BeachWitch
September 2nd, 2005, 08:43 AM
The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many of the most pernicious
trends in American politics and culture: poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse, public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level.
It is obvious that the vast majority of those who failed to evacuate are poor: they had nowhere else to go, no way to get there, no means to sustain themselves and their families on strange ground. While there were certainly people who stayed behind by choice, most stayed behind because they had no choice. They were trapped by their poverty - and many have paid the price with their lives.
Yet across the media spectrum, the faint hint of disapproval drips from the affluent observers, the clear implication that the victims were just too lazy and shiftless to get out
of harm's way. There is simply no understanding - not even an attempt at understanding -
the destitution, the isolation, the immobility of the poor and the sick and the broken among us.
This is from the "respectable" media; the great right-wing echo chamber was even less
restrained, of course, leaping straight into giddy convulsions of racism at the first reports
of looting in the devastated city. In the pinched-gonad squeals of Rush Limbaugh and his
fellow hatemongers, the hard-right media immediately conjured up images of wild-eyed
darkies rampaging through the streets in an orgy of violence and thievery.
But here again another question was left unasked: Where were the resources - the money, manpower, materiel, transport - that could have removed all those forced to stay behind, and given them someplace safe and sustaining to take shelter? Where, indeed, were the resources that could have bolstered the city's defenses and shored up its levees? Where were the National Guard troops that could have secured the streets and directed survivors to food and aid? Where were the public resources - the physical manifestation of the citizenry's commitment to the common good - that could have greatly mitigated the brutal effects of this natural disaster?
Well, we all know what happened to those vital resources. They had been cut back, stripped down, gutted, pilfered - looted - to pay for a war of aggression, to pay for a tax
cut for the wealthiest, safest, most protected Americans, to gorge the coffers of a small
number of private and corporate fortunes, while letting the public sector - the common
good - wither and die on the vine. These were all specific actions of the Bush Administration - including the devastating budget cuts on projects specifically designed to
bolster New Orleans' defenses against a catastrophic hurricane. Bush even cut money for
strengthening the very levees that broke and delivered the deathblow to the city. All this,
in the face of specific warnings of what would happen if these measures were neglected:
the city would go down "under 20 feet of water," one expert predicted just a few weeks
ago.
But Bush said there was no money for this kind of folderol anymore. The federal budget
had been busted by his tax cuts and his war. And this was a deliberate policy: as Bush's
mentor Grover Norquist famously put it, the whole Bushist ethos was to starve the federal
government of funds, shrinking it down so "we can drown it in the bathtub." As it turned
out, the bathtub wasn't quite big enough -- so they drowned it in the streets of New
Orleans instead.
But as culpable, criminal and loathsome as the Bush Administration is, it is only the
apotheosis of an overarching trend in American society that has been gathering force for
decades: the destruction of the idea of a common good, a public sector whose benefits
and responsibilities are shared by all, and directed by the consent of the governed. For
more than 30 years, the corporate Right has waged a relentless and highly focused
campaign against the common good, seeking to atomize individuals into isolated
"consumer units" whose political energies - kept deliberately underinformed by the
ubiquitous corporate media - can be diverted into emotionalized "hot button" issues (gay
marriage, school prayer, intelligent design, flag burning, welfare queens, drugs, porn,
abortion, teen sex, commie subversion, terrorist threats, etc., etc.) that never threaten Big
Money's bottom line.
Again deliberately, with smear, spin and sham, they have sought - and succeeded - in
poisoning the well of the democratic process, turning it into a tabloid melee where only
"character counts" while the rapacious policies of Big Money's bought-and-sold candidates
are completely ignored. As Big Money solidified its ascendancy over government, pouring
billions - over and under the table - into campaign coffers, politicians could ignore larger
and larger swathes of the people. If you can't hook yourself up to a well-funded, coffer-
filling interest group, if you can't hire a big-time Beltway player to lobby your cause and
get you "a seat at the table," then your voice goes unheard, your concerns are shunted
aside. (Apart from a few cynical gestures around election-time, of course.) The poor, the
sick, the weak, the vulnerable have become invisible - in the media, in the corporate
boardroom, "at the table" of the power players in national, state and local governments.
The increasingly marginalized and unstable middle class is also fading from the
consciousness of the rulers, whose servicing of the elite gets more brazen and frantic all
the time.
When unbridled commercial development of delicately balanced environments like the
Mississippi Delta is bruited "at the table," whose voice is heard? Not the poor, who, as we
have seen this week, will overwhelmingly bear the brunt of the overstressed environment.
And not the middle class, who might opt for the security of safer, saner development
policies to protect their hard-won homes and businesses. No, the only voice that matters
is that of the developers themselves, and the elite investors who stand behind them.
The destruction of New Orleans was a work of nature - but a nature that has been worked
upon by human hands and human policies. As global climate change continues its deadly
symbiosis with unbridled commercial development for elite profit, we will see more such
destruction, far more, on an even more devastating scale. As the harsh, aggressive
militarism and brutal corporate ethos that Bush has injected into the mainstream of
American society continues to spread its poison, we will see fewer and fewer resources
available to nurture the common good. As the political process becomes more and more
corrupt, ever more a creation of elite puppetmasters and their craven bagmen, we will see the poor and the weak and even the middle class driven further and further into the low ground of society, where every passing storm - economic, political, natural - will threaten their homes, their livelihoods, their very existence.
-excerpted from an article by Chris Floyd, September 1, 2005
trends in American politics and culture: poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse, public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level.
It is obvious that the vast majority of those who failed to evacuate are poor: they had nowhere else to go, no way to get there, no means to sustain themselves and their families on strange ground. While there were certainly people who stayed behind by choice, most stayed behind because they had no choice. They were trapped by their poverty - and many have paid the price with their lives.
Yet across the media spectrum, the faint hint of disapproval drips from the affluent observers, the clear implication that the victims were just too lazy and shiftless to get out
of harm's way. There is simply no understanding - not even an attempt at understanding -
the destitution, the isolation, the immobility of the poor and the sick and the broken among us.
This is from the "respectable" media; the great right-wing echo chamber was even less
restrained, of course, leaping straight into giddy convulsions of racism at the first reports
of looting in the devastated city. In the pinched-gonad squeals of Rush Limbaugh and his
fellow hatemongers, the hard-right media immediately conjured up images of wild-eyed
darkies rampaging through the streets in an orgy of violence and thievery.
But here again another question was left unasked: Where were the resources - the money, manpower, materiel, transport - that could have removed all those forced to stay behind, and given them someplace safe and sustaining to take shelter? Where, indeed, were the resources that could have bolstered the city's defenses and shored up its levees? Where were the National Guard troops that could have secured the streets and directed survivors to food and aid? Where were the public resources - the physical manifestation of the citizenry's commitment to the common good - that could have greatly mitigated the brutal effects of this natural disaster?
Well, we all know what happened to those vital resources. They had been cut back, stripped down, gutted, pilfered - looted - to pay for a war of aggression, to pay for a tax
cut for the wealthiest, safest, most protected Americans, to gorge the coffers of a small
number of private and corporate fortunes, while letting the public sector - the common
good - wither and die on the vine. These were all specific actions of the Bush Administration - including the devastating budget cuts on projects specifically designed to
bolster New Orleans' defenses against a catastrophic hurricane. Bush even cut money for
strengthening the very levees that broke and delivered the deathblow to the city. All this,
in the face of specific warnings of what would happen if these measures were neglected:
the city would go down "under 20 feet of water," one expert predicted just a few weeks
ago.
But Bush said there was no money for this kind of folderol anymore. The federal budget
had been busted by his tax cuts and his war. And this was a deliberate policy: as Bush's
mentor Grover Norquist famously put it, the whole Bushist ethos was to starve the federal
government of funds, shrinking it down so "we can drown it in the bathtub." As it turned
out, the bathtub wasn't quite big enough -- so they drowned it in the streets of New
Orleans instead.
But as culpable, criminal and loathsome as the Bush Administration is, it is only the
apotheosis of an overarching trend in American society that has been gathering force for
decades: the destruction of the idea of a common good, a public sector whose benefits
and responsibilities are shared by all, and directed by the consent of the governed. For
more than 30 years, the corporate Right has waged a relentless and highly focused
campaign against the common good, seeking to atomize individuals into isolated
"consumer units" whose political energies - kept deliberately underinformed by the
ubiquitous corporate media - can be diverted into emotionalized "hot button" issues (gay
marriage, school prayer, intelligent design, flag burning, welfare queens, drugs, porn,
abortion, teen sex, commie subversion, terrorist threats, etc., etc.) that never threaten Big
Money's bottom line.
Again deliberately, with smear, spin and sham, they have sought - and succeeded - in
poisoning the well of the democratic process, turning it into a tabloid melee where only
"character counts" while the rapacious policies of Big Money's bought-and-sold candidates
are completely ignored. As Big Money solidified its ascendancy over government, pouring
billions - over and under the table - into campaign coffers, politicians could ignore larger
and larger swathes of the people. If you can't hook yourself up to a well-funded, coffer-
filling interest group, if you can't hire a big-time Beltway player to lobby your cause and
get you "a seat at the table," then your voice goes unheard, your concerns are shunted
aside. (Apart from a few cynical gestures around election-time, of course.) The poor, the
sick, the weak, the vulnerable have become invisible - in the media, in the corporate
boardroom, "at the table" of the power players in national, state and local governments.
The increasingly marginalized and unstable middle class is also fading from the
consciousness of the rulers, whose servicing of the elite gets more brazen and frantic all
the time.
When unbridled commercial development of delicately balanced environments like the
Mississippi Delta is bruited "at the table," whose voice is heard? Not the poor, who, as we
have seen this week, will overwhelmingly bear the brunt of the overstressed environment.
And not the middle class, who might opt for the security of safer, saner development
policies to protect their hard-won homes and businesses. No, the only voice that matters
is that of the developers themselves, and the elite investors who stand behind them.
The destruction of New Orleans was a work of nature - but a nature that has been worked
upon by human hands and human policies. As global climate change continues its deadly
symbiosis with unbridled commercial development for elite profit, we will see more such
destruction, far more, on an even more devastating scale. As the harsh, aggressive
militarism and brutal corporate ethos that Bush has injected into the mainstream of
American society continues to spread its poison, we will see fewer and fewer resources
available to nurture the common good. As the political process becomes more and more
corrupt, ever more a creation of elite puppetmasters and their craven bagmen, we will see the poor and the weak and even the middle class driven further and further into the low ground of society, where every passing storm - economic, political, natural - will threaten their homes, their livelihoods, their very existence.
-excerpted from an article by Chris Floyd, September 1, 2005