Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 2:18 PM
In stead of writing a chapter on ethics and information technology I found myself watching television last night. Today, the images of the people stuck in a sportshall and convention centre in New Orleans are still on my mind. Natural disasters happen everywhere. What is so amazing that this is one of the richest countries in the world and it can´t cope. I felt like calling the Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, and other agencies experienced in emergency aid to come and get these people out. In stead the US authorities were talking about bringing in extra National Guards, armed of course, to help stop the looting. On television I saw people ´looting´food and babydiapers and being forced to let go of their goods.
Indymedia New Orleans reports that the same guards stop volunteer rescue and supply activities.
Today someone sent me this blog article by Chris Floyd. Below are the first paragraphs. The whole article can be found at his blog.
September 1, 2005
The Perfect Storm
New Orleans and the Death of the Common Good
By CHRIS FLOYD
"The river rose all day,
The river rose all night.
Some people got lost in the flood,
Some people got away all right.
The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemine:
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.
"Louisiana, Louisiana,
They're trying to wash us away,
They're trying to wash us away."
-- Randy Newman, Louisiana 1927
The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many of the
most pernicious trends in American politics and culture: poverty,
racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse, public
corruption and the decay of democracy at every level.
Much of this is embodied in the odd phrasing that even the most
circumspect mainstream media sources have been using to describe the
hardest-hit victims of the storm and its devastating aftermath: "those
who chose to stay behind." Instantly, the situation has been framed
with language to flatter the prejudices of the comfortable and deny
the reality of the most vulnerable.