More analysis

If I had the time or the dedication, I might attempt to provide cogent analysis and insightful commentary on the situation in the Gulf Course in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Fortunately, we live in an interdependent world and people have stepped up to the plate. In the last few days, I've depended on the wonderful websites you see linked at the right side of this page.

One source I'm particularly impressed by is not on my blogroll, yet, but should be. That site is Counterpunch.

Two articles from the last couple of days are real standouts:

In Rat Race of Human Race? State Failure and Human Solidarity, Dan La Botz makes excellent points about the spin given to this particular event:

What do we learn from this experience? For at least the last 25 years we have been told by government, media, the business departments of the universities, and conservative churches that the only social value is competition, that the only mechanism is the market, that the only role for society is to stand aside and let the rat race go on. We have been told that the only motives are selfish motives, the only interests are ego interests. We were told it was all a rat race: business, politics, foreign affairs. We have been told to believe that the biggest, fattest rat will be the winner of the race where in the end rat eats rat.

New Orleans has now shown us the alternative to the rat race that is the human race.

Emphasis added. If you've wondered why the hell the mainstream media all of a sudden focussed on the 0.01% of the New Orleans population who were looting TVs and other luxury goods, keep this concept in mind: what would happen to all the dog-eat-dog, people are evil at base ideologies if we concentrated on the 99.9% of New Orleans citizens who dropped everything to help their fellow citizens.

La Botz continues:

New Orleans's poor black people in their solidarity in this crisis have shown us an alternative to the White House, to the Hill, to Wall Street, to Madison Avenue. They have shown us that within our society, among its working people and its poor lives another potential society with other ideals.

Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. What an amazing example of the true human spirit we saw again and again as people reached out an helped each other. These people deserve our respect and admiration. Go and read the entire article and pass it on.

--------

As an adjunct to the above article, I believe there is another reason why the mainstream media focussed on looters. It was a great way to justify martial law and to encourage certain rogue tendencies in the military to view New Oreleans as a hostile situation requiring combat readiness from those military men and women who, days late, managed to make it into New Orleans. This is a report entitled Trapped in New Orleans by Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky. Again and again they show how collective citizen action produces mutual benefits for those victimized by the storm and how the military presence repeatedly undermined those efforts.

Without a doubt, this is a class issue. In my childhood there were times when my family resorted to calling the police to try to resolve desparate situations. In every case, the presence of the police made things worse, not better. That is why I cannot join in those who condemn Bush and his administration for not bringing in the military earlier. I am not at all convinced that the military, trained for combat, are capable of providing humanitarian assistance of any kind.