Today reading Planet Debian, Mr. Martin Krafft directed my attention[1] to a statement by the World Socialist Web Site.[2] He claims that he is not a socialist, but agrees with the article. I also am not a socialist, but I do not. So much so, that I would like to respond in a point-by-point basis, lest the reality of the wrongness of socialism get lost in the elements of truth that it uses in support.
The scenes of intense human suffering, hopelessness, squalor, and neglect amidst the wreckage of what was once New Orleans have exposed the rotten core of American capitalist society before the eyes of the entire world — and, most significantly, before those of its own stunned people.[2]
The scenes and stories we are witnessing do indeed show something rotten in our society. It shows when people take not just the food and water they need for survival, but the televisions, clothing, and exercise equipment that stores are equally unable to sell them. I do not begrudge them the food and water they can find. I do not even find it morally wrong for them to take it, they have no real choice. But the other is looting. The other is wrong, and it is embarrassing to see it happening and so publicized.
Hurricane Katrina has laid bare the awful truths of contemporary America — a country torn by the most intense class divisions, ruled by a corrupt plutocracy that possesses no sense either of social reality or public responsibility, in which millions of its citizens are deemed expendable and cannot depend on any social safety net or public assistance if disaster, in whatever form, strikes.[2]
Since the Hurricane hit and the reality of the disaster was made known to the rest of the country, who cannot truly be faulted for not having guessed in advance what the major news outlets failed to report (the likelihood of what we see now), has donated over 115 million dollars in private donations alone[3] This is the social net that Americans can depend on. And this is all the social net they should need. For charity is not a function of government, spending other people's money, but of the individuals and companies that our society is comprised of, spending their own money. The United States was founded on the belief that given the chance, people can and will better their own lives. Our westward expansion, sometimes corrupt and dishonest though it was, evinces the same basic belief. We do not need government assistance, we will build and shape society ourselves.
Washington's response to this human tragedy has been one of gross incompetence and criminal indifference. People have been left to literally die in the streets of a major American city without any assistance for four days. Images of suffering and degradation that resemble the conditions in the most impoverished Third World countries are broadcast daily with virtually no visible response from the government of a country that concentrates the greatest share of wealth in the world.[2]
For this perhaps there is some blame, like the initial donation to Indonesia, the Federal money offered is clearly insufficient for the scope of the need. But the true assistance of the government is not in direct money grants. That is not the role of our Federal government. The true level of assistance is as the military ships come in, as soldiers turn from war to rescue. The world rightly knows that there are none better than the men and women of our armed forces to take on this work, and perhaps understandably wondered what they could offer us. Anything they do will necessarily pale in significance to what our own military is doing, and what our own companies and citizenry are and will do. Unfortunately all this takes time. And for whatever reason, we were caught by surprise at the scope of this disaster. The surprise is unacceptable, but the reaction is real, and to question it is dishonest.
The storm that breached the levees of New Orleans has also revealed all of the horrific implications of 25 yearsâ worth of uninterrupted social and political reaction.[2]
Mrs. Michelle Malkin takes on this idea in her web log post "The Blame Game."[4] She quotes a Chicago Tribune report[5] stating that the decision to only protect New Orleans from a Category 3 hurricane (Katrina was a Category 4 when it hit, and was a Category 5 only hours before) was made back in 1965. In fact, according to the United States Army Corps of Engineers, even had the building project been completed, even if funds had not been slashed, the flooding would still have occurred. The critical breach came in an area where construction, again, construction by design sufficient only for a Category 3 storm, had been completed. This is not "25 years" of politics, this is 40 years of politics. This goes back to Lyndon Johnson, author of the "Great Society," one of the strongest pushes towards socialism in our nation's history. To ignore this reality is at worst blatant dishonesty and at best political opportunism.
The next couple paragraphs of the socialist statement blame Washington for the confusion that currently reigns in New Orleans. It ignores the situation in Mississippi, where its argument would, if anything, be stronger. It is important to remember here that, for good or for ill, our government is structured in such a way that the Federal government is crippled in its ability to assist until requested by the Governor of Mississippi, and that the Mayor of New Orleans remains at least nominally in charge of activities there. We do have a failure to plan for a major hurricane hitting the city. The civil authorities, both in New Orleans and in Mississippi are culpable for their failure to plan for a full evacuation, and for their failure to plan sufficiently for recovery. In the face of reality, the cost-benefit analysises they hid behind fly out the window. If you look at the Florida Keys, you see policies removing first tourists then the citizenry from harm's way in the event of a hurricane. In the wake of Andrew back in 1995, the entire Gulf coast, all at high risk of hurricane, should have looked around them and thought "what will we do when this happens to us?" That they did not is inexcusable. But this is not Washington's fault. Rather, this is the responsibility of the state Governments, to look at transportation routes from the coastal cities. To look into mass transport for those who cannot get themselves out. To plan shelter further inland and higher up for them. Washington's job is to stay out of their way, and provide the military assistance if requested.
While some reporters fail to understand the critical need for food and water that both excuses and justifies those who take it from stores that cannot sell it, the police response has been all that could be wished. They allow it, and block only those who would take other goods. These are the real looters, and their existence is inexcusable. Television reporters are perhaps reduced to tears at the sights they see. Rightly so, they are in part responsible. Responsible for failure to investigate the negligence of the state and local planning. Responsible for failure of prediction and imagination as Katrina approached, leading many to be surprised by the extent of the destruction. Before it hit, I heard reporters expecting that New Orleans would be spared the predicted floods because the storm had turned away, that somehow missing a direct hit would spare them the torrential wind, and the still significant winds at the edges of the storm. Surely they knew better, after all, we who have lived through lesser storms knew better.
Further, they are responsible if for no other reason than that they are there. What are they doing there, able to report on sight? Why are the helicopters or vehicles that bring them and their equipment there not being used for rescue and relief? This too is inexplicable. This too needs explanation. The news media needs to wake up to the fact that they are not simply observers, but participants in the human condition and the state of the nation.
President Bush is next faulted for his failure to make significant plans for the relief of New Orleans and Mississippi as the storm approached. I somewhat agree, why were the Navy ships now en route not sent to stand off the coast in advance? But the failure here is really not President Bush's. The failure, as I said earlier, falls on the Governors and local authorities who failed to plan, failed to evacuate, and failed to request in advance the aid they now need.
In other words, there will be no serious financial commitment from the government to save lives, care for the sick and needy, and help the displaced and bereft restore their lives. Nor will there be any national, centrally financed and organized program to rebuild one of the country's most important cities -- a city that is uniquely associated with some of the most critical cultural achievements in music and the arts of the American people.[2]
This is partly true and partly false. There is, undeniably (by honest observers), a serious financial commitment from the government to save lives. Navy ships do not come cheaply. Helicopters are also expensive. The rescue efforts are underway, aided by our military, which represents, undeniably, government commitment. There will not, however, be any "national, centrally financed and organized program" to rebuild the city. There should not be. This is where the principle of "subsidiarity" comes in. Action should occur at the lowest level able to grasp the issue. As the issue confronting New Orleans (if to rebuild and how to rebuild) is not quite the same as that facing Mississippi (a more straightforward rebuilding process, but also different in that the poverty represented in the construction is different), the proper scope for these efforts are the separate states, the separate localities. A nationally mandated plan would not allow the flexibility necessary to handle these problems justly for these different areas and differing populations. This is not a question of the value of each human life in comparison(contrast?) with the profit interests of corporations. This represents a difference of belief in how to best meet that human need. We all complain about the indifference the larger companies have towards their companies. Banks do not know us, to know we are trust worthy. Insurance companies cannot know who represents how much risk, but is stuck with statistical analysis that allow for no exceptions. This is the type of organization that the socialist favors, nationalized, impersonal. The more human response is to allow people the freedom to rebuild, and provide what assistance they need at an interpersonal level. This is what we see documented at "Americans Aiding Americans." This is the real strength of the country, and the proper scope of rebuilding efforts.
At the same point, we must, like House Speaker Dennis Hastert, consider what the proper aim of our efforts is. Does it make sense to rebuild a New Orleans below sea level and ever at risk of another storm? Or would it make more sense to sacrifice some land to the Gulf, and build anew on the new coast? The question is not should we build a city there, for the economic and social welfare of its now homeless inhabitants, the question is how best to serve them. We can fight nature. We can sometimes win against it, but is it worth it, in terms of the lives that would be at risk, to try here? Is it respectful and mindful of the deaths that have taken place in this disaster, to set the stage for an identical one? His words do have a certain political logic. They have a certain economic logic as well. He backtracked not because he was necessarily wrong, but because it is politically unacceptable to tell these people, still suffering, that their homes are gone forever. The fact remains however, that this might be the best course of action for them and their children.
Can anyone doubt that Congress, which through existing legislation, will back New Orleans and Mississippi as it did Florida last year? Did the residents of Homestead back in 1995 not have homes and schools restored to them as well? It is their politics, not their awareness of history, recent or less so, that causes the socialist to doubt that tax payer dollars will supplement what insurance will already provide. Congress has been virtually silent. Congress has also been virtually absent from Washington. Congress is aware that it voted to slash funding for existing projects. It is also aware that those projects would have proved insufficient, and that it is funding a project, scheduled back in 1999 to start in 2006, to look into the protections that, had they come in time, would have been sufficient. No new legislation is needed at this point, rather, what is needed is to let the American Red Cross, Catholic Charities, and the other private sector humanitarian efforts continue without government hindrance.
The lessons derived from past natural and economic calamities -- from the deadly floods of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the dust bowl and Depression of the 1930s -- have been repudiated and derided by a ruling elite driven by the crisis of its profit system to subordinate ever more ruthlessly all social concerns to the extraction of profit and accumulation of personal wealth.[2]
This has some merit. While government is not responsible, and its intervention can, I think, only be harmful more often than not, we do have a crisis in society. Corporate greed goes hand and hand with the materialist and relativistic philosophies that pervade every level of society, from the very poor to the very rich. Indeed, it is these philosophies that have largely enabled unbounded corporate greed. It is not to government that we must then turn to the solution, it cannot provide a solution for this ill. Socialism would only address some of the symptoms of the underlying problem. What we have here is not fundamentally a question of economic imbalance that could be restrained by "progressive" government policy. Rather, what we have is the ever increasing levels of indifference to moral norms, including and especially the intrinsic value of the human life. To the extent in which the "Culture of Death" that Pope John Paul II and now Pope Benedict XVI have preached against is the norm of society, one can only expect that the poor will be neglected and mistreated. Socialism would only replace corporate indifference with bureaucratic indifference; China is not known for its record on human rights, France and Germany are struggling to meet their socialistic obligations. The bureaucrat, hemmed in by rules, cannot meet the real human needs. Rather, what we must do, what we must see, is a turning away from death, and an embarrassing of the true Faith, and the culture of life it promotes.
Franklin Roosevelt introduced welfare, a program that has for more than 60 years failed to adequately assist those in need. Worse, it has failed to maintain and preserve their human dignity. Its policies have encouraged the breakdown of the family, and in so doing, made the lives of the poor worse and not better. As we have slowly and inconsistently dismantled his work, and the "Great Society" programs that followed it, we have allowed for true growth, and re-instilled the reliance on self, family, and community that have enabled this country to grow from an agricultural backwater to the world's current sole super power. America is in some respects two countries. But then so is France, where the wealthy pay for private hospitals rather than using the government funded ones. This does have to change. And the way to do it is by conversion, not by government mandate. Socialism would substitute a system that "subordinates everything to the enrichment of a financial oligarchy" with one that subordinates everything to an impersonal bureaucracy. We do not want or need this, rather we need a system that respects the human dignity, including the human responsibilities, of its citizens.
[1] Krafft, Martin F. "Katrina aftermath" untitled
2005-09-02.
http://blog.madduck.net/2005/09/02/2005.09.02-katrina-aftermath
[2] World Socialist Web Site Editorial Board. "Hurricane Katrinaâs
aftermath: from natural disaster to national humiliation" World
Socialist Web Site 2005-09-02.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/hurr-s02.shtml
[3]
Simmins, Chuck. "Americans Aiding Americans"
http://blog.simmins.org/katrina/ameraidamer.html viewed 2005-09-02.
[4] Malkin, Michelle. "THE BLAME GAME" michellemalkin.com
2005-09-02. http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003447.htm
[5]
Martin, Andrew and Andrew Zajac. "Corps officials: Funding levels not to
blame for flooding" Chicago Tribune 2005-09-01.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050901corps,1,7189346.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
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