i was eating dinner with a friend on friday night and the restaurant we were at blew a fuse. obviously, the power was out for a bit which didn't stop some patrons from trying to use the coke machine. it was one of those moments when you totally take for granted how much we rely on electricity for day-to-day stuff. then i was talking to another friend on sunday and he brought up something important. the people affected on the gulf coast by katrina who were not able to leave before the devastation didn't have power. doy..we knew that. but i don't think we've really thought about it. we were able to see the relief efforts and to some degree the scale of the disaster. people in new orleans and in other areas affected didn't have cnn. what they did have was destruction and death without a clear path out of it. i can only speculate that not knowing what was going on and what was going to happen and if help was on the way would only add to the despair they were already experiencing. they might not have known about the rescue copters and were worried about not being seen by them since people were stuck in places underwater, so they were shooting in the air to get the attention of the heros doing rescues. it wasn't about anger or shooting the hand that is attempting to help you. it might have been about being seen by copters flying constantly overhead but not stopping yet for them. with the lack of organization in the relief efforts in some areas and a mass of people without information, it should be no wonder that the victims would feel desperate.
just a few more things, because i'm not sure anyone is reading this. one...if your only assett was your home, would it be easy for you to leave it? if you had no television, wouldn't be hard to know the full extent of the storm? does it piss off anyone else that it seems like a better job was done evacuating animals and pets than was done for our fellow citizens? (sorry...just saw a stupid story on cnn). is anyone else frustrated that the federal government cut spending for FEMA and for the levee before this happened? okay...so much venting. here are a few really interesting articles to ponder. this is a good time to unite while thinking critically about what happened and what the next steps are.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0903-20.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0904-29.htm
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2 comments:
it's hard for me to imagine what it must be like for those in new orleans who have been unable (for monetary reasons or otherwise) to find a place to relocate.
the natural disaster highlights this problem, but the truth of the matter is even before this, and in other areas without hurricanes, extremely low income areas exist, though we may close our eyes to them. inequities surround us.
thanks for the reminder of how fortunate we are. :)
It's also hard for me to imagine what it must've been like to be a poor person in N.O. unable to get out while watching people load shi-tzus into crates for safety. It's also hard for me to imagine what it would've been like to be a CNA ambu-bagging a ventilator patient at Charity hospital watching the last unnecessary employees being evauated out of Tulane.
What this hurricane makes me think most is: despite all of the rhetoric of equality and democracy in America, we remain an aristocratic oligarchy determined to help the wealthy and fuck the poor, unless they own dogs, at which point, they can be saved to feed the dogs later.
Everyone gets a little bit Marxist sometimes, I'm surprised more people aren't right now
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