ke care of themselves and not rely on the government to help them." Is that a ridiculous statement? Was it explained on the news that these are the poorest of the poor who didn't even have cars or a few hundred dollars to escape? At first the media coverage seemed more truthful than usual but that changed quickly, as if it were damage control.

Watching the second week of TV news coverage, I'd have thought everyone in New Orleans was a hardened criminal. After all, the governor herself instructed the police to shoot first and ask questions later. We heard about all the wrongdoings and all the crimes committed by these people, but what did we hear about the crime perpetrated on them? What did we hear about the citizens of New Orleans? Did we hear that 240,000 people in New Orleans lived below the poverty line? Did we hear that one in four New Orleans residents did not have access to a car? Did we hear an explanation of why people who were too poor to drive out of harms way were not evacuated to safety by the government they pay taxes too? What did we hear about the crime of abandoning them to die after the storm passed? The reporters who cried while showing footage of desperate people holding signs that read "HELP US" quickly changed their tone to condemnation at people for not evacuating as soon as Washington became involved.

The people who stayed behind did not make a "choice" to stay but were so poor they lacked even the miniscule financial means necessary to leave? I have heard these people called lazy, and too dependent on the government. I didn't hear much about them walking for miles in the blazing heat, carrying their belongings and their children to get to a "shelter of last resort?" As it turned out, it was certainly a last resort. It was a dangerous, dark place without water or food, alongside known criminals, but without police protection. This is where their government sent them to survive? Or was there another motive?

Government officials instructed thousands of people to go to the Superdome which they knew would be without electricity after the storm. They provided no water or food, immediately jeopardizing the lives of small children, babies, the elderly, and the infirm. They provided no bathrooms, diapers or other sanitary necessities, forcing women and children to squat and perform personal functions in front of onlookers, some who had a history of sexual violence. Is it shocking that rapes occurred? Worst of all, knowing the high crime rate of their city, authorities let even more criminals out of the jails and then provided no police protection for the thousands of innocents stuck in the dark with these criminals, without even a place to defecate. Is this how America treats people?

Further, no information or false information was provided. Something which really frustrates most people and makes anxiety levels and fear skyrocket. They repeatedly told people of phantom buses coming to take them to real shelters with water, food, and medical supplies. They said the National Guard is on the way. But they were not. These were frank lies. The people waited for six days, I have to think they assumed that they had been left to die. Do you really believe any officials were surprised that these people descended into violent chaos? Was this planned as some sort of sick experiment in crowd control? Were they really trying to kill off the poor blacks of New Orleans? The crimes that ensued were not surprising. Some of the people already had a criminal background and undoubtedly others were crazy with panic, frustration and anger at how they were being treated. Some people actually watched their babies die of thirst and hunger.

One Louisiana Congressman stated, "We finally cleaned up New Orleans housing. We couldn't do it but God did." Were the levees blown by explosives to gut out the poor areas and save the French Quarter for further development? Although a multitude of witnesses heard up to seven explosions before the water rushed in, that is not in the news either. In fact none of these people are in the news. Were have they all gone? Have you ever seen a disaster of this magnitude and NOT heard hours of personal survival stories on the news? The victims have been hauled off to FEMA camps resembling large prisons. They are isolated in desolate areas with high fences, restricted access, curfews, and the lot. I guess the homes once owned for generations by some New Orleans residents are now government property and will be auctioned off, or just sold cheaply to "cronies" and Halliburtons. I bet none of their owners get back from the FEMA camps in time to do anything about it either. In fact, I bet we never hear stories about what really happened there. The only former New Orleans resident I have seen on the news is the retired school teacher who did come back to check on his property. He was subsequently beaten by police for no apparent reason. Maybe the others are afraid to come back. We don't really know what exactly happened there when the troops and mercenaries showed up and they are still under Marshall law now. Clearly, the government, and FEMA, did try to kill people in New Orleans. Maybe it was genocide. They instructed thousands of people to go to an extremely dangerous environment and then provided no assistance or protection. Eyewitness stated that they asked military officers to intervene in violent fights but they declined, laughing, and stating it was the responsibility of the New Orleans Police, of which there were none. For certain, people died there who should have lived! Babies died! Volunteer morticians were offering assistance with the bodies were denied access. Reporters were denied access to body recovery. 75,000 body bags were ordered by FEMA but they say the body count is only 1,100. Is there a reason our government does not want people to see the bodies? Are there many bodies with gunshot wounds, or who were beaten? Murder or negligent homicide cannot be ignored. Being given temporary shelter to survive a hurricane is not too much to expect from your government who you pay taxes to. People to poor to leave did not deserve a death sentence.

We stopped hearing the story about the hundreds of people fired upon on the bridge on I-10 leading to a neighboring town which had electricity and water. People who were trying to stay alive were shot at by the police. FEMA would not let them out and they would not let any aid in. We didn't hear why FEMA hauled the survivors off to distant cities and are keeping them in near captivity. We didn't hear how many no-bid contracts went to Halliburton to rebuild New Orleans. How many rich people got richer? How much private land was confiscated by the federal government? How much money exactly, has been made? How much of that $100,000,000 from Congress has gone to help any single poor family recover the effects of this disaster? How much of it will end up in the hands of the rich? Why did Mayor Ray Nagin say, "The CIA may be after me now?" Was it because he strayed from the script and panicked and asked for help on live TV. It almost gave them all away, but the media did a good save, quickly blaming his statements on stress and an inability to do his job.

Do people in this country understand the realities of poverty without experiencing it firsthand? Are we connected at all to the political process anymore? Do we know the role the media plays in shaping our very thoughts and opinions? Do we know who owns the six media corporations providing all the information reaching the US? I read an article explaining that poverty is a personal choice and if you graduate from high school and get married you can avoid it completely. Another article stated that being poor in the United States meant that you owned 1-2 cars, a house, multiple luxury items, and are usually overfed. There is so much spin out there designed to make us not see the suffering around us. When we do notice it what is happening around us, as in the case of Katrina, we are quickly instructed by media personalities that the victims brought it on themselves. They are low class by their own choice.

It is in the interest of a ruling elite class for the masses to lose all compassion and empathy for others. If we have no empathy we will blame the victims and not see the perpetrators. We will not stand up for the victims. We will see them as lower class, lazy, dependent people. We will not see that the constitution has been scrapped and the laws changed. We will not see that the deck is stacked against anyone not born into wealth. We won't notice that our government is emptying the treasury and giving it away to rich friends, including money intended to help the poor, educate our children, provide necessary infrastructures like levees, provide medical care and emergency assistance. We will not become human rights activists or work to change laws or to change our political system. We will remain in the dark until we are the victims. Like in Hitler's Germany, the correct and cunning use of propaganda can brainwash a whole culture into believing that genocide is OK. As long as we judge and label people as "low class" and blame them for crimes perpetrated against them we will not realize that our government is taking our tax monies as well. We will not see that we can no longer educate our children until we are the ones who cannot afford a private school. We will not see that the money intended for healthcare has been pilfered until we are the ones sick and without health insurance. We won't see any of this until it happens to us. And then it will be too late. A poor island man, leaving his home due to the rising tides from global warming stated it quite eloquently. He said, "If the bell tolls for us now, it will toll for you later. We are all in this together." God did make us all equal, irrelevant of our financial stores, prestige, or power.

We all need to see the many people who live paycheck to paycheck and completely run out of money in between. Working people having no insurance are spending their grocery money on a doctor and medicine if someone in their family gets the flu! Think of the stress of the full-time worker without a pension, 401K, life insurance, stocks, a savings account, credit cards or the ability to borrow money in an emergency? Do we know the fear of having nowhere to turn in a financial crisis? Have we ever gone to bed worrying that one missed paycheck could get us evicted and homeless?

Poverty in this country is defined as a family of four living on $1430 per month? Calculate it. You can easily figure out that many people making more than that also desperately need help yet politicians who write these rules assure that only limited government aid is allocated. Yet millions of dollars are given to the rich through tax cuts and corporate welfare everyday. The financial figures for poverty programs may sound large but compare them with the monthly budget of the Iraq war, around six billion dollars, and you will see how much we spend killing people and how much we spend saving them. Yes, we Americans are now ignoring the plight of many of our own citizens, even blaming them for not being as rich as we are. Are we even able to shed a tear for those who work full time and still have to watch their babies go to bed hungry at night or do we believe they brought it on themselves? Are the days of kindness and charity in the past for Americans? Maybe it is time to redefine our "family values".

I like the way Sarah Heaney of the Messenger-Inquirer described poverty: "When I ask myself what poverty is, I no longer think of jewelry or books or swimming pools. I see the faces of those people left behind in the Superdome or in their attics. I think about being so poor I can't escape the path of a Category 5 hurricane. Of being so poor I can only hope and pray my local or state or federal government comes through for me because I have no car, money or resources to save my family."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------