The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Mardi Gras amid the Corpses in New Orleans

Feb 27, 2006

New Orleans threw a mini-Mardi Gras celebration and touted it as proof that New Orleans is “coming back.”

Well, maybe for the rich and famous who can party anytime, anywhere, even under the most ghoulish circumstances.

For others, the disaster remains a disaster, six months later. There is no recovery. Doctors issued alerts that the medical system was not ready to handle Mardi Gras. The barge that crashed through the levee at the 17th Street Canal is only now being removed. Corpses still rest undiscovered in houses where people have been unable to return. Six months later!

The status of New Orleans today reveals class society at its extreme. No effort is spared to provide restaurants, hotels, and night life for wealthy tourists–while no effort is made to return the general population to its homes, work, and life.

Mardi Gras this year was turned into a Disneyland for the rich–amid continuing destitution and the ignored corpses of the poor.