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09/02/2005:

""Where is FEMA? Where's the Red Cross? Who's in Charge?""

I have been listening to BBC and NPR reports: about the Louisiana governor's 'shoot-to-kill' orders against 'armed thugs,' about hospitals yards away from National Guard and relief stations, in dry areas, filthy and stinking with dead bodies stacked in stairwells who have not received a scrap of help. The mayor of New Orleans:"Where's the beef? Cause I don't see no beef."

This morning we're told the relief efforts are being held up by these same 'armed thugs.' Why are we being treated to the same 30 seconds of 'armed thug' footage on every tv channel if the problem is so widespread? Only 1/3 of the usual number of National Guard troops, whose intended function is to respond to civil emergencies, remains to respond to this one. Yesterday a bunch of them were lying in the shade on the West Bank of the Mississippi waiting for Red Cross food and water that has still not come. People there had walked for days in the choking heat with their few possessions, their children in their arms, propelled by the promise of relief on the other side of the bridge: buses, food, water...there was nothing there.

The people remaining in the Superdome have not had food or water for five days. The dead are stacking up. The 'shelter of last resort' is turning into a death camp.

This morning I wake to the news of huge explosions and raging fires spreading a toxic pall over this dying city.

After years of the deepest suspicions about the motives and actions of my government, I have to admit I cannot imagine what these terrible people have in mind. I know they have been eager for the chance to practice their FEMA/martial law scenario, but you'd think they'd at least take a page out of Hitler's book and offer bread along with the boot in the face. Are they just going to start shooting black people?

One thing is certain, in the 'new city' that will rise from the muck of the old one, these 'poorest of the poor' suffering in New Orleans and displaced throughout the South, will not be welcomed back.

They think to get away with this because it's just poor blacks, just 'thugs' who are the sufferers here. But I wonder. I wonder if it's sinking into the white American consciousness that what is being done here to 'the least' is also a crime being perpetrated against them, against their own humanity. I wonder if, as they contemplate their missing Guards, they recall that they are over in Iraq participating in the daily, unnatural devastations taking place there, paid for by their tax dollars.

There are thousands of troops there who have been directly impacted by this disaster. What are they thinking about now, in the desert 5000 miles away? Visiting suffering on other people's mothers and kids, are they thinking this morning of their own?

Local officials forcibly evacuated from New Orleans

Example of Racist Media Caught by Web Surfer During Hurricane Katrina Coverage