Monday, September 19th, 2005

"Survive The Rescue": Jordan Flaherty and Naomi Klein on NOLA

Here’s NOLA resident Jordan Flaherty on “surviving the rescue”, a phrase coined by Suheir Hammad.

He’s written some of the most important accounts on what’s happening on the ground. An index of his articles is here. What Mike Davis was for the LA riots, Jordan has become for what folks are beginning to call Hurricane FEMA.

In this piece, he describes the shocking militarization of the relief efforts:

The list of those who are gaining from our loss is large, and it includes everyone from the heavily armed thugs of Wackenhut Security and Blackwater USA to the often well-meaning but ineffective bureaucrats of Red Cross and FEMA, to the Scientology missionaries crowding the shelters, to journalists and disaster-gazers taking up a chunk of available housing, to the major multinationals such as Halliburton, working in concert with rich elites from uptown New Orleans seeking partners with which to exploit this tragedy. These are the institutions and individuals poised to profit from this disaster, while the people of New Orleans face nothing but further dislocation and disempowerment.

Another good piece at Morphizm.com by Naomi Klein on the beginnings of reconstruction, a process that may actually be temporarily halted by Tropical Storm Rita over the next few days. You’ll hear more from our HKR/TWM/CSWS team on community efforts around this as the week progresses.

posted by Jeff Chang @ 1:17 pm | 1 Comment

One Response to “"Survive The Rescue": Jordan Flaherty and Naomi Klein on NOLA”

Danyel says:

September 20, 2005 at 10:08 am

Thank you for the link.

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