The Two Americas
By Marjorie Cohn
September 3, 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 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.
www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090305Y.shtml