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<dd> The Two Americas</b> <br>
<dd> By Marjorie Cohn <br>
<dd> t r u t h o u t | Perspective <br><br>
<dd>
<a href="http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090305Y.shtml" eudora="autourl">
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090305Y.shtml<br><br>
</a>
<dd> Saturday 03 September 2005 <br><br>
<dd> 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. <br><br>
<dd> 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." <br><br>
<dd> "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." <br><br>
<dd> "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." <br><br>
<dd> 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. <br><br>
<dd> 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."
<br><br>
<dd> 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. <br><br>
<dd> 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."
<br><br>
<dd> 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. <br><br>
<dd> "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. <br><br>
<dd> 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." <br><br>
<dd> 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. <br><br>
<dd> "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." <br><br>
<dd> 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!" <br><br>
<dd> 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. <br><br>
<dd> 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!" <br><br>
<dd> 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. <br><br>
<dd> 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." <br><br>
<dd> When Hurricane Ivan hit Cuba, no curfew was
imposed; yet, no looting or violence took place. Everyone was in the same
boat. <br><br>
<dd> 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." <br><br>
<dd> 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. <br><br>
<hr>
<dd>
<a href="http://truthout.org/contactmc.php">Marjorie Cohn</a>, a
contributing editor to t r u t h o u t</b>, 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.</i> <br><br>
<br>
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