[IMC-NYC] Submission: People of the Dome

Fri Sep 2 16:01:42 PDT 2005

The People of the Dome

by Mitchel Cohen  (address & phone at the end)

Les Evenchick, an independent Green who lives in the French Quarter of New 
Orleans in a 3-story walkup, reports that 90 percent of the so-called 
looters are simply grabbing water, food, diapers and medicines, because the 
federal and state officials have refused to provide these basic necessities.

Les says that “it’s only because of the looters that non-looters -- old 
people, sick people, small children -- are able to survive.”

Those people who stole televisions and large non-emergency items have been 
SELLING THEM, Les reports (having witnessed several of these "exchanges") 
so that they could get enough money together to leave the area.

Think about it:

- People were told to leave, but all the bus stations had closed down the 
night before and the personnel sent packing.

- Many people couldn't afford tickets anyway.

- Many people are stranded, and others are refusing to leave their homes, 
pets, etc. They don't have cars.

You want people to stop looting? Provide the means for them to eat, and to 
leave the area.

Some tourists in the Monteleone Hotel paid $25,000 for 10 buses. The buses 
were sent (I guess there were many buses available, if you paid the price!) 
but the military confiscated them to use NOT for transporting people in the 
Dome but for the military. The tourists were not allowed to leave. Instead, 
the military ordered the tourists to the now-infamous Convention Center.

HOW SIMPLE it would have been for the State and/or US government to have 
provided buses for people BEFORE the hurricane hit, and throughout this 
week. Even evacuating 100,000 people trapped there -- that's 3,000 buses, 
less than come into Washington D.C. for some of the giant antiwar 
demonstrations there. Even at $2,500 a pop -- highway robbery -- that would 
only be a total of $7.5 million for transporting all of those who did not 
have the means to leave.

Instead, look at the human and economic cost of not doing that!

So why didn't they do that?

On Wednesday Green Party activists tried to bring a large amount of water 
to the SuperDome. They were prevented from doing so, as have many others. 
Why have food and water been BLOCKED from reaching tens of thousands of 
poor people?

On Thursday, the government used the excuse that there were some very 
scattered gunshots (two or three instances only) -- around 1/50th of the 
number of gunshots that occur in New York City on an average day -- to shut 
down voluntary rescue operations and to scrounge for 5,000 National Guard 
troops fully armed, with "shoot to kill" orders -- at a huge economic cost.

They even refused to allow voluntary workers who had rescued over 1,000 
people in boats over the previous days to continue on Thursday, using the 
several gunshots (and who knows WHO shot off those rounds?) to say "It's 
too dangerous". The volunteers didn't think the gunshots were dangerous to 
them and wanted to continue their rescue operations and had to be 
"convinced" at gunpoint to "cease and desist."

There is something sinister going down -- it's not just incompetence or 
negligence.

How could FEMA and Homeland Security not have something so basic as bottled 
drinking water in the SuperDome, which was long a part of the hurricane 
plan? One police officer in charge of his 120-person unit said yesterday 
that his squad was provided with only 70 small bottles of water.

Two years ago, New Orleans residents -- the only area in the entire state 
that voted in huge numbers against the candidacy of George Bush -- also 
fought off attempts to privatize the drinking water supply. There have also 
been major battles to block Shell Oil's attempt to build a Liquid Natural 
Gas facility, and to preent the teardown of public housing (which failed), 
with the Mayor lining up in the latter two issues on the side of the oil 
companies and the developers.

One of the first acts of Governor Kathleen Blanco (a Democrat, by the way) 
during this crisis was to TURN OFF the drinking water, to force people to 
evacuate. There was no health reason to turn it off, as the water is drawn 
into a separate system from the Mississippi River, not the polluted lake, 
and purified through self-powered purification plants separate from the 
main electric grid. If necessary, people could have been told to boil their 
water -- strangely, the municipal natural gas used in stoves was still 
functioning properly as of Thursday night!

There are thousands of New Orleans residents who are refusing to evacuate 
because they don't want to leave their pets, their homes, or who have no 
money to do so nor place to go. The government -- which COULD HAVE and 
SHOULD HAVE provided water and food to residents of New Orleans -- has NOT 
done so INTENTIONALLY to force people to evacuate by starving them out. 
This is a crime of the gravest sort.

We need to understand that the capability has been there from the start to 
DRIVE water and food right up to the convention center, as those roads have 
been clear -- it's how the National Guard drove into the city.

Let me say this again: Until the National Guard marched in today (Friday), 
the government was intentionally not allowing food or water to be distributed.

This is for real.

MSNBC interviewed dozens of people who had gotten out. Every single one of 
them was WHITE.

The people who are poor (primarily Black but many poor Whites as well) are 
finally being allowed to leave the horrendous conditions in the SuperDome; 
many are being bussed to the AstroDome in Houston.

Call them "People of the Dome."

If people resist the National Guard coming to remove them against their 
will, will New Orleans become known as the first battle in the new American 
revolution?

Mitchel Cohen
Brooklyn Greens / Green Party of NY,
and co-editor of “G”, the newspaper of the NY State Greens

Mitchel Cohen
2652 Cropsey Avenue, #7H
Brooklyn, NY 11214
(718) 449-0037   or   (718) 499-3497
mitchelcohen at mindspring.com

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