A Statement of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
September 22, 2005
The outpouring of support and aid to the victims of hurricane Katrina has been truly
inspiring. Whether motivated by religious faith or secular humanism, people from all 50
states have come together to offer aid and comfort on the ground where it is now most
needed. This reflects the essential goodness and generosity of the people of our country.
Furthermore it has underscored the difference between a dispassionate, so-called
“ownership society,” positing individual responsibility for each person’s fate – even in the in
the face of circumstances over which they have no control - and the idea of social solidarity
and collective action. It is on that spirit, and not the greed and uncaring individualism that so
often accompany “the market,” that we should build in the coming months and years of
overcoming this tragedy.
Following weeks of pain, suffering, death and economic loss, however, the
communities of New Orleans and the stricken areas of the Gulf are now threatened by
another storm. Call it predatory profiteering.
From the sweetheart construction contracts flowing to Halliburton, to the major
insurance companies’ maneuvering to get out of their obligations to stricken homeowners,
to the real estate operatives bottom feeding in the ruins of New Orleans, the vultures have
massed. The scent of corruption already emanates from the Bush Administration’s Gulf
reconstruction activity.
Amid open talk about perhaps not re-building New Orleans, reconstructing only parts
of it, and deliberately changing the city’s “demographics,” people living there have begun to
wonder if they will ever be at home there again. They rightly fear that some operators have
in mind a kind of opportunistic ethnic-cleansing. They are demanding the right to
themselves determine the contours of reconstruction and to be the principal voice in
determining what the future of their cities shall be.
Input and decision-making by the residents of the stricken areas should be a matter
of principle. However, the scope of the rebuilding tasks required cannot be a local matter. It
requires a massive commitment of energy and resources on the part of the federal
government. There is clear precedent for multi-state, regional projects, including the
Tennessee Valley Authority, the WPA, the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Hoover Dam.
Garnering the resources necessary to rebuild and reconstruct the hurricane
devastated regions of the Gulf and reconstruct the shattered economy of the region requires
many things. Two of the most obligatory are:
• an immediate end to the war in Iraq which is costing us $9 billion a month;
• reversing the prevailing government policy of handing ever greater
portions of the
nation’s wealth to the already wealthy.
The people of the United States as a nation are prepared to bear the cost of
reconstructing the devastated Gulf areas. The sacrifices, however, must be shared justly. In
the face of this crisis it is unconscionable for the President – with the connivance of a pliant
Congress - to continue to hand out tax breaks to the people who need them least or cut the
social programs that serve those whose needs are greatest. Halting the tax cuts for the
wealthy now planned, scuttling plans for any new ones and ceasing military involvement in
Afghanistan and Iraq will free much of the resources required to meet the dire needs of the
stricken communities of the Gulf.
Plans for the reconstruction of the Gulf region should include, to the maximum extent
possible, the employment of the energy and resources of the people in the stricken areas,
including the very large immigrant communities of the region. Such a jobs program offers
the opportunity to partially meet the challenge of persistent economic deprivation in the
Black community as a whole. Rather than setting aside affirmative action regulations as the
President has done we should be expanding and strengthening them. The jobless rate for
African American young people now stands at 36.3 percent – as opposed to 16.5 percent
for young people as a whole. That’s 7 points above January, 3 points above where it was in
August 1995 and 6.8 points above August 2004. A reconstruction program of the scope of
the WPA or the Civilian Conservation Corps would go a long way toward alleviating this
economic injustice.
Certainly every effort must be expended to uncover what went wrong in the
response to the hurricane disaster at all levels of government. Officials found to have been
derelict must be called to account. Most serious in this regard is the depraved indifference
demonstrated in the highest levels of the federal government at the critical moments of the
crisis, starting at the White House.
However, the nation has learned something over the past month. Emergency
preparedness must never again be assigned on the basis of political patronage to
unqualified individuals. The unrelenting decimation of the country’s public health
infrastructure impairs our ability to respond to crises. Warnings from the scientific
community about possible threats must be taken seriously and action taken in advance to
prevent or deal with them.
Much of the responsibility for the situation we now confront can be traced directly to
the agitation by the political right for “shrinking” government by reducing the resources
available to protect the general welfare. The administration must not be allowed to now use
the hurricane crisis as an excuse to undermine or set aside existing labor standards,
environmental protections or public services. Rather than lowering the bar we can raise it.
The effort to rebuild the Gulf region should actually strengthen security and social welfare.
The aim should be to achieve a better, safer and more secure life for the current and future
generations in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Having a clear picture of the current situation and the needs of the moment,
however, will not be sufficient to bring about the desired results. A new social movement is
required to realize the policy changes required. To that end we call for the widest possible
unity of progressive forces dedicated to altering and reversing the current ruinous path upon
which our country has been derailed. We call for unity in action everywhere in the interest of
peace and social and economic justice.