Another viewpoint:
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.
