Fwd: Katrina letter

[Guest guest]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/

 

 

Name: N.... P....

Hometown: Destin, Florida

 

Hello xxxx,

 

Old Navy guy here writing from Michael Savage's " heartland of

Christianity " to offer some local observations on things both religious

and secular. On the secular front is the controversy regarding the

" rebuilding " of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. As many folks outside

of the region may not know (or perhaps just fear) neo-conservatives are

trying to use the rebuilding as a beachhead for the widest application

of their most radical theories on U.S. soil. Conspiracy theories

abound because of the unlikeliest of coincidences, but I think it is

simply cynical opportunism in the face of human tragedy. Analogues

exist for what is happening here (capably documented in David Harvey's

History of Neoliberalism): in the neo-conservative experiments in Chile

under Pinoche and the most recent four decrees under Bremer's Iraq

Coalition Provisional Authority that violated both Hague and Geneva

Conventions through his imposition of a flat tax, the privatization of

public enterprises and restrictions on workers' rights to organize,

bargain collectively and strike.

 

The rebuilding of NOLA was the topic of conversation this week during

Diane Rehm's usually excellent talk show on NPR. Of note was the

reaction to one participant's assertion about the rampant racism which

is part and parcel of the city's and region's distant and recent

history and how that racism is being reflected in the plans for the

city's recovery. From the reaction of the panel you would have thought

that the author of the statement had made a ridiculous assertion: an

artifact from a bygone era; or perhaps was just a conspiracy nut from

an important and sensitive interest group, the response requiring the

most diplomatic ju-jitsu to both placate and dismiss the assertions of

the poor misguided wretch. That the racial divide in this country has

become so ingrained to the point where there is a collective hardening

of the arteries of racial awareness should be cause for much concern.

It is true that we do not (yet) have 21st century equivalents of Bull

Connor mowing people down in the streets with fire hoses. But that is

just the point: racism has become subtly intertwined with the fabric of

our lives and racists of all stripes have likewise become smarter in

their subtlety. But it makes one wonder how anyone could question the

charge of racism when the evidence is all around. After all, a

pre-Katrina 2005 New Orleans study conducted as a result of the

wrongful death of a black college student on Bourbon Street showed that

African-Americans were either charged significantly more for an

alcoholic beverage or required to buy a minimum number of drinks in the

city's various establishments. And there were and are more palpable

symbols of putting people in their places: the continued use of the

so-called confederate flag of Beauregard on official state ensigns,

patches and stationary: an overt symbol of the Klan, the Black Codes

and Jim Crow; the public use of the euphemism " ethnic " as a substitute

for those who in previous times would have used the " n " word with

impunity; and the continued " red-lining " in housing by the real estate

crowd. So can there be any question as to why people in this

region-both black and white-discern a pattern in the various proposals

that simultaneously depopulate the city of most of its citizens of

color? But that is not the only pattern emerging here. For the New

Orleans tragedy was one not only of race but also of class and it is

class that is first and foremost on the mind and in the heart of every

neo-conservative. The plans for the city and the region-and the actions

in particular of the Bush Administration through the various federal

agencies-are to subject it to the most brutal sort of Social Darwinist

experimentation in which the most favored classes-especially real

estate developers-may prey on those who have lost their homes and

livelihoods-forced to either abandon completely their land rights or to

sell them at fire sale prices: denied flood insurance claims because of

the hurricane and hurricane insurance claims because of the flood. For

those with mortgages in this position they are the happy recipients of

a system that will require them to hold a mortgage to something that

cannot be rebuilt while denied the remedy of bankruptcy. With this

unhappy state of affairs all around our citizens lurched toward winter

and the holiday season. Anyone wishing the escapism offered by

Halloween here could be treated to the " controversy " over the godless

devil worship surrounding the tradition (a regional precursor to " Bull "

O'Reilly's high profile War on Christmas) or wind up in one of the many

ostensibly identified " Haunted Fun Houses " which turned out to be

fronts for certain local churches where funhouse goers were subjected

to fire and brimstone proselytizing by crazy-eyed fanatics asserting

that Katrina was God's judgment.

 

Thus I am led to the religious topic. Over and over in this region we

are treated to assertions of a " Christian " nation (though the plethora

of warring denominations ostensibly labeled " Christian " should be

enough to undermine it) and the rise of blatant anti-Semitism and

general religious intolerance. These two currents: the rise of

American religious extremism and neo-conservatism, I think, are

inextricably married in an unholy alliance-the intellectual foundations

of both having been discredited long ago individually; they can only

survive through the co-dependent relationship that has grown between

them. The first was borne of a Know-Nothingist reaction to modernity

and the second a product of high finance married to Nixon's Southern

Strategy. It is an alignment that is by definition intolerant,

anti-democratic and, in its implementation, racist. It is the moral

imperative of our time to do everything we can to oppose it.