per cent of the city’s population evacuated before hurricane Katrina, that left behind those with no cars, no resources and no way out.

"Love has no colour," Cassandra Robinson said as she huddled with her family in a parking entrance along New Orleans’ Convention Centre Boulevard. "But I’ve seen where this is all black and everybody else who is Caucasian, they’re up high in the hotels."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Bush Administration’s highest-ranking black, agreed that the black community has been heavily affected, but said "nobody wants to see Americans suffer, and I think everybody understands that".

Black members of Congress denounced the slow federal response to hurricane Katrina.

"It looks dysfunctional to me right now," said Diane Watson, a Democrat.

Ben Burkett, a black farmer whose fields of kale, spinach and broccoli and hectares of soft pine trees were wiped out by the hurricane, said the initial disaster made no distinctions, but he expects relief to be inherently biased. "The eye of the storm made everybody equal, black or white, rich or poor, big house or small house," he said.

"But believe me, when the relief comes - and we haven’t seen anything yet - the small farmer is going to be at the end, and the small black farmer is going to be at the end of that.

"Basically, I expect it because that’s the way it has always been."

²³×²³×¤º°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ פº°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall — think of it, ALWAYS." — Mahatma Gandhiײ³×º°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤×¤ºº¤ø,¸¸,ø¤

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