Rebecca Solnit, "The Uses of Disaster" (Harper's)

[dsewell]

http://harpers.org/TheUsesOfDisaster.html

An amazing piece. Written before Katrina, and focusing mostly on 9/11 aftermath (Solnit has also written about last year's tsunami), but with a postscript on the hurricane. From the conclusion:

"Disasters are almost by definition about the failure of authority, in part because the powers that be are supposed to protect us from them, in part also because the thousand dispersed needs of a disaster overwhelm even the best governments, and because the government version of governing often arrives at the point of a gun. But the authorities don't usually fail so spectacularly. Failure at this level requires sustained effort. The deepening of the divide between the haves and have nots, the stripping away of social services, the defunding of the infrastructure, mean that this disaster—not of weather but of policy—has been more or less what was intended to happen, if not so starkly in plain sight."

[BQueen]

1. Another amazing article "Disaster Capitalism"

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050502/klein

lookout | posted April 14, 2005 (May 2, 2005 issue)
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Naomi Klein

Last summer, in the lull of the August media doze, the Bush Administration's doctrine of preventive war took a major leap forward. On August 5, 2004, the White House created the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, headed by former US Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual. Its mandate is to draw up elaborate "post-conflict" plans for up to twenty-five countries that are not, as of yet, in conflict. According to Pascual, it will also be able to coordinate three full-scale reconstruction operations in different countries "at the same time," each lasting "five to seven years."

Fittingly, a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetual pre-emptive reconstruction.

Gone are the days of waiting for wars to break out and then drawing up ad hoc plans to pick up the pieces. In close cooperation with the National Intelligence Council, Pascual's office keeps "high risk" countries on a "watch list" and assembles rapid-response teams ready to engage in prewar planning and to "mobilize and deploy quickly" after a conflict has gone down. The teams are made up of private companies, nongovernmental organizations and members of think tanks--some, Pascual told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in October, will have "pre-completed" contracts to rebuild countries that are not yet broken. Doing this paperwork in advance could "cut off three to six months in your response time."

<more>

I imagine they can easily adapt a plan to NOLA.

[bobbieinok]

2. why NO poor MUST be dispersed

....

...The people of Mexico, however, had a different reaction. “Not even the power of the state,” wrote political commentator Carlos Monsivás, “managed to wipe out the cultural, political, and psychic consequences of the four or five days in which the brigades and aid workers, in the midst of rubble and desolation, felt themselves in charge of their own behavior and responsible for the other city that rose into view.” As in San Francisco in 1906, in the ruins of the city of architecture and property, another city came into being made of nothing more than the people and their senses of solidarity and possibility. Citizens began to demand justice, accountability, and respect. They fought to keep the sites of their rent-controlled homes from being redeveloped as more lucrative projects. They organized neighborhood groups. And eventually they elected a left-wing mayor-a key step in breaking the PRI's monopoly on power in Mexico.

this part is VERY IMPORTANT

...in the ruins of the city of architecture and property, another city came into being made of nothing more than the people and their senses of solidarity and possibility. Citizens began to demand justice, accountability, and respect. They fought to keep the sites of their rent-controlled homes from being redeveloped as more lucrative projects. They organized neighborhood groups.

[omega minimo]

3. Definitely worth dredging up to the surface

:kick:

[carincross]

4. psychological studies of disaster

I was most taken with psychological studies mentioned in this article that showed people became mentally healthier in disasters. They become clear headed, calm, focused, and work for community.

Case in point is the recent report from "This American Life." Ira Glass interviewed Denise Moore who was in the Convention Center. She said:
"They (packs of men with guns) were securing the area. Criminals. These guys were criminals. They were. You know. But somehow these guys got together, figured out who had guns and decided they were gonna make sure that – that no women were getting raped, because we did hear about the women getting raped in the Superdome. And that nobody was hurting babies, and nobody was hurting these old people. They were the one’s getting juice for the babies. They were the ones getting clothes for people that had walked through that water. They were the ones fanning the old people because that’s what moved the guys, the gangster guys, the most – the plight of the old people...They started 'looting' on St. Charles and Foley and there was a Rite-Aid there. And you would think they would be stealing stuff that - “fun stuff”, whatever, because it’s a free city according to them, right. But they were taking juice for the babies, water, beer for the older people, food, raincoats so they could all be seen, by each other and stuff. I thought it was pretty cool and very well organized…Exactly like Robin Hood, and that’s why I got so mad because they’re calling these guys 'animals'."

Since the government has turned New Orleans into a militarized zone it is not to their advantage to point out how people worked together to survive instead of being violent. The full interview can be found at: http://www.thislife.org/ra/296.ram