Troops began combat operations to take the city back. Snipers fired on rescue helicopters. Refugee camps housed thousands of homeless. This was the scene in New Orleans over the last week in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which killed hundreds, left thousands homeless and destroyed New Orleans as it ripped through the Gulf region. As with any disaster, focus turned quickly to the rescue efforts, and it wasn’t long before the Bush Administration came under fire for a lacklustre response to the rescue effort.

Critics were quick to point out that the Bush Administration’s slow response to the disaster was a clear indication of their racial bias, given that New Orleans was a majority Afro-American city. Not only that, but the media quickly seized on images of looters, mainly black, without providing the context that people were without food and had to feed themselves. The events that transpired in New Orleans somehow removed a veneer and exposed a hidden side of American race relations – and it wasn’t pretty.

Writing for Znet, Justin Podur, in questioning the naming of Katrina victims as refugees in their own country, (http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=8680) explained the response by describing a “cruel nationalism” that had emerged amongst elites after 9/11, whose first impulse was to “blame foreigners, and then to strike out at them, expel them, and bomb them”.

But unlike in Afghanistan or Iraq, there were no outside forces to blame for Katrina and so the poor and predominantly black population who desperately needed assistance came into the firing line. “The government’s response to Katrina was a different kind of racism: not hatred of foreigners, but contempt and utter disregard for Black people’s lives, and for the extraordinary city they had made,” wrote Podur.

He went on to write: “It seems that the American government is treating Black Americans on the Gulf Coast with the contempt that it normally reserves for the citizens of other countries. After decades of struggle and sacrifice for the right to be full American citizens, Black people are being treated like the rest of the world is treated - as problems to be solved as cheaply as possible, not fellow citizens and human beings with dignity.”

The disaster has exposed the myth of America as the land of wealth and equality. Calling America a “failed state”, Dan La Botz, in an article for the online magazine Counterpunch (http://www.counterpunch.org/labotz09032005.html), wrote: “Every American city harbors millions of people with high rates of unemployment, low incomes, poor housing, no health insurance, low levels of education. In the United States 25 percent of our children are raised in poverty. Nearly 50 million people have no health insurance.” If this was the picture of a neo-liberal success story, where did that leave the rest of the world on the path to trickle down nirvana? Katrina focused attention on the seedier side of American society often obscured by the corporate media.

The implications went further than exposing the apartheid nature of American society, however. One of the reasons advanced for the sluggish response to the disaster was the Bush administration's focus on the ‘war on terror’ and its aggressive promotion of corporate globalization. Not only had this undermined rescue efforts because emergency personal were depleted, but it had also eaten into the soul of American society. La Botz wrote: “The United States, the failed state, is so because it was first a rogue state. The United States failed to sign the Kyoto Treaty, the International Court of Justice treaty, or the land mines treaty. The United States violated international law with its wars in Iraq and Iran, and with its unsuccessful coup d,état in Venezuela. What has happened over time has been that the general distortion of ethics and values in foreign policy has also seeped into domestic policy.”

Compiled by Pambazuka News. For more analysis on Katrina and the latest news from New Orleans, visit the following websites:

http://www.zmag.org/
http://www.counterpunch.org
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/
http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=09-02-05&storyID=22223
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=globalNews&storyID...
http://www.allhiphop.com/editorial/?ID=275
http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16476747%...
http://neworleans.craigslist.org/

Hurricane Katrina: Tides Rapid Response

Tides Rapid Response Fund works to help fill the funding gaps where community groups or underserved populations may be overlooked. The Rapid Response Fund pools donors' resources to increase the impact of their giving and our staff researches and distributes the funds as quickly and strategically as possible. As always, Tides staff will work closely with groups to identify how money can best be distributed, looking for effective grassroots and advocacy organizations working for short-term relief and long-term structural change.

You can make an instant online donation to Tides Rapid Response Fund for Hurricane Katrina Relief and Rebuilding. Just click the DonateNow button at the Tides Foundation website.
www.tidesfoundation.org

Katrina Aid: Support Community-based Relief & Reconstruction for Mississippi Delta Farmers & Fishworkers
The Federation of Southern Cooperatives Land Assistance Fund (FSC), a member of Grassroots International’s ally the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), has set up an Emergency Relief Fund for relief and long-term reconstruction to help Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama farmers rebuild facilities and markets and help with direct emergency assistance for housing, food and water. GRI will be making a solidarity grant to support this effort. To find out how to donate, visit http://gol.c.topica.com/maadWScabj4wDa8ZUPccaeQzgF/