- Booker Harris and his wife Allie are not household names
. There has been no round the clock coverage of Mr.Booker, age 91, who
was deposited in a lawn chair, in front of the Superdome, during Katrina.
Mr. Booker died there of dehydration , shock, neglect, and racism of the
first order. Allie, age 93, his frail wife, sat at his side munching
on crackers, unaware of her surroundings, or the death of her husband.
-
- They'd survived wars, the Great Depression, the KKK,
segregated water fountains/restaurants, schools, housing, red neck Southern
sheriffs, numerous floods and hurricanes. What they didn't survive was
the contemptible corruption, and gentrification by disaster, of the 21st
century. What they didn't survive, was a nation that boasts of dancing
amongst the stars, visiting distant planets, yet is incapable of building
a levee here on earth?
-
- What Allie and Booker did not survive, was the hypocrisy
of the media, that showed some fool who ripped off a plasma TV, making
his way through the flood waters (over and over). To date, we have not
seen similar video footage of duffel bags filled with multi-billions,
that have gone missing in Iraq. We have seen local TV cameras chasing
a recipient of food stamps down the street daring to obtain more than
her one alloted book. To date, there has been no rational explanation
as to where the $2.3 trillion in Pentagon funds that Donald Rumsfeld reported
was unaccounted for on Sept 10-2001. There's theivery and then there's
plunder. Its a black and white thing. The poor go to jail, while the rich
get dream teams, have convenient heart attacks, or get executive pardons.
-
- What the Harris couple didn't survive was a nation with
a non-existent disaster plan (absent bunkers for the elite/ chosen politicians).These
are the photographs that the media did not show over and over again on
TV. http://www.rense.com/general76/disas.htm
-
- Location - Location - Location: If one were to be given
a choice, of where they might want to experience a disaster, they would
definitely want to reside in an area of the wealthy/famous. Disaster has
its own class act - as does greater society. It's something not spoken
of - this class issue. Better to instigate turmoil and chaos pitting victims
against victims., thus excusing the corporate hucksters (rich and the shameless);
of their insatiable greed and depraved indifference. The majority of folks,
who lost everything during Katrina, were the working poor, the dispossessed,
the handicapped, and elderly. Ordinary people.
-
- The media presented the gullible masses with rumors of
rapes, murders and mayhem. This was proved to be false by military personnel
who entered days later. Naturally this did not make headline news. Why
the subterfuge? Maybe because such reports were a perfect excuse to send
in the military and Blackwater mercenary forces, to evict the unwilling
(homes not flooded) and to confiscate legal firearms so that citizens couldn't
defend their homes?
-
- The fires in California (2007) saw the multi-million
dollar mansions, seaside homes, and gated communities of Orange County,
threatened by fire. Fire, that is a known threat in this area of heavy
brush and yearly wind storms. Nobody blamed the residents (except George
Carlin) for bringing this disaster upon themselves. Most of the nation
is unfamiliar with the great disparity that exists in California. No homeless
people reside on the streets of San Diego. There are no unsightly tenements,
clinics or trailer parks.
-
- Orange County is a place of exclusive homes, in gated
communities, with their own schools, shopping and security forces. Gated
communities, next to gated communities. Who are they gating out? Robert
Bellah, who wrote Habit of the Heart, states, "The underclass gives
people something to define themselves against; it tells them what they
are not; it tells them what it would be most fearful to become. And it
gives them people to blame". The gated communities of today are a
powerful tangible symbol of the division between the underclass and everyone
else. To be upper middle class - wealthy is to be trustworthy, law - abiding
and in need of protection from violent scavenging poor people. Or conversely,
to be poor, is to be violent and depraved - a threat to the rich. Such
construction of class differences paints poor people in a highly distorted
manner. This is deliberate. Easier to blame the poor than those in designer
suits and $400.00 haircuts, for one's problems, lack of employment etc.
Besides, the poor are more readily available to blame and attack. You'll
not be welcome with your petitions or protests in gated communities, country
clubs, or the headquarters of gluttonous, corporate CEOs. They keep themselves
far removed from the unsavory things of life (namely the poor).
-
- These gated communities are a tangible symbol of the
fear and ignorance that divides upper class people from the working class
and poor. This fear is expressed with fences, walls, guards, dogs, alarms,
private body guards etc. In other areas of the country, this bias is less
visible. Instead, exclusive towns, tourist meccas, and post card villages,
exclude the unwanted by cost, no affordable rentals, zoning restrictions
etc. We are fast becoming a nation of isolated islands. The poor and working
class (needed as mechanics, laborers, maids, waitresses, parking valets,
carpenters, brick layers, roofers etc) are kept out of sight, in trailer
parks or poorer - socio - economic areas. It is to these places that the
wealthy send their refuse to be burned or dumped, build their coal plants,
nuclear facilities, chemical plants and incinerators.
-
- An incinerator will never be built in downtown San Diego,
Jackson Hole Wyoming, or in downtown Kennebunkport, Maine etc. All animals
are not equal. Some are identified as 'acceptable risks' or 'collateral
damage'. Their purpose in life (unspoken) is to serve the greater good.
Mainly to make life more amenable and lucrative for the obscenely wealthy.
Only the children of the working poor (East Liverpool, Ohio) would
be subjected to a toxic incinerator situated next to a schoolyard. Imagine
the outrage if an incinerator was located next to a private school with
its soccer fields, or an exclusive yacht club, or golf course etc? Part
of an 'Inconvenient Truth', is that Al Gore (running for election with
Clinton) promised these folks that such an outrage would never happen.
He promised (if elected) to stop it. Clinton got elected and they both
forgot East Liverpool, Ohio. What a shock!!
-
- I noticed that during the catastrophe of the California
fires, that those attempting to escape were not forced back into the flames.
Many watching the disaster in New Orleans wondered why people didn't
just leave on foot (those who were able)? The Louisiania Superdome is
less than two miles from a bridge that leads over the Mississippi River
out of the city.
-
- The answer: Any group of people attempting to do so were
met by police who fired their guns to disperse the group and contain them.
Around 500 people stuck in downtown New Orleans banded together in self-protection
making sure that the oldest and youngest were taken care of. Two San Francisco
paramedics who had been attending a convention were with this group and
reported their trauma on CNN (once).
-
- They made their way on foot over Highway 90, which crosses
the Mississippi River from New Orleans to the suburb of Gretna (not flooded).
This is an upscale community for professionals etc, who work in New Orleans.
Much like Greenwich, CT, is to New York City. The crowd had grown to approximately
800 people. As they approached the bridge the police fired their weapons
over the people's heads, driving them back into the floodwaters. When the
paramedics (white) questioned the sheriff as to why they were not being
permitted to cross the bridge to dry ground, he replied that Gretna was
not going to become a New Orleans and there would be no Superdome in Gretna.
Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson, in an interview with UPI stated, "If
we had opened the bridge our town would have looked like New Orleans".
Months later, after the flood and the news crews had left, seven New Orleans
police officers were indicted by a grand jury on charges of murder and
attempted murder for shooting unarmed citizens as they attempted to cross
a bridge to dry ground. One of those killed was mentally - retarded, the
other was a young student, who had become separated from his parents.
No such shootings of civilians attempting to escape in California were
reported.
-
- The New Orleans Superdome was chaotic. People fled there
to escape the flood waters (broken levees). The heat was intolerable. There
were no lights, the toilets all backed up (sewage treatment plant not
working) and were overflowing. There was no food and no medicine. Many
elderly, in need of heart medicines and insulin etc, were left stranded.
Babies were without formula and nourishment. While we have all watched
reports of our feats in space - it appears, that here on earth, with
all our ingenuity, we were unable to reach New Orleans for days!! Dogs
were seen eating the bloated bodies, floating in the snake infested polluted
waters. In California efforts were made to save the animals. A special
shelter area was set up to attend their needs. The animals in California
fared much better than any human in New Orleans & Mississippi.
-
- The federal, state and local officals spent their time
blaming one another, as the people died in attics, drowned in flood waters,
or were being shot at by police. Here it is two years later and New Orleans
is still a wasteland ( areas where the working poor once lived). There
is no affordable housing, schools, or hospitals. Truth is, the hundreds
of thousands of New Orleans citizens, scattered across the nation will
not be going home. There's nothing being done to welcome them! Most likely
the wealthy will have their way and realize a New Orleans Mardi Gras theme
resort, with high end condos, hotels, casinos, and convention centers.
-
- Imagine yourself being born and raised in the bayou and
finding yourself shipped off to Idaho, Maine, or the streets of Washington
D.C. etc? This is what happened to tens of thousands. We have become desensitized
to the traumas of others outside our own narrow interests.There is no
civilization when people have lost their sense of outrage or are without
conscience.
-
- Meantime a stadium in San Diego saw the difference in
response to a crisis. In the case of the Calfornia fires, citizens weren't
left in the inferno. They weren't gunned down trying to escape. They weren't
blamed for their stupidity for living in an area known for its disasters.
They weren't parked on nearby highways and told to wait for days for assistance.
No, instead , the Qualcomm Stadium had a carnival like atmosphere about
it. Citizens (well insured) weren't being bussed off to distant states.
While New Orleans citizens sat in stadium seats, in the dark, with rain
pouring in from a damaged roof; the folks in California had cots, showers,
and an infirmary.
-
- There were three bands, a 'Kids Zone', stacks of diapers,
baby wipes, formula, and gallons of water, with gourmet meals served up
by local restaurants. Massage, counseling, and acupuncture, were offered
to those traumatized and stressed out. Tents were set up to assist people
in contacting their insurance companies, lawyers and contractors. One woman
stated, "Now we have to deal with our insurance company and lawyers
We Californians are a resilient people. We're going to rebuild and have
the biggest house on the block". They went on to complain of the
inconvenience of having to stay in a luxurious hotel.
-
- What wasn't shown (brief reports) were the hundreds of
homes that were saved,due to contracts that homeowners had with private
fire companies. These private companies respond in such emergencies with
a fire retardant gel (new to the market) that protects homes in the most
intense of fires. Afterwards, power washing, washes away this bi-degradable
protection. Cost of premiums for this is $10,000 a year. Many on the Gulf
Coast, from Mississippi to New Orleans, two years later, are still fighting
for insurance payments. They are told that the damages they received were
from wind and not flood damage, and therefore they cannot collect. Some
had every insurance under the sun and are still being jerked around. Those
in California, with the winds blowing embers for miles, and thus igniting
their homes, were not told, "Sorry folks it was the winds not the
fire".
-
- All animals aren't equal nor are all disasters. The citizens
of the Gulf Coast were discarded much like refuse. Traumatized, homeless,
and penniless, they've had to battle on alone. Meantime President Bush
promised the citizens in California that financial help was on the way.One
group of people suffered a disaster of untold suffering. Another (white)
for the most part, experienced an adventure in gourmet serviced deprivation.
-
- And Condi Rice? What advice did she have for the victims
of government bungling in New Orleans?
-
-
- "The Lord is going to come on time - just wait".
-
-
- Oh, The Humanity:
http://www.rense.com/general76/humanity.htm
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