September 24



In many millions of words written about the Gulf Coast/New Orleans
nightmare too few nail the real culprit -- capitalist racism. Nothing
about this disaster was a surprise, an unavoidable result of 'mother
nature', the gods, or bureaucratic incompetence . The disaster had
been anticipated, analyzed in detail, predicted. Everything about it
and its dreadful aftermath has to do with tomorrow, with the future.



But first back to the beginning in New Orleans. Many studies including
an exercise last year called "Hurricane Pam" projected the results of a
hurricane in precise detail, particularly the deadly impact on the
low-lying, poor, predominantly Black working class areas. The nightmare
is a crime of premeditated physical and psychological terrorism primarily
against the Black nation to erode its strength, pride, cohesion and
historical resistance. Refusing to take the necessary preventive steps
to avoid the disaster, "Homeland Security"/FEMA then blocked all aid and
rescue attempts for days, herding the people into what became brutal
concentration camps, starving and degrading them as chattel and then
using their media to portray them as 'thugs' attacking and impeding the
humanitarian efforts of beneficent white saviors--who like all slave-
masters, came to the "rescue'"too late, with guns trained on the victims
of the holocaust for the benefit of the capitalist class and 'race' order.



This disaster, like 9/11, is another step in creating conditions to test
"emergency" control by the state. As their frontman Bush said in his
"apology" speech, Katrina taught them the need to increase federal,
military & "faith-based" control. Homeland Security/FEMA did not "drop
the ball", the state responded to the predicted and preventable horror
as planned --to dismantle and disempower the Black majority with the
militarized power of the state.



Why? The foundations of white supremacist-"manifest destiny" America's are
built from the blood, bones and lives of Indigenous people and Black slaves.
The racist genocide has never stopped, its tactics just grow ever more
sophisticated. Never cowed or defeated, the Black nation, forged in the
struggle against white enslavement, has always been both the leading
political edge of revolution in this country--and the lynchpin capitalism
requires for super-exploitation and divisions within the U.S. multinational
working class and broader society.



People in New Orleans remember history: in the great flood of 1927, vast
numbers of Black men in the city were rounded up by police and sheriffs and
impounded under armed guard, essentially as a reserve slave labor force for
the levees if it came to it. Meanwhile whites-only trains evacuated the
city. As it was, the levees of New Orleans held up-- because they released
pressure on them by dynamiting levees below the city-- so the flood waters
drowned out the Cajuns in the swamps. The bitter popular reaction to all
that was what helped bring Huey Long, the King Fish, to power.
There's Bad Blood down there as well as high water.



The historical political and cultural bonds of Black national resistance is
a threat the US has never been able to conquer: from the fields, factories
and cities, to the battlefields of Vietnam where Blacks led the struggle
against another unjust, racist war and the imperialist system that needs
these wars to expand its global domination and maximize capital
accumulation. Black soldiers brought the war home and with the magnificent
inspiration of the Vietnamese defeat of US imperialism, the powerful Black
liberation movement led by the Black Panther Party grew into the mighty
revolutionary upsurge of 60-70's, united millions across classes, of all
colors, right here in this belly of the beast-- and actually threatened
capitalist rule . Today, with capitalism in even deeper structural crisis,
the US is waging a world war of a new type-- an imperialist war of state
terror against all in the way of its goal of total global domination -- a
"new world order", the fulfillment of white christian 'manifest destiny'. .
As this fascist fantasy meets defeats -- by the heroic Iraqi resistance, by
the growing hatred for u.s. imperialism worldwide, and by a slow but sure
mass political awakening in the "homeland" catalyzed by the bold opposition
of Cindy Sheehan & other military families, this same bloodsucker class is
compelled to disperse and destroy what experience tells them will become
their gravediggers-- revolutionary internationalist opposition and
leadership. Since Black national oppression and its ideological spawn racism
is the lynchpin holding their "homeland" more or less together, the thugs
determined a preemptive strike was in order before things get out of their
control -- again.



The Katrina holocaust was calculated: assistance--ambulances, airplanes,
ships, trucks of water, food, medicine and other essential supplies were
blocked by FEMA. This is why no amphibious military vehicles or boats
rescued people from the Superdome, which backs right up to the water,
why 5 days late the Federal 'rescue' was mainly military to "keep order",
not rescue human beings damned by this system to die in its cesspools.
And it's why after the momentarily brave media had dared portray the
results of the government's racist brutality, they suddenly overnight found
lots of white victims photo-ops and stories. Too late-- nothing will
whitewash or whiteout the racist reality or images.



In the context of US history's global genocidal crimes, subjecting the 90%
Black population of New Orleans to terror, and a million mostly Black people
to displaced refugee non-status is business as usual. What is new is that
capitalism's ruthless racism became visible to many untouched by and
unaware of its savagery before. On the Sunday of "mandatory" evacuation,
the people who left were rich enough and well enough to get out--
minimally, they could get to a car. The greyhound bus terminal and Amtrak
had shut down on Saturday night, so everybody without wheels was forced
to stay. The people who were forced into the Superdome, then imprisoned
amidst the sewage and corpses of capitalist genocide. Still now hundreds of
thousands of Black people are involuntary wards of the state -- ripped from
family, friends and community -- herded without their consent, without
knowledge of their destination, without any means of survival -- forcibly
"transferred" to "assimilate" around the country, often into white christian
shelters from Utah to New England, a slave- labor army of displaced persons
whose ancestors created the wealthiest country of the world. Black people
forcibly "transferred" from their home & land again. Postmodern slavery.



The US-zionist "transfer"of the Palestinian nation's people from their
land, treated like dirt as enemies of the racist state, has striking
parallels with US treatment of the Black nation in this country,
historically and today.



The entire world now sees the criminally racist hypocrisy of the 'democratic
beacon' that invades their countries under the pretext of exporting peace
and democracy -- treating the oppressed in the "homeland" with the same
fascistic brutality they treat the people and nations they oppress
worldwide. People in this country are finally starting to see the links
between imperialist terror here- the racist witchhunt of Arabs, Muslims,
Blacks, Latinos & immigrants under the guise of "national security" - and US
terror against the peoples of Iraq and around the globe. New Orleans, the
latest step in their war of terror, is beginning to challenge privileged
assumptions and apathy. Many white middle class people protected by class
and race privilege have been totally protected from this barbaric side of
the system they benefit from and are shocked. This is all 'foreign' to them,
not american -- as Toni Morrison illustrates ["Playing in the Dark:
Whiteness & the Literary Imagination"] 'american' has always been code
for white.



A stunned Spanish politician tourist & spouse trapped in the Superdome
said to the camera "this is genocide, imprisoning tens of thousands of
people without food, water, sanitation, medical care...". Shortly after the
couple was removed by white troops as thousands of mostly Black, all now
destitute by the hands of the state, watched in despair and fury. Fury at
their desperate conditions and the added degradation of being treated
like dangerous criminals the state had to rescue "good" people from. A white
British soccer team and other whites were also "rescued" by the state from
"danger" and moved to "safer" locations-- away from Blacks. Vile beyond
words--how dare such scum accuse the people they subjected to torture,
who supported each other under unbearable, inhuman conditions with
selfless ingenuity and heroism, helped each other cling to life without
food, water fresh air, sanitation for days. Some Black men had to "loot"
guns in order to protect helpless people from marauding, armed white thugs.
They organized "looted" food and medicine distribution according to need,
an inspiring microcosm of how we the people will organize our societies and
countries ourselves eventually. Thousands of these true stories were
twisted and buried by the mainstream media under piles of inflammatory
racist rumors and allegations by unnamed sources to divert the public's
growing anger at the government. Even in the face of genocidal racism
in New Orleans the crime was whitewashed as "incompetence" and
"inexperience"...all charges that played right into the rulers'
"solution"...further militarization of the state. No accident that the
nightly NBC network "recovery" news is billed: STATE of EMERGENCY,
aka a police state.



The New Orleans disaster is another piece of the US strategic agenda that
frames and conditions every aspect of life everywhere now, part of the
bogus "war against terrorism" to impose a global US dictatorship. Most don't
yet see that this bipartisan agenda is the real connection between Iraq and
New Orleans and the coming attacks against the rest of an "axis of evil " --
which will include all who refuse to surrender their independence and
freedom to US dictates. What people need to get is that the system of
global capitalism/imperialism is the major source of the horrors, it isn't
capitalism at home, and some separate thing, imperialism over there:
it is one political-economic system, represented by both electoral parties.



The barbaric degradation and dehumanization of Black people orchestrated
by FEMA & the "Dept. of Homeland Security", will not crush the dignity,
courage, spirit, community and survival of the oppressed Black nation. A
Black diaspora with many thousands permanently caged in "shelters" is being
created inside this country in hopes of "preemptively" weakening and
dispersing a people and culture. The Black nation, so feared and despised by
the hollow white men will survive. Unable to erase the immense and
revolutionary contributions of African Americans, these worthless parasites
seek to degrade a proud nation to homeless refugees in the country they
built, and inflame a racist backlash by portraying Blacks as desperate,
dirty people uprooted, impoverished and dependent on the state
for survival -- a situation to "justify" a permanent "state of emergency" to
"protect" all the good ol 'murican patriots from those they've been trained
to despise. Postmodern slavery. Hitler could have learned a great deal
[even beyond his beloved made-in-america eugenics] from our despicable
masters. And this is still the beginning. New Orleans is just a trial run
for a full-bore police state. It is also a trial and training ground for the
people.



This was a very 'natural act' of capital in its relentless, ruthless search
for profits & power. Environmental and financial degradation are responsible
for the oft-predicted horrendous 90 sq. mile destruction. The bloodcurdling
brutality of the state's exploitation of this avoidable disaster was also
premeditated and planned. All the major capitalist gangsters are at the
trough raking in billions. What these despicable goons never learn --and are
incapable of preventing-- is that with every atrocity necessary to expand
their empire they create more & more of capitalism's eventual gravediggers.




Don't buy opportunist laments of "incompetence","negligence" etc.
Just as after 9/11, they are a lie. This is a crime of commission, not
omission. The unmitigated horror was a "catastrophic success" for our
enemy. We and the rest of the world cannot afford to let ourselves be lulled
again into the arms of this vile administration's equally predatory democrat
partners. Bush is an odious figurehead-- but imperial power is in the hands
that pull his strings. Let's not again be tricked into the opportunists'
ABB/ "anybody but bush" trap. This capitalist political-economic system is
responsible, not just this republican regime --which will instantly be
replaced by complicit democrats to fulfill the same bipartisan global
agenda.



New Orleans must become the death-knell for postmodern slavery.
It arouses our deepest emotions -- sadness, anger and compassion --
but we must not fall for the hypocritical crocodile tears and cynical
appeals for charity to assuage their guilt --and ours. We must not allow
them to exploit or hide these massive crimes against humanity, but
turn them into political ammunition against the perpetrators, organize
resistance against this cruel racist system to rebuild a society based on
justice and peace. Let us stand up to defend our sisters & brothers on the
Gulf Coast, in Iraq, Africa, Palestine, Haiti, Iran, Peru, Nepal--
everywhere US imperialism & zionism grinds the people into dirt for its
profits and power. We face the same enemy --we share the same profound
hopes -- and struggle for a decent world and future.



The problem is not somewhere else, neither is the solution. It will not get
"fixed" by passively hoping, thinking nice thoughts, random acts of
whatever--or by voting in a different agent of capital. Will this horror be
the one to jolt people out of empty, ugly distractions and narcissistic
self-deception? Or will they continue being automatons, letting the
jaundiced coins of this racist realm consume their lives as complicit "good
germans" ? Will the depravity of this white supremacist finally system sink
in, snap us out of self-protective denial and disinterest, arouse our buried
humanity? Will we take the responsibility that comes with seeing it is this
system behind the global imperialist terror from Palestine to Haiti, from
Biloxi to Baghdad, from Africa to Peru -- to become conscious, active agents
of change? What will it take for you to change, to take some step toward
taking our world and our future into our own hands? If not you, who?
Why not start today September 24?



Courtesy & Copyright Liz Burbank