The really good Americans in any crises are always better than the insecure incompetents in charge.

Book review by Kevin Young

A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster

Rebecca Solnit, (New York: Viking, 2009)

Excerpts:

Murder, rape, looting, cutthroat competition, and above all, "panic": such are the responses typically attributed to the public in the aftermath of earthquakes, floods, fires, and other disasters. The assumption that an unrestrained public will erupt in an orgy of looting, violence, and selfish or irrational behavior is deeply-embedded in elite thinking and mainstream commentary.

Rebecca Solnit's magnificent new book thoroughly disproves this assumption through in-depth descriptions of five major disasters of the past century and supporting evidence from many others. In fact, Solnit shows that the reality is precisely the opposite: human beings overwhelmingly tend to display calmness, generosity, thoughtfulness, and a willingness to sacrifice for the greater good in times of disaster. In the process new social bonds and communities form, revealing the extraordinary human potential for solidarity and collective action that lies dormant in everyday life.

"Disaster," Solnit writes, "is when the shackles of conventional belief and role fall away and the possibilities open up" .

Conversely, the government elites and organizational bureaucracies in charge of safeguarding the public often tend to compound the "natural" aspects of disaster through their clumsy and disdainful responses. These conclusions are based largely on Solnit's own interviews and archival research, but also draw support from the work of a long line of "disaster sociologists" who, despite their pathbreaking research and the fact that they represent a virtual consensus within the field of sociology, continue to be ignored by most government officials and bureaucrats as well as the corporate press .”

Why might that be with government officials tainted by lobbyist funding and a corporate press that supports only profit-making enterprises.

… which might explain why immediately after Katrina, a sitting American president attempted to cut the economic throats of the victims by removing the minimum wage in the stricken area and attempting to impose “prevailing wage” (translated as the minimum wage that business is willing to pay)

For corporate America, a disaster is to be seen first and foremost as an opportunity.

“In fact, disaster sociologists have inverted the conventional view in another way:

the elites who supposedly watch over us all as benevolent protectors are the ones who panic in times of crisis.

As Solnit notes, "It is often the few in power rather than the many without who behave viciously in disaster" .

This pattern is clear from the book's case studies.

Who was it broadcasting and repeatedly focusing on a supposed “looter” almost floating away who “stole” something to drink from a flooded and empty convenience store? Fox News – the principle broadcast betrayer and brainwasher in this country.

There are several reasons behind elite panic. Many elites and bureaucrats (like racists) may sincerely believe that their or their organizations' intervention is essential to safeguarding peace and order in the aftermath of a disaster.

But their panic is also inseparable from their own self interest, reflecting their need to justify the ongoing concentration of power in their hands.

If the public is permitted to take control, and it succeeds, the bureaucracy and hierarchy on which elite power is based will be exposed as illegitimate.

This principle holds true for the everyday functioning of society, but is especially true in times of disaster, when bureaucratic organizations like FEMA or the military are expected to perform with competence and agility to protect the public.