By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME

Hurricane Katrina drove 1 million people from their homes and their jobs. The near-biblical flooding stranded 100,000 on the roofs and upper floors of their houses and in utterly inadequate shelters. For several days, they had no food, no drinkable water, no electricity and no communications.

Many of us fortunate enough to be outside the storm’s path watched television in tears as we saw the disaster unfold. We saw people clinging precariously to rooftops as the floodwaters rose, elderly folks near death at the convention center shelter with no medical care, and corpses suffering the final indignity of being ignored as they lay on sidewalks or floated in the filthy water for a week or more.

The tragedy taught us some important lessons, lessons in life and lessons in politics. It reminded us that we are our sisters’ and brothers’ keepers. In the crucial early days, as the failure of the government to take action dimmed hope, a thousand acts of kindness and courage by strangers kept people going.

The hearts of DC 37 members and millions of working families nationwide went out to our brothers and sisters, and the labor movement sprang into action. Our union and many others set up relief funds, and I urge every member to contribute (see “How you can help victims of Katrina”).

The hurricane showed us how precious and vulnerable is human life. As we empathize with and aid the victims of Katrina, we must also find ways to help others every day, not just when disaster strikes. Keep those in need in your heart and mind as you pray or meditate or think deeply about life’s big questions. Decide what you can do as an individual to help someone less fortunate.

As the stricken area waited in vain for federal aid, Aaron Broussard, the president of Jefferson Parish, a county just outside New Orleans, spoke for the victims: “We have been abandoned by our country,” he said sadly.

They were not abandoned by the American people, but they were sure forgotten by the government. Nature made Katrina, but the enormity of the tragedy was man-made in Washington, DC. The deaths and devastation in New Orleans resulted from fatal negligence by a president who continued his ranch vacation, riding his bicycle as the water rose in New Orleans, and by an administration that has persistently ignored the needs of our cities, our poor, and our vital physical infrastructure.

The Bush administration itself is the culmination of the 25-year right-wing ideological drive, begun in the Ronald Reagan era, to discredit government as the ultimate protector of the common good, to diminish government’s ability to take care of ordinary people, and to cut taxes for the wealthy.

The Bush administration placed FEMA, the agency in charge of dealing with natural disasters, under the Homeland Security Dept. Quickly, outside contractors and political appointees with no knowledge of disaster relief replaced professional staff, and funds for mitigating hazards such as New Orleans’ neglected dikes were cut in half. If Homeland Security can’t protect us from a predictable natural disaster, how can we feel safe from terrorist attacks?

The budget of the Army Corps of Engineers flood control project in New Orleans has been steadily cut since 2000. The administration moved the money into the Iraq war budget. The war has taken one-third of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard troops — many from New Orleans and most trained in keeping order after a disaster — to Iraq. Also in the war zone is half of their equipment, such as helicopters, waterproof Humvees and communications gear, which could have made a huge difference in the rescue effort.

The hurricane revealed that the resources we need to protect life at home are in Iraq, killing people who never did us any harm. Maybe that’s a sign that we need to support our brave troops by bringing them home now.

Evacuation plan skips poor and minorities
The government’s evacuation plan for New Orleans was essentially, “Get in your car and drive to high ground.” Over 30 percent of people in New Orleans live below the poverty line, and 84 percent of them are African American. It was no secret that tens of thousands of poor and minority families had no cars. Enough buses could have been chartered, but the plan made no provision at all for people without cars.

Katrina ripped off the veil hiding facts Americans don’t like to face. Class, race, age and disability determined who left and lived and who was left behind to face the flood. And now we see Bush trying to fund rebuilding by raising the national debt and cutting Medicaid and other vital social programs. To raise profits for the favored firms getting no-bid rebuilding contracts, he has canceled the Davis-Bacon Law requirement that reconstruction workers receive the normal prevailing wage. This amounts to using the suffering of Katrina’s victims as an excuse to inflict suffering on others.

The ultimate lesson of Katrina is that we need to replace the Bush administration with a government that cares as much as its people.