AlterNet: Hurricane Katrina: Belafonte & Glover Speak Out on Katrina

AlterNet: Hurricane Katrina: Belafonte & Glover Speak Out on Katrina: Danny Glover-"When the hurricane struck the Gulf and the floodwaters rose and tore through New Orleans, plunging its remaining population into a carnival of misery, it did not turn the region into a Third World country, as it has been disparagingly implied in the media; it revealed one. It revealed the disaster within the disaster; grueling poverty rose to the surface like a bruise to our skin.

But the storm not only revealed the poverty of those most vulnerable, those left behind. It also revealed the poverty of skewed priorities that put the shoulder of technology to the wheel of death rather than life, creating killing machines that are now called 'smart' and surveillance systems that, in the words of the great Guyanese poet Martin Carter, 'are watching you sleep and aiming at your dreams.'

Mother Nature revealed the poverty of a mindset that narrowly views security as a military issue; that is blind to the role of culture in sustaining the mental health and social wellness of people, which is also the basis for economic productivity; blind to the role of culture in education, through which we are prepared for our responsibilities in a democracy; and hostile to the role of culture in the search for truth.

Hurricane Katrina revealed, more than anything else, a poverty of imagination."