Killer quakes and hurricanes

Much attention has been focused on the uneven social destruction along the gulf coast. Along with New Orleans, many small communities have also been destroyed. It took days after Katrina hit for first aid to arrive, yet the severity of the storm was known well in advance. Poor and largely African-american communities in New Orleans were left to fend for themselves. Much of the Louisiana National Guard - the obvious first-responders - were watching it all disassemble, but on TV from military bases in Iraq. FEMA and Homeland Security apparently had no idea how to deal with a Real disaster - either to minimize its impact, or mobilize in its aftermath. Or maybe they couldn't conceive the humanity of low-income blacks and whites (or their own). And so, an incredibly rich local culture is probably permanently and of course irretrievably disassembled. The President says he looks forward to sitting on the to-be-reconstructed front porch of a US senator who stated publicly his regret of federal laws enforcing racial segregation and discrimination. War profiteering mega-corporations like Halliburton are now poised to displace local economic and infrastructural development with another round of no-bid, insider-arranged contracts. New Orleans as a Development Corporation's dream - multimillion dollar construction/redevelopment potential without a local population to evict.

By contrast, this week, only a day passed between the unpredicted and unannounced quake hit Pakistan and the first shipments of first aid were flown in.Within two days, the Afghanistan-occupying US army was quickly mobilized across the border to help. Lesson learned? Newfound compassion? A chess move of geo-political strategic importance? we'll
see... Enough for now.

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