The Two Americas
By Marjorie Cohn

09/03/05 "t r u t h o u t" -- --- Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses, no one died.

What is Cuban President Fidel Castro's secret? According to Dr. Nelson Valdes, a sociology professor at the University of New Mexico, and specialist in Latin America, "the whole civil defense is embedded in the community to begin with. People know ahead of time where they are to go."

"Cuba's leaders go on TV and take charge," said Valdes. Contrast this with George W. Bush's reaction to Hurricane Katrina. The day after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Bush was playing golf. He waited three days to make a TV appearance and five days before visiting the disaster site. In a scathing editorial on Thursday, the New York Times said, "nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis."

"Merely sticking people in a stadium is unthinkable" in Cuba, Valdes said. "Shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighborhood. They have family doctors in Cuba, who evacuate together with the neighborhood, and already know, for example, who needs insulin."

They also evacuate animals and veterinarians, TV sets and refrigerators, "so that people aren't reluctant to leave because people might steal their stuff," Valdes observed.

After Hurricane Ivan, the United Nations International Secretariat for Disaster Reduction cited Cuba as a model for hurricane preparation. ISDR director Salvano Briceno said, "The Cuban way could easily be applied to other countries with similar economic conditions and even in countries with greater resources that do not manage to protect their population as well as Cuba does."

Our federal and local governments had more than ample warning that hurricanes, which are growing in intensity thanks to global warming, could destroy New Orleans. Yet, instead of heeding those warnings, Bush set about to prevent states from controlling global warming, weaken FEMA, and cut the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for levee construction in New Orleans by $71.2 million, a 44 percent reduction.

Bush sent nearly half our National Guard troops and high-water Humvees to fight in an unnecessary war in Iraq. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Paris in New Orleans, noted a year ago, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq."

An Editor and Publisher article Wednesday said the Army Corps of Engineers "never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security - coming at the same time as federal tax cuts - was the reason for the strain," which caused a slowdown of work on flood control and sinking levees.

"This storm was much greater than protection we were authorized to provide," said Alfred C. Naomi, a senior project manager in the New Orleans district of the corps.

Unlike in Cuba, where homeland security means keeping the country secure from deadly natural disasters as well as foreign invasions, Bush has failed to keep our people safe. "On a fundamental level," Paul Krugman wrote in yesterday's New York Times, "our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on prevention measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice."

During the 2004 election campaign, vice presidential candidate John Edwards spoke of "the two Americas." It seems unfathomable how people can shoot at rescue workers. Yet, after the beating of Rodney King aired on televisions across the country, poor, desperate, hungry people in Watts took over their neighborhoods, burning and looting. Their anger, which had seethed below the surface for so long, erupted. That's what's happening now in New Orleans. And we, mostly white, people of privilege, rarely catch a glimpse of this other America.

"I think a lot of it has to do with race and class," said Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. "The people affected were largely poor people. Poor, black people."

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin reached a breaking point Thursday night. "You mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources we need? Come on, man!"

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had boasted earlier in the day that FEMA and other federal agencies have done a "magnificent job" under the circumstances.

But, said, Nagin, "They're feeding the people a line of bull, and they are spinning and people are dying. Get off your asses and let's do something!"

When asked about the looting, the mayor said that except for a few "knuckleheads," it is the result of desperate people trying to find food and water to survive.

Nagin blamed the outbreak of violence and crime on drug addicts who have been cut off from their drug supplies, wandering the city, "looking to take the edge off their jones."

When Hurricane Ivan hit Cuba, no curfew was imposed; yet, no looting or violence took place. Everyone was in the same boat.

Fidel Castro, who has compared his government's preparations for Hurricane Ivan to the island's long-standing preparations for an invasion by the United States, said, "We've been preparing for this for 45 years."

On Thursday, Cuba's National Assembly sent a message of solidarity to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. It says the Cuban people have followed closely the news of the hurricane damage in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and the news has caused pain and sadness. The message notes that the hardest hit are African-Americans, Latino workers, and the poor, who still wait to be rescued and taken to secure places, and who have suffered the most fatalities and homelessness. The message concludes by saying that the entire world must feel this tragedy as its own.

Marjorie Cohn, a contributing editor to t r u t h o u t, is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.

homeland security means keeping the country secure from deadly natural disasters as well as foreign invasions

What a concept.

I always get a kick out of these completely objective reads.

Its an editorial.

so in cuba, how many locally elected officials are there?

i mean if you want to compare how castro handles his very small country as a whole to how the US govt didnt handle this, then lets give the feds complete control over the US and its citizens completely, no questions asked etc.

then id wager youd see a better job of this sort of stuff

its sarcasm

fidel 1 x 0 bush

They also get hurricanes all the time.

The key here is that the hurricane preparations went well. The post-storm flooding was what fucked us.

its so hard reading your posts because deep down there is logic and then you feel the need to say such ridiculous stuff like this. The fact is, the hurricane coming was downplayed nationally. This type of hurricane is a national disaster waiting to happen...the last time i checked, national disasters are the national governments responsibility.

So what about 9/11...it was NY, shouldnt that just be the city.....i mean, jesus christ they have elected officials to deal with that stuff.....no

Why was 9/11 so terrible? because people died? because innocent families were left father/mother/childless? Or do we forget about the real pain and suffering and simply focus on America being threatened by some terrorists? What im trying to say is, people rationalize the severity of 9/11 simply based on it was humans who planned and executed....so i struggle to see how any disaster that leaves more damage and inevitably more death can be viewed as anything less.

My main raitonale is if we have a plane heading into a building or a storm the size of starr jones heading toward this country, they are both national emergencies.

actually, its not so ridiculous....fidel has complete control over his citizens

but to suggest that as a solution to people wanting to have government intervention for a national crisis...its ridiculous.

He wasn't. He was saying that Cuba is a very small country with a very centralized government that has the power to tell its citizens exactly what to do and when to do it, so of course they're able to evacuate quicker. It's not because Castro cares any more about his people (or rather, subjects) than Bush, its just that when you have local government, State, and Federal its much more difficult to organize things. Doesn't mean I'd want to live in a Communist state.

He wasn't. He was saying that Cuba is a very small country with a very centralized government that has the power to tell its citizens exactly what to do and when to do it, so of course they're able to evacuate quicker. It's not because Castro cares any more about his people (or rather, subjects) than Bush, its just that when you have local government, State, and Federal its much more difficult to organize things. Doesn't mean I'd want to live in a Communist state.[/quote]

well, i know if Bush gets on air suggestes evacuation due to crises, opens up all incoming highways to go outgoing and then people still dont leave....we dont have this problem or "second guessing"....its not the fact of executing the evacuation, its starting one in the first place.

Yes, but thats just the point. Bush cant just get on the air and say "Ok guys, all the roads coming from NO are now open for evacuation!" Castro can. Bush needs to coordinate local, state, and federal personel to do something of that magnitude. Actually, I'm not totally sure as to what his powers are, regarding state or local roads. Castro, on the other hand, can do whatever the hell he wants. He is an absolute dictator.

im pretty sure he could declare national emergency and evacuate a city if he wanted to.

Ummmm......

I seem to remember that they did do mandatory evacuations of the city. And why do we hear only about New Orleans as being fucked up when many many miles of coast line was hit by Katrina? Are ONLY residents of NO fucking idiots for not evacuating???? Or are they the only ones complaining?

Ask yourself that!

Because everyone ignores stories like this: http://www.theskyiscrape.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=23406