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September 08, 2005
the very local
So far this semester the topic of globalism has remained abstract and distant for me. But the events of the past week have transformed the blurriness of globalism into the all too tangible and frighteningly clarity of the local.
(In this post I will be responding to Hardt's article "Why We Need a Multilateral Magna Carta" http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=04/04/11/1722238&mode=nested&tid=8) along with some international news headlines.)
For me, the revelation of the global becoming local is made evident in the images and stories of destruction and despair in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This tragedy has happened within our own borders, not but a few states away. In a city I have visited. (I always have sympathy for rest of world) but it is now so much more real when I see it at the local. Our governments bureaucracy and general indifference bears all responsibility for the excessive death-toll and super-dome chaos and I see no other excuse than its rampant march towards globalization and absolute free market policies.
And the media, is the willing coconspirator. For example, look to the skewed headlines of "looting" committed by African American's vs. the "finding of food" done by caucasians. An article in ZMag (http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=05/09/03/1346217&mode=nested&tid=8) articulated this racially biased and material oriented connection to globalization, stating "it was property before people, just like the free marketeers always want."
Often I project globalization out into the world. But I think Hardt's concepts on the multitudes is equally applied to our own boarders. The Hurricane aftermath has revealed to the rest of the world the true state of fragility in the US. The emperor has no clothes. The waters have revealed what the U.S. normally so adeptly keeps hidden from world view; that of her own desperately poor population and its general indifference to them. A reporter from Kenya's Daily Nation said "My first reaction when television images of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans came through the channels was that the producers must be showing the wrong clip. The images, and even the disproportionately high number of visibly impoverished blacks among the refugees, could easily have been a re-enactment of a scene from the pigeonholed African continent."
Katrina's aftermath (specifically the government's non-response to protect and take care of its people) is a manifestation of the neoliberal agenda. I see this agenda, not as a struggle of US over the 3rd world. But the power of capitalism over humanity. Corporations over the poor. In New Orleans, the poor were ill-served, locked up, ignored. Criticized for not heeding the warning. But I ask, how can you evacuate when you have no car? What hotel would they afford? To me this is a local visualization of Hardt's message that "economic exclusion and marginalization of large populations are indication(s) of the failure and unsustainability of the neoliberal regime." Thus, the imposition of the neoliberal regime has been made evident through the disposability of human lives (and land) in New Orleans. And still, even after this disaster, the US government continues with its "go it alone" attitude.
And lets not ignore the government's globalization crusade against the environment and its dire conseqences. The issues that normally reside in the macro sphere of global warming has once again reaped consequences all too local. In New Orleans the broken levies and eroded wet lands are a direct result of harmful environmental oversight and the intensity of the storm has direct correlations to warming ocean current. Yet the government continues to remain aggressively opposed to progressive measures like the Kyoto Treaty. It was known for years that the levies would not hold back a large scale Hurricane, yet legislation was never passed to reinforce it. In fact the government recently passed laws to "divert" funds. Hardt states that our global monarch is "unable to pay for its wars, maintain peaceful order and, moreover, provide the adequate means for economic production." As a reflection of Hardt's statement, last week Switzerland's Le Temps paper surmised that "The sea walls would not have burst in New Orleans if the funds meant for strengthening them had not been cut to help the war effort in Iraq and the war on terror..." A newspaper in Colombia commands, "It is now urgent that the world's leaders take heed of nature's warning, look at the evidence and realize that the climate, on a global scale, is changing. This is already known from scientific reports, but they continue to ignore it, to play it down, or not to care about it." The rest of the world sees the correlation, but not the US. After the storm, the government's primary concern was opening its oil reserves and lessening its environmental standards.
Could an immaterial workforce find it's metaphorical place in New Orleans? Providing the necessary "affective" and "intellectual" labor that is so necessary before- during- and after- these times of crisis? We now have proof that this global monarchy can not (or will not) protect the people in a time of crisis. The myth of homeland security is shattered. At this moment people are angry - but for how long I don't know. So I hope that if the "multitudes" truly are the future that this forced suffering will not be replayed in the aftermath of future natural and/or man-made disasters.
Posted by jamie gray at September 8, 2005 09:47 AM
Comments
Wow - this was a very powerful essay and I appreciate the international "flavor" of responses you featured. Bringing those comments into this space was tremendously moving.
I have some "side of center" (not sure which side) comments to share.
I too have watched some of the nightly news footage of the Katrina devastation and have drawn my own conclusions. But actually, I have am so completely confused. I see many news journalists standing in traditional poses, speaking solemly into their mikes, simplifying the scenes before me into terms suited for "my comfortably distant yet sympathetic and uninformed ears". It's like a sample of dipping sauces as I eat my dinner. Here are the devastated neighborhoods, here are the military commandos running about, here is a stranded man, look at his pain!
I question the types of stories they show. I question the insane amount of air-time they spend congratulating one-another on their "heroic" reporting. I take offense to the guise of humility in their observations and wonder "why don't you give your nice rain parka to that poor half-naked man stuck in his house?". But then I recognize that that wouldn't change anything. It would be insincere, for show. a kind of bridge between the haves and have nots, only a draw bridge that gets lowered only on the terms of the haves.
In the posture of Brian Williams, and his educated language, I see class difference.
I see Diane Sawyer with her hair done up nicely, in a canoe of sorts floating among neighborhoods shouting out at vacant homes if anyone was home. Am I suppossed to feel better knowing that she is there? Shouting?
Then i heard a terrible joke. What are we going to talk about once the hurricane disaster wears thin...it was on the morning radio - that obnoxious Bob and Sherry show. Can you belive that?
The episode is already contained, wrapped up and ready for disposal according to them in their priviledged, smug worlds. And they are broadcasting this attitude to whoever has radio. Wow.
To wrap up, I see Marx. Maybe we needed this horrible event, to reveal the extremes, to wake people up, to cause revolt. Like Jamie said, I hope it doesn't fade, that the opportunity won't past. I hope the "next wave" of reporting and radio banter will deal with the issues Katrina unleashed.
Posted by: Jessica Gladstone at September 8, 2005 12:05 PM