Katrina: The Hurricane Was The Easy Part

To be honest, I could probably go on for days about the betrayal of those in New Orleans that have been entirely screwed over by the government, be it local or federal, and the way in which they have been treated while simply attempting to enact their most basic of rights. But the truth is that it so sickens me that every time I attempt to address it I revert to employing expletives every other word. Thus, I will just quote Bill Quigley’s piece on Truthout from last Friday…

“In a remarkable symbol of the injustices of post-Katrina reconstruction, hundreds of people were locked out of a public New Orleans City Council meeting addressing demolition of 4,500 public housing apartments. Some were tasered, many pepper sprayed and a dozen arrested.

Outside the chambers, iron gates were chained and padlocked even before the scheduled start.

The scene looked like one of those countries on TV that is undergoing a people’s revolution – and the similarities were only beginning.

Dozens of uniformed police secured the gates and other entrances. Only developers and those with special permission from council members were allowed in – the rest were kept locked outside the gates. Despite dozens of open seats in the council chambers, pleas to be allowed in were ignored.

Chants of “Housing is a human right!” and “Let us in!” thundered through the concrete breezeway.

Public housing residents came and spoke out despite an intense campaign of intimidation. Residents were warned by phone that if they publicly opposed the demolitions they would lose all housing assistance. Residents opposed to the demolition had simple demands. If the authorities insisted on spending hundreds of millions to tear down hundreds of structurally sound buildings containing 4,500 public housing subsidized apartments, there should be a guarantee that every resident could return to a similarly subsidized apartment. Alternatively, the government should use the hundreds of millions to repair the apartments so people could come home. Neither alternative was acceptable to HUD. A plan of residents to partner with the AFL-CIO Housing Trust to save their homes was also ignored.

Outside, SWAT team members and police in riot gear and on horses began to arrive as rain started falling. Those locked out included public housing residents, a professor from Southern University, graduate students, the Episcopal bishop of Louisiana, ministers, lawyers, law students, homeless people who lived in tents across the street from City Hall, affordable housing allies from across the country and dozens of others.”

If that snippet wasn’t enough to enrage you, perhaps this will…

I don’t know about you, but the scenes in that video do not depict an event that one would attribute to a nation, or a portion thereof, that claims itself the foremost democracy on the planet. In fact, it looks more like the last ditch efforts of a few brave souls attempting to futilely counteract the beginnings of a neo-fascist trend that is becoming commonplace in the United States with regards to how the public is treated when it dares to represent itself in a dissenting fashion. And to think that the government of the United States feels it has the right to, by comparison to itself, condemn others.