Curiel and his National Guard escorts, were returning to the hospital after
dropping off patients at nearby Tulane Medical Center, when someone started
shooting at their convoy of Humvees."We were coming in from a parking deck at Tulane Medical Center, and a guy in a white shirt started firing at us," Curiel said. "The National Guard (troops), wearing flak jackets, tried to get a bead on this guy. "
The incident happened around 11:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. ET).
About an hour later, another gunman opened fire at the back of Charity Hospital.
This is abhorrent. It is so disturbing to see the complete brakdown of social norms in just three short days. I can understand looting for food and even looting empty electronics stores--not that I would condone the latter, but I would expect some of that to happen. But shooting at people trying to evacuate a hospital! WTF?! What kind of unhinge group of people would do this. It really does show how fragile society can be.
Along these lines, it has been interesting to hear the reports of how devastating (to use a word on everyone's lips) a blow this will be to the US economy as a whole. It is a huge port and, as is common in Modern life, its destruction will have very real effects on people thousands of miles away. That my gas and food prices depend on the port in New Orleans may seem to make sense in the truncated style of explanation provided by cable news and the Associated Press, it really is baffling how interconnected we can all be.
This makes not only the breakdown of society in New Orleans so disappointing--because it points to the kind of agressive impulse Freud said exists in all of us--but it also makes the argument that seems to be emerging on cable news and among the knee jerk libertarians and right wing hypocrites (the ones who want to pay to rebuild Iraq but not NO) seem all the more ridiculous--as well as making their claims of Robinson Crusoe individualism seem trite and confused. First there is the evidence that is emerging from a variety of sources that officials in New Orleans have known something like the current disaster was a possibility for at least three years. Environmental issues (as discussed in this article from Scientific American from Oct. 2001-available for free as a result of the catastrophe but maybe not for long) have led to perfect storm of issues--from the foundering levees to the disintegrating delta that is made worse by the levees holding back the sediment that would contribute to rebuiling the delta and marshlands to the sinking city of New Orleans and rising ocean levels as a result of global warming, melting ice caps, etc.--which led the author of the this SA article to lead with the statement: "If a big, slow-moving hurricane crossed the Gulf of Mexico on the right track, it would drive a sea surge that would drown New Orleans under 20 feet of water." Eerie stuff. On the political front of this issue is the fact that money was not given to rebuild some of this foundering infrastructure and their budget was cut by the Bush administration, who, instead, sent the money (and the Louisiana National Guard along with its specialized equipment) to fight the war in Iraq, leading to the very nasty joke:
q: what is the difference between new orleans and Baghdad?
a: The Louisiana National Guard is protecting Baghdad.
All of this seems to make the Bush administration at least partially responsible for this disaster--even though the real issue seems to be that people were living on borrowed time in the Delta to begin with. Nevertheless, it is certain that Democrats will blunder their way through trying to hold Bush politically responsible, Bush will take absolutely no responsiblity and no one will have their mind changed.
Second, already on the Alternet article linked above, as well as on most of the other sites I've linked, the argument about the role that the federal government should have in this situation--and that they should have had before the hurrican--seems to be filled with far more heat than light. The Central Question seems to be whether the "taxpayers" money should have been used to fix the levees and/or help repair and rebuild the city after the disaster. First off, it is so interesting that almost all of these arguments do not include the inhabitants of New Orleans as members of the category "taxpayers." In setting up the "Us vs. Them" dichotomy, it is important to separate the Other in order to dismiss their claims. Thus irregardless of the taxes the people or businesses in New Orleans pay or the additional money they contribute to the commerce of the nation, they become the equivalent of the Reagan era "welfare mother" trying to milk the government for money.
I do see some of the logic of these arguments as they have been made before by people on the Left. Mike Davis, who wrote a fantastic account of the politics of working class america called prisoners of the american dream, is now an urban studies prof and has written extensively about Los Angeles and southern California politics and culture. In his book Ecology of Fear, he discusses, among other things, the different narratives that circulate around disasters in the Los Angeles area. He looks at two different types of fires that happened at relatively the same time in the early 1990s: several inner city slums burnt down and wildfires engulfed the wealthy mansions on the hills near Los Angeles. The aspect of the coverage that entrigues him--and is intriguing to me if his characterization of it is accurate--is that the inner city victims of run down buildings whose slum lords don't keep those buildings up to fire safety codes are depicted in the press as somehow responsible for their own problems and not deserving of aid. On the other hand, the wealthy owners of mansions chose to live in fire prone areas, expected local fire departments to come up with the technology to save their homes, and then denied those fire departments the tax money they needed to do so, yet these individuals were depected in the press as being the victims of a natural disaster beyond their control and thus should be aided by FEMA--which they were, several times.
Assessment of Davis is not that different than the right wingers above on some level, though it is a bit more nuanced. He says that if people choose to rebuild in disaster prone areas, they should be forced to pay a higher insurance premium. At this point, almost ten years after the book was written, this is surely happening. I don't recall what he says about FEMA or the federal govt's role in rebuilding, but I think he would just add that the same money that might go into fixing levees and improving response to wildfires would do even more good if applied to creating good public housing. The former activities are, after all, basically fighting the response of nature to human activity: typically, this is a losing battle.
Still, the situation in New Orleans seems to me an entirely different situation than when a hurricane hits places like the Outer Banks. The Outer Banks is basically a tourist destination, though people do live there, while New Orleans is an essential hub of culture, commerce and industry. It feels dirty for me to distinguish places in this capitalist framework, but since we are talking about federal money, it seems easiest to use their own logic about what is important in the country. And, though it seems that more commentators are willing to voice some vague animosity to FEMA helping people rebuild in bad locations, it only seems to be happening because unlike in California and the Outer Banks--where it is mostly rich white folks who get their mansions washed off the cliffs in mudslides, blown off the shores in Hurricanes, or burnt up in wildfires--New Orleans is a mixture of classes and races. Perhaps that is why this conversation is easier for the right wingers to take up--that and its going to cost A LOT more to fix what has just happened. And it is probably as good a time as any to ask some tough questions.
Though what is happening in New Orleans is more complex than this, it has been interesting to see the way a similar dynamic has been playing out in the coverage and discussion around Katrina. On the ABC chat rooms last night, a discussion began to focus on the looters and the rescue operation and the same comment kept coming up which was that the people of New Orleans knew this was coming but the ones who are still there didn't heed the warning, didn't get out and/or prepare themselves for an extensive period without food, electricity, etc. so it is basically their own fault; they are putting an unacceptable strain on the rescuers and any looting--even food and water--is unacceptable because they were irresponsible to begin with. It seems to overlook the fact that many of the people who got out were able to do so because they owned that ever so handy possession "a car" and/or were not living on such a tight budget that they could afford to stock up for the coming storm.
Race also played a part in these conversations since many of the images of looters on television were Black or African American (according to the posters--I wasn't watching: could be selective perception on the part of the viewers) , but there was a class element that seemed to take precedent (if we define class in terms of access to cars and money rather than relations to production). Of course these arguments, as I have noted before is the norm in chatrooms, led others to take a position on the polar opposite, saying that the people looting were doing so out of desparation and only stayed because they couldn't get out.
I would like to think the best of people as well, but judging from the events going on right now, it is within the realm of possibility that there were a number of people--whatever their race or class--who decided to stick around to take advantage of the chaos. In this case, I would point back to the aggressive tendency mentioned by Freud, the way that it is inhibited by civilization, and turn to President Bush's response to the looting this morning which was to ask people to "take personal responsibility." This is where the right wing obsession with the individual (a holdover, I am convinced of a similar left wing tendency in the 1960s) looks both quaint and confused. The fact of the matter is that "personal responsiblity" means almost the opposite of what Bush is asking for, but he is so hamstrung by his own ideology that he can't articulate the command he is trying to. The looters, after all, are taking "personal responsibility" just in a socially unacceptable way. In fact, the command to take "personal responsibility" in this context seems much more like something Ayn Rand or Wyatt Earp or Nietzsche would recommend. In that case, what people in New Orleans should do is band together, get some guns and people to protect you. Predictably, this is just the recommendation that comes from the National Review's Jonah Goldberg via the Wall Street Journal's corner (hat tip Sivacracy)
ATTN: SUPERDOME RESIDENTS [Jonah Goldberg] I think it's time to face
facts. That place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the
Flies horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself
now. Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate with serpents. While
you're working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when he's not
expecting it beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around you and tell
the womenfolk you will feed and protect any female who agrees to participate
without question in your plans to repopulate the earth with a race of
gilled-supermen. It's never too soon to be prepared. Posted at 10:05 AM
Granted I like this argument better than the argument noted by Andrew Sullivan today, made by a Christian Conservative on the Repent America website, which, like Falwell et. al. on 9/11, justifies the catastrophe in terms of punishment from god:
"Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed
a wicked city," stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. "From 'Girls
Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence,' New Orleans was a city that had its doors
wide open to the public celebration of sin. From the devastation may a city full
of righteousness emerge," he continued.
At least the description of the world as basically the wild west gives you some hope of agency, some way of taking "personal responsibility." But the latter is obviously not what Bush means. He is obviously asking them to overlook their hardship, maybe even blame themselves a bit (rather than justifying looting as "getting back at society" which several sources have noted is a common refrain--though often without looking too deeply at what those ails might be or assessing whether they might be justified). He is asking them, in short, to "love their neighbors" which is the refrain Freud links to the socializing command of the state. It is, as he calls it, (direct quote someday...) the antithesis of individualism. It is asking people to subject themselves to society and to work for its betterment even if it means a slight restriction of their own freedom in exchange for the security that society provides.
Granted, in this case, the failure of society is already in evidence and so the call is actually meant to stave off any further disruption. There is little, however, that Bush can offer in the way of renewing security in the very short term, so he has to rely on some value that should be socialized into us. It is and if he had the right words he might activate it--assuming, of course, that anyone in New Orleans has any way of hearing news, which is a big IF. But unfortunately, Bush and the right wingers rely more on this belief that individual responsibility is something that is anything but an outgrowth of social responsibility, that the idea of "responsibility" itself is only possible in terms of society if it is to mean anything other than a primitive battle for one's own interests against any odds, in the face of any consequences. This is, of course, the dillemma of modern society. We have more personal freedom but for that freedom to mean anything or to be anything other than corrosive to our neighbors, it is better that we restrain it in some way. The same could be said of our tax money: modern society has made enormous fortunes possible, but all of this was based not only on personal initiative but the collective efforts of hundreds of millions of people and massive government infrastructure and security projects. The call to reduce taxes or government programs must take into account the positive externalities (as economists might call them) as well as the negative. And when you can't evacuate a hospital because of snipers--not in Baghdad, but New Orleans--there doesn't seem to be much argument about which way we should go on this. Hold the ideology, thanks, I'll take a public works project.
This leads me to wonder if Bush's second term will consist of the final contradiction to his 2000 campaign. We know environmental concerns have never figured into his agenda so the elimination of that was foregone. But he also said he wasn't into nation building. Though it is arguable how much building is actually going on in Iraq, it is certain that expenditures are high and, if nothing else, he has been forced to move more towards the nation building type of president. Still, with tax cuts for the rich and various forms of deficit spending meant to starve the federal government to that programs can be cut out of desparation, he has held strong to his stubbornly ideological views on the role of the domestic state.
Enter Katrina. Her damage has been to three "Red States." And the sympathy the collective national "We" have for their catastrophe leads us to identify with them and watch carefully what Bush will do. What we have here is a devastated city that is, right now, a cornerstone of the US economy; we have hundreds of thousands of people who do not have homes and whose livelihoods are under at least eight feet of water and will be for a matter of months. It will take, in the words of the president, "years" to rebuild and it is already evident that he is going to do all that he can since he stopped his vacation to retain his legitimacy and his party's authority. So the question arises: will he put these people to work on rebuilding their own city or will he leave it to private contractors and keep those folks on permanent unemployment? Either way there is a huge entitlement program and a government funded reconstruction. It is quite a pickle. He has already tried to best FDR in terms of protecting freedom and liberty, associating himself, even this week, with WWII; now he may end up being forced into being an FDR knockoff by creating some form of a WPA for the 21st century. Oh how the Republicans would howl! But what sort of politician would basically tell them to shove off? ON second thought, there is the division between word and deed that Bush milks so well. He may very well claim to have programs in place to help these folks and never really do anything to help, dismissing criticism as sour grapes. In that event, we won't know anything for decades since our media and political environment prevents any sort of conversation that would actually reveal facts that we can actually agree on and discuss in their own terms.
A final note...I heard a rather interesting story on NPR today as I drove to lunch--Hugo Chavez has offered to send gas to the US. A brilliant political strategy on his part because he has the fuel to give, he ends up looking like a very powerful guy who can even help a coutry as powerful as the US, and when the Bush Administration inevitably refuses the offer, they will look like assholes. Which they are. This was another theme on message boards--an uninformed rant about how no one ever sends us help even though we send others aid. Most of them forget that we had to be embarassed into giving more than a paltry $15m for tsunami aid, we give less aid to foreign countries than we hurt their economies in subsidies and tarriffs, and we have refused to sign off on the UN proposal to reduce global poverty. The fact is that many countries are offering aid in money, medical assisstance, and fuel, but it is unlikely that the smug Bush administration will accept this aid because of the political message it sends to the world. In fact, many countries probably had to hedge on what or how loud they would offer in terms of help because it would risk insulting us. This is obviously part of Chavez's strategy as he was simultaneously criticizing Bush's failure to coordinate an adequate evacuation. This seems like a fair criticism to make. Bush was, after all, right next door (on vacation in Texas) just a few days ago. Lucky for us Clinton and Bush, Sr. will be taking over part of this effort. Foreign relations just isn't Bush's strong suit. Nor are domestic relations. really, he's only good at relating to the people he has to dinner or to his ranch. Lucky for the citizens of New Orleans they'll be bussed a few hundred miles closer, though they should know from Cindy Sheehan that just showing up doesn't insure you'll get in the door. How this guy ever got elected is beyond me.
No comments:
Post a Comment