Natural Disasters

Why I'm Voting for Barack Obama on November 4

dlindorff — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:04:31 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Okay, I was going to vote for Ralph Nader this November 4.

It was an easy decision. I live in Pennsylvania, which is now,
according to all the polls, reliably in the Obama column, with the
Democratic candidate holding an insurmountable lead in the polls of 14
percent over Republican John McCain—enough to overcome even the most
devious Republican vote suppression techniques and voting machine
chicanery.

I was going to vote for Nader because I find Obama to be a
seriously flawed candidate. He ran early on an anti-Iraq War platform,
saying not that invading Iraq was wrong legally and morally, but that
it was “the wrong war.” Since then, he has backed away even from saying
he wanted the war ended, opting for a 16-month withdrawal timetable
that would have the killing and dying in that sad land going on longer
than most wars this nation has fought. He has also called for an
escalation of the war in Afghanistan, despite clear evidence that more
troops just will make the situation there worse, and has called for an
expansion of the US military budget, to increase the size of the Army
and Marines, which will only encourage more warmongering, more killing
and more waste of precious resources.

Obama also sold us all out by going along with a bill sought by
President Bush granting immunity to telecom companies that aided and
abetted the illegal and unconstitutional spying on Americans by the
National Security Agency—spying that we now know is massive almost
beyond our imagination, even including the monitoring of private family
conversations of American service personnel in Iraq, of journalists,
and almost certainly of Bush administration political “enemies.” By
backing that obscene bill, Obama has made it almost impossible for
victims of this police-state surveillance campaign to sue and find out
what the Bush/Cheney administration has been up to all these years.

In so many ways, Obama has tacked to the middle or even the right, while spouting soaring but empty rhetoric about “change.”

Meanwhile, everything Ralph Nader says makes perfect sense. He has
consistently called the Iraq and Afghanistan wars the crimes that they
are. He has consistently called for a nationalized health care system,
which every other modern nation has long since proven to be a more
cost-effective and health-effective way to run a medical system than
the failed free-market approach advocated by Obama and the rest of the
Establishment political system. He has correctly denounced the economic
bailout as welfare for the rich and for the corporate criminals who
have been sucking the life out of the US economy for years.

And yet, I think I have to vote of Obama this year.

The reason is partly because I know I would vote for Obama if I
lived in Ohio or Indiana, where the race between McCain and Obama is
too close to call, and so, to vote for Nader when it is simply safe to
do so here in Pennsylvania is really a cop-out.

But even more important, when I see the hate-filled racists and
right-wing yahoos braying at McCain and Palin rallies, when I hear
people calling for Obama to be killed or lynched, and when I see the
rabid hate mail circulating in email inboxes falsely labeling him as a
secret Muslim, a terrorist, a Marxist and a black nationalist, I want
to see the man resoundingly win this election.

But it’s more than that. I also, perhaps against all logic and
experience, admit that I expect something good of an Obama presidency.

Call me naïve, but based upon my own life experience, I keep
thinking that a guy who has worked as a community organizer, a Harvard
Law School grad (and even law journal editor!) who could have named his
price at a Wall Street law firm, but who chose instead to be a
political and community activist, a guy who has relatives who live in
humble surroundings in Kenya, and who spent some of his childhood
actually living in a Third World Asian nation, not to mention a guy who
has surely felt the sting of being called a nigger, has to bring
something new to the White House. Certainly no other president in the
history of the country has come to the office with such a background.

Sure Obama is no leftist candidate. But if he were, he wouldn’t be
heading for an election victory. He wouldn’t even be the Democratic
nominee. He’d be, at best, where Dennis Kucinich is—holding a seat in
Congress where his every progressive effort would be stymied or mocked
by the House leadership.

The unfortunate reality is that the true left in the US is a joke
(many of its purists even mock successful left candidates political
figures like Kucinich, for god’s sake!). Fractured and fractious small
groupings have little or no link to the organized labor
movement—traditionally the bedrock of any successful left political
power. And the labor movement itself is as weak as it has ever been and
keeps growing weaker. The left in the US, such as it is, has even less
connection with the broad mass of the American public, thanks to years
of successful propaganda linking it to Stalin, Mao and Soviet Communism.

I have no illusions about the progressivity of the Democratic
Party. Certainly it has its progressive elected officials who have made
it into office—people like Kucinich, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Russ
Feingold, Rep. Maxine Waters and the like. But clearly, the Democratic
Party has shown itself to be in thrall to the moneyed interests on Wall
Street and in the corporate suites.

That said, there are important things that could happen—and I
stress the word could, not would—if this election were to be won by
Obama and by Democrats in the Congress. One of these things is that
there will be new Supreme Court justices named over the next four
years. Some will inevitably replace some of the aging “liberals” on the
bench (some of whom have not always been so liberal on economic
issues). Some could also replace current conservative justices
(Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, both obese men, don’t
look terribly healthy to me, Justice Kennedy is getting on in years,
and even Chief Justice Roberts, while looking hale, has a problem with
epilepsy or some other ailment that has caused him to collapse in a
frothing fit of unconscious on occasion).

Also important is legislation to make it less of an obstacle course
for workers to win union representation and labor contracts on the job.
A major reason that unions have shrunk from over 30 percent of the
workforce in the 1950s to just 9 percent of the private workforce (and
13 percent of all workplaces, public and private) today, is that labor
law has been whittled away and turned to management’s advantage to such
an extent that it is almost impossible now to win a union election.
Employers who break labor laws suffer no penalty even when found
guilty, and workers who are unfairly fired for union activity can hope,
at best, if they are lucky, to win reinstatement and back pay after
fighting for years. Most just give up.

If a Democratic Congress passed new labor legislation and a
President Obama signed them into law, as he has promised to do, and if
new pro-labor officials were appointed to the national, regional and
local labor relations boards that adjudicate labor issues, we could see
a genuine revival of the labor movement in America with consequences
for workers’ lives, and for the political system that would be far
reaching and profound—and that could even pave the way for a resurgence
of a left/labor political movement.

Finally, with respect to war and militarism, I tend not to take
Obama’s warmongering seriously. Given the man’s background, I am
confident that he is not a militarist by nature. It may be politically
opportunistic for him to try during this campaign to out-tough McCain
on Afghanistan while calling for a wind-down of the war in Iraq, but it
would be a disaster for him to pursue a wider war in Afghanistan after
taking office, ensuring that his presidency, like Bush’s, Lyndon
Johnson’s and Richard Nixon’s before him, would be dragged down by an
endless bloody conflict.

A President Obama will have his hands full trying to deal with an
unprecedented financial fiasco, and will want the wars off his plate as
quickly as possible. Maybe I’m being a Pollyanna, but I simply can’t
see a smart guy—and Obama is a smart guy—getting dragged into another
quagmire.

Besides, I have a darker vision, which is that the crisis of global
warming, so long denied by the Bush administration, is going to make
itself felt soon in ways that will be impossible to ignore, and which
will demand a crisis response. Obama, I believe, will be the right
person at the right time, to lead that response.

And that brings me to the final reason I am voting for Obama. As
crazy as John McCain clearly is, with his default setting on war as a
solution for all problems, this sickly and possibly terminally ill old
man has chosen to have a certifiable right-wing, closed-minded, bigoted
and stunningly ignorant religious zealot as his back-up. Sarah Palin,
as vice president, would in all probability end up becoming president
during a McCain first term.

This country and the world simply cannot risk having as the leader
of America an end-of-times believer at this critical moment. It’s not
just the polar bears and the wolves in Alaska who would suffer under a
Palin presidency. It would be all life on earth.
_____________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist.
His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006
and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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digg_bodytext = "By Dave Lindorff\r\n\r\n Okay, I was going to vote for Ralph Nader this November 4.\r\n\r\n It was an easy decision. I live in Pennsylvania, which is now, according to all the polls, reliably in the Obama column, with the Democratic candidate holding an insurmountable lead in the polls of 14 percent over Republican John McCain—enough to overcome even the most devious Republican vote suppression techniques and voting machine chicanery.\r\n\r";
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We're a Nation of Lemmings

dlindorff — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:27:20 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Listening to the endless stream of cars passing my house every day,
and knowing, from watching them from my mailbox, that they are almost
all carrying just one person, either commuting to work or running some
kind of errand, I know we are headed for disaster.

Two days ago, there was a report by Agence France Presse
about the ongoing destruction of the world’s remaining wetlands (60
percent have already been destroyed by man over the past century), and
how they contain within them an amount of stored carbon equal to all
the carbon currently in the atmosphere. Global warming and property
development are drying out those remaining wetlands, causing the
release of that carbon, which will more than negate even the most
radical efforts at reducing carbon emissions from power plants,
factories and automobiles.

There are also credible, well-researched reports
that even a few more degrees of temperature rise in the arctic regions
of Siberia and northern North America will melt the permafrost and
release as much 400 gigatons of methane gas trapped in frozen
clathrates for millennia—the release of which would cause global
temperatures to soar to levels not seen in 250 million years (methane
is 20 times as potent a global warming gas as CO2). Vast regions of
Siberia are already bubbling with releasing methane as the permafrost
line moves north.

Now I grant that our corporate media, ever focused laser-like on
important stories like Britney Spears’ return to the stage and on the
latest gaffe of one or the other presidential candidate, have not been
very interested in alerting the masses to these disasters now in
progress that could end humanity’s run on the planet (along with
exterminating most of the rest of the life on the planet too). But that
said, at this point everyone has surely heard enough, and witnessed
enough in person of the dramatic changes taking place in the earth’s
climate, to know that something scary is going on.

And yet, people are not just going about their business as
usual—they are actually, for the most part, complaining not about the
lack of highly energy-efficient transportation, the lack of alternative
and less energy-wasting public transit, and the lack of government
funding for a crash program into researching carbon-free energy
solutions, but rather about the high price for carbon fuels. People are
clamoring for solutions to make gasoline cheaper!

Years ago, back in the 1970s during an Arab-led oil embargo, when
gas prices soared, there were mass campaigns to organize car pools. No
such campaigns are being organized today, and if any are they don’t get
any media attention. Instead we read that geologists are saying that
massive quantities of untapped oil reserves exist in the far north.

Now the last thing we should be wanting to do is take that nicely
sequestered carbon out of the ground and burn it into CO2! But that’s
what many Americans want done. Screw the climate! We want our cheap gas!

There are so many things we could be doing right now to reduce
carbon emissions—as individuals and as a nation. Turning off
air-conditioners would be one. Why should entire houses be cooled by
central air? Cool one room and use it for the hottest part of the day
if need be. Live downstairs during the hottest months and close off the
upstairs when it gets too hot. Ditto in the winter. There’s no need to
occupy and heat an entire house when it gets really cold. Most
Americans’ homes are way too large anyhow, but if you need that much
room, use it when it doesn’t require all that extra energy to heat and
cool. (When I lived in Cambridge, England as a kid, we used to sleep in
unheated bedrooms under cozy comforters, and then in the morning, I’d
go down and light a fire in the living room where we’d be during the
day. It would be cold as hell until the fire started, but not for
long.) Share rides. Plan errands so that many things get taken care of
on one outing, instead of in multiple run-outs. Use bicycles. I have
yet to see, on my own bike rides in town or when driving anywhere,
someone who is actually riding a bike on some errand—carrying a load in
a basket or in a backpack. The only bikers I see are people dressed
like Tour de France racers out for some exercise. What’s the matter
with using bikes for a purpose, instead of the family car?

I’m not trying to criticize, or to say I’m more ecologically
virtuous. I’m looking at this as an unprecedented disaster that is
dooming my kids, or their future children, to a life of strife, misery
and maybe even catastrophe. If I don’t take serious action—and I don’t
just mean individual life changes, but political action—to try and save
their world, I am guilty of a serious crime. And so are we all.

What the hell happened to any sense of shared responsibility, not just for society, but for our own offspring?

Most decent parents are ready to sacrifice in their lifestyles in
order to send their kids to college, or to help them out financially
when they are starting out as young adults. But for some strange reason
nobody seems ready to sacrifice at all when it comes to rescuing their
collective future. This makes no sense.

And yet, this is what our mass culture has done to us. As a nation,
as a people, we cannot think beyond our own noses. We cannot even think
about the need to act in our own and our children’s interest.

Seventeen years ago, I had occasion while living in Shanghai,
China, to visit a rural area in Anhui Province that the year before had
been devastated by a flood so huge that the entire region had been not
just flooded, but put deep underwater. As I neared a county seat town
that was my intended destination, the bus I was on passed a
dike-building project. Thousands of peasants were laboring by hand,
with shovels and wheelbarrows, to erect a 50-foot wall of earth to keep
the river in its banks in the event of another such flood. I got off
the bus and, with my travel companion, started walking towards the
project. When we were spotted, thousands of those workers dropped their
shovels and ran towards us. It was a terrifying moment to have so many
people heading towards and surrounding us, but they were very
friendly—just curious because none of them had ever met a westerner. We
began talking with them, and learned that they were all peasants who
had left their fields to build this colossal new Great Wall of dirt.
They brought us to the worksite and showed us how they would bring
their wheelbarrows to the base of the dike, and then attach a cable,
which was connected to a winch operated by those ubiquitous
one-cylinder, two-stroke kerosene tractors used across rural China. The
winch would whip the barrow up the steep hillside, with a peasant
running up behind keeping it upright. At the last minute, the peasant
would flip the barrow, dumping the dirt and releasing the hook. Then
he’d be off down the hill to collect more dirt.

What struck me, besides their ingenuity, was how all these
thousands of people had left their own fields to labor for the
collective good that year.

I tried at the time to contemplate my fellow Americans doing the same thing, and couldn’t for the life of me imagine it.

Now we’re in that moment. We know the flood is coming, but no one is willing to join the brigade to take preventive action.

No. Buying a Prius is not taking action. Neither is upgrading the
insulation on your house or buying carbon offsets when you fly. We
need, as a nation, to commit to seriously ending our addiction to
fossil fuels, to rapacious development and the concomitant destruction
of forests and wetlands. We need to end our nation’s imperialist
policies and to instead devote the trillion dollars a year spent on war
to saving the planet from ourselves.

A good start would be seeing that people “get it.” That would mean
communities starting to organize around improving mass transit,
arranging for carpooling, and demanding climate-saving action from our
political leaders.

I’m not optimistic.
_________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist.
His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006
and now available in paperback). His work is available at
www.thiscantbehappening.net

A Manchurian Candidate in the White House?

dlindorff — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:34:28 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

With a viral campaign underway via email, right-wing radio, and on the street suggesting that Barack Obama is a black “Manchurian Candidate,” secretly trained as a Muslim fanatic who will insinuate himself into the White House, thence to undermine all that we hold dear, perhaps it is time to look at the Manchurian Candidate we already have in the White House, who, together with his handler over in Blair House, has pretty much done all the damage already.

George Bush came to office in 2001 promising a new era of integrity, civility and “compassionate conservatism,” an era of humble American foreign policy, and a bi-partisan approach to government.

What did we actually get?

Once in office, this chameleon president almost immediately set out to embroil the country in a major war in the Middle East against the nation of Iraq. The game plan was laid out at the president’s first National Security Council meeting, attended by Vice President Dick Cheney (the man holding Bush’s controller), Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neal (who later spilled the beans about the session).

Bush also famously ignored all warnings about the imminent attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. How much he and the rest of the administration knew about that attack in advance, or whether elements within the administration may have even helped it along, remains the subject of considerable interest and investigation and may never be answered, but it is clear that there were ample warnings about it, and he did nothing—even rudely blowing off a briefer who tried to alert him to the danger. Moreover, it is known that Israeli Mossad agents (who we know have close ties to both the US intelligence apparatus and to the Neocons who infest the Bush White House) did indeed have advance knowledge, and were set up across New York Harbor with a video camera to tape the attack on the Twin Towers (they were subsequently arrested by New Jersey police, only to be later released and sent back to Israel, through intercession by the US government). As well, we know that unidentified people made a killing by placing negative bets, called “puts,” on the stocks, several days before 9-11, of the two airlines that were hijacked, American and United, and of two investment banks that would be seriously hurt by the building collapses, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. (The puts were placed through an investment bank, Alex Brown, which until a year earlier had been headed by a man who moved over to become the number three person in the CIA.) It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the Bush/Cheney administration, at a minimum, wanted an attack on American soil, and a national disaster that would put the country on a war footing.

Certainly instead of rallying the public and defending the nation’s democratic traditions and its Constitution, Bush and his handlers after 9-11 immediately set in motion a concerted scare campaign to undermine both. While urging the public to buy sheets of plastic and duct tape to construct “safe rooms” in their homes, they rammed through Congress a deceitfully named measure, the so-called Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act), which effectively undermined most of the articles of the Bill of Rights (and which appeared, suspiciously, fully drawn up in bill form, only days after the attacks).

At the same time, the president, only one week after the attacks, obtained an Authorization for Use of Military Force for a military attack on the Taliban government in Afghanistan and on Al Qaeda forces in that country, which he subsequently interpreted broadly as an authorization for a global “war” on terror which he then claimed made him effectively a dictator with absolute power both at home and abroad (the so-called “unitary executive” theory). Under this claim of absolute power as commander in chief in time of war, Bush went on to order the use of torture against captives, foreign and domestic, including US citizens, to strip even US citizens of the right of habeas corpus—that is, the right to have their arrest and detention brought before a federal court—and to establish secret torture centers around the globe and on military installations in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay on the island of Cuba.

As well, even before the 9-11 attacks, the president began a sweeping program of electronic spying, run through the super-secret National Security Agency, on Americans’ telephone and internet activities. It was and remains a program that deliberately avoids seeking warrants and court approval even by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court—a body that has only rejected some five requests for warrants out of hundreds of thousands sought since its establishment in 1978.

Finally, in a perhaps fatal undermining of the Constitution, the president after 9-11 began a practice of simply refusing to enact or obey laws passed by the Congress, effectively rendering the legislative branch an impotent debating club.

Not content to simply explode or dismantle the legal foundations of the American government and rule of law, Bush and his handlers also went about systematically destroying the country’s basic institutions and even its economy.

The education system was fatally ensnared in a test-driven system called “No Child Left Behind,” which has in short order dumbed down public education to an extent shocking even to this already anti-intellectual society, with many schools simply giving up the teaching of art, literature or history, in order to focus desperately on math and reading in order that their students would do well enough on standardized tests to keep the schools from losing their funding.

The dollar has been cast adrift to become the new Lira as the government has gone on an unprecedented borrowing spree to fund endless war and ever-larger military budgets, while erasing the taxes on the wealthy, the super-rich, and corporations. Banks were given free rein to enter into all manner of risky ventures, leading to the current collapse in credit. Corporations were encouraged to ship their production and jobs overseas. Homeowners were encouraged to spend, spend, spend and to mortgage their homes to the hilt and then some. Towns, cities and pension funds were encouraged to invest in fantastic “structured” products that were actually towering card houses. Domestic car manufacturers were encouraged to build every larger, ever more voraciously gas-guzzling vehicles, pumping out ever larger quantities of carbon into the already overstressed atmosphere.

The nation’s infrastructure—its roads, dams, bridges, levies, airports, veterans hospitals etc.--were left to decay, with predictable results, the most dramatic of which was the loss of an entire city, New Orleans, to a routine Category 3 hurricane (after which, the president did nothing to rescue the survivors or fund a recovery).

Surveying at the appalling wreckage left after eight years of the Bush administration, it is hard to recognize the country that he started out with in 2001. A once proud nation—one that only a few years ago was admired around the world and that now is viewed as a pariah and a rogue state—today trembles before a handful of turbaned fanatics holed up in caves in the Hindu Kush, its trillion-dollar high-tech military colossus fought to a standstill in Iraq and Afghanistan by a few thousand brave men and women armed with RPGs, antique AK-47s and home-made roadside bombs. A nation that once was the envy of the world for its free society now has scientists afraid to report their findings, university professors afraid to support outspoken colleagues, members of Congress afraid to defend their Constitution, citizens afraid of their neighbors, journalists afraid of government criticism, lawyers afraid to defend clients...

Hey, this place starts to look and feel an awful lot like the China I lived in back in 1991!

Forget all the nonsense about Barack Obama being a closet Muslim. We already have our Manchurian Candidate in the White House, and he has largely accomplished what he was programmed to do: destroy the country.

The truth is this: If at the end of their second term, Bush and Cheney were to hop on a plane and fly off to a hideout in the mountains on the Afghan-Pakistan border, leaving a "Nya-nya!" note on the White House dining room table, few people would really be very surprised.
_____________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist. His most recent book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006, and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Optimism and Anger in Post-Katrina Living

Ana Maria — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:10:40 -0400

Yesterday, the Gulf Coast Business Council released Two Years After Katrina, which reports on the status of our recovery down here. The Biloxi Sun Herald, the only daily newspaper along the Mississippi Gulf Coast aptly titled its headlined article Keeping it positive.

As is often shown in our own lives, keeping an upbeat, appreciative, and grateful attitude for what has been done for us and for what we have always is always a good thing and generally generates more for which to be grateful and appreciative. It’s a mystical like quality that seems to magnetize our energy field to attract more of the same. The opposite is also the case. Coming off as ungrateful for anything often engenders a negative response from those around us giving us more for which we are ungrateful. Funny how life works that way.

I find myself juggling a delicate balance knowing of these mysteries. On the one hand, I'm respectful of all that the volunteers, the residents, and the resident's friends and family members have done. What a blessing. More of these good graces, please.

On the other hand, I’m livid that Big Insurance has apparently deliberately chosen to stiff its Katrina customers so it can pocket the premiums everyone has paid over the years. I’m livid that George W. Bush has failed miserably to ensure that every dime needed—from FEMA, HUD, Corps of Engineers, etc.—was immediately appropriated and easily drawn down to where the money can be spent directly for its intended purposes.

I’m livid that Bush has spent billions and billions rebuilding Iraq, a country that he destroyed for no reason while here in the United States we have an entire region still barely moving in the direction of rebuilding. I’m livid that Bush has not done anything substantive to move his buddies in the insurance industry in the direction of paying fully on the legitimate claims that Katrina’s home and business owners have submitted.

Keeping a mindful eye on the solution to these challenges and following steps to rectify the situation are imperative lest we get caught up in the whirlwind of talking and thinking only about what it is we don't like and staying stuck in "what is" rather than in pursuing the solution and making headway in that direction.

It's tough, though, especially with the stress of post-Katrina life. to which I’m a relative newcomer. I still have that fire in the belly burning in my soul. I believe that things could be better, should be better. Though I have only recently stepped into daily living inside the Katrina-ravaged region, even I have already become acclimated to the destruction and devastation all around me more than I had thought I had and the stress of it is beginning to show.

For example, when booking at a motel inside Katrina Land, I had specifically stated that I needed Internet service. "Yes, ma’am, we have it." Great!

So, when I plugged in my computer and the Internet service wasn’t there, I was not a happy camper. No problem. I’ll call, someone will repair the problem, and I’ll be up and running in just a bit.

Uh…not exactly.

The front desk staff said that my particular room didn't have Internet service. What ensued demonstrated clearly to me that the stress of post-Katrina life had finally begun to get to me.

Unhappy as all get out, I went to the front desk and then asked to speak to the manager, who had just walked up. I began my diatribe about my initial request, I need the service to work, blah, blah, blah.

Now picture this. I’m a tiny woman with a bundle of energy and a voice I can project for quite a long way. I was neither quiet nor exactly the epitome of Miss Manners.

The manager and two front desk staffers just watched as I went into a bit of a tirade over the service.

“What do you mean it may be up tomorrow or next week or in a couple of weeks?!!!” I demanded.

Calmly, the manager said that ever since Katrina, they haven’t been able to accurately speculate when a repair contractor will show up even when contractors say they will show up.

Bam! It hit me like a ton of bricks. Oh. Yeah. I’m thinking as if this is in the “outside” world.

Katrina. It’s a bit like being inside of Alice in Wonderland. What’s up is down and all around.

I immediately thought about my family’s home and how long it had taken to find a great contractor we trusted to work on it and then how much time it’s taken to get on his schedule plus coordinating it with our own schedule with us having to figure out when we’ll get to the prep work, etc. and so forth.

Instant calm down on my part. My manners returned. That anger and upset that had just blown up all over those women? Evaporated.

I was embarrassed for my enormous insensitivity and failure o "get it" before being . . . extremely unpleasant, to put it mildly.

Yes, of course, I have to be mindful that I have work to do requiring Internet access, but still. I “got it” at yet another level. Post-Katrina life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The manager put me in another room where the wireless Internet service worked just fine, and she helped with the move mentioning that she had seen my younger brother earlier. Huh? “You know my brother?” I asked. Not just that one. She knows one of my older brothers, too. She called him by a childhood name, which meant that she’s known my family for decades. More humility and embarrassment. I felt awful!

After I moved in to the room, I went to her and apologized profusely. She told me that I wasn’t that bad. “Really, not that bad?” I thought. Answering the question in my head, she continued by saying that when people begin to get upset, they just let people blow. It’s Katrina. It gets to everyone. And, yes, she said that compared to others, I wasn’t bad. Oh.

I told her that I after I treated them so horribly, I wanted to go home and cook something for them as a peace offering, but the house wasn’t in any condition for me to go cook in it. She laughed.

But life here in Katrina isn’t funny. When even I am blowing from the stress—and I’ve been here 5 ½ months, things are bad off. I didn’t go through Katrina. I didn’t deal with the yuck and the mud, the stench and the stark conditions that were everywhere for months on end. Yet, the stress of life here is getting to me. Things shouldn't be this way. We should be nearing completion, not barely beginning.

Pouring Oil on the Fire
In the middle of the emotional turmoil that is everywhere in Katrina Land, I’m “graced” with reading articles like this one titled Should Tax Dollars Keep Rebuilding Risky Areas?

I begin to seethe inside. Sure, institute better developer requirements. That’s sound. Fine. I’m not talking about that.

Personally, I have always wanted to liv on a beach, to look out my window and see the sand and water. I want a big screened in porch on the backside overlooking a massive yard with big oak trees throughout it. On the front porch, I want a big swing. When I get that--and I have every intention of having it, I will find the absolutely best hurricane proof architectural plans around. That is what I will build--regardless of whether local standards may require less. It is what I have always wanted. Now that I'm back home, I'm going to have it.

New a fabulous standards are not what I'm concerned about.

I’m talking about the notion that tax dollars shouldn’t be used to help and the implication that insurance companies are right to stiff us. Kind of a “serves you right for living there” attitude in articles like that and comments that are along the same lines. That's what I'm talking about.

The questions that come to my mind are these.

1. And just what part of paradise do you live in where the federal, state, county, or local government has not had to assist in any way what so ever and where insurance is unnecessary because everything goes along smashingly?

2. Where is this paradise inside the US where there not a blizzard, tornado, earthquake, or hurricane . . . and a place where anyone would want to live?

Yeah, that’s what I thought. La la land.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency reports that 55% of Americans live within 50 miles of our nation’s gloriously beautiful coastlines. Where then are we to move our homes, families, communities, places of worship, jobs, and friends? Come on, now, where’s the plan? No plan? OK, you and yours go first. Show us how it is done and where to move. Go on now. Be the example. Why the hesitation?

Ohhhh, it’s so easy to pass judgment, isn’t it?

Changing Tunes and Joining a New Choir
U.S. Senator Trent Lott has had a lifetime of apologizing for corporate greed at the expense of little guys. Surely, we could have expected him to join in with the rest of the crowd criticizing the use of tax dollars to rebuild homes, businesses, communities, places of worship, schools. After Katrina left only a slab of his home, he found out that even as a bigwig in the Republican Party, he would be treated just as poorly as the next guy.

Then, Lott began to sing a different tune and join a new choir. All I can say is that he’s got a lovely voice and we’re happy to have him join in. [The man does have a wonderful singing voice. ]

Home of U.S. Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) in Pascagoula, Miss. The house is gone. The land swept clear. Photo by Gulf Coast News.

When Republican U.S. Senator Trent Lott and Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor both have had to sue their insurance carrier to get any money from the homeowners’ policies wind coverage provisions, something way beyond the average person’s grasp is strangling the life out of folks. Lott has been a vociferous critic of lawyers who fight for the little guy. He is singing a slightly different tune today. To represent them in their lawsuits, both Lott and Taylor hired attorney Dicky Scruggs, Lott’s brother-in-law.

I hope that those who advocate some form of financially starving us into migrating elsewhere will come to a different conclusion before they find themselves in need of a hand up to get back on their feet and returning to the humming of their lives.

In the spirit of where I was born and raised and where I now once again reside, I'm hopeful . . . and pray that even they don't have to experience this unnecessary post-Katrina chaos and madness brought on by corporate insurance industry greed and deliberate neglect from Bush's Administration.

Throughout my lifetime, my mother has said, “It all depends on whose ox is being gored.” Well Katrina has certainly made that one obvious.
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For a good read on why the recently defeated insurance commissioner of Mississippi ought to thank a big trial lawyer, read George Dale Should Thank Dicky Scruggs.

Read, bookmark, subscribe to A.M. in the Morning! . . . . . . dispatches from Katrina's ground zero with Ana Maria,a distinctly progressive political voice.
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Ana Maria authors A.M. in the Morning! , dispatches from Katrina's ground zero . . . a distinctly progressive political perspective.

In March, this native daughter drove from her home in Silicon Valley, Calif., to surprise her mother with a visit to their family home in Bay St. Louis--ground zero for Katrina's devastation. The surprise was on Ana Maria.

She launched her blogin May 2007 and added podcasting in June 2007 to express her dismay and provide detailed, poignant, on-the-ground accounts of what the people of the Gulf Coast are still experiencing nearly two years after Katrina's devastation.

Not for the faint of heart, A.M. in the Morning! provides first-hand accounts of post-Katrina life written in a scathing style redolent of the region's famous cuisine--hot, strong and spicy. Nobody escapes Ana Maria's wrath whether they are the callous insurance industry, the bumbling leadership of FEMA, do-nothing politicians, or incompetent government contractors.

A progressive political blog with a decidedly activist bent, A.M. in the Morning! includes her Center for Political Hell Raising, which provides activist tools of ready-made email letters, addresses, phone scripts and phone numbers to whomever is lucky enough to be caught in her crosshairs.

From the Gulf Coast of Miss. to the heartland of Nashville, Tennessee, from the nation’s capitol to Silicon Valley, California, Ana Maria has been politically active as a professional and a volunteer on the local, state, and national levels.

Ana Maria is committed to using her blog and podcast to reinvigorate the discussion and generate a renewed national sense of purpose to efficiently and effectively rebuild the area.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

The New Environmentalists: How to Make the Green Movement Less White

davidswanson — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 10:58:58 -0400

By Van Jones, ColorLines

The driving force behind the country's new green economy is almost entirely white. But people of color have much more directly at stake in the greening of America.

In response to mounting ecological crises, the United States is going through its most important economic transformation since the New Deal. Unfortunately, the vital process of change along more eco-friendly lines is moving ahead with practically zero participation from people of color.

Hundreds of mayors and several governors are bucking the Bush administration and committing themselves to the carbon-cutting principles of the Kyoto treaty on climate change. The U.S. Congress is debating an energy bill this year that could be a watershed for alternative energy sources.

What's more, regular people are way ahead of these leaders. U.S polls show super-majorities want strong action on the climate crisis and other environmental perils. And consumers are reshaping markets by demanding hybrid cars, bio-fuels, solar panels, organic food and more. As a result, the "lifestyles of health and sustainability" sector of the U.S. economy has ballooned into a $240 billion gold mine. And total sales are growing on a near-vertical axis.

The Economist magazine calls it "The Greening of America." Indeed, we are witnessing the slow death of the Earth-devouring, suicidal version of capitalism. We're even seeing the birth of some form of "eco-capitalism." To be sure, a more "ecologically sound" market system will not be a utopia. But at least it will buy our species a few extra decades or centuries on this planet.

That's the good news. Here is the bad news.

The celebrated "lifestyles" sector is probably the most racially segregated part of the U.S. economy; at present, it is almost exclusively the province of affluent white people. Few entrepreneurs of color are positioned to reap the benefits of the government's push to green the economy.

We are seeing a major debate about the direction of the U.S. economy - in which communities of color apparently have nothing to say. Our near-silence on such key issues has no precedent, at least not since before the Civil War.

How can this be? Black, Latino, Asian and Native American communities suffer the most from the environmental ills of our industrial society. Our folks desperately need the new economic activity, investments and opportunities that this major transition is beginning to generate.

To put it bluntly, people of color have much more directly at stake in the greening of America than white college students do. Why are they marching for carbon caps, while most of us just yawn and change the channel?

When these new formations and networks emerge, all racial justice activists will become, in some sense, environmental justice activists.

More people of color have not yet grabbed the microphone for three reasons: our long-standing pattern of viewing environmental issues as luxury concerns; the mainstream media's "whites only" coverage of the green phenomenon; and serious structural impediments to action within the racial justice movement itself.

First of all, too often we have said: "We are overwhelmed with violence, bad housing, failing schools, excessive incarceration, poor healthcare and joblessness. We can't afford to worry about spotted owls, redwood trees and polar bears."

But Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath taught us that the coming ecological disasters will hit the poor first and worst. More of us are beginning to see that there can be no separation between our concern for vulnerable people and our concern for a vulnerable planet.

Secondly, any U.S. magazine's "Special Green Issue" typically will not show many people of color, despite the incredible achievements of numerous environmentalists of color across the country. Many racial justice activists see this kind of coverage, shrug our shoulders and understandably assume that green equals white.

But this is a mistake. When did we start trusting the corporate media to fairly calculate our interests in any major topic or development in U.S. society? When have our activists and advocates ever accepted their frame and parameters in determining what is important or what we should do? It should not surprise anyone that the mainstream media does not reflect our deep and profound interests in the greening of the economy. And it is high time for us to make our own assessment and create our own strategy for shaping the process in accordance with our interests.

Finally, at least among committed activists, there is a deeper reason that we have not mobilized at the appropriate scale. And that reason can be found within the structure of our racial justice movement itself. Our present deployment of resources simply does not let us meet the challenges and opportunities that the green revolution is generating, simply because it is nobody's job to take them on.

Because no racial justice organization can tackle every issue and champion every cause, our groups have evolved a fairly strict division of labor. A single organization will ordinarily focus on just one issue - criminal justice, immigrant rights, economic justice, violence prevention, educational equity, school reform, reproductive justice, what have you. Out of deference to each other (and to stay within funders' guidelines), our organizations bend over backwards to keep within their chosen issue areas and to stay off each other's "turfs."

One important issue area is called "environmental justice." The environmental justice movement emerged in the 1980s to challenge toxic pollution in the neighborhoods of low-income people and people of color. Made up of hundreds of mostly small, tough and scrappy organizations, this movement has won many local and national victories over the past two decades. The "EJ" movement's (often pint-sized) dynamos have shut down scofflaw polluters, power plants and incinerators. They have cut toxic emissions and improved public health in innumerable communities. And their leaders have elevated the concept of "environmental racism" to mainstream prominence.

Because of this movement's success and visibility, most racial justice activists today presume that anything related to the environment falls under the purview of our existing environmental justice organizations. Therefore when we hear all this "green talk," we tend to either assume it doesn't have anything to do with our communities or that someone else already has the mandate and the capacity to deal with it. This assumption is another reason that other racial justice leaders tend to ignore "all of this green stuff."

Well, such an approach might have served us in years past, but not today.

Today's environmental justice movement was designed to protect our interests in a toxic, pollution-based economy. It was not designed to promote our interests in a mushrooming, $250 billion green economy. Nor was any other racial justice movement or network. It is wildly unrealistic to assume that the already over-stretched and under-funded EJ groups can somehow meet this colossal, historic challenge on their own. It is unfair to expect them to do so.

So we stand now at the dawn of a new economy. But no part of the racial justice movement is charged with the task of ensuring that the new laws and new industries do right by low-income people and people of color.

We must change this. If we do not get involved, we will end up with eco-apartheid - a society with ecological haves and have-nots. Imagine a world in which wealthy people have clean air, fresh water, healthy food and no-cost energy, thanks to solar panels, organic agriculture and green technology. Meanwhile, poor neighborhoods continue to choke in the fumes of the last century's pollution-based industries.

To put it bluntly, people of color have much more directly at stake in the greening of America than white college students do.

We must say no to a future in which our peoples get hit "first and worst" by the coming ecological catastrophes and benefit "last and least" from the emerging ecological advances.

This next environmental revolution - call it the "Green for All" revolution - will require especially sophisticated and skilled leadership.

We will have to continue to fight corporate polluters. And we would also be wise to consider and explore partnerships with eco-capitalists, who are willing to grow their businesses in a cleaner and greener way. We will continue saying no to the economic oppression of the dying economy. But we must also learn how to say "yes" to economic opportunity of the emerging economy. As a part of a new economic strategy, we should help interested communities and workers to create their own green collectives and co-ops (as did the Green Workers' Cooperative in the South Bronx).

We will continue fighting for equal protection from the worst of the pollution-based economy. And we will also add demands for equal access and equal opportunity in the clean and green economy.

We will also need tighter formations - united fronts that can work explicitly for racial justice and inclusion. These networks and coalitions will advance independent slogans, such as Majora Carter's demand to "green the ghetto" or the Ella Baker Center's call for "green-collar jobs, not jails" for urban youth. And they will be more comfortable for many people of color than many of the present "green wave" spaces.

When these new formations and networks emerge, all racial justice activists will become, in some sense, environmental justice activists. But by that point, the environmental justice movement itself will be transformed into a massive movement, focused on a new paradigm of economic development, fighting to birth a green economy that is strong enough to lift people out of poverty.

Van Jones is executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, California.

Post-Katrina Living: Making Do and Good Enough

Ana Maria — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:25:59 -0400

It’s finally here! We have the date on which the contractor will arrive and do the next set of renovations to my mom’s home.

He’ll sand and seal the wood that hasn’t been touched in that way since my parents had the house built 45 years ago. Hang the doors to the bedrooms. Rework the closet doors. Create new doors for the utility room. Put up the crown molding on the ceiling and the floors. I think that about covers this next leg of returning to life BK—before Katrina.

When I arrived back in March, I was shocked at everything. From the total disappearance of so much of my home town here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast through the evaporation of nearly every home and business along the 40-50 miles of beach going east to Biloxi, which is as far as I’ve traveled that way. Then going west to see family in New Orleans was more of the same: destruction, devastation, disappearance, and evaporation.

Clearly, the PR campaign that the Bush Administration has going along with its counterpart in the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion via Haley Barbour doesn’t hold any water. Barbour is the former head of the national Republican Party and good friends with Bush. Naturally, they would support each other’s BS, I mean PR, campaign.

I’ve been here now five months. I have acclimated to a great deal and in ways no one could have convinced me that I would ever acclimate myself. Not that long ago, I was living in the lap of comparative luxury over there in San Jose, Calif.

I lived in a beautiful apartment inside a complex with three “sparkling pools” as its brochures like to brag, two tennis courts, two workout rooms, free tennis and yoga classes, and a sauna—actually two: one for women and one for men. Everything was convenient to my locale. Within a matter of minutes, I could be at any number of malls and full-sized grocery stores. Real grocery stores!

Safeway, Albertson’s, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, PW, Ranch 99—the large Asian food store chain. Plus there were a myriad of farm stands and plenty of smaller ethnic grocery stores. What joy! What bliss! Especially for someone like me that loves to cook and is damned good at it, too.

Today, I have <a href="http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/walmart/upload/walmartreport_031406.pdf">Wal-Mart</a>. In California, I protested with my union friends the atrocious employee policies that Wal-Mart uses. Today, it’s the only grocery around, and I’ve tempered my political preference for the reality life is currently presenting to my family, friends, and neighbors. Today, I go to Wal-Mart to get groceries and rarely think more than twice about it.

In my very first blog entry on the first of May, I wrote, “<a href="http://aminthemorning.blogspot.com/2007/05/like-walking-through-glue.html">The best I’ve come up with is that many of life’s routine activities is like walking through glue . . . for miles on end.</a>” That remains the best way I’ve come up with for describing post-Katrina life. As a current example, let’s talk about moving out of the house so the contractor can come in and work on it.

I called around to locate a hotel. Well, there aren’t that many. The one I wanted to book is literally 5 blocks from the house and would be great. It’s booked solid. Oh. We FINALLY get a contractor and his schedule and ours is permitting him to come fix up the house . . . and we can’t find a hotel nearby? I panicked.

Next, I called Hollywood Casino Hotel. It’s almost twice as expensive, and we would not have all the nights we would need. That won’t do. If I’m having to interrupt the routine for an elderly mother who is not in her prime physical condition--though she's sharp as a tack mentally, I want to get somewhere and stay put until we can come home. Nevertheless, I took the rooms I could.

Then, I called the lesser motel down the road a bit. Rooms are plentiful. Great! I booked them and then, I canceled the other reservations. My younger brother recommended that I actually look at the rooms., which I did. He was right. Not good enough.

My hotel hunting began all over again. There are limitations to what has been rebuilt and open for business. Finally, I settled at another casino hotel which is about 25 minutes from the house. There some interruption in our stay, but it is doable. It’s more than good enough for now. It has to be.

The story of post-Katrina life. Making do and good enough.

Personally, I am elated to be going to a hotel with extremely comfortable beds. Little furniture is in the house today. I’ve been sleeping on a twin-sized air mattress. A month ago, it sprung a leak. I repaired it . . . so I thought. I repaired it again. Better.

It would go like this for a few weeks toward the end of which I would find myself in the middle of the air mattress, squarely with my butt and back up against the wood floor. Finally, I gave up. If I’m going to end up on the floor anyway, I may as well just put myself there to begin with and quit waking up oddly contorted.

Believe me, in other circumstances, I would have gone out and bought another air mattress. Heck, in other circumstances, I would have gone out and bought the replacement mattress, set up the bed, and had myself some terrific sleep. If anything, however, these are extra-ordinary circumstances even some two years after the storm.

Back in April when I met the woman who turned me on to her <a href="http://aminthemorning.blogspot.com/2007/05/finding-contractor-like-california.html">contractor</a> husband, I had thought everything would work out so he could get in here at the end of May at the latest. Then, I kept thinking a few more weeks, a few more weeks.

The whole time, I was slowly being baptized in the post-Katrina way things are. When I’d become agitated at something, I would think to myself, “This is only temporary. This, too, shall pass—quickly. I can handle anything for a little while.”

Or I would think, “I’ve only been at this since March. I can NOT imagine how it has been for those who’ve been back a year or those who actually went through the storm!”

So, when I found myself waking up in the middle of the night in contorted positions due to the deflation of my air mattress, I pulled out one of my old stand-bys and thought, “This is only temporary.” Of course, there is another part of me that says that things like this are part of my post-Katrina experience. My dues, as it were.

Going to a hotel room for a while will be a welcomed reprieve with its wonderful bed that will be heavenly to sleep on, I’m sure. (I’ve actually gone to the hotel and looked at the rooms. Gorgeous! A fabulous bed to sleep on--a new found luxury.)

See, there is no use in buying mattresses to replace the ones that had to be gotten rid of after Katrina had her way with the house. Why buy them and put them up only to have to move ‘em when the contractor gets here? It’s going to be harried enough with all the moving parts to prepping the house for the contractor without adding to the workload.

And so this is how I imagine many others from every walk of life have coped with the dysfunction that has characterized post-Katrina living. Whether finding the courage to go up against the insurance industry or dealing with a contractor that has taken money and failed to show up (a horror story that is far too common) or dealing with not finding a contractor to do the work in the first place, folks around here have more than perfected the art of making do.

Whether sleeping on the floor or putting up with the contamination that is inside the formaldehyde-filled, Barbie doll-sized <a href="http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6912007&nav=0Rce">FEMA trailers</a> or dealing with insurance companies trying to rip off consumers by hiding behind false claims that the 135 plus mile-per-hour winds created not a smidgen of damage to a home or business, folks throughout the Katrina-ravaged region have invented new ways of defining good enough.

But these persistent conditions are not good enough. No one here should have to make do for two long years. It’s not right. As always, the question is how do we improve the situation? What can we do? What kind of political hell can we raise to shake things up and make things better?

Today’s Political Hell Raising Activity
<blockquote>''<a href="http://http//www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aIOpZROwhvNI&refer=us">Fighting an insurance company is like staring down the wrong end of a cannon</a>,'' Dr. Bennett said after fighting his insurance company in New Hampshire.</blockquote>Dr. Bennett is so very right. We can change this and have the insurance industry itself staring down the wrong end of a cannon when it does its policyholders wrong. We have a great opportunity to impact insurance reform efforts this very month.

During August, our federal legislators are in their home districts. We can <a href="http://aminthemorning2.blogspot.com/2007/08/phone-scripts-and-email-letters-for.html">contact</a> our Congressional representative and two U.S. Senators by phone or email and ask them to support two pieces of legislation to fix the problem going forward. Many lawmakers will be holding town hall meetings. Going to one and asking for their support is another option.

1. One policy: Wind and Water Insurance Coverage
At the same time, let’s continue to <a href="http://aminthemorning2.blogspot.com/2007/07/insurance-reform-email-and-phone.html">contact</a> our federal legislators to support expanding the Federal Flood Insurance Program to include wind. Remember that the insurance industry begged off of its legal obligation to pay if so much as a smidgen of water came onto a property regardless of the damage that wind had caused. This is wrong.

We can make it so the post-Katrina experience doesn’t happen to other Americans. Informing our federal lawmakers that we support having one policy for both flood and wind coverage is how we remedy the situation for the future. That way future American families and businesses will not be required to make do unnecessarily.

2. The Insurance Industry Must Play By the Same Rules
Robbing us blindly with premiums for policies that they deliberately fail to make good on is, well, NOT good enough. So, let’s <a href="http://aminthemorning2.blogspot.com/2007/07/insurance-reform-email-and-phone.html">contact </a> our federal lawmakers to ask for their support on the proposed legislation that would require the insurance industry to operate under the same rules as every other business in America. End its accidental 60-year exemption from laws governing price fixing and collusion.

That proposed legislation is S. 618 (in the Senate) and H.R. (in the House of Representatives). We must make the insurance industry play by the same rules as other businesses in the United States. This is fair.

Together, we can redefine what is good enough.

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Broadening Katrina’s Lens: A five Part Series
Part 1: <a href="http://aminthemorning.blogspot.com/2007/07/broadening-katrinas-lens_06.html">Broadening Katrina's Lens</a>
Part 2: <a href="http://aminthemorning.blogspot.com/2007/07/recoverys-two-major-impediments-and-f.html">Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the “F” word</a>
Part 3: <a href="http://aminthemorning.blogspot.com/2007/07/f-word-fema_07.html">The "F" Word: FEMA</a>
Part 4: <a href="http://aminthemorning.blogspot.com/2007/07/katrinas-bigger-picture.html">Katrina’s Bigger Picture</a>
Part 5: <a href="http://aminthemorning.blogspot.com/2007/07/katrinas-revenge-insurance-reform.html">Katrina’s Karmic Payback: Insurance Reform</a>
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Read, bookmark, subscribe to <a href="http://AMintheMorning.blogspot.com">A.M. in the Morning!</a> . . . . . . dispatches from Katrina's ground zero with Ana Maria,a distinctly progressive political voice.
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Ana Maria authors <a href="http://AMintheMorning.blogspot.com">A.M. in the Morning! </a>, dispatches from Katrina's ground zero . . . a distinctly progressive political perspective.

She launched her <a href="http://AMintheMorning.blogspot.com">blog</a>in May 2007 and added <a href="http://AMintheMorning.blogspot.com">podcasting</a> in June 2007 to express her dismay and provide detailed, poignant, on-the-ground accounts of what the people of the Gulf Coast are still experiencing nearly two years after Katrina's devastation.

Not for the faint of heart, <a href="http://AMintheMorning.blogspot.com">A.M. in the Morning! </a> provides first-hand accounts of post-Katrina life written in a scathing style redolent of the region's famous cuisine--hot, strong and spicy. Nobody escapes Ana Maria's wrath whether they are the callous insurance industry, the bumbling leadership of FEMA, do-nothing politicians, or incompetent government contractors.

A progressive political blog with a decidedly activist bent, <a href="http://AMintheMorning.blogspot.com">A.M. in the Morning!</a> includes her <a href="http://AMintheMorning.blogspot.com">Center for Political Hell Raising</a>, which provides activist tools of ready-made email letters, addresses, phone scripts and phone numbers to whomever is lucky enough to be caught in her crosshairs.

Ana Maria is committed to using her blog and podcast to reinvigorate the discussion and generate a renewed national sense of purpose to efficiently and effectively rebuild the area.

Normalcy Long Overdue in Katrina-Ravaged Region

Ana Maria — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:31:11 -0400

by Ana Maria

Two days ago, Mississippi voters in the Democratic Primary ousted Insurance Commissioner George Dale, whose cozy relationship with Big Insurance became his electoral albatross. Surely less than a year ago, Dale anticipated his re-election bid to retain the normalcy he had experienced over the last three decades of running for office.

The campaigns for newly-elected Democratic nominee Gary Anderson and his Republican opponent will recuperate from the primary, then redirect their efforts for the usual hustle and bustle of a general election, which will be held this November. Even inside the chaotic nature of every election campaign, there is a sense of normalcy to that chaos—at least for those of us who’ve been in a few.

Here inside the Katrina-ravaged region, we’re still struggling to return to a sense of normalcy.

At Katrina’s ground zero, we still have Wal-Mart as our only grocery store for at least a 30 minute ride in any direction. Insurance companies continue to low ball, delay, and fight tooth and nail to break their legal contracts to pay on legitimate wind damage claims. Reliable, solid, and reasonably priced contractors to repair homes are still miraculous to find. FEMA continues to jerk around municipalities.

Jobs are scarce. More scarce are employees. More scarce still? Housing.

Even hotels are difficult to find. On reflection, that makes sense. When Big Insurance decided not to pay wind damage claims for its wind policy customers, it did screwed over all customers—including the hotels.

What is easy to find are the stories of how folks survived in those first few weeks after Katrina hit.

Turning Family Homes into Hotels and Restaurants
Yesterday, I spoke with a young woman who was going into her senior in high school two years ago when Katrina hit. She works as a concierge at one of the local casino resort hotels that re-opened recently. She is working at the hotel as she goes to the local university.

When I encouraged her to stay in school, she looked me squarely in my eyes and said, "Don’t worry. I was valedictorian of my class. I have every intention of getting my degree." Good. I asked how her family made out in the storm.

She said that her family lives in Guatier (go-sheyah), Miss., near a river, but the family home only had a few shingles fly off their roof. No other damage. Fortunately, her dad owns a local roofing business so repairing was a breeze. Given the family’s relative fortune in coming out of the worst natural disaster, I asked how many people ended up staying at their place.

Notice, I didn’t ask whether they opened their home. I didn’t ask if anyone had asked to come stay with them. Given the innumerable stories that I’ve heard since returning home in March for my, uh, short surprise visit that has since extended past the few weeks I had intended, I knew that it wasn’t a matter of whether, but how many stayed with them.

The young college student told me that after Katrina, her family helped everyone clear out yards and streets. For at least a month, and maybe six weeks, after the storm, though, they didn’t have any electricity. She said that sometimes they were cooking for 50 people—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They didn’t know how many or who would show up much less when. It was like running a hotel.

Amazing.

My cousin Eric was living in Slidell at the time Katrina hit. Slidell is 30 minutes east of New Orleans and 30 minutes west of Bay St. Louis, Miss.,--one of the three tiny beach towns that comprise Katrina’s ground zero. When the New Orleans levees broke, parts of Slidell flooded. Eric and his immediate family did ok. His older brother, Chip, who lives in Diamondhead, Miss., just a bit up the road from the western part of the Gulf Coast, lost everything. Recently, Eric shared with me part of his post-Katrina story.

One Big Garage Sale—With a Twist
Like the young woman’s family in Gautier, Eric and his wife Lisa had opened their home to Katrina survivors never knowing how many would be eating with them at breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Fortunately, Lisa is a great cook and loves cooking. Eric said it was like running a restaurant because they had to cook big batches of everything.

Every room in his home housed survivors—including a woman in the last month or two of her pregnancy. He felt badly because the better beds were upstairs which she had to climb for the more comfortable sleeping quarters.

Eric holds a leadership position in an international Catholic prayer circle dedicated to Medjugorje. He put out a call to those members who live on the west bank of New Orleans, because they didn’t get hit by either Katrina or the levee breaks. With creative flare, he asked for everyone to clear out their garages. If it isn’t being used, donate it to those who lost so much in Katrina.

Calls poured in. On his lunch hour, after work and on the weekends, Eric would go pick up furniture, baby clothes, appliances, or whatever people had and networked to give it to those who in need.

He said that he had learned of a very elderly African American lady—around 90 years old, if I recall correctly—who had 15 family members in her home, but she had no stove to cook the meals. A call came in about a brand new stove sitting in someone’s garage waiting to be installed in the house. The family decided that the old stove was fine, and they could donate the stove to the effort.

Eric had one lady tell him that she needed a bed. But the catch was that her husband was a BIG man requiring a king sized bed. Oooo. That’s gonna be a tough one. He told her to pray for it. He had not even reached his home when a call came in—someone had a king-sized bed. Did he know who could use it?

Eric regaled me with story after story similar to that one. In one instance, a mother told Eric that just before the storm, she had just finished decorating her young daughter’s room with everything Shortcake and how devastating losing it had been on her daughter. Now the woman was clearly just sharing with my beloved cousin part of her family’s Katrina story.

Yet, before he knew it, he got a call from a woman who told him that her daughter had outgrown her bedroom, which had been decorated in everything Shortcake. Did he know of anyone that could use it?
Around Christmas time, Eric’s boss approached him asking what he is doing on his lunch hour. He had been watching Eric—a longtime, valued employee—dart in an out for a few weeks. So Eric told him of the garage-emptying project he started. The boss was impressed, of course. What did he do? Noting that Christmas was coming up, he asked how he could best help provide for those families. Eric said "gift cards."

If I recall correctly, the boss put out an email to all the employees. The company ended up donating piles of $25 gift cards, which Eric and his merry band of friends personally delivered to various families so that the parents could shop for their kids. One woman, whom I’m sure represented the reaction from many recipient, simply cried when Eric handed her the package of gift cards tied neatly with a pretty ribbon. She said that she had no idea how to provide some normalcy in her children’s lives. She thanked him profusely.

Another lady opened her door when Eric knocked. She listened as he said what he was there to drop off. He handed her the gift cards wrapped in pretty ribbon, and without a word, she closed the door. Months later, she got word to him that she was so stunned, so in shock, that she couldn’t say a word. She, too, was grateful for the sense of normalcy the gift cards would bring to her children at Christmas.

Normalcy? What Normalcy?
We’re just shy of the two-year anniversary from any sense of normalcy here in the Katrina-ravaged region.

Those who live in New Orleans are suffering because of the levee break and the breakdown in our federal government, which has utterly failed to live up to its obligation to the American people.

Those who live outside of New Orleans, but inside Louisiana—such as those in Slidell, and those of us who live anywhere along the 50 miles of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and into Alabama, also yearn for normalcy.

A sense of normalcy. That is what everyone here yearns for. Anytime some small effort is put forth, all one has to do is take a drive down beach boulevard in Bay St. Louis and Waveland, Miss., then cross the bridge and continue down highway 90 from Pass Christian through Long Beach, Gulfport, Biloxi, and Ocean Springs. The stairs leading to no where represent homes that have not been able to be rebuilt. Same with the slabs that are cleared of debris but overgrown with weeds. And the steel beams standing erect waiting for the walls to be returned to their pre-Katrina place.

For all of us here, a sense of pre-Katrina normalcy is long overdue.

As I hear of all these wonderful, arms wide-open stories of folks making do and doing more than good enough to get through this ongoing crisis, I keep thinking why in the living heck George Bush and the vast resources at his fingertips didn’t and still doesn’t bother to lift much of a finger to restore a sense of normalcy.

Oh, I see.

I forgot to look carefully at which finger he and his administration were collectively lifting.

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Broadening Katrina’s Lens: A five Part Series
Part 1: Broadening Katrina's Lens
Part 2: Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the "F" word
Part 3: The "F" Word: FEMA
Part 4: Katrina’s Bigger Picture
Part 5: Katrina’s Karmic Payback: Insurance Reform
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Read, bookmark, subscribe to A.M. in the Morning! . . . . . . dispatches from Katrina's ground zero with Ana Maria,a distinctly progressive political voice.
_________________________________________

Ana Maria authors A.M. in the Morning!, dispatches from Katrina's ground zero . . . a distinctly progressive political perspective.

Ana Maria is committed to using her blog and podcast to reinvigorate the discussion and generate a renewed national sense of purpose to efficiently and effectively rebuild the area.

A Breath Of Fresh Air In Post-Katrina Mississippi

Ana Maria — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 08:34:20 -0400

by Ana Maria

Today’s a big day in Mississippi. While there are plenty of contested local races throughout the state—particularly on the Republican side, the insurance commissioner is the most important statewide race because it impacts every individual, family, community, and every form of government inside the state.

Here on the coast, electing Gary Anderson as the Democratic nominee and booting out George Dale from office would clearly send more than a few ripples of joy throughout the Katrina-ravaged region. You see, the insurance crisis impacts so many things that most of us—myself included—just don’t think about until it is pointed out.

For example, I’m hearing how drug and alcohol abuse among teens and adults has dramatically increased since Katrina. Kids have no where to go—not a movie theater, skating rink, nothing. What is there to do? How are they to channel all the usual that comes with being a teen and all the unusual that resides inside of them because of Katrina’s impact?

Their friends may be scattered to the winds. The kids may have had to deal with death of friends or family members. Their homes may be gone, schools destroyed, social groups evaporated. Their families finances shattered because of jobs no longer available since most businesses were lost in Katrina. On top of that, little to no money for rebuilding the family home.

We know that communities everywhere struggle with this issue of teens and having places for them to go and activities to keep them occupied in healthy ways. Put on top of that having lost everything they’ve ever known including their social network that helps them go through those difficult years that transform kids into young adults. No wonder drugs and alcohol are rampant.

This past weekend, I attended a Democratic Women’s annual picnic in which many candidates or their surrogates spoke. I was honored to speak on behalf of Gary Anderson. The park was stupendously gorgeous with water to the one side of us, beautiful homes on another, and the beautiful green grass and trees everywhere.

My pitch was easy—all Gary Anderson voters, of course. Yes, I gave them a political hell raising activity: get out their address books and call all of their friends and family to ensure that they remembered to get out and vote. (I'm the same me on paper and in person—only a lot more lively in the flesh.)

The lady who spoke with me about the teen issue also talked with me about the level of depression hitting teens as well as adults and how she is losing friends to suicide, those who lose hope that their lives will ever get back to some level of normalcy.

I listened as she told me that another issue facing the Gulf Coast is the lack of affordable housing in the area and how the insurance companies have made it so that apartment complexes cannot afford to rebuild and that those that may be rebuilt will have to substantially raise the rent to cover the insurance rates.

I recall talking with a grade school friend some months back. Before the storm, her elderly mother’s apartment rent was about $500 a month. After Katrina, the rent nearly doubled—$900 a month. I don’t know about you, but if my monthly costs for housing doubled, that would be more than a bit difficult to absorb.

Most of us could not absorb it regardless of whether we are Democrats or Republicans, seniors or not yet seniors, single or married, Caucasian, African American, Vietnamese American, Sikh, Latino, disabled veteran, coach, nurse, lawyer or doctor. Whether we are salaried, self-employed, hourly wage or fixed income households, we all have “X” amount of money coming in—if we’re among the lucky ones, that is. Increasing household expenses in such a dramatic fashion makes life more than difficult to say the least.

By the way, my grade school friend’s family who received this shocking increase on mom’s rent? The family is Republican.

Increased teen drug and alcohol abuse, adult depression so overwhelming that suicide seems the only out of the unnecessary misery, skyrocketing financial burdens unfair under any circumstances. And what does Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale have to say about all of this?

“My mistake after Katrina was saying . . . some claims are not going to be paid because of water damage.”

WHAT?! The financial ruin of an entire region because Dale chose to turn his back on these communities, cities, towns, and every person inside of them. The emotional devastation that came as a result of Dale assisting his insurance industry buddies to create the largest financial disaster to hit the area probably since the Great Depression in the 1930s. And all he can think about is that his mistake was blurting out what was that he shouldn’t have gone public with insider knowledge that he was going to let the insurance companies get away with ripping off Gulf Coast residents?

Dale’s comments seem to have come from a set of talking points that the insurance industry would have supplied him.

I don’t know how a public official can be so completely devoid of taking personal responsibility for the ruin his own public policies have had on an entire region. I don’t know how a public official can be so completely devoid of an ounce of genuine compassion.

Who am I kidding? George Dale publicly campaigned on behalf of George W. Bush.

I pray that tonight will bring everyone on the Gulf Coast great joy at having helped to give George Dale his walking papers through electing Gary Anderson as the next Democratic nominee for the state’s insurance commissioner. While the insurance industry will have the wind knocked out of it, electing Gary Anderson will be a breath of air that surely to goodness we could all use especially here in post-Katrina Mississippi.

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Read, bookmark, subscribe to A.M. in the Morning! . . . . . . dispatches from Katrina's ground zero with Ana Maria,a distinctly progressive political voice.
___________________________________________

Ana Maria authors A.M. in the Morning!, dispatches from Katrina's ground zero . . . a distinctly progressive political perspective.

Ana Maria is committed to using her blog and podcast to reinvigorate the discussion and generate a renewed national sense of purpose to efficiently and effectively rebuild the area.

Ending Corporate Looting on the Gulf Coast

Ana Maria — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:31:14 -0400

by Ana Maria

Recently, a man got four years in prison for burglarizing a neighbor’s home to loot it right after Katrina. What kind of jail time will the insurance industries’ corporate cronies get for deliberately contriving to steal the claims money from policyholders in the Katrina-ravaged areas that crossed three states: Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama?

Here in Mississippi, we have two state officials responsible for holding these corporate crooks accountable to the people. We have State Attorney General Jim Hood who is doing his job to bring justice to the people of Mississippi, and we’re grateful to him for his strength and fortitude in the face of tremendous pressure to go along to get along—a position of weakness, for sure.

We also have State Insurance Commissioner George Dale, whose idea of justice is more of an insurance insiders "Just Us" mentality.

Dale’s own words portray a man in the back pocket of the insurance industry.

Katrina was "the worst natural disaster in U.S. history . . . and put an undue burden on insurance companies. . . ." Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale

What a lovely sentiment coming from a public official who should be the first defender for us as policyholders. Those words should be put on bill boards, television ads, and radio spots throughout South Mississippi. What a betrayal this man has wrought upon the families and business owners inside Katrina Land.

Of course, it would be unrealistic for us to expect a man who is in the pocket of the insurance industry to be our protector against the industry’s fraudulent practices.

"We take money from anybody who is interested in good government.'' Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale

Who are these folks interested in "good government"?

Miss. Commissioner Dale Raised 40% of Campaign Funds from Insurers
Insurance Journal

And that was in 2006.

Dale: A Democrat? An Independent? A Dino?
Earlier this year, the Mississippi Democratic Party leadership stood up to Dale voting to strip him of the ability to run as a Democrat. Dale had publicly campaigned on behalf of Bush and Cheney in 2004. To fight being prohibited from claiming himself to be a Democrat, Dale hired Greg Copeland, a big time insurance industry lobbyist attorney—and a Republican—to represent him in court.

Simultaneously, Dale’s Republican attorney argued that the Democratic Party MUST allow Dale to run as a Democrat AND that Dale ought to be allowed to run as an Independent because he can’t win as a Democrat. Huh?!

Dale pulled the ultimate Lieberman, as in U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman who ran on the Lieberman Political Party of Connecticut—or some such nonsense—when the Connecticut Democrats voted Ned Lamont as their Democratic nominee last year sending Lieberman packing his bags. Lieberman then started his own political party and accepted help from the Karl Rove wing of the Republican Party. Dale apparently took a page out of Lieberman’s playbook. I’m a Democrat! I’m an Independent! I’m a DINO! (Democrat in Name Only)

Conflicts, Conflicts Everywhere
On its website, Copeland’s law firm brags about its prominence within the insurance industry.

"The firm serves as general counsel to Mississippi's largest property and casualty insurer and as local counsel for numerous other insurance companies. The American Insurance Association selected the head of the firm's insurance practice group to serve as Mississippi counsel for the Association."

Regarding the fact that he was being represented by a big insurance lobbyist attorney, Dale said

"I don’t see any conflict."

Apparently, the man is blind. Too bad it is not in the way that Justice is blind.

In another glaring example of Dale’s cozy conflict-of-interest ridden relationship with the insurance industry, he allowed State Farm to pick up the tab for the attorney who was helping Dale’s Deputy Insurance Commissioner Harrell prepare for a deposition in a lawsuit that the Scruggs Katrina Group was bringing against . . . State Farm. Ding! Ding! Ding! By now, alarms should be going off in a major way.

Yes, you read that correctly.

State Farm was paying the attorney fee for the lawyer helping the Mississippi Deputy Insurance Commissioner prepare for his testimony under oath and representing him at the proceedings in one of the large lawsuits that Mississippi policyholders are bringing against . . . State Farm.

Can you believe it?! Talk about the fox guarding the hen house!! But this is really more like a criminal defense team paying the salary of the local prosecuting attorney assigned to its case. What a whopper of a conflict of interest.

Here’s a guide to the deposition and links to the deposition itself. The only reason we found out this horrifyingly awful but important piece of information is because the Scruggs Katrina Group deposed Deputy Commissioner Harrell as part of its ongoing case of Thomas and Pamela McIntosh vs State Farm. The SKG website characterizes the Harrell deposition as "one of the most eye-popping depositions our group has ever seen." Now that’s saying something.

You know, most of us think of the insurance commission as a consumer advocate, the place where we can turn for real assistance when an insurance company isn’t treating us or our family members fairly. Unfortunately, Dale acts as if his job is to advocate on behalf of the insurance companies.

Are we in good hands with George Dale? Hardly. The man is a walking betrayal of public trust. And in a matter of days, with some effort, George Dale can be sent his walking papers when the voters go to the polls on Tuesday, August 7th.

Like George Dale’s only Democratic opponent Gary Anderson says. "You can't protect the pocketbook of consumers, if you are in the pocketbook of insurance companies."

Indeed, indeed. To bring good old-fashioned, mom and apple pie kind of justice to the people of South Mississippi, we can raise a little political hell! You know what that means. If you are a registered voter inside of Mississippià Vote. Inside or outà contribute. Inside or out à volunteer.

Turning out for this election to turn out our current insurance commissioner—who thinks he is in the business of carrying water for corporate insurance executives, is the way we stop George Dale’s permissive reign of corporate looting.

Listen to the podcast.

If you liked this piece, you may also enjoy reading the following.
George Dale is a Coward.

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Ana Maria authors A.M. in the Morning!, dispatches from Katrina's ground zero . . . a distinctly progressive political perspective.

Ana Maria is committed to using her blog and podcast to reinvigorate the discussion and generate a renewed national sense of purpose to efficiently and effectively rebuild the area.