One year on
\nafter the wind subsided
\nand the floods disappeared
\nthere was still a scene
\nreminiscent of some battle zone
\nwith dilapidated houses
\npiles of debris lying there
\nupturned and rusting cars
\nbroken boats moored in-land
\namid the empty, eerie desolation<\/p>\n
One year on
\nhe said New Orleans will be rebuilt
\nacknowledging that it had not
\nbut it would be a great city again
\nin some indeterminate world of time<\/p>\n
One year on
\nfrom all of this I had read
\nhow the empire abroad expanded
\nhow Camp Anaconda, north of Baghdad
\noccupying fifteen square miles
\nwith two swimming pools
\na miniature golf course, mini-theatre
\nplanned to accommodate 20,000 soldiers<\/p>\n
One year on
\nfrom all of this I had read
\nof the 234 military golf courses
\naround the American world
\nand of the Air Mobility Command
\nthat flies servicemen and their families
\nin fleets of long-range C-17 Globemasters,
\nC-5 Galaxies, C-141 Starlifters, C-19 Nightingales,
\nKC-135 Stratotankers and KG 10 Extenders
\nand for the more senior personnel there are
\nLearjets, Gulfstreams and Cessna Citation
\nluxury jets<\/p>\n
One year on
\ndesperate people in New Orleans
\nno longer look at the stars
\nor listen to the sounds of birds<\/p>\n
One year on
\nafter this neglect at home
\nI had heard about Camp Taji
\nonce barracks to Saddam\u2019s Republican Guards
\nhow it has its own Burger King, Subway and Pizza Hut<\/p>\n
One year on
\nafter this neglect at home
\nI heard about the new Embassy Compound
\nin the heart of Baghdad
\nten times bigger than other embassies
\nwith its own sources of power and water<\/p>\n
One year on
\nin New Orleans and several years on in Iraq
\nthere\u2019s still no water or power<\/p>\n
One year on
\nas the poor scavenge in fear
\nin the rubble of New Orleans
\nnew bases have been and are being
\nbuilt
\nin Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Kosovo,
\nPakistan, India, Australia, Singapore,
\nMalaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam,
\nMorocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Senegal,
\nGhana, Mali, Sierra Leone, Georgia,
\nKyrgystan and Uzbekistan
\nand only God knows where else<\/p>\n
One year on
\nif you are poor or homeless in America
\nyou should join the military
\ndoing their great job of extending freedom
\nand get a posting abroad
\nfor that way you will get yourself a house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Jim Aitken One year on after the wind subsided and the floods disappeared there was still a scene reminiscent of some battle zone with dilapidated houses piles of debris lying there upturned and rusting cars broken boats moored in-land amid the empty, eerie desolation One year on he said New Orleans will be rebuilt…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emancipation-liberation","category-issue-14","tag-author-jim-aitken"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"views":4666,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":903,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}