|
NOTE:
You've come to an old part of SW Online. We're still moving this and other older stories into our new format. In the meanwhile, click here to go to the current home page.
|
|
|
SW Online's ongoing coverage and analysis
Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath
Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky wrote an incredible account--first published in Socialist Worker--of being trapped in New Orleans, first by Hurricane Katrina, and then by a martial law cordon around the city. Their story shot around the Internet, electrifying everyone who read it.
Trapped in New Orleans by the flood--and martial law
The real heroes and sheroes of New Orleans
Author Mike Davis explains how the wealthy elite of New Orleans will try to control the rebuilding of the city on their terms.
Mike Davis on New Orleans
Socialist Worker's Paul D'Amato, Meredith Kolodner and Eric Ruder traveled to the Gulf Coast to witness the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath--and the grassroots relief effort that sprang up almost immediately.
The struggle to survive an unnatural disaster
|
|
|
SUBJECTS BELOW:
Voices from the Gulf Coast
The federal response: Callous and inept
Racism and repression in New Orleans
Reconstruction: In whose interests?
Background to an unnatural disaster
LATEST NEWS AND ANALYSIS
Tale of two stadiums
The mainstream media overlooked the real story of the California wildfires. Just as in New Orleans, race and class loomed large in who got help and how.
The flames reveal two San Diegos
Divided by fire
The Great Firestorm of 2007--which has displaced several hundred thousand people--has revealed deep fissures cutting through a place that calls itself "America's finest city."
VOICES FROM THE GULF COAST
Two survivors look back one year later
The crimes that Katrina exposed
Two socialists whose story of their ordeal surviving the Katrina disaster swept around the Internet last year talk to SW about their thoughts one year later.
New Orleans needs public services rebuilt
Charity isn't enough
Twelve months after Katrina, it is abundantly clear that private, volunteer efforts to rebuild New Orleans, however well intentioned, are no substitute for rebuilding public services.
The holdouts of New Orleans
A community activist talks about residents who defied orders to evacuate--and who plan to resist the plans of the city's business elite to remake New Orleans in their interest.
Activists' grassroots relief effort
Righting the wrong of this disaster
A member of the Campus Antiwar Network describes the organization's delegation to Louisiana to be part of the grassroots relief effort for Hurricane Katrina victims.
Forced to live for days in filth and squalor
"They just left us here to die"
The leaders of the richest country in the world abandoned tens of thousands of people to face an unimaginable nightmare in New Orleans.
A New Orleans activist on the U.S. government's criminal failure
"They died for no reason but lack of organization"
Former Black Panther Malik Rahim talks about the criminal failure of authorities to help the victims of the disaster in New Orleans.
What the Camp Casey peace bus found in Louisiana
Abandoned by the Feds
A peace activist describes the voyage of the Veterans for Peace bus from Cindy Sheehan's antiwar vigil in Crawford, Texas to hurricane-devastated Louisiana.
Back to the top
THE FEDERAL RESPONSE: CALLOUS AND INEPT
The forgotten Katrina refugees...
Still left behind
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina exposed the reality of two Americas, standing side by side--one rich and one poor. Two years later, that harsh reality remains.
Six months after the Bush administration did nothing...
No help for victims of Katrina
The damning images from a videotaped teleconference involving top officials prove that the administration knew what New Orleans could face when Hurricane Katrina hit.
Bush administration fails Katrina victims
Abandoned again
Even the most cynical commentators have to be surprised at how quickly George Bush abandoned--for a second time--the poor, mostly Black residents of New Orleans.
The right-wing, scandal-ridden "charity" that isn't really a charity
The truth about the Red Cross
For many people, the American Red Cross is the very embodiment of lifesaving. But the real story of the organization isn't nearly as noble and humanitarian as the image.
Why did FEMA fail after Katrina?
Twisted priorities in Washington
A former employee explains why the Federal Emergency Management Agency has had less and less to do with protecting people from natural disaster.
How the Gulf Coast catastrophe transformed U.S. politics
Unnatural disaster
The dark secrets of American society have been exposed--racism, class inequality, the arrogance of a profit-hungry ruling class, political leaders whose response to any crisis is repression.
Man-made disaster at a U.S. government agency
FEMA damaged by Hurricane George
The failure of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to manage the emergency along the Gulf Coast is an indictment of the Bush team's "philosophy" of government.
Back to the top
RACISM AND REPRESSION IN NEW ORLEANS
Jeremy Scahill on Blackwater USA's "security" force in New Orleans
"A mercenary army"
Journalist Jeremy Scahill talks about the role of the Blackwater USA security firm in the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
The confrontation at the bridge
How Katrina unleashed a storm of racism
A confrontation at a bridge out of flooded New Orleans--between armed police and people trying to evacuate--has shown how race and class condemned thousands to a nightmare after Katrina.
Beaten by cops in New Orleans
Three New Orleans police officers have been charged with battery for repeatedly punching a 64-year-old African American man and slamming his head into a wall.
Anti-death penalty activist on bigotry in her hometown
"The racism I've seen in New Orleans"
Monique Matthews talks about her family's ordeal escaping from Hurricane Katrina, and her hometown's legacy of racism.
Authorities justified crackdown by...
Portraying the victims as "criminals"
How do you cover up for mass murder by negligence? Shoot and kill more people, call them "looters," and trumpet their deaths as a sign of progress.
Back to the top
RECONSTRUCTION: IN WHOSE INTERESTS
The fight for public housing in New Orleans
"They want to keep us out"
Tens of thousands of public-housing residents from New Orleans languish in exile because the federal government refuses to reopen most of the city's public-housing units.
Right wing uses Katrina crisis to push privatization
The plan to wreck New Orleans schools
A nightmare mix of right-wing politicians, corporate consultants and education fortune-seekers are out to take advantage of the Katrina crisis and wipe out public schools in New Orleans.
Pushing the poor out of New Orleans
Developers and landlords have declared an open season on residents--and began evicting thousands of people who were forced to evacuate, as well as many of those left behind.
New Orleans activist Mike Howells explains...
How one fight against evictions was won
A longtime community activist tells the story of one victory in the fight for the rights of poor and working-class residents in New Orleans.
Back to the top
BACKGROUND TO AN UNNATURAL DISASTER
Katrina exposes the warped priorities of the system
Is there an alternative?
Hurricane Katrina has exposed racism, repression and class inequality in U.S. society--and shown the urgent need for a socialist alternative.
Nothing natural about Bush's budget cuts
Did this disaster have to happen?
It wasn't the massive force of Hurricane Katrina that turned New Orleans into a wasteland but the flooding that followed when the city's levee system collapsed.
Natural and not-so-natural disasters
As usual, the media reported breathlessly about Ivan and the other hurricanes as "forces of nature" that show how much about the world is beyond human control. But there's more to the story.
Left behind to face the storm
Almost entirely overlooked in the news about the destruction caused by Hurricane Ivan last week was the manmade disaster waiting to happen.
Mike Davis on the wildfires in Southern California
"A market-driven recipe for disaster"
Author Mike Davis explains the real causes of the California wildfires--above all, years of destructive land development driven by the profit-first priorities of the free market.
Home page | Back to the top
| |
|
