Book Review - Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster

- by Michael Eric Dyson (Basic Civitas Books, 2006)

If you have overcome any of the outrage you may have felt concerning the Bush administration's mishandling of the hurricane Katrina catastrophe in New Orleans, you should read this book. Michael Eric Dyson has a knack for keeping his audience entertained while he educates. Dyson is from the W.E.B. Dubois school of literature; to wit, ply your reader with facts the mainstream is intentionally disregarding or actively withholding, and then let loose with eloquent, coherent commentary to connect the dots. While Dyson's writing is sometimes lyrical and rhythmic, the raw facts he imparts create a crashing dissonance to the conscience. Come Hell Or High Water is a wake up call to those affected by establishment media and politicians who have led America to believe racism is a thing of the past.

Dyson dispels a number of myths that the Bush administration, with the willing assistance of corporate media, has constructed for the purpose of deflecting attention from its own crimes. For example, did you know that of the eight deaths reported at the Superdome in the week following Katrina - yes those deaths that were repeatedly characterized by establishment media in such a way as to suggest perhaps the black folk in New Orleans were so misbehaved they deserved what they got - only one was the result of intentional violence committed by a stadium denizen? The other seven were deaths due to either pre-existing medical conditions or physical conditions caused by lack or food, water and medical care over the seven days FEMA actively prevented such necessities being made available in the Superdome. Subsequent investigation, confirmed by even the local establishment media (New Orleans' Times-Picayune), determined most, if not all, of the additional horror stories (such as baby-rape, and the like) were perpetuated by those too afraid or arrogant to set foot in the Superdome to provide aid. Dyson suggests, with some credibility, the picture of wanton savagery inflicted by those stranded in New Orleans was created to deflect attention from the fact FEMA's orders to keep relief out of the Superdome resulted in a number of deaths.

Dyson goes on to document (with numerous citations to source material) how FEMA turned away national bus unions, relief organizations, a nearby 600-bed Marine Corps hospital ship, and 500 private citizens who attempted to ply the flood waters in their own boats to perform search and rescue. What the Bush Administration has done since the first few weeks of the disaster is in some sense more shocking with longer-lasting detrimental effects. Within two days of Katrina hitting New Orleans, Dick Cheney's Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR) received the first multi-million dollar no-bid contract to provide reconstruction services. Within ten days Bush personally signed an executive order that enervated a 75-year-old law that would have guaranteed prevailing local wages be paid to laborers that KBR and other government contract recipient mega-corporations would need to hire locally. While Bush's order was cancelled after intense and loud protest by both democrats and republicans, the intent was clear - promote profiteering off the misery of the poor and black by closely-connected corporate pals, while increasing the hardship on those who were ostensibly being "helped" by federal government enactments.

The venality of the Bush folks is not limited to the handling of the disaster itself and its aftermath, but extends to contributing to its cause. Contrary to Bush's protestation that "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees", Dyson cites a number of examples between the year 2000 and August 2005, wherein the Bush Administration cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal budget that were earmarked for the re-enforcement of the levees surrounding New Orleans. Those monies were designated by Congress for the very reason it was common knowledge New Orleans' levees were a catastrophe waiting to happen. It seems Bush's obsession with conquering nations that hold vast oil resources trumped preventing loss of poor and black life in America. Dyson quotes New Orleans' emergency management chief to make the connection, who stated in 2004 that it "appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us." Unfortunately, as we are now all too aware, those efforts were in vain.

If you ever listen to right wing media, you may have heard the whining refrain that we ought to put Katrina behind us and move on. Dyson tells us what skeletons in the closet those shrill pleas for collective amnesia are attempting to hide. Dyson's book is timely reading since the incoming Democrat-controlled Congress has promised real hearings on the subject of Katrina, and you can bet the right wing will be squealing like stuck pigs in an effort to prevent them.