The People Of
The Dome
By Mitchel Cohen in Brooklyn
9-4-5
My friend Les Evenchick, an independent Green who lives in the French
Quarter of New Orleans in a 3-story walkup, reports that 90 percent of
the so-called looters are simply grabbing water, food, diapers and
medicines, because the federal and state officials have refused to
provide these basic necessities.
Les says that "it's only because of the looters that non-looters --
old people, sick people, small children -- are able to survive."
Those people who stole televisions and large non-emergency items have
been SELLING THEM, Les reports (having witnessed several of these
"exchanges") so that they could get enough money together to leave the
area.
Think about it:
- People were told to leave, but all the bus stations had closed down
the night before and the personnel sent packing.
- Many people couldn't afford tickets anyway.
- Many people are stranded, and others are refusing to leave their
homes, pets, etc. They don't have cars.
You want people to stop looting? Provide the means for them to eat,
and to leave the area.
Some tourists in the Monteleone Hotel paid $25,000 for 10 buses. The
buses were sent (I guess there were many buses available, if you paid
the price!) but the military confiscated them (!) and would not let
the people leave. Instead, the military ordered them to the
now-infamous Convention Center.
HOW SIMPLE it would have been for the State and/or US government to
have provided buses for people BEFORE the hurricane hit, and
throughout this week. Even evacuating 100,000 people trapped there --
that's 3,000 buses, less than come into Washington D.C. for some of
the giant antiwar demonstrations there. Even at $2,500 a pop --
highway robbery -- that would only be a total of $7.5 million for
transporting all of those who did not have the means to leave.
Instead, look at the human and economic cost of not doing that!
So why didn't they do that?
Why have food and water been BLOCKED from reaching tens of thousands
of poor people?
On Thursday, the government used the excuse that there were some very
scattered gunshots (two or three instances only) -- around 1/50th of
the number of gunshots that occur in New York City on an average day
-- to shut down voluntary rescue operations and to scrounge for 5,000
National Guard troops fully armed, with "shoot to kill" orders -- at a
huge economic cost.
They even refused to allow voluntary workers who had rescued over
1,000 people in boats over the previous days to continue on Thursday,
using the several gunshots (and who knows WHO shot off those rounds?)
to say "It's too dangerous". The volunteers wanted to continue their
rescue operations and had to be "convinced" at gunpoint to "cease and
desist."
There is something sinister going down -- it's not simply incompetence
or negligence.
How could FEMA and Homeland Security not have something so basic as
bottled drinking water in the SuperDome, which was long a part of the
hurricane plan? One police officer in charge of his 120-person unit
said yesterday that his squad was provided with only 70 small bottles
of water.
Last year, New Orleans residents -- the only area in the entire state
that voted in huge numbers against the candidacy of George Bush --
also fought off attempts to privatize the drinking water supply.
One of the first acts of Governor Kathleen Blanco (a Democrat, by the
way) during this crisis was to TURN OFF the drinking water, to force
people to evacuate. There was no health reason to turn it off, as the
water is drawn into a separate system from the Mississippi River, not
the polluted lake, and purified through self-powered purification
plants separate from the main electric grid. If necessary, people
could have been told to boil their water -- strangely, the municipal
natural gas used in stoves was still functioning properly as of
Thursday night!
There are thousands of New Orleans residents who are refusing to
evacuate because they don't want to leave their pets, their homes, or
who have no money to do so nor place to go. The government -- which
COULD HAVE and SHOULD HAVE provided water and food to residents of New
Orleans -- has NOT done so INTENTIONALLY to force people to evacuate
by starving them out. This is a crime of the gravest sort.
We need to understand that the capability has been there from the
start to DRIVE water and food right up to the convention center, as
those roads have been clear -- it's how the National Guard drove into
the city.
Let me say this again: The government is intentionally not allowing
food or water in.
This is for real.
MSNBC interviewed dozens of people who had gotten out. Every single
one of them was WHITE.
The people who are poor are finally leaving the horrendous conditions
in the SuperDome and are being bussed to the AstroDome in Houston.
Call them "People of the Dome."
If people open fire on the National Guard coming to remove them
against their will, will New Orleans become the first battle in the
new American revolution?
Mitchel Cohen Brooklyn Greens / Green Party of NY
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