6 September 2005
Capitalist Social Terrorism
Note by Róbinson Rojas: Capitalist market work
concentrating capital in the hand of a minority creating capitalist economic
terrorism (as I defined it elsewhere), because capital concentration give also
overwhelming political power to the big capitalists and their political servants. From the
above capital social terrorism arises, which dramatically polarizes society. United States
is the best example of this capitalist social terrorism in action which Hurricane Katrina
uncovered for the whole world to see. In United States like in any modern capitalist
society creation of wealth goes parallel to creation of inequality and poverty. The
readers below, taken from The Washington Post and The New York Times, are a useful
description of the main features of capitalist social terrorism. (6 September 2005)
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From The New York Times - 8 September 2005
Macabre
Reminder: The Corpse on Union Street
By Dan Barry
NEW ORLEANS, - In the downtown business district here, on a dry stretch of Union Street,
past the Omni Bank automated teller machine, across from a parking garage offering
"early bird" rates: a corpse. Its feet jut from a damp blue tarp. Its knees rise
in rigor mortis. Six National Guardsmen walked up to it on Tuesday afternoon and two
blessed themselves with the sign of the cross. One soldier took a parting snapshot like
some visiting conventioneer, and they walked away. New Orleans, September 2005.
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From The Washington Post - 6 September 2005
The Lagging
Poor
"The Census Bureau's annual report on
income, poverty and health insurance in the United States is not alarming -- but neither
is it cheering, or even reassuring. Rather, the numbers underscore the lagging and uneven
nature of the economic recovery since the 2001 recession. According to the new data, 4
million more people were living in poverty in 2004 than in 2001, and 4.6 million more
people lacked health insurance."
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From The New York Times - 6 September 2005
The Larger
Shame
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
The wretchedness coming across our television screens from Louisiana has illuminated the
way children sometimes pay with their lives, even in America, for being born to poor
families.
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From The Washington Post - 5 September 2005
Disaster Cleanup
Halliburton
Subsidiary Taps Contract For Repairs
By Lolita C. Baldor
An Arlington-based Halliburton Co. subsidiary that has been criticized for its
reconstruction work in Iraq has begun tapping a $500 million Navy contract to do emergency
repairs at Gulf Coast naval and Marine facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
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From The Washington Post - 3 September 2005
Kanye West's
Torrent of Criticism, Live on NBC
"I hate the way they portray us in the media. You
see a black family, it says, "They're looting." You see a white family, it says,
"They're looking for food." And, you know, it's been five days [waiting for
federal help] because most of the people are black."
By Lisa de Moraes
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From The Washington Post - 3 September 2005
Oil Firms
Turn Katrina Into Profits, Clinton Says
N.Y. Senator Criticizes Lack of National Leadership,
Freedom From Imports
By Dan Balz
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From The New York Times - 3 September 2005
Editorial
Katrina's
Assault on Washington
Do not be misled by Congress's approval of $10.5
billion in relief for the Hurricane Katrina victims. That's prompted by the graphic shock
of the news coverage from New Orleans and the region, where the devastation catapults
daily, in heartbreaking contrast with the slo-mo bumblings of government.
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From The New York Times - 3 September 2005
United
States of Shame
By Maureen Dowd
Stuff happens. And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal
stuff happens. America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting,
raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police
force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this
time it's happening in America.
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From The New York Times - 2 September 2005
They Saw It
Coming
By Mark Fischetti
THE deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina are heart-rending. The suffering of survivors is
wrenching. Property destruction is shocking. But perhaps the most agonizing part is that
much of what happened in New Orleans this week might have been avoided.
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From The New York Times - 2 September 2005
From Margins
of Society to Center of the Tragedy
By David González
The scenes of floating corpses, scavengers fighting for food and desperate throngs seeking
any way out of New Orleans have been tragic enough. But for many African-American leaders,
there is a growing outrage that many of those still stuck at the center of this tragedy
were people who for generations had been pushed to the margins of society
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From The New York Times - 2 September 2005
Cameras
Captured a Disaster but Now Focus on Suffering
By Alessandra Stanley
A woman in a wheelchair, her face and body covered by a plaid blanket, dead, and left next
to a wall of the New Orleans convention center like a discarded supermarket cart. There
were many other appalling images from Hurricane Katrina on Thursday, but that one was a
turning point: after three days of flood scenes, television shifted from recording a
devastating natural disaster to exposing human failures.
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