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This article can be found on the web at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051010/klein
Purging the Poor
by NAOMI KLEIN
[from the October 10, 2005 issue]
Outside the 2,000-bed temporary shelter in Baton Rouge's River Center, a Church of Scientology band is performing a version of Bill Withers's classic "Use Me"--a refreshingly honest choice. "If it feels this good getting used," the Scientology singer belts out, "just keep on using me until you use me up."
Ten-year-old Nyler, lying face down on a massage table, has pretty much the same attitude. She is not quite sure why the nice lady in the yellow SCIENTOLOGY VOLUNTEER MINISTER T-shirt wants to rub her back, but "it feels so good," she tells me, so who really cares? I ask Nyler if this is her first massage. "Assist!" hisses the volunteer minister, correcting my Scientology lingo. Nyler shakes her head no; since fleeing New Orleans after a tree fell on her house, she has visited this tent many times, becoming something of an assist-aholic. "I have nerves," she explains in a blissed-out massage voice. "I have what you call nervousness."
Wearing a donated pink T-shirt with an age-inappropriate slogan ("It's the hidden little Tiki spot where the island boys are hot, hot, hot"), Nyler tells me what she is nervous about. "I think New Orleans might not ever get fixed back." "Why not?" I ask, a little surprised to be discussing reconstruction politics with a preteen in pigtails. "Because the people who know how to fix broken houses are all gone."
I don't have the heart to tell Nyler that I suspect she is on to something; that many of the African-American workers from her neighborhood may never be welcomed back to rebuild their city. An hour earlier I had interviewed New Orleans' top corporate lobbyist, Mark Drennen. As president and CEO of Greater New Orleans Inc., Drennen was in an expansive mood, pumped up by signs from Washington that the corporations he represents--everything from Chevron to Liberty Bank to Coca-Cola--were about to receive a package of tax breaks, subsidies and relaxed regulations so generous it would make the job of a lobbyist virtually obsolete.
Listening to Drennen enthuse about the opportunities opened up by the storm, I was struck by his reference to African-Americans in New Orleans as "the minority community." At 67 percent of the population, they are in fact the clear majority, while whites like Drennen make up just 27 percent. It was no doubt a simple verbal slip, but I couldn't help feeling that it was also a glimpse into the desired demographics of the new-and-improved city being imagined by its white elite, one that won't have much room for Nyler or her neighbors who know how to fix houses. "I honestly don't know and I don't think anyone knows how they are going to fit in," Drennen said of the city's unemployed.
New Orleans is already displaying signs of a demographic shift so dramatic that some evacuees describe it as "ethnic cleansing." Before Mayor Ray Nagin called for a second evacuation, the people streaming back into dry areas were mostly white, while those with no homes to return to are overwhelmingly black. This, we are assured, is not a conspiracy; it's simple geography--a reflection of the fact that wealth in New Orleans buys altitude. That means that the driest areas are the whitest (the French Quarter is 90 percent white; the Garden District, 89 percent; Audubon, 86 percent; neighboring Jefferson Parish, where people were also allowed to return, 65 percent). Some dry areas, like Algiers, did have large low-income African-American populations before the storm, but in all the billions for reconstruction, there is no budget for transportation back from the far-flung shelters where those residents ended up. So even when resettlement is permitted, many may not be able to return.
As for the hundreds of thousands of residents whose low-lying homes and housing projects were destroyed by the flood, Drennen points out that many of those neighborhoods were dysfunctional to begin with. He says the city now has an opportunity for "twenty-first-century thinking": Rather than rebuild ghettos, New Orleans should be resettled with "mixed income" housing, with rich and poor, black and white living side by side.
What Drennen doesn't say is that this kind of urban integration could happen tomorrow, on a massive scale. Roughly 70,000 of New Orleans' poorest homeless evacuees could move back to the city alongside returning white homeowners, without a single new structure being built. Take the Lower Garden District, where Drennen himself lives. It has a surprisingly high vacancy rate--17.4 percent, according to the 2000 Census. At that time 702 housing units stood vacant, and since the market hasn't improved and the district was barely flooded, they are presumably still there and still vacant. It's much the same in the other dry areas: With landlords preferring to board up apartments rather than lower rents, the French Quarter has been half-empty for years, with a vacancy rate of 37 percent.
The citywide numbers are staggering: In the areas that sustained only minor damage and are on the mayor's repopulation list, there are at least 11,600 empty apartments and houses. If Jefferson Parish is included, that number soars to 23,270. With three people in each unit, that means homes could be found for roughly 70,000 evacuees. With the number of permanently homeless city residents estimated at 200,000, that's a significant dent in the housing crisis. And it's doable. Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, whose Houston district includes some 150,000 Katrina evacuees, says there are ways to convert vacant apartments into affordable or free housing. After passing an ordinance, cities could issue Section 8 certificates, covering rent until evacuees find jobs. Jackson Lee says she plans to introduce legislation that will call for federal funds to be spent on precisely such rental vouchers. "If opportunity exists to create viable housing options," she says, "they should be explored."
Malcolm Suber, a longtime New Orleans community activist, was shocked to learn that thousands of livable homes were sitting empty. "If there are empty houses in the city," he says, "then working-class and poor people should be able to live in them." According to Suber, taking over vacant units would do more than provide much-needed immediate shelter: It would move the poor back into the city, preventing the key decisions about its future--like whether to turn the Ninth Ward into marshland or how to rebuild Charity Hospital--from being made exclusively by those who can afford land on high ground. "We have the right to fully participate in the reconstruction of our city," Suber says. "And that can only happen if we are back inside." But he concedes that it will be a fight: The old-line families in Audubon and the Garden District may pay lip service to "mixed income" housing, "but the Bourbons uptown would have a conniption if a Section 8 tenant moved in next door. It will certainly be interesting."
Equally interesting will be the response from the Bush Administration. So far, the only plan for homeless residents to move back to New Orleans is Bush's bizarre Urban Homesteading Act. In his speech from the French Quarter, Bush made no mention of the neighborhood's roughly 1,700 unrented apartments and instead proposed holding a lottery to hand out plots of federal land to flood victims, who could build homes on them. But it will take months (at least) before new houses are built, and many of the poorest residents won't be able to carry the mortgage, no matter how subsidized. Besides, it barely touches the need: The Administration estimates that in New Orleans there is land for only 1,000 "homesteaders."
The truth is that the White House's determination to turn renters into mortgage payers is less about solving Louisiana's housing crisis than indulging an ideological obsession with building a radically privatized "ownership society." It's an obsession that has already come to grip the entire disaster zone, with emergency relief provided by the Red Cross and Wal-Mart and reconstruction contracts handed out to Bechtel, Fluor, Halliburton and Shaw--the same gang that spent the past three years getting paid billions while failing to bring Iraq's essential services to prewar levels [see Klein, "The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," May 2].
"Reconstruction," whether in Baghdad or New Orleans, has become shorthand for a massive uninterrupted transfer of wealth from public to private hands, whether in the form of direct "cost plus" government contracts or by auctioning off new sectors of the state to corporations.
This vision was laid out in uniquely undisguised form during a meeting at the Heritage Foundation's Washington headquarters on September 13. Present were members of the House Republican Study Committee, a caucus of more than 100 conservative lawmakers headed by Indiana Congressman Mike Pence. The group compiled a list of thirty-two "Pro-Free-Market Ideas for Responding to Hurricane Katrina and High Gas Prices," including school vouchers, repealing environmental regulations and "drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge." Admittedly, it seems farfetched that these would be adopted as relief for the needy victims of an eviscerated public sector. Until you read the first three items: "Automatically suspend Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws in disaster areas"; "Make the entire affected area a flat-tax free-enterprise zone"; and "Make the entire region an economic competitiveness zone (comprehensive tax incentives and waiving of regulations)." All are poised to become law or have already been adopted by presidential decree.
In their own way the list-makers at Heritage are not unlike the 500 Scientology volunteer ministers currently deployed to shelters across Louisiana. "We literally followed the hurricane," David Holt, a church supervisor, told me. When I asked him why, he pointed to a yellow banner that read, SOMETHING CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT. I asked him what "it" was and he said "everything."
So it is with the neocon true believers: Their "Katrina relief" policies are the same ones trotted out for every problem, but nothing energizes them like a good disaster. As Bush says, lands swept clean are "opportunity zones," a chance to do some recruiting, advance the faith, even rewrite the rules from scratch. But that, of course, will take some massaging--I mean assisting.
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Euphemism and symbolic representation is rich in how this tragedy is characterized. Recall the shortages in buses, the claim of being unware, the breech levys, the lack of identification or centralized command. Reconstruction, as if the South will rise again in the shade of white supremacy. Money and resources to rebuild are the promises of the administration. Who participates in the planning, building and resettling of a revitalized community.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Bush Bashing Republicans: What has the world become?
Comment
George and the dragons
The last thing I expected at a gathering of rich and powerful Americans was an orgy of Bush-bashing
Robert Novak
Wednesday September 28, 2005
The Guardian
For two full days President Bush was bashed. He was taken to task on his handling of stem-cell research, population control, the Iraq war and, especially, Hurricane Katrina. The critics were no leftwing bloggers. They were rich, mainly Republican and presumably Bush voters in the last two presidential elections.
The Bush-bashing occurred at the annual Little Aspen Weekend, a conference sponsored by the New York investment firm Forstmann Little & Co. The weekend is made possible by the generosity of Theodore J Forstmann, a supporter of supply-side economics and contributor to the Republican party. Guests are drawn from government, diplomacy, politics, the arts, entertainment and journalism.
More than 200 guests, mostly prestigious, arrived at the Colorado mountain resort last Thursday (many by private aircraft) and stayed until Sunday for more than golf, hikes and gourmet meals. They faithfully attended discussions, presided over by Charlie Rose of the Public Broadcasting Service, on such serious subjects as "Global poverty and human rights" and "The 'new' world economy". The connecting link was hostility to Bush.
"All discussions are off the record," admonished the conference's printed schedule. Consequently, I will refrain from quoting panellists and audience members. But the admonition says nothing about personal conversations outside the sessions. Nor do I feel inhibited in quoting myself. Even if I am violating the spirit of secrecy, revealing criticism of Bush by this elite group - and the paucity of defence for him - is valuable in reflecting the president's parlous political condition.
I was surprised to see that the first panel, on stem-cell research, consisted solely of scientists hostile to the Bush administration's position. In the absence of any disagreement, I took the floor to suggest that there are scientists and bioethicists with dissenting views, and that it was not productive to demean opposing views as "religious dogma". The response to my intervention was peeved criticism; certainly no support.
I do not see myself as a defender of the Bush presidency, and I am sure the White House does not regard me as such. But as a member of the second panel consisting of journalists, I felt constrained to argue against the suggestion that Hurricane Katrina should cause Bush to rediscover race and poverty. My comments generated more criticism from the audience and obvious exasperation from Rose. After the closing dinner on Saturday night, the moderator made clear he was displeased by my conduct.
After the first two panels, I feared I was the odd man out in accepting Teddy Forstmann's invitation. But during a break, one of the president's closest friends - who had remained silent - thanked me profusely for my comments. That set a pattern. Throughout the next two days, men and women who were mute publicly thanked me privately for speaking up. When I said nothing during one panel discussion, some people asked me why I was silent.
Longtime participants in Forstmann conferences (this was my first and, after this column, probably my last) told me they had not experienced such hostility towards a Republican president at previous events. Yet they were sure a majority of the guests had voted for Bush. This analysis was reported to me over lunch by a financier who regularly attends these events. When he said he shared my sentiments, I asked why he did not express them publicly at a session. He replied that he did not feel able to articulate what he felt. Critics of the president who are vocal and supporters who are reticent constitute a massive communications failure.
US News & World Report disclosed this week, with apparent disdain, that the presidential adviser Karl Rove took time off from the Katrina relief effort to be at Aspen. He was needed as a counterweight. I settled in for serious fireworks, expecting Bush bashers to assault the president's alter ego at the conference's final session. However, direct confrontation with a senior aide must have been more difficult than a remote attack on the president. It would be a shame if Rove returned to Washington without informing Bush how erstwhile friends have turned against him.
· This article first appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times
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Bloggers Note: Bush Bashing from the elites who have benefitted from the current administration's policies. What has the world turned into. The desire to win, in this case to see continued rise in the bottom line will eat their own, according to this report.
BTW, who's ever heard of the Little Aspen Weekend, next thing you know we'll be hearing about the Bohemian Grove and the Hoover Institute, regional neighbors (Sonoma County and Palo Alto).
George and the dragons
The last thing I expected at a gathering of rich and powerful Americans was an orgy of Bush-bashing
Robert Novak
Wednesday September 28, 2005
The Guardian
For two full days President Bush was bashed. He was taken to task on his handling of stem-cell research, population control, the Iraq war and, especially, Hurricane Katrina. The critics were no leftwing bloggers. They were rich, mainly Republican and presumably Bush voters in the last two presidential elections.
The Bush-bashing occurred at the annual Little Aspen Weekend, a conference sponsored by the New York investment firm Forstmann Little & Co. The weekend is made possible by the generosity of Theodore J Forstmann, a supporter of supply-side economics and contributor to the Republican party. Guests are drawn from government, diplomacy, politics, the arts, entertainment and journalism.
More than 200 guests, mostly prestigious, arrived at the Colorado mountain resort last Thursday (many by private aircraft) and stayed until Sunday for more than golf, hikes and gourmet meals. They faithfully attended discussions, presided over by Charlie Rose of the Public Broadcasting Service, on such serious subjects as "Global poverty and human rights" and "The 'new' world economy". The connecting link was hostility to Bush.
"All discussions are off the record," admonished the conference's printed schedule. Consequently, I will refrain from quoting panellists and audience members. But the admonition says nothing about personal conversations outside the sessions. Nor do I feel inhibited in quoting myself. Even if I am violating the spirit of secrecy, revealing criticism of Bush by this elite group - and the paucity of defence for him - is valuable in reflecting the president's parlous political condition.
I was surprised to see that the first panel, on stem-cell research, consisted solely of scientists hostile to the Bush administration's position. In the absence of any disagreement, I took the floor to suggest that there are scientists and bioethicists with dissenting views, and that it was not productive to demean opposing views as "religious dogma". The response to my intervention was peeved criticism; certainly no support.
I do not see myself as a defender of the Bush presidency, and I am sure the White House does not regard me as such. But as a member of the second panel consisting of journalists, I felt constrained to argue against the suggestion that Hurricane Katrina should cause Bush to rediscover race and poverty. My comments generated more criticism from the audience and obvious exasperation from Rose. After the closing dinner on Saturday night, the moderator made clear he was displeased by my conduct.
After the first two panels, I feared I was the odd man out in accepting Teddy Forstmann's invitation. But during a break, one of the president's closest friends - who had remained silent - thanked me profusely for my comments. That set a pattern. Throughout the next two days, men and women who were mute publicly thanked me privately for speaking up. When I said nothing during one panel discussion, some people asked me why I was silent.
Longtime participants in Forstmann conferences (this was my first and, after this column, probably my last) told me they had not experienced such hostility towards a Republican president at previous events. Yet they were sure a majority of the guests had voted for Bush. This analysis was reported to me over lunch by a financier who regularly attends these events. When he said he shared my sentiments, I asked why he did not express them publicly at a session. He replied that he did not feel able to articulate what he felt. Critics of the president who are vocal and supporters who are reticent constitute a massive communications failure.
US News & World Report disclosed this week, with apparent disdain, that the presidential adviser Karl Rove took time off from the Katrina relief effort to be at Aspen. He was needed as a counterweight. I settled in for serious fireworks, expecting Bush bashers to assault the president's alter ego at the conference's final session. However, direct confrontation with a senior aide must have been more difficult than a remote attack on the president. It would be a shame if Rove returned to Washington without informing Bush how erstwhile friends have turned against him.
· This article first appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times
888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Bloggers Note: Bush Bashing from the elites who have benefitted from the current administration's policies. What has the world turned into. The desire to win, in this case to see continued rise in the bottom line will eat their own, according to this report.
BTW, who's ever heard of the Little Aspen Weekend, next thing you know we'll be hearing about the Bohemian Grove and the Hoover Institute, regional neighbors (Sonoma County and Palo Alto).
The Cost of Living in California
MAKING ENDS MEET The well-off are better off, but the ranks of the poor are growing, and middle- and low-income workers feel pressure of high prices
- Jason B. Johnson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
The gap between high-income and low-income Americans is widening, the ranks of the poor in California and nationwide are swelling, and middle-class workers have lost ground compared with the 1970s, several national and state studies show.
A disturbing new picture of low- and middle-income family finances is emerging from U.S. Census studies and from analyses of census and other data by the California Budget Project, the Brookings Institution, UC Berkeley researchers and organizations studying specific demographic or geographic groups.
"The increase in inequality in income is a longtime trend, but the pressure on middle- and low-income workers is going up rapidly," said Alice Rivlin, an economist at the Brookings Institution and vice chair of the Federal Reserve from 1996 to 1999. "Especially if they live in an area where there are high housing and gas prices, like California."
On Tuesday, the California Budget Project, a public policy research group in Sacramento, estimated that it takes $51,177 a year for a two-parent California family with two children to afford rental housing, commuting costs, food and other basics. The figure is $71,377 if both parents work and $53,987 for a single parent with two kids.
And on Labor Day, the Budget Project reported that California's highest-paid workers -- those in the top 10 percent -- earned 5.1 times more than workers making wages in the lowest 10 percent, up from 3.8 times more in 1979.
In the Bay Area, where a family with two working parents needs $79,946 a year to eke a basic living -- no car, no vacations and no home ownership -- costs are higher than the state averages.
"In California over the past two decades, we have seen an increase in inequality," said Budget Project Executive Director Jean Ross.
To get by, people work more than one job or amass credit card debt, couples work day and night shifts to avoid having to pay for child care, and adult children move back in with their parents, according to interviews with policy experts and workers.
Aurolyn Rush, 60, and her daughter, Tifannee, 27, live together in a two-bedroom Daly City apartment. They pool their annual incomes of $23,000 each as phone operators at San Francisco's Grand Hyatt hotel.
Bare-bones budgets
"We're not living on Cloud 9, but together we make it," said Rush. "She wants her own place, but seeing how hard it is with the two of us, she hasn't tried to move. I probably couldn't make it if I had to pay everything on my own."
The Budget Project totaled the costs of housing and utilities, child care, basic transportation, food, health insurance premiums and payroll and income taxes.
"We're looking at something that is one step above a bare-bones budget," Ross said of the living expenses included in the report.
In the Bay Area, her group found, a single adult needs to make $27,901 a year or $13.41 an hour to cover those expenses. A single parent with two children needs $62,969 a year or $30.27 an hour. And a single wage earner in a family where the other parent stays home -- and provides child care -- would have to make $55,740 or $26.80 an hour.
Health care costs chew up an ever-increasing proportion of salaries. And, Ross said, the less workers earn, the less likely they are to have employer-paid health coverage.
Two reports released in August by the U.S. Census found that 1.1 million more Americans fell into poverty from 2003 to 2004. The estimated national poverty rate rose from 12.5 percent of individuals in 2003 to 12.7 percent in 2004.
An estimated 37 million Americans live below the federal poverty line, which varies by household size; in 2004, the poverty line was $18,850 for a family of four. The census estimated that the median household income was $44,648 in the United States and was $51,185 in California in both 2003 and 2004.
Middle-class workers have been hit hard by the steady disappearance since the 1970s of well-paying blue-collar jobs that high school graduates without a college degree could perform, said Steven Pitts, an economist specializing in labor issues at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
African Americans in particular now face a "crisis" of low-paying jobs because those blue-collar jobs have been replaced by service-sector jobs, Pitts said.
"There were more jobs on the docks in the ports of San Francisco and Oakland," said Pitts. "In the East Bay, for instance, you saw a loss (also) of manufacturing jobs that paid well."
Blacks' wages slipping
Pitts found that the proportion of African American workers in low-wage jobs rose from 25.7 percent in 1970 to 27.8 percent in 2000. The lack of well-paying jobs makes it harder to revitalize poor urban communities, Pitts said, based on a study he released on Labor Day examining the state of African American workers in the Bay Area.
Fellow UC Berkeley economist Richard Walker said income inequality is a problem in the whole nation.
"There's two reasons: One is geographical, when you're in the middle of the fastest-growing part of the country, near these big urban centers, the richest places always have the highest costs, partly because they're successful," Walker said.
The second reason is that high-wage earners now have so much disposable income that they are pulling up prices for everyone.
"There's too much loose money," Walker said. "The world's kind of awash in capital right now."
Income inequities shrank during the late 1990s, but those gains appear to have evaporated, said Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C.
"We were making some progress, and that progress is faltering now," Duff Campbell said. "And when you put that together with the widening gaps between the income groups, then that's pretty alarming."
Executive Director Alissa Friedman at OPTIC, an East Contra Costa nonprofit agency that helps low-income people re-enter the workforce, echoed her.
"It's really heartbreaking when a person has been working hard and gets a job paying $13 an hour but still is not able to support themselves," Friedman said.
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Blogger's Note: A whopping 28K for a singe person to live in the Bay Area. Living wage, equal pay for equal work, economic justice--all slogans from the past. Action can be motivated by increased awareness, "feeling the pain" may mobilize anger towards the "system," what will the working middle class do, in the face of the "futility reality." The privilege among us cocooned in our 350 sqr/foot "affordable" homes, can we continue to doll out change to the less fortunate, or be charitable towards the less able. What will it take for a society to re-evaluate the application of family values, no child left behind, equal opportunity--towards a truer democracy and not capitalism or corporate state? For now, is it enough to get along, pay the tithe till one can no longer.
- Jason B. Johnson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
The gap between high-income and low-income Americans is widening, the ranks of the poor in California and nationwide are swelling, and middle-class workers have lost ground compared with the 1970s, several national and state studies show.
A disturbing new picture of low- and middle-income family finances is emerging from U.S. Census studies and from analyses of census and other data by the California Budget Project, the Brookings Institution, UC Berkeley researchers and organizations studying specific demographic or geographic groups.
"The increase in inequality in income is a longtime trend, but the pressure on middle- and low-income workers is going up rapidly," said Alice Rivlin, an economist at the Brookings Institution and vice chair of the Federal Reserve from 1996 to 1999. "Especially if they live in an area where there are high housing and gas prices, like California."
On Tuesday, the California Budget Project, a public policy research group in Sacramento, estimated that it takes $51,177 a year for a two-parent California family with two children to afford rental housing, commuting costs, food and other basics. The figure is $71,377 if both parents work and $53,987 for a single parent with two kids.
And on Labor Day, the Budget Project reported that California's highest-paid workers -- those in the top 10 percent -- earned 5.1 times more than workers making wages in the lowest 10 percent, up from 3.8 times more in 1979.
In the Bay Area, where a family with two working parents needs $79,946 a year to eke a basic living -- no car, no vacations and no home ownership -- costs are higher than the state averages.
"In California over the past two decades, we have seen an increase in inequality," said Budget Project Executive Director Jean Ross.
To get by, people work more than one job or amass credit card debt, couples work day and night shifts to avoid having to pay for child care, and adult children move back in with their parents, according to interviews with policy experts and workers.
Aurolyn Rush, 60, and her daughter, Tifannee, 27, live together in a two-bedroom Daly City apartment. They pool their annual incomes of $23,000 each as phone operators at San Francisco's Grand Hyatt hotel.
Bare-bones budgets
"We're not living on Cloud 9, but together we make it," said Rush. "She wants her own place, but seeing how hard it is with the two of us, she hasn't tried to move. I probably couldn't make it if I had to pay everything on my own."
The Budget Project totaled the costs of housing and utilities, child care, basic transportation, food, health insurance premiums and payroll and income taxes.
"We're looking at something that is one step above a bare-bones budget," Ross said of the living expenses included in the report.
In the Bay Area, her group found, a single adult needs to make $27,901 a year or $13.41 an hour to cover those expenses. A single parent with two children needs $62,969 a year or $30.27 an hour. And a single wage earner in a family where the other parent stays home -- and provides child care -- would have to make $55,740 or $26.80 an hour.
Health care costs chew up an ever-increasing proportion of salaries. And, Ross said, the less workers earn, the less likely they are to have employer-paid health coverage.
Two reports released in August by the U.S. Census found that 1.1 million more Americans fell into poverty from 2003 to 2004. The estimated national poverty rate rose from 12.5 percent of individuals in 2003 to 12.7 percent in 2004.
An estimated 37 million Americans live below the federal poverty line, which varies by household size; in 2004, the poverty line was $18,850 for a family of four. The census estimated that the median household income was $44,648 in the United States and was $51,185 in California in both 2003 and 2004.
Middle-class workers have been hit hard by the steady disappearance since the 1970s of well-paying blue-collar jobs that high school graduates without a college degree could perform, said Steven Pitts, an economist specializing in labor issues at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
African Americans in particular now face a "crisis" of low-paying jobs because those blue-collar jobs have been replaced by service-sector jobs, Pitts said.
"There were more jobs on the docks in the ports of San Francisco and Oakland," said Pitts. "In the East Bay, for instance, you saw a loss (also) of manufacturing jobs that paid well."
Blacks' wages slipping
Pitts found that the proportion of African American workers in low-wage jobs rose from 25.7 percent in 1970 to 27.8 percent in 2000. The lack of well-paying jobs makes it harder to revitalize poor urban communities, Pitts said, based on a study he released on Labor Day examining the state of African American workers in the Bay Area.
Fellow UC Berkeley economist Richard Walker said income inequality is a problem in the whole nation.
"There's two reasons: One is geographical, when you're in the middle of the fastest-growing part of the country, near these big urban centers, the richest places always have the highest costs, partly because they're successful," Walker said.
The second reason is that high-wage earners now have so much disposable income that they are pulling up prices for everyone.
"There's too much loose money," Walker said. "The world's kind of awash in capital right now."
Income inequities shrank during the late 1990s, but those gains appear to have evaporated, said Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C.
"We were making some progress, and that progress is faltering now," Duff Campbell said. "And when you put that together with the widening gaps between the income groups, then that's pretty alarming."
Executive Director Alissa Friedman at OPTIC, an East Contra Costa nonprofit agency that helps low-income people re-enter the workforce, echoed her.
"It's really heartbreaking when a person has been working hard and gets a job paying $13 an hour but still is not able to support themselves," Friedman said.
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Blogger's Note: A whopping 28K for a singe person to live in the Bay Area. Living wage, equal pay for equal work, economic justice--all slogans from the past. Action can be motivated by increased awareness, "feeling the pain" may mobilize anger towards the "system," what will the working middle class do, in the face of the "futility reality." The privilege among us cocooned in our 350 sqr/foot "affordable" homes, can we continue to doll out change to the less fortunate, or be charitable towards the less able. What will it take for a society to re-evaluate the application of family values, no child left behind, equal opportunity--towards a truer democracy and not capitalism or corporate state? For now, is it enough to get along, pay the tithe till one can no longer.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Philippines ---2005 series
Fri, 10 Jun 2005
Flash events and memories
Arriving safely in my hometown Oakland via the SF Air Bart System after a drawn out flight of multiple segments. Manila to Singapore 1 hr, with a 5 hr lay over; Singapore to Hong Kong 3 hour, (1 hr layover), Hong Kong to San Francisco 11 hours. Oddly almost 12 hours from departure, I was still in Hong Kong.
Ah the privilege of international travel! If you do not have a direct flight to South East Asia, and must have a stop, choose Singapore – specially for the return leg. One can have a languorous hot shower in American/Western plumbing standards, shave, a short rest for 6 USD; if you choose you can nap for 3 hours and pay 60 USD and have a sleeping room with a shower included. After a few days of sweaty and sticky living, though after numerous cold showers, a deep cleaning is much appreciated.
Somehow, humidity mixed with urban area many hundreds of year old dirt, combined with soot from diesel exhaust, perspiration (more in line with sweat), one cannot seem to shake off the pervasive "malagkit" feeling (sticky comes closes) your body takes on.
Something to note, to be in a highly controlled environment like Singapore; it seems the airport as a public (quasi) space, can be fastidiously maintained, and local inhabitants seemingly accept the dictums of government that helps assure its access to employment and a high standard of living.
My last memory of Manila as we took the "short cut" to Mult-national Avenue is the over whelming poverty. The shanty dwellings lined most thoroughfares. The meager living individuals attempt to make in selling chicklet and cigarette to oncoming traffic, and the sidewalk vending system of local drinks sago (tapioca ball with sweetened and colored water), buko (young coconut and milk) and gulaman (agar with red colored sweetened water) served over ice.
The night prior to my departure for the US, brod, g/f with her three cousins and I met up with 6 nephews and a spouse (children of 3 first cousins) and a great nephew in Greenbelt in Makati. 14 of us sup at Max’s Restaurant for the despidida (going away party) for family members who were not in the province, either because of school, work or anticipating work abroad.
The longstanding mall development approximates outdoor/indoor American Malls, differing with interior courtyard filled with old trees and highly manicured gardens. It was a picturesque setting, in contrast to what lie a few kilometers away.
The availability of personal services, an afternoon foot spa, mani-pedicure, facial, hair trim is a practice I’ve set upon prior to re-entering my life in the United States. Dollars can purchase much.
In the Province and village of my late father, lasting and often partook activity of sitting under the shade of the Talisay tree, beachside of my deceased Uncle’s property. Life’s meals, rest from the heat, family meetings, conversations, greetings and farewells took place in the bamboo benches and table.
As a form of rest, often, idly looked at the sea with its unpredictable textures, the adjacent Island 30 minutes away by power motor boat or at the horizon, listening and hearing the changing tide’s wave.
Seafood assortment, varieties of fish, urchin and other shellfish, grilled with coconut coals, stewed, braised are kissed with sweetness when eaten alongside the ocean, accompanied by sea breezes. Mango, papaya, avocado, local jackfruit, chico are sweeter than the fruit I eat in California. Given the fruits were freshly picked that day or vine/tree ripened with little spray or herbicides.
Every other day, someone climbed the coconut trees around the property for a merienda (a mid day snack in between meals) of young coconut, transparent gelatinous sweet meat, scooped out with a spoon fashioned from the shell’s husk, and coconut milk. Eating 3 meals plus 2 meriendas daily made me forget my other life temporarily. The family gatherings eating homemade local specialty food, and the caring and gentle hospitality constantly extended –allowed regeneration of one’s soul.
The night prior to trip back for Manila, a despidida party took place at my Uncle and Godfather's seaside Kareoke bar. I counted 4 cousins, a number of their children (our nephews/nieces), their children (great nephews/nieces), a half brother, and plenty of San Mig large were in attendance.
I even ventured to sing 2 songs "My way and another Sinatra tune" (title I cannot recall), it was a good time lasting till lights out at 12 midnight. In the Island (some may recall electricity came in 1999), electricity runs 12 to 12, starting the day before our departure.
All for now, other images will come flooding through or memories will become imbedded as they resurface will be forthcoming during this period of readjustment back to life state side.
Flash events and memories
Arriving safely in my hometown Oakland via the SF Air Bart System after a drawn out flight of multiple segments. Manila to Singapore 1 hr, with a 5 hr lay over; Singapore to Hong Kong 3 hour, (1 hr layover), Hong Kong to San Francisco 11 hours. Oddly almost 12 hours from departure, I was still in Hong Kong.
Ah the privilege of international travel! If you do not have a direct flight to South East Asia, and must have a stop, choose Singapore – specially for the return leg. One can have a languorous hot shower in American/Western plumbing standards, shave, a short rest for 6 USD; if you choose you can nap for 3 hours and pay 60 USD and have a sleeping room with a shower included. After a few days of sweaty and sticky living, though after numerous cold showers, a deep cleaning is much appreciated.
Somehow, humidity mixed with urban area many hundreds of year old dirt, combined with soot from diesel exhaust, perspiration (more in line with sweat), one cannot seem to shake off the pervasive "malagkit" feeling (sticky comes closes) your body takes on.
Something to note, to be in a highly controlled environment like Singapore; it seems the airport as a public (quasi) space, can be fastidiously maintained, and local inhabitants seemingly accept the dictums of government that helps assure its access to employment and a high standard of living.
My last memory of Manila as we took the "short cut" to Mult-national Avenue is the over whelming poverty. The shanty dwellings lined most thoroughfares. The meager living individuals attempt to make in selling chicklet and cigarette to oncoming traffic, and the sidewalk vending system of local drinks sago (tapioca ball with sweetened and colored water), buko (young coconut and milk) and gulaman (agar with red colored sweetened water) served over ice.
The night prior to my departure for the US, brod, g/f with her three cousins and I met up with 6 nephews and a spouse (children of 3 first cousins) and a great nephew in Greenbelt in Makati. 14 of us sup at Max’s Restaurant for the despidida (going away party) for family members who were not in the province, either because of school, work or anticipating work abroad.
The longstanding mall development approximates outdoor/indoor American Malls, differing with interior courtyard filled with old trees and highly manicured gardens. It was a picturesque setting, in contrast to what lie a few kilometers away.
The availability of personal services, an afternoon foot spa, mani-pedicure, facial, hair trim is a practice I’ve set upon prior to re-entering my life in the United States. Dollars can purchase much.
In the Province and village of my late father, lasting and often partook activity of sitting under the shade of the Talisay tree, beachside of my deceased Uncle’s property. Life’s meals, rest from the heat, family meetings, conversations, greetings and farewells took place in the bamboo benches and table.
As a form of rest, often, idly looked at the sea with its unpredictable textures, the adjacent Island 30 minutes away by power motor boat or at the horizon, listening and hearing the changing tide’s wave.
Seafood assortment, varieties of fish, urchin and other shellfish, grilled with coconut coals, stewed, braised are kissed with sweetness when eaten alongside the ocean, accompanied by sea breezes. Mango, papaya, avocado, local jackfruit, chico are sweeter than the fruit I eat in California. Given the fruits were freshly picked that day or vine/tree ripened with little spray or herbicides.
Every other day, someone climbed the coconut trees around the property for a merienda (a mid day snack in between meals) of young coconut, transparent gelatinous sweet meat, scooped out with a spoon fashioned from the shell’s husk, and coconut milk. Eating 3 meals plus 2 meriendas daily made me forget my other life temporarily. The family gatherings eating homemade local specialty food, and the caring and gentle hospitality constantly extended –allowed regeneration of one’s soul.
The night prior to trip back for Manila, a despidida party took place at my Uncle and Godfather's seaside Kareoke bar. I counted 4 cousins, a number of their children (our nephews/nieces), their children (great nephews/nieces), a half brother, and plenty of San Mig large were in attendance.
I even ventured to sing 2 songs "My way and another Sinatra tune" (title I cannot recall), it was a good time lasting till lights out at 12 midnight. In the Island (some may recall electricity came in 1999), electricity runs 12 to 12, starting the day before our departure.
All for now, other images will come flooding through or memories will become imbedded as they resurface will be forthcoming during this period of readjustment back to life state side.
AHHH A garlic war? (Levity in today's complex world)
'Foreigners think we are made of garlic'
Bruno Réal
Tuesday September 27, 2005
The Guardian
Habits are changing, that's the problem. People today cook less than their parents or grandparents, and above all they want to do less preparation. They prefer to buy ready-to-go or frozen, and that's hitting the whole fruit and vegetable sector.
That said, garlic actually has a relatively rosy future because it's so good for you and people are going to be more concerned by their diet. Garlic helps ward off colds and infections, it can lower the risk of heart disease by reducing high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Foreigners think the French are made of garlic but France is nowhere near the world's biggest garlic producer; we're about number 25 in the world. Many say Spanish garlic is the real problem for us because it's cheaper, but I see it as complementary because its season is different. In any case, we're not going down the cut-price road; we're going for quality, making sure people know French garlic is top quality and fully traceable.
In the Auvergne, we're aiming for special Red Label status. Auvergne garlic keeps for much longer than other varieties without any need for chemical preservatives. My garlic will stay fresh, and taste fresh, till February. White and pink garlic from southern France will only last until November unless you treat it - and then it tastes of chemicals.
· Bruno Réal is a garlic grower at Aigueperse, near Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Note from the Blogger
A curious approach, first extol the value of a vegetable (someone claim fruit), then discuss the regional superiority of a product. Will this be the salvo initiating a garlic war. Gilroy California, where do you stand. Self proclaimed world garlic capital. Does your product taste chemy. Now, all urban gastronomist, will be clamoring for red label garlic from France. Vive la guerre.
Bruno Réal
Tuesday September 27, 2005
The Guardian
Habits are changing, that's the problem. People today cook less than their parents or grandparents, and above all they want to do less preparation. They prefer to buy ready-to-go or frozen, and that's hitting the whole fruit and vegetable sector.
That said, garlic actually has a relatively rosy future because it's so good for you and people are going to be more concerned by their diet. Garlic helps ward off colds and infections, it can lower the risk of heart disease by reducing high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Foreigners think the French are made of garlic but France is nowhere near the world's biggest garlic producer; we're about number 25 in the world. Many say Spanish garlic is the real problem for us because it's cheaper, but I see it as complementary because its season is different. In any case, we're not going down the cut-price road; we're going for quality, making sure people know French garlic is top quality and fully traceable.
In the Auvergne, we're aiming for special Red Label status. Auvergne garlic keeps for much longer than other varieties without any need for chemical preservatives. My garlic will stay fresh, and taste fresh, till February. White and pink garlic from southern France will only last until November unless you treat it - and then it tastes of chemicals.
· Bruno Réal is a garlic grower at Aigueperse, near Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Note from the Blogger
A curious approach, first extol the value of a vegetable (someone claim fruit), then discuss the regional superiority of a product. Will this be the salvo initiating a garlic war. Gilroy California, where do you stand. Self proclaimed world garlic capital. Does your product taste chemy. Now, all urban gastronomist, will be clamoring for red label garlic from France. Vive la guerre.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Sept. 24-26: End the War!/Kanye West
All Out Sept. 24-26: End the War!/Kanye West Was Right!
A dynamic weekend of antiwar activities will kick off 48 hours from now
with a giant march and rally in Washington, D.C. The September 24-26
actions can make a big difference. Discontent with Bush's Iraq policy,
and with appalling government priorities generally, is at record levels.
The antiwar movement has a chance to mobilize and influence millions.
Add your voice and your presence to all those going to D.C. or turning
out in other cities: END THE WAR ON IRAQ, BRING THEM HOME NOW, JUSTICE FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE GULF COAST! For complete information and for flyers and other resources to help build for September 24-26, go to http://www.unitedforpeace.org/
It is also an urgent time to step up support for vital humanitarian and
political initiatives in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Take a look at
War Times/Tiempo de Guerras' statement "Katrina and The Antiwar
Movement: Lend Our Hand and Our Voice" at http://www.war-times.org/
We also want to share with you the important call below, "Kanye West Was Right.
Now Let's Do Something About It": see http://www.colorofchange.org/ for full information.
War Times/Tiempo de Guerras is a fiscally sponsored project of the
Center for Third World Organizing. Donations to War Times are
tax-deductible; you can donate on-line at http://www.war-times.org/ or send a check to War Times/Tiempo de Guerras, c/o P.O. Box 99096, Emeryville, CA 94662.
Thanks, peace, and please forward this e-mail to a friend!
The War Times/Tiempo de Guerras Staff
Kanye West Was Right. Now Let's Do Something About It.
Folks,
When Kanye West said George Bush doesn't care about Black people, he
told the truth. You don't let people you "care about" linger on roof-tops
for days without a drop of water or scrap of food while you attend
fund-raisers. And you don't leave 20,000 people you "care about" stuffed in a sweltering stadium for nearly a week. If a hurricane hit Martha's Vineyard or Kennebunkport, you can bet Bush would have been there the next day.
But it's not only George Bush. The folks we saw on TV were left behind
a long time ago--by most politicians--because they don't have the money
or provide enough votes to demand their attention. And honestly, we
also left them behind. We're the folks who could have had their backs all
along, but we've done way too little to support and protect them. It's
shameful, but we can do something about it. And we will. Please join
us: http://www.colorofchange.org/
As we know from history, when we stand together, we can change this
country. That's why we're writing. Our goal is to build a group of 250,000 Black folks and others who are willing to take a simple pledge: to protect those of us who are struggling at the margins, to make sure they're not left behind again, and to help them gain a political voice. The
question is whether enough of us care--and are willing to step up. We
believe so, and hope so.
When 250,000 committed African-Americans and our allies speak in a loud voice, it's hard to ignore. We will use the Internet and national media to put pressure on elected officials, to help everyone stay informed, and to empower all of us by creating a way to come together and take action.
By signing the pledge, you will help to create that new force--a
powerful community of hope and action that can start making a difference right away.
We'll begin by focusing on folks from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast
who've been displaced and making sure their interests are protected.
Those who have lost the most should be first in line for a chance to
rebuild their homes, their lives, and their communities. And they should be paid well for their work.
Unfortunately, Bush and his crew have already started to show their
true colors and whose side they're really on. They've given companies
involved in rebuilding special breaks so they can pay workers lower wages than normal. They've given Halliburton and other companies friendly to the Bush administration exclusive deals, preventing others from bidding.
And Bush has vowed to keep the tax breaks he gave to the richest 1% of
Americans. That means the money needed to pay for reconstruction will
likely come from cutting government services for those who already have the least.
It's time to start standing up for our people. With hard work and
coordinated efforts, 250,000 of us can make even George Bush act right. We will monitor and expose the reality of what he and other elected
officials do vs. what they say.
But first we think it's important to start from a place of integrity.
Before we demand anything of the government, we believe we need to look within and demand more of ourselves. For us, this has been a big
wake-up call. We need to check ourselves, admit that we've probably been doing less than we could, and vow to step up. After we do that, we can insist that the nation's leaders to do the same thing.
We will change the way this country deals with those left behind,
everywhere. It comes down to how many will join us by standing up and having their voices count. At this point, we need to know who's down. We hope that you are. And we hope that you will help spread the word out to
your family and friends. Click the link below to join us:
http://www.colorofchange.org/
Together, we can change the balance of power in this country--and make sure what we saw on TV, we never see again.
Thank you,
James Rucker & Van Jones
National Coordinators, ColorOfChange.org
http://us.f304.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=info@colorofchange.org&YY=18596&order=down&sort=date&pos=0
A dynamic weekend of antiwar activities will kick off 48 hours from now
with a giant march and rally in Washington, D.C. The September 24-26
actions can make a big difference. Discontent with Bush's Iraq policy,
and with appalling government priorities generally, is at record levels.
The antiwar movement has a chance to mobilize and influence millions.
Add your voice and your presence to all those going to D.C. or turning
out in other cities: END THE WAR ON IRAQ, BRING THEM HOME NOW, JUSTICE FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE GULF COAST! For complete information and for flyers and other resources to help build for September 24-26, go to http://www.unitedforpeace.org/
It is also an urgent time to step up support for vital humanitarian and
political initiatives in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Take a look at
War Times/Tiempo de Guerras' statement "Katrina and The Antiwar
Movement: Lend Our Hand and Our Voice" at http://www.war-times.org/
We also want to share with you the important call below, "Kanye West Was Right.
Now Let's Do Something About It": see http://www.colorofchange.org/ for full information.
War Times/Tiempo de Guerras is a fiscally sponsored project of the
Center for Third World Organizing. Donations to War Times are
tax-deductible; you can donate on-line at http://www.war-times.org/ or send a check to War Times/Tiempo de Guerras, c/o P.O. Box 99096, Emeryville, CA 94662.
Thanks, peace, and please forward this e-mail to a friend!
The War Times/Tiempo de Guerras Staff
Kanye West Was Right. Now Let's Do Something About It.
Folks,
When Kanye West said George Bush doesn't care about Black people, he
told the truth. You don't let people you "care about" linger on roof-tops
for days without a drop of water or scrap of food while you attend
fund-raisers. And you don't leave 20,000 people you "care about" stuffed in a sweltering stadium for nearly a week. If a hurricane hit Martha's Vineyard or Kennebunkport, you can bet Bush would have been there the next day.
But it's not only George Bush. The folks we saw on TV were left behind
a long time ago--by most politicians--because they don't have the money
or provide enough votes to demand their attention. And honestly, we
also left them behind. We're the folks who could have had their backs all
along, but we've done way too little to support and protect them. It's
shameful, but we can do something about it. And we will. Please join
us: http://www.colorofchange.org/
As we know from history, when we stand together, we can change this
country. That's why we're writing. Our goal is to build a group of 250,000 Black folks and others who are willing to take a simple pledge: to protect those of us who are struggling at the margins, to make sure they're not left behind again, and to help them gain a political voice. The
question is whether enough of us care--and are willing to step up. We
believe so, and hope so.
When 250,000 committed African-Americans and our allies speak in a loud voice, it's hard to ignore. We will use the Internet and national media to put pressure on elected officials, to help everyone stay informed, and to empower all of us by creating a way to come together and take action.
By signing the pledge, you will help to create that new force--a
powerful community of hope and action that can start making a difference right away.
We'll begin by focusing on folks from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast
who've been displaced and making sure their interests are protected.
Those who have lost the most should be first in line for a chance to
rebuild their homes, their lives, and their communities. And they should be paid well for their work.
Unfortunately, Bush and his crew have already started to show their
true colors and whose side they're really on. They've given companies
involved in rebuilding special breaks so they can pay workers lower wages than normal. They've given Halliburton and other companies friendly to the Bush administration exclusive deals, preventing others from bidding.
And Bush has vowed to keep the tax breaks he gave to the richest 1% of
Americans. That means the money needed to pay for reconstruction will
likely come from cutting government services for those who already have the least.
It's time to start standing up for our people. With hard work and
coordinated efforts, 250,000 of us can make even George Bush act right. We will monitor and expose the reality of what he and other elected
officials do vs. what they say.
But first we think it's important to start from a place of integrity.
Before we demand anything of the government, we believe we need to look within and demand more of ourselves. For us, this has been a big
wake-up call. We need to check ourselves, admit that we've probably been doing less than we could, and vow to step up. After we do that, we can insist that the nation's leaders to do the same thing.
We will change the way this country deals with those left behind,
everywhere. It comes down to how many will join us by standing up and having their voices count. At this point, we need to know who's down. We hope that you are. And we hope that you will help spread the word out to
your family and friends. Click the link below to join us:
http://www.colorofchange.org/
Together, we can change the balance of power in this country--and make sure what we saw on TV, we never see again.
Thank you,
James Rucker & Van Jones
National Coordinators, ColorOfChange.org
http://us.f304.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=info@colorofchange.org&YY=18596&order=down&sort=date&pos=0
Monday, September 12, 2005
Did Katrina Blow Off the White Sheets of American Racism?
From the blogger: Now for a different perspective, from mainstream media that is. Ms. Taylor of Chicago offers a re-examination of race relations since the voting rights act of 1965. Calling for mobilization twwards justice for all. Using the million person march as a vehicle.
Our Birminghan
By KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR
Maybe this will be our generation's Birmingham.
The pictures that streamed out of Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 showed young Black boys and girls attacked by German Shepherds and drenched with the powerful spray of fire hoses.
Those pictures exposed to the world the hypocrisy that rests at the heart of America. Those pictures exposed the intense racism that rests at the heart of this country.
Those pictures exposed the utter lack of credibility of the U.S. in its bloody intervention in Southeast Asia.
But those pictures also inspired and radicalized a generation of young African Americans and young progressive whites that enough was enough and that it was time to break the back of Jim Crow.
For African Americans in the North, where there was no legal segregation, the pictures from Birmingham confirmed a humiliating second-class citizenship.
The same can be said of the awful pictures streaming out of New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast towns that were obliterated by Hurricane Katrina.
Like Birmingham 42 years ago, today's pictures of impoverished Black Americans wading through chest high sludge; being corralled into the Super Dome or the New Orleans Convention Center like cattle; portrayed in the American media as looters, armed thugs, murders and rapists; sitting atop their asphalt roofs in 100 degree swamp heat waiting to be rescued or waiting to die are all sharp reminders that for all of the rhetoric and crap the U.S. spews about democracy, freedom and opportunity, 140 years after the Civil War ended and 40 years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed racism and class inequality remain the pillars upon which this twisted country is built upon.
The rumors coming from the mayor of New Orleans and other officials is that maybe 10,000 people have died as a result of Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath.
10,000 people. Mostly Black and mostly poor.
This is not a disaster but a crime. And the sad reality is that this nightmare and this crime is only at its beginning. There is an idiocy and a contemptuousness directed towards the poor and Blacks that pervade the political duopoly in this country. The moronic idea, for example, that you can "house" 20,000 in an old baseball stadium makes you shake your head. In an area outside of Dallas, Texas, dozens of displaced evacuees were taken to what was planned as a minimum-security prison but has now been turned into temporary housing.
This in the richest country in the history of the world.
The formal shredding of the social safety net-brought to us by former President Bill Clinton in 1996-means that the half a million or so folks from Gulf Coast region have just been kicked off the ledge with nothing to break the fall.
There is no more welfare and food stamps are increasingly becoming out of reach in this country.
There is no decent, affordable housing in this country.
There is no universal healthcare in this country.
Given the scale of the crisis, the government will be forced to provide many of these things-temporarily. But temporary is not a solution.
Without steady and living wages this untenable situation will quickly become an impossible situation. Black unemployment in the U.S. is at almost 11 percent. In some cities like Chicago and New York unemployment for Black men has reached the 50 percent threshold. Where will these jobs come from? Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao said on MSNBC that 10,000 temporary jobs will be created.
500,000 people displaced. 10,000 temp jobs.
When the state is forced to spend some money on the welfare of some people it will inevitably raise questions as to why this government can't always use its tax dollars to take care of the people who live here instead of wasting money on imperial projects and corporate bailouts
It should.
42 years ago when the pictures from Birmingham surfaced, American officials were shamed and embarrassed as the pictures of American racism and brutality made the front pages of papers around the world.
The emperor had no clothes.
Today, the pictures and stories from the survivors of this disaster should finally lay to rest any notion that the war in Iraq is anything but the racist, imperial conquest it is. From New Orleans to Fallujah, the lives of poor, colored people have no value, no worth to the wealthy white men who run this country.
During the last campaign for the presidency of the U.S., it wasn't until the third debate when moderator Bob Scheiffer finally asked Bush and Kerry a question about race. The question was whether or not affirmative action was outdated. Neither the question nor their answers were as important as the way in which the duopoly and the craven media avoid issues of race and class as if they were a plague.
The crime of New Orleans has put both of those issues back on the front pages of every newspaper across the country. The Black political establishment has even been shook beyond its usual irrelevance and complacency. These are all positive developments.
But if this is truly to be the Birmingham of our generation, it is not enough to point out the litany of racial injustices that shape and define American society. We have to organize and we have to fight back against these injustices. We may even need to organize and fight for a new civil rights movement.
October 15, 2005, marks the ten-year anniversary of the Million Man March. When Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan organized that march in 1995 he told the women to stay home and Black men to beg forgiveness for a lifetime of sin. Next month on that same date, Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Rev. Al Sharpton will re-convene the Millions More Movement march in Washington D.C. This time around Farrakhan has thrown down the welcome mat to "Christians, Muslims, Hebrews, Jews, agnostics, nationalists, socialists, men, women and youth" to "com[e] together in agreement that the time is now for us to articulate our demands, and to accept our responsibility to change the condition and reality of our lives ." The demands of this march include ending the war and the prison industrial complex. It would be a shock if the organizers of the march did not now include demands around the conditions of the New Orleans and Gulf Coast evacuees. These are demands worth fighting for.
There are problems with the march. Initially, Black gays and lesbians were to be more involved in the organizing of the march but unfortunately there has been some homophobic gay baiting. If there has ever been a time for solidarity it is now and that's what the organizers need to understand. Nonetheless, the march has now taken on increased significance and importance given the developments in the Gulf region.
The ongoing crisis, as a result of the hurricane, has only begun to bring the issues afflicting working class and poor African Americans to the table. We will need a broad, multi-racial and independent movement to actually be able to do something about them.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, based in Chicago, is author of Civil Rights and Civil Wrongs: Racism in America Today for the International Socialist Review. She can be contacted at http://by101fd.bay101.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/compose?mailto=1&msg=815DC3D5-D682-4184-8465-86882A3FD911&start=0&len=21464&src=&type=x&to=keeanga%25272001@yahoo.com&cc=&bcc=&subject=&body=&curmbox=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&a=4e1288ad30072dacb84448fde9e2f3ab5da94c7afcbdf0ae5c63e309c4347a8d
Our Birminghan
By KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR
Maybe this will be our generation's Birmingham.
The pictures that streamed out of Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 showed young Black boys and girls attacked by German Shepherds and drenched with the powerful spray of fire hoses.
Those pictures exposed to the world the hypocrisy that rests at the heart of America. Those pictures exposed the intense racism that rests at the heart of this country.
Those pictures exposed the utter lack of credibility of the U.S. in its bloody intervention in Southeast Asia.
But those pictures also inspired and radicalized a generation of young African Americans and young progressive whites that enough was enough and that it was time to break the back of Jim Crow.
For African Americans in the North, where there was no legal segregation, the pictures from Birmingham confirmed a humiliating second-class citizenship.
The same can be said of the awful pictures streaming out of New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast towns that were obliterated by Hurricane Katrina.
Like Birmingham 42 years ago, today's pictures of impoverished Black Americans wading through chest high sludge; being corralled into the Super Dome or the New Orleans Convention Center like cattle; portrayed in the American media as looters, armed thugs, murders and rapists; sitting atop their asphalt roofs in 100 degree swamp heat waiting to be rescued or waiting to die are all sharp reminders that for all of the rhetoric and crap the U.S. spews about democracy, freedom and opportunity, 140 years after the Civil War ended and 40 years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed racism and class inequality remain the pillars upon which this twisted country is built upon.
The rumors coming from the mayor of New Orleans and other officials is that maybe 10,000 people have died as a result of Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath.
10,000 people. Mostly Black and mostly poor.
This is not a disaster but a crime. And the sad reality is that this nightmare and this crime is only at its beginning. There is an idiocy and a contemptuousness directed towards the poor and Blacks that pervade the political duopoly in this country. The moronic idea, for example, that you can "house" 20,000 in an old baseball stadium makes you shake your head. In an area outside of Dallas, Texas, dozens of displaced evacuees were taken to what was planned as a minimum-security prison but has now been turned into temporary housing.
This in the richest country in the history of the world.
The formal shredding of the social safety net-brought to us by former President Bill Clinton in 1996-means that the half a million or so folks from Gulf Coast region have just been kicked off the ledge with nothing to break the fall.
There is no more welfare and food stamps are increasingly becoming out of reach in this country.
There is no decent, affordable housing in this country.
There is no universal healthcare in this country.
Given the scale of the crisis, the government will be forced to provide many of these things-temporarily. But temporary is not a solution.
Without steady and living wages this untenable situation will quickly become an impossible situation. Black unemployment in the U.S. is at almost 11 percent. In some cities like Chicago and New York unemployment for Black men has reached the 50 percent threshold. Where will these jobs come from? Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao said on MSNBC that 10,000 temporary jobs will be created.
500,000 people displaced. 10,000 temp jobs.
When the state is forced to spend some money on the welfare of some people it will inevitably raise questions as to why this government can't always use its tax dollars to take care of the people who live here instead of wasting money on imperial projects and corporate bailouts
It should.
42 years ago when the pictures from Birmingham surfaced, American officials were shamed and embarrassed as the pictures of American racism and brutality made the front pages of papers around the world.
The emperor had no clothes.
Today, the pictures and stories from the survivors of this disaster should finally lay to rest any notion that the war in Iraq is anything but the racist, imperial conquest it is. From New Orleans to Fallujah, the lives of poor, colored people have no value, no worth to the wealthy white men who run this country.
During the last campaign for the presidency of the U.S., it wasn't until the third debate when moderator Bob Scheiffer finally asked Bush and Kerry a question about race. The question was whether or not affirmative action was outdated. Neither the question nor their answers were as important as the way in which the duopoly and the craven media avoid issues of race and class as if they were a plague.
The crime of New Orleans has put both of those issues back on the front pages of every newspaper across the country. The Black political establishment has even been shook beyond its usual irrelevance and complacency. These are all positive developments.
But if this is truly to be the Birmingham of our generation, it is not enough to point out the litany of racial injustices that shape and define American society. We have to organize and we have to fight back against these injustices. We may even need to organize and fight for a new civil rights movement.
October 15, 2005, marks the ten-year anniversary of the Million Man March. When Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan organized that march in 1995 he told the women to stay home and Black men to beg forgiveness for a lifetime of sin. Next month on that same date, Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Rev. Al Sharpton will re-convene the Millions More Movement march in Washington D.C. This time around Farrakhan has thrown down the welcome mat to "Christians, Muslims, Hebrews, Jews, agnostics, nationalists, socialists, men, women and youth" to "com[e] together in agreement that the time is now for us to articulate our demands, and to accept our responsibility to change the condition and reality of our lives ." The demands of this march include ending the war and the prison industrial complex. It would be a shock if the organizers of the march did not now include demands around the conditions of the New Orleans and Gulf Coast evacuees. These are demands worth fighting for.
There are problems with the march. Initially, Black gays and lesbians were to be more involved in the organizing of the march but unfortunately there has been some homophobic gay baiting. If there has ever been a time for solidarity it is now and that's what the organizers need to understand. Nonetheless, the march has now taken on increased significance and importance given the developments in the Gulf region.
The ongoing crisis, as a result of the hurricane, has only begun to bring the issues afflicting working class and poor African Americans to the table. We will need a broad, multi-racial and independent movement to actually be able to do something about them.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, based in Chicago, is author of Civil Rights and Civil Wrongs: Racism in America Today for the International Socialist Review. She can be contacted at http://by101fd.bay101.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/compose?mailto=1&msg=815DC3D5-D682-4184-8465-86882A3FD911&start=0&len=21464&src=&type=x&to=keeanga%25272001@yahoo.com&cc=&bcc=&subject=&body=&curmbox=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&a=4e1288ad30072dacb84448fde9e2f3ab5da94c7afcbdf0ae5c63e309c4347a8d
Sunday, September 11, 2005
A RANT-- lets look back to the future (Katrina in our mind)
It is 9/11-- and a couple of weeks has passed since Katrina wreak havoc along the Gulf Coast of the USA.
I am challenged not to be overwhelmed by the enormity of what is happening to our fellow Americans.
There are nearly half million people who have or will shortly undergo forced migration. The cause is not economic, nor religious/ideological, or civil strife. A natural catastrophe happened. Could the lost of life, the lost of land back to the lake/river/gulf, an iconic city under water have been lessened. Clearly much finger pointing and there can be plenty of blame/fault that can pieced out -- a dominant media fodder or material for casual conversation.
Personal ruminations from the wake of Katrina are obscure. Back to the old question of integration.
How do we as a nation address the many evacuees who will be in our midst? They will populate or perhaps over populate our poorly resourced schools; compete for jobs that are scarce for those with limited skills, or limited education; and the irony of the image centered on bus transportation shortage as one of the first early warning signs post hurricane.
In the past few days, I have awaken from my early shock and initiated dialogue with friends and colleagues about the potential ramifications of Katrina on many systems (family, church, work life, government, education, healthcare) and the complexity of its impact for many thousands of people who have lost what they believed to be material representation of their life.
How will we establish identity, when paper records or micro-fiche files are potentially lost, or those who never had the opportunity to see a dentist.
How will we address land rights i.e. inheritance, land values, who will get to rebuild?
What will we do with the kids sent temporarily to our communities. Some may not have family who can claim them rightly or to be re-unified with.
Our initial actions guided by good will, and compelled to "help," can we sustain it? It is highly likely evacuees will not return to the area that was their home.
more musings to come...
I am challenged not to be overwhelmed by the enormity of what is happening to our fellow Americans.
There are nearly half million people who have or will shortly undergo forced migration. The cause is not economic, nor religious/ideological, or civil strife. A natural catastrophe happened. Could the lost of life, the lost of land back to the lake/river/gulf, an iconic city under water have been lessened. Clearly much finger pointing and there can be plenty of blame/fault that can pieced out -- a dominant media fodder or material for casual conversation.
Personal ruminations from the wake of Katrina are obscure. Back to the old question of integration.
How do we as a nation address the many evacuees who will be in our midst? They will populate or perhaps over populate our poorly resourced schools; compete for jobs that are scarce for those with limited skills, or limited education; and the irony of the image centered on bus transportation shortage as one of the first early warning signs post hurricane.
In the past few days, I have awaken from my early shock and initiated dialogue with friends and colleagues about the potential ramifications of Katrina on many systems (family, church, work life, government, education, healthcare) and the complexity of its impact for many thousands of people who have lost what they believed to be material representation of their life.
How will we establish identity, when paper records or micro-fiche files are potentially lost, or those who never had the opportunity to see a dentist.
How will we address land rights i.e. inheritance, land values, who will get to rebuild?
What will we do with the kids sent temporarily to our communities. Some may not have family who can claim them rightly or to be re-unified with.
Our initial actions guided by good will, and compelled to "help," can we sustain it? It is highly likely evacuees will not return to the area that was their home.
more musings to come...
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