Capitalism's Collateral Damage: To Be Poor, Black and Dying in New Orleans

   Freedom Socialist Party Statement on the Hurricane Katrina Tragedy

   In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the suffering in New Orleans and along a 400-mile stretch of the Gulf Coast has shown the world the searing realities of race and class in the United States. The life-and-death divide along skin color and wealth is being discussed on the front pages, on news broadcasts, and in local responses to the tragedy. An additional truth, so familiar it goes unrecognized, is the fact that the U.S. poor are overwhelmingly women of color, their kids, elders, and people with disabilities. These are the people who felt the brunt of the storm, the poisonous flood waters, and the unfeeling disdain of the Bush administration. Far from being an isolated calamity, the disaster in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is the direct result of capitalism’s pursuit of the almighty dollar at the expense of those judged disposable by virtue of their race, gender and earning ability.

   Hard times in the Big Easy

   The overwhelming majority of those unable to escape New Orleans before Katrina hit were poor and Black. The city is one of the most impoverished in the U.S.: nearly a third of the population lives in want. The city is wracked by corruption, with police brutality, low-paying jobs, unemployment, rampant racism, failing schools, and high levels of violence against women. More than two-thirds of New Orleans’ inhabitants were African American, many of them descendents of the slaves who built the city. In the Lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood that was one of the hardest hit, more than 98% were Black.

   After the storm subsided, TV cameras showed wrenching images of thousands in New Orleans trapped on rooftops, searching for food and water amidst the devastation, or starving and thirsty in putrid “shelters”.

   News watchers were horrified by the images of the dead lying for days in the streets or floating in the waters submerging the city. The number of those who died in Katrina’s aftermath is still unknown, but presumed to be in the thousands.

   Despite the outrages, the frustration, injuries, illness and mounting, justifiable anger, the survivors showed a tremendous amount of compassion and solidarity. Reports of heroism and selflessness have filtered out. A TV news story told of several mothers who put their 17 children in a rowboat and asked a man to row them to safety, while they stayed behind in the rising waters. A Canadian reporter countered the stories of chaos in the streets with the testimony, “What I see are young people taking care of old people, the relatively healthy caring for the sick, people sharing their paltry supplies. It’s true there’s crime and violence, but tempers are terribly frayed, and feelings of hopelessness overwhelming”. (Toronto Star)

   Too little help, too late Officials’ lack of concern for the people in harm’s way was shown as the storm approached when Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco told residents to “pray the hurricane down” to a Category 2, while refusing to mobilize transport for those who had no way to leave the city.

   President Bush and federal agencies responded callously, sluggishly, and inadequately. Rapper Kanye West spoke the feelings of many African Americans when he said on national television that the U.S. is set up “to help the poor, the Black people, the less well-off as slow as possible”. He added: “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people”.

   Bush additionally insulted the survivors with his pronouncements about getting tough with looters. The media whipped up hysteria about “armed thugs” creating lawless mayhem. When people of color fought for the food and supplies they needed to survive, police were ordered to stop looking for survivors in order to guard Wal-Marts.

   Numerous killings by police are receiving little media attention.

   But unsubstantiated and inflammatory stories about wholesale violence and rapes are getting international play. White supremacists are having a heyday decrying rape and assault against whites by Black “brutes”.

   Though food, water and transportation trickled in, the oil industry took care of itself fast. Over 10 major refineries were knocked out of commission in the Gulf region, but many of them were back operating within the week. Bush released federal oil reserves, but oil companies took the opportunity to jack up gas prices to a criminal level. Unabashed speculation was the name of the game across the nation, but especially in the worst hit areas where gas topped $5.00 a gallon. Bush also moved quickly to loosen environmental safeguards to allow more pollution by gasoline producers. All this while the four largest oil companies— ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, RoyalDutch/Shell Group and BP Group PLC—had profits of nearly $100 billion in the last 18 months.

   Capitalism kills

   While politicians wring their hands over the “natural disaster”, they ignore the fact that its lethal impact was a result of their own policies.

   This avoidable tragedy points out the deadly priorities of the capitalist system, which puts profits above human life.

   The political establishment had plenty of warning that New Orleans, below sea level and virtually surrounded by water, was vulnerable to catastrophic flooding. Planners knew that massive evacuation of residents would be required someday. Many reports and scientific papers laid out the precise Katrina scenario. They warned that unbridled development along the coast had done away with millions of acres of wetlands that buffered coastal communities from storms.

   Scientists have shown that the increased intensity of hurricanes is associated with global warming and rising surface sea temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico. In other words, unchecked U.S. emissions are creating stronger hurricanes. But to address this means tackling politicians’ corporate sponsors.

   For decades, the federal government – under both Republicans and Democrats -- has consciously refused to adequately maintain or strengthen the levees that protect New Orleans. Hurricane and flood control has received the steepest federal funding reductions in New Orleans history — down 44.2% since 2001. As Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told The Times-Picayune in June 2004: “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 is the price we pay”. Requests for an additional $250 million for Army Corps of Engineers levee work in the delta went unmet. The message was clear:

   why fix levees or relocate housing for poor and workingclass people when the inevitable catastrophe is likely to happen on someone else’s watch?

   And when there is a killing to be made in expanding U.S. oil interests in Iraq?

   As the storm waters swept across the Gulf states, more than a third of the Mississippi and Louisiana National Guard were fighting in Iraq.

   Their equipment, including generators, water purification systems and other needed life support and disaster preparedness supplies were overseas as well. Precious hours and days were lost as the bureaucratic machinery leadenly moved equipment from other parts of the country.

   Nothing more clearly shows the fact that this is a capitalist-made tragedy than the real-life example of how the workers’ state of Cuba handled a similar situation. Barely a month before Katrina, on July 14, 2005, Cuba was swept by Hurricane Dennis, like Katrina, a Category 4 hurricane. Though impoverished by the U.S. embargo and lacking the vast resources the U.S. has at its disposal, the Cuban government was able to limit the death toll to 16, by smoothly relocating over 1.5 million citizens. Surely the richest nation on earth has the technical ability to do the same. But ability and will are two different things.

   A socialist relief plan

   Hurricane Katrina displaced over 500,000 people in the Gulf Coast region. Now the government is faced with the mammoth job of reuniting these refugees with their loved ones, and finding them clothes, food, medical treatment, homes, jobs, schools and more.

   George Bush will utter pronouncements about refugees pulling themselves up by sheer determination and religious faith. Halliburton and other corporations are sidling up to the feeding trough for lucrative contracts that will maintain the South’s non-union, racist, sexist labor norms.

   Public pressure is needed to prevent this despicable scenario.

   Demands should include:

   l. Insure immediate housing, food, medical care and childcare for all who need it through government facilities and supplies. Turn the Washington, DC national mall, Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, military bases, and Camp David into emergency shelters.

   2. Institute a massive public works program and start building housing immediately. Hire the displaced at union wages, and provide relocation allowances and training.

   3. Restitution for poor and working people who lost homes, personal property and jobs.

   4. Cancel credit card debts for everyone affected, and void all debts on destroyed automobiles.

   5. Put a national price cap on gasoline, diesel, heating oil and natural gas, at a rate that slashes corporate profits by at least 75%.

   6. Bring the National Guard and all troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan now. Divert money from war to social programs. President Bush asks for donations to help hurricane victims, while spending public tax money for war—let’s reverse this equation.

   This crisis should bring the downfall of George Bush and the entire Republican and Democrat supported capitalist system. It’s time to get serious about saving lives by eliminating the exploitative, discrimination- driven profit system and replacing it with a planned, cooperative economy run by the workers for the benefit of all regardless of race, gender, physical ability, sexual orientation, or age.