katrina\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\"President Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People...\" \r\nDAMN RIGHT! AND THAT’S NOT THE HALF OF IT\r\n<\/p>
Revolution #018, October 16, 2005, posted at revcom.us<\/p>\r\n
When Kanye West dared to tell the truth on national network television, \r\npeople like Laura Bush were scandalized. . . but the rest of us were inspired. \r\nFor the oppressed and for those who hate oppression, for all enemies of racism \r\nand hypocrisy, it was a great moment.<\/p>\r\n
But, without taking anything away from Kanye West, the whole truth goes a lot \r\ndeeper than \"doesn’t care.\" George W. Bush has a whole program for Black people \r\nthat fits into his overall fascist <\/em>agenda. This program has strong \r\ngenocidal implications and people within it who support genocide for Black \r\npeople. The outrages around Hurricane Katrina provide a glimpse of that \r\nprogam--and why it is so urgent to stop it. The Bush Regime must be driven \r\nout.<\/p>\r\nKatrina\r\n First off, Bush allowed <\/em>all the death and misery after Katrina to go \r\ndown the way it did. He was fine with the people trapped in the city, he was \r\nfine with the bodies floating in the water, and he was fine with masses of poor \r\nand working people--in their great majority Black--forced into truly desperate \r\nand traumatic conditions. Bush knew damn well what was up when he told his head \r\nof FEMA, Michael Brown, \"you’re doing a great job, Brownie\"--and just because he \r\nhad to dump Brown a few days later in the face of mass outrage doesn’t change \r\nthat.<\/p>\r\n In fact, the whole government knew <\/em>for years--both from their own \r\nstudies and from hundreds of scientific studies and journalistic \r\ninvestigations--exactly what would happen. They predicted <\/em>that the \r\nBlack neighborhood of the 9th Ward, and the mainly working class neighborhood of \r\nSt. Bernard, would be flushed away . . . and that the industrial districts and \r\nthe wealthy neighborhoods would make it through. The levees were built and \r\nreinforced in such a way as to make that all but inevitable. In fact, if New \r\nOrleans had been hit with the \"Category 5\" storm that people were expecting, \r\nit’s estimated that 85,000 to 100,000 people would have been drowned. Think \r\nabout it--100,000 people. But what did they do with all their advance knowledge? \r\nCongress actually slashed <\/em>the funds for the levees, and then Bush cut \r\nthem some more!<\/p>\r\n And what has gone on since? Masses of Black people have been driven out of \r\nNew Orleans, herded into shelters and now dispersed all over the country. In an \r\noutrage recalling slavery days, many people are still separated from their loved \r\nones. Some have been put in jail, as old warrants get run on them when they \r\ncheck into the shelters. Some have even been deported when they went to the \r\nshelters. People have been put into what are in fact refugee camps, far from the \r\nfamily ties and social networks that sustain them, where the only jobs are \r\nminimum-wage and where the authorities fan suspicion and hatred against \"the \r\nnewcomers.\" Within all this, the level of repression and control is huge and \r\nintense--from the soldiers with bayonets patrolling the streets of New Orleans \r\nto the atmosphere in the shelters, where no criticism of the government is \r\nallowed and where government agents snitch and spread lies.<\/p>\r\n At the same time, Bush has funneled money into extreme right-wing religious \r\ngroups in the form of \"helping them do charitable works,\" developing \"charter \r\nschools,\" etc. He has suspended any affirmative action regulations in handing \r\nout contracts in New Orleans, and he has overruled federal laws that mandate a \r\nliving wage for workers on federally funded projects.<\/p>\r\n Meanwhile the master plan for New Orleans--to rebuild it as a Las Vegas on \r\nthe Mississippi, with just enough Black people to service the bars and casinos \r\nand the rest dispersed to who-knows-where--goes forward at warp speed. Louisiana \r\nCongressman Richard Baker let the cat out of the bag when he said, \"We finally \r\ncleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.\"<\/p>\r\n Under Bush, the floodwaters in New Orleans got harnessed to \"ethnic \r\ncleansing.\" But again, it was and is more than that: it is a preview of the \r\nfuture he has in mind.<\/p>\r\nAn Overall Attack\r\n To understand this, we have to step back a bit. Despite the struggles of the \r\n‘60s, and despite the growth of the Black middle class, the conditions for the \r\nmasses <\/em>have either remained the same or actually become much much \r\nworse. This is connected to changes in global capitalism and in society as a \r\nwhole. (See \"The \r\nTruth About Right-Wing Conspiracy...And Why Clinton and the Democrats Are No \r\nAnswer,\" by Bob Avakian, Revolutionary Worker <\/em>#1255 [October 17, \r\n2004].) In the face of those changes, the ruling class as a whole--both the \r\nDemocrats and Republicans--have over the past 25 years agreed on a certain \r\nagenda to deal with African-Americans. The key elements have included flooding \r\nthe inner cities with drugs while unleashing police terror; massively \r\nimprisoning Black youth (from under 100,000 in 1970 to over 1 million today!); \r\nslashing social services; and then systematically blaming the masses of Black \r\npeople themselves for the very situation created by the rulers.<\/p>\r\n Again, both the Democrats and Republicans agree on the key elements of \r\nthis--but Bush has carried some of this further. <\/em>These have \r\nincluded:<\/p>\r\n the further cuts in public housing and health care, and the plan to destroy \r\nSocial Security;<\/p>\r\n the \"No Child Left Behind\" program, which in essence aims to drive a huge \r\nsection of youth out of school and shut down public education in large parts of \r\nthe inner cities--what Jonathan Kozol calls called \"The Restoration of Apartheid \r\nSchooling in America\";<\/p>\r\n the systematic elimination of any form of Black political organization not \r\nunder Bush’s direct control, extending to systematic attempts to deprive \r\nmillions of Black people of even the right to vote, through legislation, police \r\nintimidation, and fraud--both disguised and shamelessly open.<\/p>\r\n Again, Bush’s plan for the aftermath of Katrina illustrates all of this. \r\nRebuild public housing, but in a way that actually provides decent shelter and \r\nsupport for people? Hell no, says Bush; instead, promise people free land and \r\nthe chance to own your own homes, while in reality give the land to the big real \r\nestate interests. Increase funding for public schools, but in a way that would \r\nactually educate our children for something beyond a life in the army, low-wage \r\njobs, prison, or all three? Hell no, says Bush; instead pour money into the \r\n\"charter schools\", in which kids get the same lousy education but with forced \r\nreligious--and political--indoctrination added to it. Immediately find the ways \r\nto reunite families and enable people to return to their homes, and the friends \r\nand relatives who sustain them? Hell no, says Bush; promise them 2000 dollars \r\nand then disperse them to \"east-hell-and-gone,\" where they are totally \r\nisolated--and therefore unable to speak out and act with any effectiveness.<\/p>\r\nThe \"Armies of Compassion,\" and The Buildup of a Christian Fascist Core\r\n All this is part of a larger agenda. Bush represents forces in the ruling \r\nclass of this country which wants a much more openly <\/em>imperialist policy \r\ntoward the world, and a fascist <\/em>form of rule within the U.S. They have \r\na built up a Christian fascist movement to serve as a battering ram for this \r\nprogram, and this movement has become a driving force inside the Bush Regime. \r\nChristian fascists are no ordinary Christians. They are dangerous fanatics who \r\naim to make the U.S. a religious dictatorship and to force this upon the world. \r\nAnd these Christian fascists are not going to be satisfied, as Bob Avakian has \r\nwritten, until this country is ruled as \"a Biblically based, militarized, \r\npatriarchal and male supremacist, and yes, white supremacist society--that is in \r\nessence the Christian Fascist program.\" (See Revolution #1, May 1, 2005, \"Changes in the \r\nWorld and the ‘Clash of Civilizations’–Within This \r\n<\/em>Civilization.\")<\/p>\r\n The racist and even genocidal edge of this program can again be seen in what \r\nwent down after Katrina. What does it mean when a Republican Congressman says \r\nthat the flood was god’s attempt to get rid of public housing? What does it mean \r\nwhen fascists and racists are given control of the radio, as well as TV outlets \r\nlike FOX News, to spread lies (like the baby-raping rumor) and incite backward \r\nwhite people to vigilante, Klan-type violence? What does it mean when a \r\ncommander of troops in New Orleans says that he is preparing for a \"little \r\nSomalia?\" What does it mean when the president’s own mother says that the ordeal \r\nof the hurricane, and the diplacement that followed, was good for \"these \r\npeople?\" What does it mean when William Bennett, a former cabinet official in \r\nthe Reagan and Bush I administrations, and a major \"player\" in the Republican \r\nParty, feels that he can and must float the idea that \"if you wanted to reduce \r\ncrime . . . you could abort every Black baby in this country?\"<\/p>\r\n And what does it mean when Bush himself refuses to comment on any of these \r\nthings, other than to mildly label--through a spokesperson, yet--Bennett’s \r\noutrageous call for genocide \"inappropriate?\" It means that the Bush regime has \r\nseized on Hurricane Katrina to justify and even call for extreme and even \r\ngenocidal measures against Black people, whipping up its social base and trying \r\nto make these ideas acceptable in society broadly.<\/p>\r\n What does it mean when Bush uses Katrina to funnel hundreds of millions of \r\ndollars to \"charities\" that are nothing more than fronts for Christian Fascist \r\norganizations? To take just one example, FEMA put Pat Robertson’s charity as the \r\nnumber three recommended fund to give to. Robertson is not a nobody, but a major \r\nfigure in the Republican Party and in the Christian Fascist movement in \r\nparticular. He has called for replacing the current penal system with public \r\nwhipping and the execution <\/em>of people who \"defile the land\" and \"destroy \r\nthe fabric of society\" through \"unseemly acts.\" As Bob Avakian has pointed \r\nout:<\/p>\r\n\r\n \"It is necessary to place this in the context of American society today, in \r\nwhich, through conscious governmental policy as well as the \"normal operation\" \r\nof the laws of capitalist accumulation and competition, whole sections of people \r\nare being consigned to the ranks of \"unemployables,\" people for whom the only \r\nviable alternative within this system may be participation in the undergound \r\neconomy. With this in mind, we cannot avoid recognizing that the logic of \r\nRobertson’s call for applying \"the biblical model\" for crime and punishment \r\ninvolves an unmistakable suggestion of a \"final solution\" against the masses of \r\npeople in the inner cities...\" (\"The Truth About Right-Wing Conspiracy...And Why \r\nClinton and the Democrats Are No Answer,\"<\/p>\r\n Revolutionary Worker <\/em>#1255 [October \r\n17, 2004].)<\/p>\r\n It’s important here to remember that things in Germany didn’t just jump from \r\nHitler’s election in 1933 to the gas chambers in 1941. There was a process and \r\nthere was, to quote Richard Pryor, \"a logic to the logic.\" And part of the \r\nprocess was for Hitler to let his minions get out there with the open calls to \r\nkill the Jews, while he himself played at being \"above it all.\"<\/p>\r\n Sound familiar?<\/p>\r\nBetrayers From Within\r\n But the Bush Regime is also building up a fascist social and political \r\nmachine within the Black community<\/em>. In particular, through his \r\nfaith-based initiative program, as well as the machinery of the Republican \r\nParty, Bush has built up a political machine of reactionary preachers. These \r\npreachers get big financial grants to \"provide services.\" But their main \r\nservices are spreading ignorance and bigotry, and snitching for the \r\npowers-that-be.<\/p>\r\n Again, Katrina provides a good idea of what this is all about. First, Bush \r\ndrew on a number of Black preachers--some who were solidly in his machine, some \r\nwho were \"independent\"--to meet with him and even to travel with him in the \r\nshelters, as \"political bodyguards.\" Mind you, this at a time when Bush was \r\nfinally standing naked before the entire world as the smirking racist criminal \r\nhe really is. But, in the words of Malcolm X, \"these Uncle Toms can’t pass up \r\nthe coffee\"--and in doing so, they provided Bush with invaluable political \r\ncamouflage. This was an act of political treason to the masses.<\/p>\r\n Second, these preachers have been trying to blame the masses themselves \r\n<\/em>for the hurricane. . . and to get the Bush regime off the hook! Party \r\nmembers and supporters around the country tell of preachers who are claiming \r\nthat \"God did this to punish the people of New Orleans\" for--take your \r\npick--gambling, abortions, drugs, Mardi Gras, gay pride days, or even \r\nvoodoo.<\/p>\r\n This is nonsense, but it is dangerous nonsense indeed. When people question \r\nwhy this happened, these prostituted preachers tell the people that they brought \r\nthis on themselves and somehow deserved it. When people want to struggle, these \r\npuppets instruct them to \"pray to the lord\" and even to \"give thanks\" for \"new \r\nopportunities!\" These bootlickers have actively organized to prevent \r\n<\/em>people from struggling or even questioning, including through snitching on \r\nthe people who are <\/em>organizing to resist.<\/p>\r\n All this has confused and misdirected some people, it has helped the \r\nauthorities in their repression, and it is nothing less than CRIMINAL BETRAYAL. \r\nThere was no \"divine hand\" in Katrina. It was a very un <\/em>-mysterious \r\nnatural disaster, easily explained by science (which is another thing the Bush \r\nRegime has been attacking). What happened after it hit is also explainable: the \r\n\"earthly powers\" that run this system first abandoned the masses and then used \r\nthe disaster to push their agenda of exploitation, oppression and fascism.<\/p>\r\n These people remind us of nothing so much as the Judenrat <\/em>under the \r\nNazis--Jews who were given special perks and power by the Nazis and who \r\nconvinced themselves that things would go better for everyone if they \r\n<\/em>rounded up their fellow Jews, instead of forcing the Nazis to do it. These \r\nJudenrat <\/em>also told people not to resist and worked against and even \r\nsnitched on those who did. Of course, by the end, the Judenrat \r\n<\/em>betrayers also ended up in the Nazi gas chambers. History has judged the \r\nJudenrat <\/em>harshly, and will likewise judge their present-day \r\ncounterparts.<\/p>\r\nDrive Out the Bush Regime!\r\n All this comes on top of a host of other outrages: the war in Iraq, the use \r\nand legitimation of torture, the systematic attempts to force <\/em>women and \r\ngay people further into positions of oppression, and so on. The fact is \r\nthis:<\/p>\r\n WE CANNOT TOLERATE THREE MORE YEARS OF THE BUSH REGIME AND ITS PROGRAM!<\/p>\r\n And there IS something to do about this. In this paper, there is the call for \r\nmassive political mobilization on November 2 to actually drive out the Bush \r\nRegime<\/em>. That is a day in which everyone who opposes this regime MUST act, \r\nwith unity and daring. It is a serious call designed to get things to a whole \r\nother place in this country--to unite tens and then hundreds of thousands, and \r\nthen millions, to actually OUST this regime. We are not putting our hopes and \r\nenergies into some politician. Instead, we must rely on ourselves <\/em>to \r\ndraw forward the millions and tens of millions who really do hate where the \r\nsociety is heading and to change the whole political direction of this country. \r\nNovember 2 will be the beginning of that, the Day that history starts to \r\nchange--\"a giant first step in forcing Bush to step down and a powerful \r\nannouncement that we will not stop until he does so.\"<\/p>\r\n Katrina tore the mask off the \"compassionate conservative\" and showed the \r\nreal ugly face of the Bush regime. Bush is now trying to recoup, to seize on \r\nKatrina for his own reasons and with his own agenda. He is desperate, and \r\ndesperate people do desperate things.<\/p>\r\n But Katrina also unleashed something else--serious outrage, serious questions \r\nand a serious new spirit of resistance. Take that outrage and spirit to the next \r\nlevel.<\/p>\r\n On to November 2. DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME!<\/p>\r\n Many of you reading this will have gotten this paper at the Millions More \r\nevents in Washington, D.C. You have come out in opposition to the oppression now \r\ngoing on and in the hope of a positive program. There is nothing more positive \r\nright now than getting rid of the Bush Regime. There is nothing more urgent \r\nright now than joining with the movement to do that, taking the word back to \r\nwhere you live and work and go to school, and mobilizing others. Read the Call \r\nto November 2 in this issue, and take hundreds of them home with you. Go to the \r\nworldcantwait.org website every day, finding out the news and getting connected \r\nto this movement. Find the people in your community who are building this . . . \r\nor start your own group. Make your plans for November 2, and organize others to \r\ngo with you.<\/p><\/div> We would like to ask you respected gentlemen (and ladies) of the cloth who \r\nhave said that Katrina is god’s punishment: did Black people \"bring slavery on \r\nthemselves\"? Was this too a \"divine punishment?\" And did Black people pray their \r\nway out of it? Or was slavery brought on by the needs of this depraved \r\ncapitalist system, and ended only through a civil war in which the slaves \r\nthemselves rose up and went to the very front lines, dying out of all proportion \r\nto their numbers?<\/p><\/div>
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<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/revcom.us","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","summary":"Damn Right! And That's Not The Half Of It","numcomment":2,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2005\/10\/nickersonbanner01.jpg","filesize":"9.3 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2005\/10\/137271.php","image":{"original":"\/uploads\/2005\/10\/nickersonbanner01.jpg","small":"\/uploads\/2005\/10\/nickersonbanner01.jpgthumb.jpg"}},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":137281,"heading":""Bush doesn't care" vs. "Bush doesn't like"","article":"Not to take away too much from this excellent posting and all the on-point information it presents, but I noticed recently that Kanye West's original wording, "George Bush doesn't care about black people" had morphed very quickly into "George Bush doesn't LIKE black people." I'm glad to see the accurate quote here on this posting. Anyway, I thought it was very interesting how this change occurred. It happened in the media, as well as just among people in conversation. I wondered what it might suggest.\r\n\r\nThe act of "caring" is a profoundly human one. The act of "liking" is something that applies more to objects-- I like ice cream, I like coffee, I like my old armchair. I don't really CARE about ice cream.\r\n\r\nWhat does it all mean? Kanye West's wording was very specific--he chose to say "care" when he could have said "like"--as everyone quickly changed it to seem like he did. As a very eloquent poet, I think perhaps West was specifically highlighting the INHUMANITY of Bush, his inability to engage in the human act of "caring" about people, and not simply the easily refutable assertion that he doesn't "like" someone or a group of people ("Why, of COURSE Bush LIKES black people--Condie Rice is a good friend of his!").\r\n\r\nSo why did it get twisted into "like"? You can puzzle that one out. I think though that when poets like West step up and fulfill their highest function AS poet and use their skill and eloquence with words to speak to power, we might want to have a certain reverence for the words they choose, a consciousness that appreciates the value and power of the act they have chosen to carry out and the specific words they have chosen to do it. By the same token, we should be wary of how others seek to silence that power and devalue the act of poetry by twisting and erasing those threatening, dangerous words.\r\n\r\nThis last point, by the way, is one that Kanye West and Game make far more eloquently than I could with the song "Crack Music" and its ironic, performative commentary on the interplay between words, music, and resistance in the face of systematic genocide. The song is absolutely brilliant. Here's the last verse:\r\n\r\n"We took that shit, measured it and then cooked that shit\r\nAnd what we gave back was crack music\r\nAnd now we ooze it through they nooks and crannies\r\nSo our mammas aint got to be they cooks and nannies\r\nAnd we gonna repo everything they ever took from granny\r\nNow the former slaves trade hooks for grammies\r\nThis dark diction has become America's addiction \r\nThose who ain't even black use it."\r\n\r\n\r\nword.","author":"word nerd","parent_id":137271,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2005-10-16 00:25:02","modified":"2005-10-16 00:25:02","fileurl":""}]}