Marxism International

Barely a week after Katrina did her worst the demise of New Orleans is now an ascertainable fact.   All but 10,000 or so have now left (the rest are under a mandatory order to get out, and the police were last night given the authority to forcibly evict those who resist).   They will not in all probability be back.   We are witnessing the death of a major American city.  

But not just a city.   Duluth and Bangor would be missed but not quite in the same way.  

There are lots of people mourning, though already “compassion fatigue” is beginning to set in.   (There was less than universal rejoicing this morning after last night’s announcement that 500 “evacuees” would be housed at a navy base here in Rhode Island.)   I’m saddened (if that’s the right word) less by the loss of New Orleans than by the sordid way in which it was put to rest.  

There is something enormously sinister about FEMA.   Something that jibes very nicely with the process of social annihilation that has been boilerplate in the West since about 1975.    Red Cross could not get into the city to distribute life-saving supplies because FEMA said no.   Private citizens or even corporations could not move food or water or clothing into the worst hit areas because FEMA said no.   People attempting to reach loved ones after the hurricane were turned back at the city’s limits by police acting on FEMA’s orders.   Even the Louisana National Guard was told to stand down until Louisiana’s governor surrendered their command to FEMA.

Of course, no one should really be surprised.   FEMA, like ultimately all federal agencies, exist as an instrument of class control.   In a nation where economic health rests securely upon the freedoms to own property and to exploit labor, we should not be squeamish when we witness the machinery to enforce those freedoms up close.   The vast numbers of “evacuees” are overwhelmingly non-white and poor (read: unprofitable and dangerous).    Those who call the shots in our governemtn know that these people — left to their own devices — will not overnight turn into revenue-generating entrepreneurs or educated professionals or consumers driving a growing thriving economy.   

No.  These people are potentially centers of resistance to a system that has effectively murdered them.     And the perpetrators know it.   They can’t kill them outright, though natural disasters like Katrina do some of the dirty work.   Little by little, it is not nearly enough.    So, those who have lost everything have to be shifted from pillar to post, here and across the country until they can be safely dispersed and assimilated in communities far from home.   Far from the scene.  

And what do the rest of us do?   We know something has gone terribly awry with our country, but what?   And what to do about it?   Ethan, another union Carpenter, tells me ruefully that “something bad is happening to my country”.   He knows it has something to do with Bush and the Republicans.   He’s starting to feel that way, too, about the Democrats.   He’s talking to others.   So is his wife Katya, a Laborer who works directing traffic at highway construction sites.   And so are their fellow workers and their friends.    All across the country.  

They’re part of the solution.

I’m glad they’re there.