Global warming insensified Santa Anna winds have sent a hurricane of fire roaring through parts of California, givin wealthy Malibu and similar places a taste of what Katrina was like in New Orlenas, with 1,000,000 people evacuated. Those evacuated from multimillion dollar mansions are getting treatment Katrina evacuees could not have dreamed of.

The Washington Post has quoted one person evacuated from the million dollar masions burning in San Diego County as getting free massages and coffee from Starbucks. Anohter source has cited yoga classes continuing for people in Qualcomm Stadium.

Qualcomm Stadium is no Superdome-residents of New Orleans after Katrina are still waiting for those massages, yoga classes, and coffee-not to mention to have public housing reopened. Shit-people in the Superdome would have beenhappy to just have FOOD AND WATER, much less massages, yoga, and coffee!

It is a safe bet that those multimillion dollar mansions feeding the flames in places like Malibu will be rebuilt long before a single public housing unit ever reopens in New Orleans.

Nobody fleeing the Mailbu flames was stopped on a bridge by a race-hating sheriff. Goose-stepping racist militias aren't trolling around Malibu and other nplaces in California to keep residents out. There has been no talk of armed house-to-house evictions(though I guess the fire is "armed" enough to do that).

I f the fires spread to Black and Brown neighborhoods in LA, it will be interstign to see how long those massages, those yoga classes, and that coffee from Starbucks keep flowing.

Worse than Katrina: Burned-up Residents Fault Officials for San Diego's Devastating Fires Earlier Recommendations Ignored by Governor; Equipment, Personnel Unavailable, Undeployed, Late in Coming

“It’s like Armageddon,” Jill Michaels said, after watching her home burn to the ground in the Harris fire. In the early hours of the worst fire in California history, the Michaels family received no evacuation warning and found exit routes blocked, forcing them to turn back to their home in Potrero. Now, the Michaels are among half a million evacuees who have fled four raging wildfires, the worst fire disaster in California history.

"Los Angeles Is Burning"

Somewhere high in the desert near a curtain of a blue

St. Anne's skirts are billowing

But down here in the city of the lime lights

The fans of santa ana are withering

And you can’t deny that living is easy

If you never look behind the scenery

It's showtime for dry climes

And bedlam is dreaming of rain

When the hills of los angeles are burning

Palm trees are candles in the murder wind

So many lives are on the breeze

Even the stars are ill at ease

And los angeles is burning

This is not a test

Of the emergency broadcast system

Where malibu fires and radio towers

Conspire to dance again

And I cannot believe the media Mecca

They're only trying to peddle reality,

Catch it on prime time, story at nine

The whole world is going insane

When the hills of los angeles are burning

Palm trees are candles in the murder wind

So many lives are on the breeze

Even the stars are ill at ease

And los angeles is burning

A placard reads

"the end of days"

Jacaranda boughs are bending in the haze

More a question than a curse

How could hell be any worse?

The flames are stunning

The cameras running

So take warning

When the hills of los angeles are burnin

Palm trees are candles in the murder wind

So many lives are on the breeze

Even the stars are ill at ease

And los angeles is burning

Katrina workers screwed: http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/10/19/a-disposable-workforce-in-new-orleans-after-katrina/

Gentrifying Disaster by Mike Davis: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=8992

Add it up - the insurance companies will be nicer to the Malibu residents and other upper middle to wealthy people, because they buy a lot of insurance. The companies will try to get the government money to cover their responsibilities.

Back when the Northridge quake broke apart the Valley, insurance and FEMA were slow to act. Why? I dunno. Maybe it's because a lot of homeowners had cheap insurance, that the banks required them to purchase before approving the mortgage. It's not exactly an individual mandate, but it's almost the same thing.

The marketplace produced an insurance product that is profitable for the companies, as long as the people who buy the policy either don't use it, or are afraid of using it, or are going to give up if payment doesn't materialize.

This isn't any different from what happened with auto insurance, where we're flooded with a lot of "race to the bottom" lousy insurance. If all these policy holders got into accidents, you'd find people were not getting covered fairly.

[The Right doesn't write about this much, but the hard-core libertarian wing believes that social welfare should be eliminated, and people should purchase insurance, and rely on insurance companies to provide social services. Insurance would also impose "rules" on people to regulate personal behavior.]

Every poor community is seen by real estate speculators as two separate things. There's the land, and there's the people on the land. They believe that if they can remove the people, they can increase the value of the land. It doesn't matter how people are removed, but their goal is to remove.

Every rich community is seen as a potential source of capital. Disaster strikes, and it's an opportunity to convert stocks, bonds, and other forms of property, into cash, to pay for rebuilding. The banks (and insurance companies) want people to stay right where they are. Their houses will be destroyed again, but as long as the residents have the money to rebuild, they will be encouraged to do so.

Ok LL, you're out of here.

Thanks.

PLEASE don not give me that "people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps" crap. The people holed up in the Dome had no toilets, running water, air conditioning, or air, for that matter. Teach each other Yoga???!!!

We can't really compare the two events, can we? We are talking about two different socioeconomic classes.

Do not blame the victims in New Orleans. I won't stand for it. The people there were not given the message until way too late (a mandatory evacuation notice). This doomed the poor, who had no cars, no gas, and no money (living paycheck to paycheck, end of the month) to wallow in the dismal reality they found themselves in. The City made NO ATTEMPT to help get these people out of there (Amtrack trains left for higher ground full of empty seats). Go figure. But do not blame these people.

If you knew anything about Katrina, you would know how the local residents saved each other and worked together in community as always. I suggest Douglas Brinkley's book, The Great Deluge.

Why is this blaming the victims?

This is about collective responsibilty- this is about the people saying "we aren't going to wait for the government- we are going to take responsibility for our health and comfort and sanity ourselves". This is a beautiful thing.

"The reason there were massages is that people, also evacuees, volunteered to give them. The reason there were yoga classes was that people, also evacuees, volunteered to give them. its that simple. The reason the stadium is clean is because the evacuees have been keeping it that way. "

If all communities were like this, we'd be much better off.

And for your information- the shelters were not full of wealthy people- they went to hotels. the shelters were full of working class and middle class folk,

Oh sure, blame this real estate/county government mutual butt- f**king collusion in zoning, building codes and total disregard ( in a grand REPEATING of the Pacific Palisades* like debacle ) for ecology ( natural fire cycles ), geology ( flooding mass movement ) and maintenance, on the poor dupes who thought the regulations and oversight they PAY for in taxes was more than a love fest as usual between capital and cronyism in office.

Meanwhile our national guard is getting shot up and poisoned and driven insane, over in the sand box.

Seriously. Or white. Palast says over 30% were not white.

They were disproportionately well-off and wealthy, but that doesn't mean everyone. There will be people getting virtually evicted by this fire.