two americas

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090305Y.shtml

 

The Two Americas

By Marjorie Cohn

t r u t h o u t | Perspective

 

Saturday 03 September 2005

 

Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island

of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans

were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the

hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses, no one died.

 

What is Cuban President Fidel Castro's secret? According to Dr.

Nelson Valdes, a sociology professor at the University of New Mexico,

and specialist in Latin America, " the whole civil defense is embedded

in the community to begin with. People know ahead of time where they

are to go. "

 

" Cuba's leaders go on TV and take charge, " said Valdes. Contrast

this with George W. Bush's reaction to Hurricane Katrina. The day

after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Bush was playing golf. He waited

three days to make a TV appearance and five days before visiting the

disaster site. In a scathing editorial on Thursday, the New York

Times said, " nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which

seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he

understood the depth of the current crisis. "

 

" Merely sticking people in a stadium is unthinkable " in Cuba,

Valdes said. " Shelters all have medical personnel, from the

neighborhood. They have family doctors in Cuba, who evacuate together

with the neighborhood, and already know, for example, who needs

insulin. "

 

They also evacuate animals and veterinarians, TV sets and

refrigerators, " so that people aren't reluctant to leave because

people might steal their stuff, " Valdes observed.

 

After Hurricane Ivan, the United Nations International

Secretariat for Disaster Reduction cited Cuba as a model for

hurricane preparation. ISDR director Salvano Briceno said, " The Cuban

way could easily be applied to other countries with similar economic

conditions and even in countries with greater resources that do not

manage to protect their population as well as Cuba does. "

 

Our federal and local governments had more than ample warning

that hurricanes, which are growing in intensity thanks to global

warming, could destroy New Orleans. Yet, instead of heeding those

warnings, Bush set about to prevent states from controlling global

warming, weaken FEMA, and cut the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for

levee construction in New Orleans by $71.2 million, a 44 percent

reduction.

 

Bush sent nearly half our National Guard troops and high-water

Humvees to fight in an unnecessary war in Iraq. Walter Maestri,

emergency management chief for Jefferson Paris in New Orleans, noted

a year ago, " It appears that the money has been moved in the

president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq. "

 

An Editor and Publisher article Wednesday said the Army Corps of

Engineers " never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures

of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security - coming at the same

time as federal tax cuts - was the reason for the strain, " which

caused a slowdown of work on flood control and sinking levees.

 

" This storm was much greater than protection we were authorized

to provide, " said Alfred C. Naomi, a senior project manager in the

New Orleans district of the corps.

 

Unlike in Cuba, where homeland security means keeping the country

secure from deadly natural disasters as well as foreign invasions,

Bush has failed to keep our people safe. " On a fundamental level, "

Paul Krugman wrote in yesterday's New York Times, " our current

leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of

government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing

security, rescuing those in need or spending on prevention measures.

And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice. "

 

During the 2004 election campaign, vice presidential candidate

John Edwards spoke of " the two Americas. " It seems unfathomable how

people can shoot at rescue workers. Yet, after the beating of Rodney

King aired on televisions across the country, poor, desperate, hungry

people in Watts took over their neighborhoods, burning and looting.

Their anger, which had seethed below the surface for so long,

erupted. That's what's happening now in New Orleans. And we, mostly

white, people of privilege, rarely catch a glimpse of this other

America.

 

" I think a lot of it has to do with race and class, " said Rev.

Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in

Harlem. " The people affected were largely poor people. Poor, black

people. "

 

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin reached a breaking point Thursday

night. " You mean to tell me that a place where you probably have

thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying

every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources

we need? Come on, man! "

 

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had boasted earlier

in the day that FEMA and other federal agencies have done

a " magnificent job " under the circumstances.

 

But, said, Nagin, " They're feeding the people a line of bull, and

they are spinning and people are dying. Get off your asses and let's

do something! "

 

When asked about the looting, the mayor said that except for a

few " knuckleheads, " it is the result of desperate people trying to

find food and water to survive.

 

Nagin blamed the outbreak of violence and crime on drug addicts

who have been cut off from their drug supplies, wandering the

city, " looking to take the edge off their jones. "

 

When Hurricane Ivan hit Cuba, no curfew was imposed; yet, no

looting or violence took place. Everyone was in the same boat.

 

Fidel Castro, who has compared his government's preparations for

Hurricane Ivan to the island's long-standing preparations for an

invasion by the United States, said, " We've been preparing for this

for 45 years. "

 

On Thursday, Cuba's National Assembly sent a message of

solidarity to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. It says the Cuban

people have followed closely the news of the hurricane damage in

Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and the news has caused pain and

sadness. The message notes that the hardest hit are African-

Americans, Latino workers, and the poor, who still wait to be rescued

and taken to secure places, and who have suffered the most fatalities

and homelessness. The message concludes by saying that the entire

world must feel this tragedy as its own.

 

--

Marjorie Cohn, a contributing editor to t r u t h o u t, is a

professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president

of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the

executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.

 

 

 

War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left.