The twp pictures I chose I feel someway suit this week’s readings. However, for some reason, it wouldn’t let me paste the actual pictures, so I hope these links to them work.
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/02/28/reliefworkers_wideweb__470x316,0.jpg
http://www.neworleansphotographs.com/nfq-NO-0000188.htm
The first picture I posted is that of relief workers standing outside of a home they are helping to rebuild in the lower 9th ward. I believe this picture reflects what Engels was writing about. Engel writes “…the capitalists, seize everything for themselves, while to the weak many, the poor, scarcely a bare existence remains.” In post-Katrina New Orleans, many areas of the city, such as the lower 9th ward, New Orleans East, just to name a few, still are practical ghost towns. The sporadic signs of life and rebuilding going on are from one of two sources: residents in the area who are rebuilding their damaged homes themselves, or relief and charity workers renovating areas, such like the ones in the picture above. The government, although supposedly committed to help in handouts of money, is nowhere in sight to help the people rebuild. Is it their job to help in this way? Perhaps not. The powerful and the rich in the metro area have hardly done anything to help. Maybe its not their job either. However, I feel in some way that this is what the working men in Engels article are referring to as “social murder.” Perhaps it is not as strong of case as Engels discusses, considering we are not dealing with death and starvation, but homelessness, economic crisis, and the future of the greater metropolitan area of New Orleans are issues here that the bourgeoisie seem to be turning a blind eye too, just like Friedrich Engels discussed. By the upper crust of New Orleans seemingly not admitting to the obvious social problems and crisis surrounding them, New Orleans may have quite a bit in common with the industrialized London.
The second photo is a great example of Jackson’s “drive-thru society.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m the biggest fan of Lucky Dogs imaginable, and I firmly believe that walking around with a Lucky Dog and a hand grenade on a hot summer night on Bourbon, is a wonderfully surreal and enjoyable experience for anyone. However, the Lucky Dog stand is an example of our culture of convenience and excess. People have become very accustomed to an “on demand” society. If we’re hungry, we don’t want to sit down in a restaurant and order a meal. That takes time. We need something in an instant. Hence Lucky Dog street vendors, Taco Bell, McDonald’s, and hundreds of other venues for instant gratification.
New Orleans, more than most cities, encompasses what Jackson was referring to. Not only does our city have many of the trademarks of the evolving society that Jackson described, such as malls, large corporate super markets, trailers and mobile homes (far less now that FEMA took a good lot away), motels (many still with “hourly rates”), and a booming fast food industry, but New Orleans has several unique instant gratification, “drive thru” concepts. Take a walk down Bourbon street and you’ll see dozens of “Drinks To Go” stands set up for the thousands in need of a quick fix. Not only can you go into almost any convenient store or grocery store here and purchase a wide variety of liquor, a concept quite foreign to other US regions where a liquor store is needed to buy such goods, but here in The Big Easy we take pride in our drive thru daiquiri shops. Bring your vehicle right up to the window, and in a few minutes, like magic, you’ll have an alcoholic beverage in hand. This is incredibly interesting side effect of urbanization, seeing that people are willing to compromise their safety and the safety of others on the roads by having this small, rather pointless, convenience. There are laws to govern the purchasing of such goods by means of a drive thru, however its hard to believe they adequately hold up, or make any bit reasonable and rationale sense. There is no doubt that New Orleans is a cornerstone of what Kenneth Jackson meant by “drive thru society.”
