Cornel West on Katrina: What we saw unfold in the days after the hurricane was the most naked manifestation of conservative social policy towards the poor, where the message for decades has been: ‘You are on your own’. Well, they really were on their own for five days in that Superdome, and it was Darwinism in action – the survival of the fittest. People said: ‘It looks like something out of the Third World.’ Well, New Orleans was Third World long before the hurricane. (thanks Sally!)