Joel's OK but New Orleans isn't
Our friend and Sivacracy.net contributor Joel Dinerstein drove himself from New Orleans to Austin in plenty of time to escape Hurricane Katrina. So he is safe, I am happy to report. He can't use his e-mail or cell phone very much because the requisite servers and services are all under water. We have no word on the condition of his house or his amazing record and book collection.
It seems 80 percent of the city of New Orleans is under water after a levee broke this morning. It's ugly. The whole city will be unusable and uninhabitable for months. I wonder how people will cope. Will millions be homeless and unemployed? What sort of safety net will take care of all these folks? Is there enough insurance in the world to rebuild the city? Where will everybody sleep in the meantime? Will anyone be able to get insurance on the rebuilt buildings in NO?
I can't remember anything since the San Francisco earthquake in 1906 that compares to this. We had a different economy and a different sense of civic responsibility (i.e. none, especially for people of color) back then. This time, we must and we will help.
A few years ago we all rallied after the horrible attacks on NYC. Americans came through for us here, big time. But we are a bankrupted nation now. We gave all our surplus away to rich people a few years ago and bought a large Middle Eastern country on credit cards. I'm not sure why anyone thought those were good ideas but they did. So now all the money's gone.
This will be a real test of us as Americans and human beings. Can we rebuild New Orleans? Do we have the wealth? Do we have the will?