By way of the Institute for Public Accuracy, Left Turn magazine has published a series of on-the-site articles by Jordan Flaherty from the viewpoint of the folks who stayed, either because they had to or because they wanted to. They paint both a hopeful and a sobering picture of what happened and what is going on now, a picture very different from the one on TV. Instead of anarchy and widespread lawlessness, Flaherty reports that people, by and large, came together and supported one another, even in the Superdome.

According to a report that's been circulated, Denise Young, one of those trapped in the convention center told family members, "yes, there were young men with guns there, but they organized the crowd. They went to Canal Street and 'looted,' and brought back food and water for the old people and the babies, because nobody had eaten in days. When the police rolled down windows and yelled out 'the buses are coming,' the young men with guns organized the crowd in order: old people in front, women and children next, men in the back,just so that when the buses came, there would be priorities of who got out first." But the buses never came. "Lots of people being dropped off, nobody being picked up. Cops passing by, speeding off. We thought we were being left to die."

The role of law enforcement and other authorities is problematic. The despicable actions of the sheriff in threatening refugees trying to escape the waters by walking over the bridge into Gretna has been publicized to some degree, but the behavior of the local police and the military troops towards the persons remaining in the city has been blacked out.

I asked Okra, in his house off of Piety Street, what the biggest problem has been. He said, "It's been the police - they've lost the last restraints on their behavior they had, and gotten a license to go wild. They can do anything they want. I saw one cop beat a guy so hard that he almost took his ear off. And this was someone just trying to walk home."

Walking through the streets, I witnessed hundreds of soldiers patrolling the streets. Everyone I spoke to said that soldiers were coming to their house at least once a day, trying to convince them to leave, bringing stories of disease and quarantine and violence. I didn't see or speak to any soldiers involved in any clean up or rebuilding.

The public's beliefs about what is happening in New Orleans create a context in which plans for the rebuilding of New Orleans--already agreed upon by the powers that be--will seem reasonable, necessary and, well, inevitable. Think about that as you read these articles and compare the observations of ordinary people on the ground with what you have been told by media personalities paid to tell you the official version of the facts. Then watch, over the next few months, and see what happens. Watch how the reconstruction of the city will be based upon the official version. Take note of who benefits.

Already, the usual forces of corporate restructuring are lining up. Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root subsidiary has begun work on a $500 million US Navy contract for emergency repairs at Gulf Coast naval and marine facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Blackwell Security - the folks that brought you Abu Ghraib - are patrolling the streets of our city.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the rich white elite is already planning their vision of New Orleans' reconstruction, from the super-rich gated compounds of Audubon Place Uptown, where they have set up a heliport and brought in a heavily-armed Israeli security company. "The new city must be something very different," one of these city leaders was quoted as saying, "with better services and fewer poor people. Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically."

Let us imagine this "New" New Orleans, created in the corporate, white upper middle class image, a city purged of the very class of people that created the blues and the unique culture that has always made New Orleans the one city in the U.S. that, as Umberto Eco said, was truly itself and not a copy of something else. Who would have the slightest desire to visit an ethnically cleansed New Orleans?^* The thought of spending time in that hot, steaming place, bereft of the architecture, the music, the food and, most of all, that indefinable but infinitely alluring spirit of easy living and decadent civilization that can be found nowhere else, is enough to sadden the most stouthearted.

Here are the URLs of the articles in case they move from the front page of the magazine:

Back inside New Orleans (9/12/2005)
Mourning for New Orleans (9/9/2005)
Don't Let New Orleans Die (9/4/2005)
Notes from Inside New Orleans (9/2/2005)

* Yes, I used the term "ethnically cleansed" deliberately. The plans for New Orleans appear to include ethnic cleansing. We bombed the Serbs on the charge that they were engaged in ethnic cleansing.