Hungry Blues

The following information from the National Spinal Cord Injury Association came my way via Sharon Wachsler, a writer, editor, teacher/trainer and disability rights activist whom I know and trust. She confirmed the authenticity of this info by double-checking with Independent Living Research Utilization, a national disabilities organizaiton. ILRU also has its own Hurricane Katrina Relief Assistance for People with Disabilities web page.

Please use the info below to either send money or durable medical supplies (DME) to help disabled Katrina victims:

SUPPLIES UPDATE

We need $25,000 to ship supplies and equipment - we have two trucks ready to go now. We have requested funds for this from FEMA and Foundations. So far, no funds. We can no longer wait for the solution to the supplies crisis. We have created our own. We have a huge warehouse that can receive, sort and distribute supplies and DME. They already have materials on hand and can start getting it out as soon as they raise the first $10,000 for the first two trucks.

We need cash and we need you to start shipping your donated supplies and equipment (SEE GUIDELINES BELOW). They will be distributed as we raise enough funds to get them out. Send donations (money) to:

Portlight Strategies Inc.

Katrina Disability Relief

3614 Back Pen Road

Johns Island, SC 29455

843-817-2651

Ship DME and Supplies (NOT CASH) to:

Paul Timmons

Katrina Disability Relief

4900 Lewis Road

Stone Mountain GA 30083

843-817-2651

Make checks payable to Portlight Strategies Inc.

Portlight Strategies Inc. is a private non-profit 501c3 entity. Their TaxExempt number is #58-2299951.

Guidelines for shipping supplies and DME

-- Anything mechanical needs to be working

-- Boxes need to have inventory listed both in indelible marker on outside and a list on the top of the interior

-- Clothes need to be clean and appropriate for the environment

-- Please be helpful - don't send junk

If you want proof of your donation for tax purposes, you must include name and FULL address.

Thanks to Paul Timmons for taking this on. For those who don't know, Paul is a longtime disability leader who was central to the 10th Anniversary ADA Torch Relay. His organization has been distributing supplies and DME internationally and throughout the southern states. He has been proven to be effective and you can be confident that 100% of your donation will go to getting supplies and DME to those who need them.

Thank you so much,

Marcie Roth

Executive Director/CEO

National Spinal Cord Injury Association

6701 Democracy Blvd Suite 300-9

Bethesda, MD 20817

[PS - from Sharon -- obviously this is not specific to the needs of people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. I'm still waiting to learn if there's any nationally (or locally) coordinated effort of MCSrs to send MCS-related supplies and nontoxic clothing, products, etc.]

---------------------------

Darrell Lynn Jones, M.A.

Program Coordinator

ILRU Community Living Partnership

National State-to-State Technical Assistance Center

Independent Living Research Utilization

2323 S. Shepherd - Suite 1000

Houston, TX 77019

(713) 520-0232, ext. 132 (voice/tty)

(713) 520-5785 (fax)

www.ilru.org

ILRU is a program of TIRR, The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, a nationally recognized rehabilitation center for persons with disabilities.

Counterpunch

Weekend Edition

September 9 / 11, 2005

What is to be Done?

The American Left and the Battle of New Orleans

By STEVEN SHERMAN

While most of the predominantly white peace movement has been energetically preparing for an anti-war march on September 24, a massive natural' disaster has unfolded in New Orleans and the Gulf Region. The horrible spectacle of tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, mostly African American, left behind to wither and die as they waited and waited for a rescue response has powerfully thrust the issue of racism back onto the American political radar. Once again, a predominantly white movement, mostly focused foreign policy issues, is challenged to respond to a domestic crisis involving people who don't look much like those who come to our meetings and demonstrations. To put it bluntly, are we, like the neoconservatives around George Bush, more comfortable with struggles far from the shores of the US than with overcoming differences locally in order to remake and rebuild the American nation?

The initial response of the peace movement has been encouraging. . . . Still, this initial response, while laudable, is only the tip of the iceberg. . . .

Perhaps the most strategic group is Community Labor United, which is calling for grassroots oversight of the relief process. Their statement reads, in part, "The people of New Orleans will not go quietly into the night, scattering across this country to become homeless in countless other cities while federal relief funds are funneled into rebuilding casinos, hotels, chemical plants and the wealthy white districts of New Orleans like the French Quarter and the Garden District. We will not stand idly by while this disaster is used as an opportunity to replace our homes with newly built mansions and condos in a gentrified New Orleans. . . ."

Anyone who has followed grassroots mobilizations over the last decade cannot be surprised at the existence of Community Labor United. Similar coalitions of labor unions, church groups, non-profits, and other activist organizations have been forming all over the country. . . . The predominantly white groups often seem most energized about foreign policy issues; the community-labor coalitions often focus on things like living wage campaigns or education or housing issues. To the degree that people tend to hang out with those they are most comfortable with, there is a good deal of self-selection and homogenization. Although virtually all of the predominantly white peace groups I've participated in have had angst-ridden sessions lamenting the lack of diversity among our membership, I've never seen this situation dramatically change. . . .

There have already been some positive developments. Houston indymedia has begun to set up a radio station for the Diaspora. The liberals at True Majority have solicited donations for Community Labor United, a far more potent response than Moveon's petition to George Bush asking him to stop blaming the victims (why not at least ask the Democratic leadership to come up with a really strong aid/anti-poverty package, as Michael Lerner has demanded?). Locally, people are talking about demanding that Durham bring some rundown houses up to code to facilitate the housing of evacuees, thus facilitating better living conditions for evacuees and general improvement in the city.

(Whole thing.)

There are two posts from the last week that I found particularly moving and important. Neither Jeanne D'Arc nor Kim Pearson are new to such writing. They are both writers with impressive range, but it just so happened that they each wrote compelling, personal posts about their own experiences on the same day. I think our current, more collective experiences of this country's profound, systemic evils may have something to do with that synchronicity.

If you haven't already read Jeanne's "Being Poor," go . . . but then please come back and follow the link to Kim's "Labor Day, 2005: What's Going On."

Kim does an amazing job bringing together her own experiences of race, gender, motherhood and disability. It's very moving writing on the personal level and deeply important politically.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Producers John Hamilton and Sharif Abdel Koudous met with Malik Rahim on Sunday afternoon in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans which lies on the West bank and is the only part of the city that is not flooded. They drove with him to get ice, water and food for his community. On the way, Malik began by talking about what he would have done differently to deal with the storm.

[. . .]

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDOUS: Nagin got on the radio and gave an impassioned speech talking about --

MALIK RAHIM: It was too late.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDOUS:…how federal authorities failed.

MALIK RAHIM: But listen, if you get out this car, and get under here to work on this car, and I run over you, and while you laying there dying, I'm telling you about how sorry I am, what good would that do you? How would you feel? Would you feel better? Well, I'm going to die, but at least he's sorry he killed me. You still dead. You know, that's the part of it -- you know. It's too late to be talking about who failed. You failed. We elected you to represent us. So, if you was waiting on the federal government, then damn, we don't need you as Mayor. We need the federal government to run New Orleans. We don't need you, if you cannot lead the city in a time of emergency. You know, this is when we need leadership. This is when we need for the real Ray Nagin to come and stand up. You know, not to be on no boat trying to rescue people, because you don't feel -- now all of a sudden you have a guilt trip. You know, you should have been out here leading everybody by getting them out of the city. That could have left. You know, I mean, it just came too little too late.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDOUS: And the Governor?

MALIK RAHIM: The Governor ain't about nothing. She was -- she was just as lost as he was. You know, there ain't no -- none of them know what they was doing. You know, their answer to everything now is send in more troops. Marshall law. You know? I mean, for what? I mean, there's no reason for it now. Most of the looters and the people that was doing wrong that was stealing for all of the wrong reasons have done left. Now, you just have people here dying that's scared to go in the store to get anything. Because they are scared that you are going to kill them. She did’t come through here with no compassion. Nothing. You know what I mean, look how long we have been here. So, you tell me she's doing her [ bleep ] job? How long we’ve been sitting in this hot sun trying to get ice? Damn near an hour. You know, I mean, so, what is she doing? What is Ray Nagin doing when he ain't got one place in the whole damn city of New Orleans where we could get services from? We have to travel this far? When we get back to New Orleans, I'm going to show you if we could get to this firehouse they got water stacked up damn near to the ceiling. They ain't giving none of it away. You tell me if your house is on fire, and I come out there with -- even if I just have to have a bucket with water in it, you are going to tell me, oh, no, you ain't got to throw that bucket on my house. I'm waiting for the Fire Department. You ain't got to go in there and rescue my children because the firemen's going to be here in a little while to rescue. I want order. You are going to let everybody anybody that can help you, help you get out. I bet you there wasn't one person out there that was rescued by a civilian that told people, ‘oh, no, man, you ain't got to rescue me. I'm going to wait until Ray Nagin sends somebody here for me. He is going to send somebody.’ I know that that's a lie. I know ain't nobody going to do that. You are going to jump on anything. That's the way it should have been done for help, you know? The very first thing he should have done is made sure that one, that the medical assistance he knew it was going to be needed was made available. He should have had that in place. He should have had food in place. He should have had water in place. He should have had ice in place. He should have had generators in place. That's something that the city could have done. Even if they had to commandeer them from these stores. You know, you have backup generators in every one of these high rise buildings. What's in them? People not living in them? So, why couldn't he take them? Or he could put people in them. You know, he didn't do either. You know? It's all about property. Everything is about property. I tell you what, look at Cuba. Any time a hurricane -- when that -- when Hugo was passing through Cuba, and it was about to hit Havana, Cuba -- the Cuban government came through there and took everybody out of Havana. I mean, everybody was safe. They didn't have this kind of madness. So, I mean, so why are we going through it? Cuban government done said that they were willing to offer assistance with doctors. They wouldn’t even accept them. Now, you tell me if doctors isn't needed when you tell me about the people dying at the airport. But because of politics, you know, they won't take the aid. You know, that's stupid. It's just straight up stupid.

AMY GOODMAN: Malik Rahim speaking in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans. This is Democracy Now!

(Whole thing.)

from "Rebuild New Orleans, Rebuild The World," Jay Arena, on NOLA Indymedia.

The Iberville Public Housing Development, opened in 1941, was built where the famous Storyville district had stood, next to the French Quarter and directly behind Canal Street, New Orleans’ main thoroughfare. The housing authority evicted over 800 African American families from the Storyville neighborhood to build the then all-white complex. Iberville, which is made up of 858 1,2, and 3-bedroom apartments, was part of seven developments--St. Thomas, Magnolia, Calliope, St Bernard, Florida and Lafitte--that the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) built in the 1940s for low-income working class families. All the developments were segregated, with Iberville, St Thomas and Florida being reserved for whites only.

The Attack on Public Housing in New Orleans

In the 1980s New Orleans had approximately 14,000 units of public housing that was home to over 60,000 people, almost all African American. Approximately 20% of New Orleans’ African American working class resided there. In the 1970s and 1980s, in the face of steep federal cutbacks, residents organized for improved living conditions, jobs, and against police brutality. For example, in 1982 residents took over the HANO central office to demand better services and the firing of the then-director Sidney Cates. Residents also consistently fought against police repression. In 1970 residents organized with the Black Panthers in the Desire development to drive out the cops, who many considered an “occupying army”. The Afro-American Liberation League worked with residents against police assassinations, and terrorizing of residents in the Fischer housing development and the surrounding area in the early 1980s, as well as against the NOPD’s daylight slaying of St. Bernard resident Corey Horton in 1991.

In 1988 New Orleans mayor Sidney Barthelemy stepped-up the attack on public housing residents when his administration released the “Rochon Report,” which called for demolishing half all public housing apartments, especially those in the center of the city.

The Clinton administration provided the local ruling class’s demolition plans a boost by passage and implementation of the so-called “HOPE VI” housing program in 1993, and the elimination of the “one-for one” rule in 1995, which had required the government to rebuild every public housing apartment it destroyed. In the name of “redeveloping” and “improving” public housing into “mixed income communities”, the Clinton administration, with full support from the Republican Congress, demolished over 80,000 public housing units between 1996 and 2002. In New Orleans alone the number of units dropped by over half, to about 6,000 apartments.

In New Orleans--and across the country--developments located on valuable real estate have been the most vulnerable to HOPE VI “redevelopment” schemes. For example, the housing authority, working with private developers in a “public-private partnership”, and with the help of sell-out “community activists”, demolished the entire St. Thomas complex in 2001, which was located along the riverfront and the growing tourist complex of hotels, restaurants, condos, and the convention center. This ethnic and class cleansing drove some 1000 working class African Americans families from the area. The new, privately run development, now called ‘river gardens”, has very few former St. Thomas residents, while expensive condos go up in place of public housing apartments.

Next on the Hit List: The Iberville Housing Development

Real estate sharks and the tourist industry, and their servants at city hall, and HANO, have been working to destroy Iberville for many years. In the late 1980s a “task force” was formed, led by corporate lawyer Donald Mintz, to co-opt the tenants leadership to support “redevelopment”. In 2001 New Orleans Saints owner Thomas Benson floated a plan to demolish Iberville and build a new stadium on the site. In 2004, real estate developer Pres Kabacoff has presented a “final solution” for Iberville. His plan for a “revitalized” Canal Street includes massive displacement of the existing community. The housing authority is cooperating. In October 2004 they released a plan that would reduce Iberville from 853 to only 200 public housing units

The Iberville, like the former St Thomas, sits on valuable real-estate next to the historic French Quarter. The ruling class in New Orleans has carried out a conscious policy to control and remove working class, poor and African American people from the growing tourist complex. The last concentration of working class African Americans in the French Quarter were forced out in the early 1970s. The destruction of St Thomas furthered ethnic cleansing along the riverfront. Other efforts, such as the re-routing of the annual Martin Luther King parade away from Canal Street, and attempts to eliminate Canal Street as the city’s central bus-transfer depot, have all been designed to drive working class people, particularly African Americans, out of site of the tourists.

(Via Mark Crispin Miller.)

Produced by Kanye West & Jon Brion
Words by Big Mon and Damien a/k/a Dem Knock-Out Boyz

Higher quality downloads originally posted:

• FWMJ Presents "Rappers I Know"
• The Legendary K.O.

LEGENDARY K.O. PRESS RELEASE
The Legendary K.O. delivers powerful message against George W. Bush Through Song “George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People” Receives Widespread Acclaim

As the world has seen and heard by now, rapper Kanye West expressed his frustration at the Katrina relief efforts and his thoughts on U.S. President George W. Bush last week during a nationally televised benefit. While his thoughts and statement have received much attention, a rap group from Houston, The Legendary K.O., has taken it one step further and recorded a song, entitled “George Bush Don't Like Black People”, using the Kanye West “Gold Digger” instrumental.

The song, available for free download through www.k-otix.com , received over 10,000 downloads in the first day alone, with listeners ranging from the U.S. to Europe and Japan.

Legendary K.O. member Micah Nickerson lives minutes away from the Astrodome, where many Katrina victims are being housed, came up with the song concept immediately after hearing Kanye West's remarks.

“I had really wanted to write about this in the first-person, as someone stuck in New Orleans and left by this administration to basically fend for myself, but was having trouble putting the emotions I felt into words. When I heard Kanye during the benefit, the rest as they say was history,” said Micah.

The song was recorded and included on a friend's web site promoting new music from various artists (www.fwmj.com). Within a day, his site was overwhelmed with the traffic, as users were flocking to download the song.

Damien Randle, the other member of The Legendary K.O., says that the song expresses their and many others feelings about this administration.

“No matter which side of the political debate we reside on, I think we can all agree that this situation represents the ultimate human tragedy, and highlights the need for sweeping improvements in some of the most fundamental segments of society. The safety and well-being of all people should always be considered first, and we felt compelled to express that through song,” said Damien.

The Legendary K.O. is not staying on the sidelines during this tragedy, making music, but not taking action. Micah and Damien have also donated food, clothes, and time to local organizations and urge anyone that has not donated to please do so.

Their actions have also caught the attention of numerous media outlets, including MTV.com: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1509274/20050909/mos_def.jhtml?headlines=true

The group is also available for print, radio, and TV interviews. To set-up interviews now, please contact The Legendary KO at k-otix@k-otix.com

Suggested sites for donations:

http://www.houstonhurricaneaid.org/

United Way - http://www.uwtgc.org/index.html

Curtis Muhammad of Community Labor United and The People's Hurricane Fund was on Democracy Now last Wednesday.

AMY GOODMAN: Curtis Muhammad is also on the line with us. He is from New Orleans, right now in Jackson, Mississippi, former S.N.C.C organizer, Co-founder of Community Labor United in New Orleans. Curtis, this weekend there will be a meeting in Baton Rouge of black leaders talking about rebuilding New Orleans. As we observe that this question is being asked right now: Will New Orleans be rebuilt, as opposed to how will it be rebuilt, but can you talk about how this whole hurricane is being framed and who will be involved in the rebuilding?

CURTIS MUHAMMAD: Well, I think there are two things where we started this process of talking to our people about how to move. First of all, that's what we do. We have been doing community forums for about eight or nine years in New Orleans under something we call Community Labor United, a coalition of progressive organizations. So, when this happened and we found ourselves scattered everywhere, and we were all watching the news, and we realized that we had our people just all over the South, North, flying them all over the country, so we began to try to gather ourselves and talk about what we needed.

And one consensus emerged out of those phone calls and emails. And that is, we could not depend on our local, state, or national government for our future, that it was very clear that without the people standing and demanding something in a real serious way that we would not get our due. Now, this thing was so blatant, this thing was just so blatant, and there's been so much skating and sliding around the facts of this thing, and we are looking at it on TV. And that's what makes it so hard for me.

I mean, I saw T.D. Jakes on the – being interviewed, and I’ve forgotten who interviewed him. It was on CNN, I think, and the interviewer just tried to push him, said, “Reverend Jakes, just tell me how you feel in your gut. Just in your heart. Was this racism?” And he just kept running from that issue. It's very few people who have really walked into that piece. I mean, here we are watching this thing happen, hearing the reporters talk about ambulances picking up people from the mostly predominantly white and upper middle class hospital at Tulane University, picking people up to evacuate them, and going right past the Charity Hospital where most of the Blacks were. And we had these reports of nurses using pumps by hand to keep people alive and stashing the dead in the staircase, and yet they were going uptown to empty out the predominantly white and middle class hospitals. And we were still skating.

Now, that convinced us that we had no caretakers. You know, those -- the Mayor at one point goes into the Superdome and goes into the Convention Center, and says, “Just go walk. Don't wait for help. Just get on the highway and walk out of here.” That actually happened. And they stopped them. They set up checkpoints and would not let the people leave the city for fear they were going to loot the dry towns, white towns, Kenner, Metairie up the road. And they started locking these shelters at night so people could not sneak away. And no help was still coming. Now, somebody break into place and get water and food, and we call it looting. And people are dying.

And Bush, the President, finally shows up six days later, and he says, “Zero tolerance for people who break into places to get food and water,” that that's the same as looting. How can you call looting when the whole town almost is under water and people are starving and nobody has been to see about them for six days? And those people are being criminalized and thrown in jail as we speak. So, when we gathered our forces, we began to travel through the shelters so that we could locate. We couldn't get cooperation from the government of where they were taking our people. But we just started going city to city up the highway, and every city, as we went out on 10 West, we traveled all the way to Houston. We started at Baton Rouge. Everything was filled. Churches, gymnasiums, civic centers, dormitories of college campuses where the students had brought the families into their dormitories.

But when we would go to the public shelters, they were almost like prisons. You could hardly get in. There was all kind of criteria for how you could get in to see the people that was almost like visiting somebody in prison. The people didn't have access to the world around them for fear, again, because on TV they had been criminalized already. So, though the communities were willing to accept them, they were not willing for these people to walk the streets of their town. They were eating sweets and Cokes, still, to the day – I came to this studio this morning having driven from Houston. Every little town between Baton Rouge and Houston had shelters with our people. And they were all managed by FEMA and Homeland Security and soldiers and National Guards, and the ability to go visit these people was like tremendously hard work.

By the time we got to Houston, we had learned a little lesson. We learned if we took our already white volunteer as our leader to the shelters, we could enter without any problem, without any red tape. We were allowed to enter. So, we are convinced that the racism about the New Orleans black population, the black poor population, is so tremendous and so negligent and we don't know the reasons. And maybe so all black people. Maybe that's just – we just have this tremendous universal hatred for dark skin. I don't know what it is. But we watched blatant racism, blatant racism.

We watched our government, whether it's local, state or national, and I would rather say state or national because the local government has no National Guard. It has no helicopters. It has no big boats. It doesn't have the wherewithal to have moved 150,000 people trapped in New Orleans underwater. The state and the feds are the culprits, and though they have not joined the International Court, there must be a people's court somewhere that can charge wrongful death, that can charge murder. Because that's what we have witnessed.

I am on the email list for the People's Hurricane Fund and received this update yesterday.

We have received a tremendous response to our call for help and we are greatly energized and excited by the growing network of activists out there who are willing to lend a hand at a moment's notice. Thanks so much for everything everyone is doing and has offered to do—it is truly amazing.

In light of the generous volume of responses, we have moved to set up a fund with the Vanguard Public Foundation, which has a long history of social justice activism and also has the staff capacity to manage this level of effort.

Please let everyone know that donations should be earmarked for the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and checks made out to:

Vanguard Public Foundation

383 Rhode Island St., Ste 301

San Francisco, CA 94103

We are working on creating a method by which people can donate via credit card. Until then, you can donate via credit card at the www.truemajority.org website to this fund at https://secure.truemajority.org/03/clu.

If you have supplies/in-kind donations to send, please send them to:

People's Hurricane Relief Fund c/o Ishmael Muhammad

440 N. Mills St., Suite 200, Jackson, MS 39202

Thank you again for all the work everyone is doing,

Becky Belcore

Volunteer Organizer

Louisiana Research Institute for Community Empowerment (LaRICE) bbelcore[at]hotmail[dot]com

In an email earlier this week, when Becky Belcore first announced this development, she also explained that Danny Glover is co-chair of the Board of Directors of the Vanguard Public Foundation.

Blackwater Mercenaries Deploy in New Orleans

By Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo

t r u t h o u t | Report

Saturday 10 September 2005

New Orleans - Heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans. Some of the mercenaries say they have been "deputized" by the Louisiana governor; indeed some are wearing gold Louisiana state law enforcement badges on their chests and Blackwater photo identification cards on their arms. They say they are on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given the authority to use lethal force. Several mercenaries we spoke with said they had served in Iraq on the personal security details of the former head of the US occupation, L. Paul Bremer and the former US ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte.

"This is a totally new thing to have guys like us working CONUS (Continental United States)," a heavily armed Blackwater mercenary told us as we stood on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. "We're much better equipped to deal with the situation in Iraq."

Blackwater mercenaries are some of the most feared professional killers in the world and they are accustomed to operating without worry of legal consequences. Their presence on the streets of New Orleans should be a cause for serious concern for the remaining residents of the city and raises alarming questions about why the government would allow men trained to kill with impunity in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to operate here. Some of the men now patrolling the streets of New Orleans returned from Iraq as recently as 2 weeks ago.

What is most disturbing is the claim of several Blackwater mercenaries we spoke with that they are here under contract from the federal and Louisiana state governments. . . .

As the threat of forced evictions now looms in New Orleans and the city confiscates even legally registered weapons from civilians, the private mercenaries of Blackwater patrol the streets openly wielding M-16s and other assault weapons. This despite Police Commissioner Eddie Compass' claim that "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons."

Officially, Blackwater says it forces are in New Orleans to "join the Hurricane Relief Effort." A statement on the company's website, dated September 1, advertises airlift services, security services and crowd control. The company, according to news reports, has since begun taking private contracts to guard hotels, businesses and other properties. But what has not been publicly acknowledged is the claim, made to us by 2 Blackwater mercenaries, that they are actually engaged in general law enforcement activities including "securing neighborhoods" and "confronting criminals."

(Read the whole thing.)

From email newsletter of the Institute of Southern Studies, Facing South, September 9, 2005 - Issue #114

INSTITUTE INDEX - A Tale of Two Hurricane Seasons

Amount of aid President Bush immediately requested after hurricanes hit Florida in September 2004: $12 billion

Number of hours after Hurricane Charley made landfall in Florida that Bush authorized federal assistance: 1

Date in September that a FEMA consultant wrote a memo suggesting steps to ensure the Florida hurricanes not become a "liability" for the president's re-election: 2

Days after the memo that FEMA announced the pre-storm deployment of "a powerful list of disaster response personnel, equipment and supplies" in Florida for Hurricane Frances, including 100 truckloads of ice and water: 2

Amount of Florida hurricane aid that government investigators later concluded was "questionable," including housing disbursements to families that had not asked for it: $31 million



Number of hours after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast that FEMA authorized dispatching employees to the region: 5

Number of days they were allowed to take before arriving there: 2

Number of days after Hurricane Katrina struck that administration was "still assessing" amount of aid to request: 4

Amount that the administration requested for Hurricane Katrina, the worst in history, after four days: $10 billion

All sources on file at the Institute.

[UPDATE/CORRECTION, 9/14: When I originally published this important essay I attributed it to Anne Gevarsi, as had William Rivers Pitt, in the article linked in my original prefatory note, immediately following. A full explanation of the error is at the end of this post and will also appear by itself, as a new post, to alert my regular readers.]

[Many may have read yesterday's piece by William Rivers Pitt, in which he quoted from a first hand account by psychologist Shari Julian. The following is her account in full. —BG] 

by Shari Julian

There are so many words that come to mind. As a scholar I am thinking Diaspora, social displacement, systemic disruption, mass trauma, pandemic and unbelievable chaos. As a clinician, I am looking at something that we have never been trained to handle in this country--a level of victimization and its resultant psycho-social ripples that mandate a whole new field of clinical practice-mass victimology. Katrina kicked the top off of a racist and social termite's nest that has been growing beneath the ground since Reconstruction. These were deeply religious people who have lost God and for that matter, faith and hope. Hope has been replaced by magical thinking that augurs a second and more terrible level of social disruption and anger not far down the road.

Over and over, I kept hearing a framing of self that puzzled me until I realized that this is how it must have been for blacks after Reconstruction. Over and over, people said, "everyone has been so wonderful, thank you, thank you." When I said, "there is no need to thank us, you are our fellow citizens and we want to help you--American to American," there would be a long pause as if the idea of being the same never struck them before.

They are angry and it is growing. The system failed them. For that matter, there is no system because all the safeguards and preparations that we thought were in place aren't there. I have been begging anyone who would listen over the past two years for a program in mass victimology to prepare for the next tragedy after 9/11. Now it is here and the lack of organization, science, and preparation are going to result in terrible consequences for us as a nation.

Imagine sending people who have been assimilated into the most stable demographic population in America into cities and towns all over the US who are as unprepared as the victims to understand their sense of dislocation and their support needs. The lower Gulf States have a language, a history, a social dynamic, a faith, a societal structure, and a ritual system unlike any other in America. These people have lived in and been acculturated to this system for generations. When the dust settles and the mud dries, we are going to see all over America, a nation that will lose patience with the needs of a foreign refugee population. Abandoned once again, the fury and the trauma that have been momentarily quieted by the outpouring of empathy and support post-crisis, will arise larger and more terrible than we have been equipped as a nation to handle. I hear it now, over and over, in the survivor stories, in the loss of self, and the need to reclaim dignity and power.

Right now, numbness is being replaced by magical thinking. "People want me here--here is better. I think I'll stay here." What is going to happen when reality sets in? The bulk of people who are planning to stay don't understand the system here. Even though we abut borders, we are a vastly different nation. At least we are southerners. What is going to happen to the thousands being sent to Connecticut or Illinois or New Jersey? They are being offered free apartments, furniture etc, by generous and well meaning people who haven't thought the long term consequences through very well. A lot of the apartments are in areas where they won't have transportation or jobs. What is going to happen six months down the road when the magic wears off and the help slowly fades? How about the holidays for a people who thrive on ritual, tradition, and celebration?

The trauma they are experiencing is so profound that we have no cultural term or machinery set up for it. The dead and nameless bodies by the thousands rotting in the water, arriving dead on the buses with them, or dying next to them in the shelters are a huge festering wound that no one dares mention. This is a true Diaspora the likes of which we haven't seen since Reconstruction. The immediate needs that are being addressed ignore the greater traumas yet to be spoken. No governmental system can survive the number of wounded and disillusioned people that we are going to see sprouting up all over America. Something far greater and more organized has to be done.

Then to the helpers and what is happening there. Turf wars have already sprung up. In the name of "I know better than you do," chaos and wasted energy are multiplying. The Red Cross was initially in charge of certifying the credentials of the helping therapists. After Oklahoma City and the pretenders who arrived there, this seemed like a wonderful clearing house. Everyone who wanted to help had to go through a brief orientation and a thorough checking of credentials. Only licensed professionals were allowed. Driver's licenses were checked for criminal records. This seemed to be a common sense excellent approach to the question of rapists, pedophiles, and other thugs being denied access to a vulnerable population. Actually, things ran better than I expected at the beginning. Then in came the physicians who I guess felt that their non-existent coursework in this area qualified them to better run things. Immediate chaos, disorganization, and all sorts of ersatz "helpers" began running around. They grabbed our current Red Cross badges and then stopped us from going back on the floor to finish seeing our patients without the new badges, which they just happened to be out of. We had an optometrist with prescriptive lenses but no glasses or readers and no idea when he'd ever see any. We had a deaf booth but no deaf helpers. In the midst of all this chaos, thousands and thousands of the walking wounded mixing with the powerless well-intentioned came the whispered word, pandemic. Lots of people are suddenly getting sick, and we have to have precautions. Don't eat or drink or touch the patients. We only have one bottle of disinfectant in the mental health section, so come back here—the length of the Convention Center—after each patient. "What of the people who are being cycled out of here?" "What are we sending into the population?" If people are sick and contagious, where are the precautions to separate the vulnerable? What of precautions such as masks and gloves to keep the medical professionals and first responders safe? All the here and now is suspended in the hope that maybe tomorrow will take care of itself and the worst won't happen. Those are the question we asked on the first day. NO ONE IS IN CHARGE

Therefore, there is no consistent answer or approach or forethought. I am no infection guru but as soon as I heard on day one that people with no water were forced to drink water with bloated bodies, feces, and rats in it, the thought of cholera, typhoid, and delayed disease immediately occurred to me. What if the fears of disease are correct? People are fanning out throughout America. Where is the CDC?

In the age of computers, we are doing worse than the pencil squibs and the rolls of paper to log in the displaced after World War II. Literacy and computer access seems to be considered as a given for people who have lost it all. Accessing FEMA is through a website. People are in shelters waiting for FEMA to come "in a few days." "Be patient." The Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana pumped my hand and replied to my desperate queries about how to help people find their parents and babies, "Be patient--give us a few days."

The mothers who have lost their children, and there are many, and the children who have lost their parents, have had it with the "be patient" response. The shelters are surprisingly silent. It is hard to find the traumatized mothers because they cry silently. One mother asked how patient I would be if my five-month-old was somewhere unknown for over a week. Over and over, others would ask," Do you think my baby has milk and diapers?" "Do you think they are being kind to my baby?" And then, so softly that I would have to ask them to repeat, "Do you think my baby is okay?" My response--the convenient lie. Every time I said, "of course"; I prayed to God that it was true.

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Too many Blacks to gerrymander effectively. Too many Blacks to rig elections and not make people suspicious. So, instead, dilute the Black vote by mass deportation and eliminating or shrinking Black neighborhoods.

Not every white business leader or prominent family supports that view. Some black leaders and their allies in New Orleans fear that it boils down to preventing large numbers of blacks from returning to the city and eliminating the African-American voting majority. Rep. William Jefferson, a sharecropper's son who was educated at Harvard and is currently serving his eighth term in Congress, points out that the evacuees from New Orleans already have been spread out across many states far from their old home and won't be able to afford to return. "This is an example of poor people forced to make choices because they don't have the money to do otherwise," Mr. Jefferson says.

Calvin Fayard, a wealthy white plaintiffs' lawyer who lives near Mr. O'Dwyer, says the mass evacuation could turn a Democratic stronghold into a Republican one. Mr. Fayard, a prominent Democratic fund-raiser, says tampering with the city's demographics means tampering with its unique culture and shouldn't be done. "People can't survive a year temporarily -- they'll go somewhere, get a job and never come back," he says.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Mayor Nagin is having a meeting with NOLA's old, white money in Dalllas sometime today (Friday).

A few blocks from Mr. O'Dwyer, in an exclusive gated community known as Audubon Place, is the home of James Reiss, descendent of an old-line Uptown family. He fled Hurricane Katrina just before the storm and returned soon afterward by private helicopter. Mr. Reiss became wealthy as a supplier of electronic systems to shipbuilders, and he serves in Mayor Nagin's administration as chairman of the city's Regional Transit Authority. When New Orleans descended into a spiral of looting and anarchy, Mr. Reiss helicoptered in an Israeli security company to guard his Audubon Place house and those of his neighbors.

He says he has been in contact with about 40 other New Orleans business leaders since the storm. Tomorrow, he says, he and some of those leaders plan to be in Dallas, meeting with Mr. Nagin to begin mapping out a future for the city. (Emphasis added.)

The power elite of New Orleans -- whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. -- insist the remade city won't simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.

The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."

Nagin is actually a Republican who changed parties to run against a Black Democrat in the 2002 mayoral primary.

Before his election, Nagin was a member of the Republican Party and had little political experience; he was a vice president and general manager at Cox Communications, a cable communications company and subsidiary of Cox Enterprises. Nagin did give contributions periodically to candidates, namely President George W. Bush and former Republican U.S. Representative Billy Tauzin in 1999 and 2000, as well as to Democratic U.S. Senators John Breaux and J. Bennett Johnston earlier in the decade (emphasis added).

Days before filing for the New Orleans Mayoral race in February 2002, Nagin switched his party registration to the Democratic Party (emphasis added). Shortly before the primary election, an endorsement praising Nagin as a reformer by Gambit Magazine gave him crucial momentum that would carry through for the primary election and runoff. In the first round of the crowded mayoral election in February 2002, Nagin received first place with 29% of the vote, against such opponents as Police Chief Richard Pennington, State Senator Paulette Irons, City Councilman Troy Carter and others. In the runoff with Pennington in May 2002, Nagin won with 59% of the vote. His campaign was largely self-financed.

Let's put that a little differently. It appears that the old, white power structure ran Nagin against a Black Democrat in order to have him do their bidding.

A key question will be the position of Mr. Nagin, who was elected with the support of the city's business leadership (emphasis added). He couldn't be reached yesterday. Mr. Reiss says the mayor suggested the Dallas meeting and will likely attend when he goes there to visit his evacuated family

Black politicians have controlled City Hall here since the late 1970s, but the wealthy white families of New Orleans have never been fully eclipsed. Stuffing campaign coffers with donations, these families dominate the city's professional and executive classes, including the white-shoe law firms, engineering offices, and local shipping companies. White voters often act as a swing bloc, propelling blacks or Creoles into the city's top political jobs. That was the case with Mr. Nagin, who defeated another African American to win the mayoral election in 2002 (emphasis added).

I'm willing to wager that Curtis Muhammad and Becky Belcore were not invited to the Dallas meeting.

Pierce, Cotton Say Black Leaders Not Included In Evacuee Relief Planning

The Chattanoogan

posted September 6, 2005

City Councilman Leamon Pierce said it appears that black leaders have not been included in planning for taking care of Gulf Coast evacuees in Chattanooga.

He said most of those being helped are black, "so it sends out a bad signal."

Councilman Pierce said the alleged lack of inclusion here comes after he said there is an impression that aid did not get to New Orleans quickly because its citizens are mostly black.

County Commissioner William Cotton said, "No black elected officials were involved in the first or the second meetings. I was called by Claude Ramsey after the meetings."

Commissioner Cotton said, "We should be at the table to make suggestions or comments."

He said he was going to bring the issue up with Gov. Phil Bredesen.

Rev. Kevin Muhammad said 80 black ministers have gotten together to set up a relief effort.

But he said they need to be "plugged in" to the overall effort.

He said, "There is a problem dealing with the Red Cross and the United Way." He said direct involvement was needed with those here leading the effort to help refugees.

Rev. Muhammad said, "Each church is prepared to adopt families. We could be of a great deal of assistance if we are included."

He said, "It could really help in bringing the community together."

Todd Womack of the mayor's office said he will work with Rev. Muhammad and the black ministers.