We are witnessing genocide of the black workingclass community of New Orleans and the exposure of the rottenness of American capitalism in its refusal to adequately respond to the disaster from the latest hurricane.
At:
http://users.resist.ca/~kirstena/pageamericasgenocide.html Kirsten Anderberg has written an excellent analysis of this genocide and relates her experience of the disparaties in treatment of the workingclass compared to the rich in the 1994 San Fernando Valley earthquake, where the rich had cases of water offered to them everywhere and the poor, mostly black or Hispanic, had to wait in line with a 5 gallon container for water. She states about the current hurricane disaster: "According to resources in Canada, Canadian TV is reporting they offered planes full of food, water, and supplies to help New Orleans refugees and America turned them down!"
At
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/hurr-s02.shtml the response of the US government to the hurricane is correctly described as "a national humiliation without parallel in the history of the United States."
"The scenes of intense human suffering, hopelessness, squalor, and neglect amidst the wreckage of what was once New Orleans have exposed the rotten core of American capitalist society before the eyes of the entire world—and, most significantly, before those of its own stunned people."
"The reactionary mythology of America as the “Greatest Country in the World” has suffered a shattering blow."
"Hurricane Katrina has laid bare the awful truths of contemporary America—a country torn by the most intense class divisions, ruled by a corrupt plutocracy that possesses no sense either of social reality or public responsibility, in which millions of its citizens are deemed expendable and cannot depend on any social safety net or public assistance if disaster, in whatever form, strikes."