[Mb-civic] Wilma and FEMA vs. the Poor...and...The Soccer Star and the President

[Mha Atma Khalsa]

Wilma and FEMA vs. the Poor

The underreported story...

Joseph Phelan, Miami Workers Center Communications

As  days turn into weeks the situation worsens for
the poor people left behind not only by aid relief but
by society as a whole. People who had been living
under
slumlord conditions are evicted from housing that has
been deemed unsafe for human habitation, yet at the
same time there is no alternative housing offered.
People living paycheck to paycheck are facing the
stress of lost  jobs do to homelessness or business
closures. They are also facing a hostile city
government which refuses to spend reimbursable money
on
temporary vouchers for hotels.

The situation in Miami is very similar to New
Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, if not in
scale than in intention. A system of aid and relief
failed poor people of color. This failure is not a
sudden breakdown of an otherwise functioning society.
It is a sharp illustration of the structural problem
of
underdevelopment in particular communities, namely
poor, urban, and black and immigrant. Evictions and
death due to lack of health care, hunger, and poor
living conditions are a reality for these populations.
These permanent conditions under the  neo-liberal
policies of today's capitalism are only accelerated by
the crisis of natural disasters.

The tragedy of New Orleans was highlighted by
immense press coverage, as it should have been, do to
the severely dramatic nature of bursting levees and
massive flooding. Press coverage and public outcry at
the lack of support for low income communities of
color
leading up to, during, and after Katrina  forced
President Bush to acknowledge 'that poverty has roots
in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off
generations from the opportunity of America,' a line
that cuts sharply against the right wing push to
dismantle hard won civil rights.

While poor people of color were displaced in
relatively large numbers in both Miami and New Orleans
the cities' tourist destinations were up and running
with electricity first.  In Miami, the beach and other
wealthy and tourist areas were sealed off and
protected
by police and national guard under curfews and martial
law. This indignity only served to further highlight
the sad reality of the U.S. society as illustrated by
Gihan Pereara of the Miami Workers Center, 'We are
living in two cities, two worlds, one poor and working
class, the other rich.'

Victims of Katrina in New Orleans and victims of
Wilma in Miami lived through a storm of immense
natural
power and destruction.  But more destructive than the
winds and water is the  disaster of economic injustice
and racism  This killer does not find its origins in
the the Atlantic but in the board rooms of corporate
developers, the meetings rooms of real estate
speculators and the back rooms of banks. Katrina has
now rendered all of New Orleans a clean slate for
mega-
casino's and luxury hotels,  Miami's poor black and
immigrant communities were already facing an ironic
affordable housing crisis in the middle of an
unprecedented building boom with the promise of 70,000
luxury condo units to be built in the next four years.
The forced removal of these communities was on the
horizon before Wilma, the destructive nature of the
hurricane just happened to be more immediately
violent.
Wilma and Katrina's displacement of poor communities
is
a windfall for developers.

In the wake of Katrina a lot of the talk from
political leaders focused on re-building. Because of
strong national attention on the area there is a
possibility that this rebuilding process will not
completely exclude the communities that originally
lived there. But with no state-sponsored support prior
to and immediately following the storm, a terrible to
non-existent tracking program  for  displaced people,
and a legacy of disenfranchisement for poor people of
color the question has to be raised: Who will direct
and benefit from the rebuilding of New Orleans, and
Miami and who will be left out of the picture?

The answer to that question is all too clear under
the present political regime.  It is the poor, the
black. the immigrant, the low wage earner, the mother,
the children of them all that pay the price.  It is on
their backs that a few may prosper handsomely,  and it
is those few that make decisions for all of us.

To subscribe:
http://lists.portside.org/mailman/listinfo/portside

***

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051121/zirin

The Soccer Star and the President

by DAVE ZIRIN

If there were a Mount Rushmore of international
soccer, Diego Maradona's face would adorn it. In 2000
he was named by FIFA (the Fédération Internationale de
Football Association), along with Pelé, as the
greatest player in the history of the sport. But in
his native Argentina, Maradona is a lightning rod for
love, hate, brutal criticism and passionate defense.
He is Muhammad Ali in 1968--if 1968 lasted for twenty
years.

Maradona was in the eye of a media storm last weekend,
as he participated in a rally against George W. Bush
and US trade policy while Bush met with Latin American
leaders at the Fourth Summit of the Americas in Mar
del Plata, Argentina. Surely many wondered why this
stocky, five-foot-three former athlete was so adored,
so incendiary and so intimately involved in a protest
against the American President.

Maradona went from soccer superstar to Argentine folk
hero during the 1986 World Cup, when he avenged the
1982 British defeat of Argentina in the Falklands War.
Argentina trounced the UK four years later with two
Maradona goals--one with his foot and one with the sly
help of his hand, a score that has become known as
"the hand of God."

His brilliance on the pitch inspired Latin American
writer Eduardo Galeano to write, "No one can predict
the devilish tricks this inventor of surprises will
dream up for the simple joy of throwing the computers
off track, tricks he never repeats. He's not quick,
more like a short-legged bull, but he carries the ball
sewn to his foot and he's got eyes all over his body.
His acrobatics light up the field.... In the frigid
soccer of the end of the century, which detests defeat
and forbids all fun, that man was one of the few who
proved that fantasy can be efficient."

But Maradona, nicknamed El Diego Dios, struggled with
hard drugs. He was suspended from the sport for twelve
months in 1991 after testing positive for cocaine.
Then he was banned for another fifteen months for
taking the banned substance ephedrine during the 1994
World Cup. In 1997, he tested positive again, and
eventually slouched to retirement a shell of drug
dependency and obesity.

His real sin, however, at least in the eyes of the
soccer authorities, was a tendency to speak truth to
power. He agitated for international labor standards
to be applied to soccer and asked team owners to "open
the books" so players could know the profit margins
inked with their blood and sweat. Corporate media
treated his drug addiction like a national spectacle.
When arrested for possession in 1991, it was played
live on Argentine television.

Mocked by the media for drug dependency (they called
him "Maracoca"), weight problems and psychiatric
distress, Maradona has come back after on-and-off
stays at Cuban health clinics for much of the past
four years. Now clean and sober, he has experienced a
public resurrection as the host of a popular
Argentinean talk show, La Noche del 10.

Maradona re-emerged on the world stage this weekend,
challenging Bush's global agenda with the same kind of
daring that once defined his play.

In the weeks leading up to the summit, Maradona had
urged his viewers to join protests. This included
airing parts of a five-hour interview with Cuban
leader Fidel Castro, who said, "We are in solidarity
with you and with Argentina. We have fought for
decades, and we will be happy knowing that you are
there."

Maradona then arrived at the mammoth stadium protest
wearing a "Stop Bush" T-shirt and said, "I'm proud as
an Argentine to repudiate the presence of this human
trash, George Bush."

Maradona also sat shoulder-to-shoulder at the packed
rally with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who had
come to the conference vowing to "bury" Bush's
proposed Free Trade Agreement for the Americas (FTAA).
Maradona embraced Chávez to rapturous cheers as he
shouted into the microphone, "Argentina has its
dignity! Let's throw Bush out of here!"

His stance opened him up to criticism. John Tierney,
conservative op-ed columnist for the New York Times,
slammed Maradona as a hypocrite who benefited from
lucrative endorsement deals with global corporations,
yet now condemns the excesses of global capitalism.
But what Tierney and his ilk don't understand is that
this only endears Maradona further to his people. The
poor of Argentina know from bitter experience that,
unlike Maradona, they will never taste the fruits of
globalization. The fact that El Diego Dios now stands
alongside them only cements his greatness.

Bush left Argentina last weekend embarassed,
off-message and without a trade deal. That's hardly
surprising. When a former Major League Baseball owner
like Bush squares off against a soccer deity in Latin
America, you don't need the sports pages to discover
who has the greater claim to the hearts and minds of
the people. The Fourth Summit of the Americas will be
remembered as a moment when a certain frat-boy smirk
was wiped off the face of the American President by
those who oppose US trade policies--with a little help
from the "hand of God."

Dave Zirin is the author of What's My Name Fool?
Sports and Resistance in the United States. Contact
him at dave at edgeofsports.com.


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