New Orleans a Decade after Katrina: ‘Waiting for Godot’ Courtesy of Disaster Capitalism
NEWS JUNKIE POST
Aug 14, 2015
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen journalists report on a story — providing that they embrace a pseudo-neutral AP style — they are not supposed to get emotionally involved with their subjects. The unreachable goal is to provide readers, listeners or viewers with copies or segments that appear to be objective, impartial and loaded with facts and data. This is of course never the case, because mainstream media journalists always serve a few masters. Therefore, elements of truth are tailored to serve specific agendas. Despite this, when a big story happens, like Katrina’s wrecking of New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA) in late August 2005, the pseudo-clinical AP neutrality is thrown out the window, and the occasion becomes emotional, especially for the star journalists of the mainstream media: cold clinical analyses do not sell copy or get high TV rating; emotion and personal stories do.
For me, Katrina’s arrival to the Crescent City was always personal. I used to own a house in New Orleans: a beautiful Victorian house uptown. When Katrina arrived and wrecked the town, I was in Canada doing location scouting for a film. Regardless, I managed to keep a constant eye on the upcoming landfall and mainly focused my effort into moving my tenants out of town and getting a good friend to put plywood on all windows and doors. I evacuated my people, and once it was done, I made travel arrangements to New Orleans. Despite the lock down of the town ordered by the governor of Louisiana, I managed to get in, and I arrived on September 4, 2005.
While worldwide audiences were glued to their TV screens watching wall-to-wall coverage, at times honest and accurate and at other times tall tales made up by the like of Brian Willians, I first made my way through Katrina’s war zone to check on my house and on some friends who had decided to ride the storm. To my surprise, my Victorian house was spared any significant damage. My new goal became to document the event as accurately as I could.
For more than a week, I drove everywhere: midtown, uptown, the Garden District and, of course, the areas that had taken the biggest blow, such as the Lower 9th Ward and Lakeshore. The level of destruction was surreal, but it did not even come close to the inept and borderline criminal inaction of local, state and federal governments. Rich New Orleans left town two or three days before the hurricane hit, whereas the poor were left behind to fend for themselves. Security quickly became the number-one priority for officials: protecting their assets and the properties of their rich friends.
Along with the mercenaries of Blackwater — the Praetorian Guard of the Bush administration — the Louisiana National Guard was deployed. In early September 2005, most people carried guns in New Orleans to protect their properties from looting. The poor, in majority African-Americans, received very little help and were rightly mad. Most store owners became vigilantes armed to the teeth. Looting took place, but not at all to the extreme depicted by the mainstream media to drum up the fear and paranoia factor.
More than 1,600 people died in the aftermath of Katrina, and almost all of them were poor and Black.
[dropcap]F[/dropcap]or about 10 days, New Orleans post-Katrina was a story of complete government failure at all levels. The world realized that, right under a veneer of power projected by the empire, there was a hidden third-world country with deep racial divisions and astonishing inequality. More than 1,600 people died in the aftermath of Katrina, and almost all of them were poor and Black.
In the following years up until 2008, I always came back to take care of my house, but mainly to track down what has become my photographic story: the progress report of NOLA post Katrina. In three years, beside some punctual initiatives from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and celebrity-driven efforts that turned out to be largely self promotions, nothing really happened. The brutality of the storm had become a slow death by decay. More than 100,000 people left NOLA with nothing, and were scattered to the wind. They became the internal refugees of disaster capitalism. Within a year, the nice parts of town were fixed, while areas like the Lower 9th Ward became no-man land urban jungles. The vegetation took over abandoned structures, creating a surreal landscape of rot and decay.
New Orleans is not alone in this disaster capitalism scheme. In 2010, our esteemed colleague Dady Chery started to write about the tragedy of her island, Haiti, after the earthquake. Once upon a time, the business model of this empire was to rebuild after either a man-made or a natural disaster. The Marshall Plan rebuilt Germany after World War II, and a similar program, headed by [Imperial proconsul] General McArthur was tailored to Japan.
The empire of disaster capitalism came up with a new business plan for the world: after the destruction, nothing really gets rebuilt. Haitians are still waiting for Godot and wondering who stole the money given to them by the international community. Godot has not visited Detroit, Michigan either. Godot will certainly not pay a visit to the ruins of Iraq and Syria, courtesy of the disaster capitalism empire of chaos. What will it take for the countless victims of the managers of disaster-for-profit to come out of their lethargy? What will it take for them to emerge from their semi-comatose state engineered by the mainstream media on the payroll of disaster capitalism? Will it be a hurricane bigger than Katrina sweeping through the Gulf of Mexico and destroying the bulk of the oil rigs? Will it take the destruction of another country following the model of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria? Godot or a providential man will not come. People worldwide must understand that we have already entered a stage of general systemic failure, and that it is time for action, not for change of window dressing. Godot will not come, it is time for people of the Earth to grab their destiny by the scruff of the neck. Time for drastic and concerted action.
ABOUT GILBERT MERCIER
French journalist, on air analyst, photojournalist & filmmaker based in the United States since 1983. Co-founder & editor in chief of News Junkie Post.
Editor’s Note: The photographs of New-Orleans post Katrina to illustrate this article were all taken by Gilbert Mercier between September 4, 2005 and early 2008. Mercier used a Contax G1 and Kodachrome film with 64 ASA or 200 ASA.
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FACT TO REMEMBER:
IF THE WESTERN MEDIA HAD ITS PRIORITIES IN ORDER AND ACTUALLY INFORMED, EDUCATED AND UPLIFTED THE MASSES INSTEAD OF SHILLING FOR A GLOBAL EMPIRE OF ENDLESS WARS, OUTRAGEOUS ECONOMIC INEQUALITY, AND DEEPENING DEVASTATION OF NATURE AND THE ANIMAL WORLD, HORRORS LIKE THESE WOULD HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED MANY YEARS, PERHAPS DECADES AGO. EVERY SINGLE DAY SOCIAL BACKWARDNESS COLLECTS ITS OWN INNUMERABLE VICTIMS.
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