katrina

[SF1]

Originally posted by fermentor666+Sep 3 2005, 04:47 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fermentor666 - Sep 3 2005, 04:47 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'>

Originally posted by 2BLAZZED@Sep 3 2005, 01:39 AM

<!--QuoteBegin-shape1369@Sep 2 2005, 08:51 PM

Anybody just watch Kanye on the redcross special just now? First he pulled the media's card about black and whites "looting" and "finding food", respectively. Then he straight up goes and I qoute "George Bush does not care about black people." Mike Meyers was standing next to him talking as well, and dude just got this majorly exasperated look on his face. They cut the camera mad quick to get away from that.

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http://rapidshare.de/files/4662131/Kanye_-...t_NBC_.mpg.html

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FUCK YES! I love the way Mike Meyers is just like "uhhhh", then they cut him off and Chris Tucker is just like "uhhhhhhh".

 

Fuck Bush, GET FUCKING ANGRY! This man and his "good people" are running our fucking country and futures into the ground. IF THIS DOESN'T WAKE UP AMERICA TO THE STATE WE ARE IN, SOCIALLY, POLITICALLY, AND ENVIRONMENTALLY THEN WE TRULY ARE FUCKED AND A WASTE OF AIR.

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Word! Like odds and vilain said IMPEACH AND IMPRISON BUSH!

[__ __ __ __]

yo i hear they wont let ANYONE leave... all those people on the freeways.. they wont let them get out.. army has them blocked in..

bullshit government.. i dont care if someone is gonna come on here and sya somthing aling the lines as" oh, well his government keeps u free and alive" BULLSHIT! we got a corrupt government and if u are so ignorant to not seee that then i hope u burn in hell for believeing everything u hear.... leave me the fuck alone.... i want to go to new orleans to donate my time and help.. 6 fucking days and most people havent had anything to eat...all the babys kids, elderly.. fuck this.. SOMETHING IS UP..

[SF1]

Originally posted by __ __ __ __@Sep 3 2005, 09:13 PM

i dont care if someone is gonna come on here and sya somthing aling the lines as" oh, well his government keeps u free and alive" BULLSHIT!

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You see alot of these brainwashed douchebags in the Crossfire section swareing to god that we live in this great, free country.

[2 blaazed]

It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. Four days after the storm, thousands of blacks in New Orleans are dying like dogs. No-one has come to help them.

 

I am a sixty-four year old African-American.

New Orleans marks the end of the America I strove for.

 

I am hopeless. I am sad. I am angry against my country for doing nothing when it mattered.

 

This is what we have come to. This defining watershed moment in America’s racial history. For all the world to witness. For those who’ve been caused to listen for a lifetime to America’s ceaseless hollow bleats about democracy. For Christians, Jews and Muslims at home and abroad. For rich and poor. For African-American soldiers fighting in Iraq. For African-Americans inside the halls of officialdom and out.

 

My hand shakes with anger as I write. I, the formerly un-jaundiced human rights advocate, have finally come to see my country for what it really is. A monstrous fraud.

 

 

But what can I do but write about how I feel. How millions, black like me, must feel at this, the lowest moment in my country’s story.

 

Randall Robinson is a social

justice advocate and author

whose works include The Debt –

What America Owes to Blacks

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randall-robi...ans_b_6643.html

[2 blaazed]

a great article in the new york times today

 

The Bursting Point

By DAVID BROOKS

 

As Ross Douthat observed on his blog, The American Scene, Katrina was the anti-9/11.

 

On Sept. 11, Rudy Giuliani took control. The government response was quick and decisive. The rich and poor suffered alike. Americans had been hit, but felt united and strong. Public confidence in institutions surged.

 

Last week in New Orleans, by contrast, nobody took control. Authority was diffuse and action was ineffective. The rich escaped while the poor were abandoned. Leaders spun while looters rampaged. Partisans squabbled while the nation was ashamed.

 

The first rule of the social fabric - that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable - was trampled. Leaving the poor in New Orleans was the moral equivalent of leaving the injured on the battlefield. No wonder confidence in civic institutions is plummeting.

 

And the key fact to understanding why this is such a huge cultural moment is this: Last week's national humiliation comes at the end of a string of confidence-shaking institutional failures that have cumulatively changed the nation's psyche.

 

Over the past few years, we have seen intelligence failures in the inability to prevent Sept. 11 and find W.M.D.'s in Iraq. We have seen incompetent postwar planning. We have seen the collapse of Enron and corruption scandals on Wall Street. We have seen scandals at our leading magazines and newspapers, steroids in baseball, the horror of Abu Ghraib.

 

Public confidence has been shaken too by the steady rain of suicide bombings, the grisly horror of Beslan and the world's inability to do anything about rising oil prices.

 

Each institutional failure and sign of helplessness is another blow to national morale. The sour mood builds on itself, the outraged and defensive reaction to one event serving as the emotional groundwork for the next.

 

The scrapbook of history accords but a few pages to each decade, and it is already clear that the pages devoted to this one will be grisly. There will be pictures of bodies falling from the twin towers, beheaded kidnapping victims in Iraq and corpses still floating in the waterways of New Orleans five days after the disaster that caused them.

 

It's already clear this will be known as the grueling decade, the Hobbesian decade. Americans have had to acknowledge dark realities that it is not in our nature to readily acknowledge: the thin veneer of civilization, the elemental violence in human nature, the lurking ferocity of the environment, the limitations on what we can plan and know, the cumbersome reactions of bureaucracies, the uncertain progress good makes over evil.

 

As a result, it is beginning to feel a bit like the 1970's, another decade in which people lost faith in their institutions and lost a sense of confidence about the future.

 

"Rats on the West Side, bedbugs uptown/What a mess! This town's in tatters/I've been shattered," Mick Jagger sang in 1978.

 

Midge Decter woke up the morning after the night of looting during the New York blackout of 1977 feeling as if she had "been given a sudden glimpse into the foundations of one's house and seen, with horror, that it was utterly infested and rotting away."

 

Americans in 2005 are not quite in that bad a shape, since the fundamental realities of everyday life are good. The economy and the moral culture are strong. But there is a loss of confidence in institutions. In case after case there has been a failure of administration, of sheer competence. Hence, polls show a widespread feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction.

 

Katrina means that the political culture, already sour and bloody-minded in many quarters, will shift. There will be a reaction. There will be more impatience for something new. There is going to be some sort of big bang as people respond to the cumulative blows of bad events and try to fundamentally change the way things are.

 

Reaganite conservatism was the response to the pessimism and feebleness of the 1970's. Maybe this time there will be a progressive resurgence. Maybe we are entering an age of hardheaded law and order. (Rudy Giuliani, an unlikely G.O.P. nominee a few months ago, could now win in a walk.) Maybe there will be call for McCainist patriotism and nonpartisan independence. All we can be sure of is that the political culture is about to undergo some big change.

 

We're not really at a tipping point as much as a bursting point. People are mad as hell, unwilling to take it anymore.

 

E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com

 

Nicholas D. Kristof is on vacation.

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/...agewanted=print

[2 blaazed]

another good article

 

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/02/D8CC9VLGE.html

 

 

Guardsmen Greeted With Applause, Anger

Sep 02 2:54 PM US/Eastern

 

 

By ALLEN G. BREED

Associated Press Writer

 

NEW ORLEANS

 

Four days after Hurricane Katrina struck, the National Guard arrived in force Friday with food, water and weapons, churning through the floodwaters in a vast truck convoy with orders to retake the streets and bring relief to the suffering.

 

"The cavalry is and will continue to arrive," said Lt. Gen. Steven Blum of the National Guard.

 

At the New Orleans Convention Center, some of the thousands of storm victims awaiting their deliverance applauded, threw their hands heavenward and screamed, "Thank you, Jesus!" as the camouflage-green trucks and hundreds of soldiers arrived in this increasingly desperate and lawless city.

 

"Lord, I thank you for getting us out of here," said Leschia Radford.

 

But there was also anger and profane catcalls.

 

"Hell no, I'm not glad to see them. They should have been here days ago. I ain't glad to see 'em. I'll be glad when 100 buses show up," said 46-year-old Michael Levy, whose words were echoed by those around him yelling, "Hell, yeah! Hell yeah!"

 

"We've been sleeping on the ... ground like rats," Levy said. "I say burn this whole ... city down."

 

The soldiers' arrival-in-force came amid blistering criticism from the mayor and others who said the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine.

 

"The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin warned in a statement to CNN. "Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows."

 

The military said its first priority was delivering food and water, after which it would begin evacuating people _ something that could take days.

 

"As fast as we can, we'll move them out," said Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore. "Worse things have happened to America," he added. "We're going to overcome this, too. It's not our fault. The storm came and flooded the city."

 

In Washington, President Bush admitted "the results are not acceptable" and pledged to bolster the relief efforts. He visited the stricken Gulf Coast later in the day, and pledged in Mobile, Ala.: "What is not working right, we're going to make it right."

 

With a cigar-chomping general in the convoy's lead vehicle, the trucks rolled through muddy water up to their axles to reach the convention center, where 15,000 to 20,000 hungry and desperate refugees had taken shelter _ many of them seething with anger so intense that it seemed ready to erupt in violence at any moment.

 

National Guardsmen carrying rifles and wearing camouflage gear also arrived at the Louisiana Superdome, walking in a long line past a vast crowd of bedraggled people fanning themselves miserably in the heat, waited to rescued from the heat, the filth and the gagging stench inside the stadium.

 

Flatbed trucks carried huge crates, pallets and bags of relief supplies. Soldiers sat in the backs of open-top trucks, their rifles pointing skyward.

 

At the convention center, New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass got a hero's welcome as he rode down the street on the running board of a box truck and announced through a bullhorn to thunderous applause: "We got 30,000 people out of the Superdome and we're going to take care of you."

 

"We've got food and water on the way. We've got medical attention on the way. We're going to get you out of here safely. We're going to get all of you," he said.

 

As he came down the road, elderly people gave thanks and some nearly fainted with joy. Compass also warned that if anyone did anything disruptive, the troops would have to they would have to stop distributing the food and water and get out.

 

On Thursday, at the convention center, corpses lay abandoned outside the building, and many storm refugees complained bitterly that they had been forsaken by the government. And at the Superdome, fights and fires broke out and storm victims battled for seats on the buses taking them to the Houston Astrodome.

 

Blum of the National Guard said 7,000 National Guardsmen arriving in Louisiana on Friday would be dedicated to restoring order in New Orleans. He said half of them had just returned from assignments overseas and are "highly proficient in the use of lethal force." He pledged to "put down" the violence "in a quick and efficient manner."

 

"But they are coming here to save Louisiana citizens. The only thing we are attacking is the effects of this hurricane," he said. Blum said that a huge airlift of supplies was landing Friday and that it signaled "the cavalry is and will continue to arrive."

 

As he left the White House for his visit to the devastated area, Bush said 600 newly arrived military police officers would be sent to the convention center to secure the site so that food and medicine could get there.

 

Earlier Friday, an explosion at a warehouse rocked a wide area of New Orleans before daybreak and jolted residents awake, lighting up the sky and sending a pillar of acrid gray smoke over a ruined city awash in perhaps thousands of corpses, under siege from looters, and seething with anger and resentment.

 

A second large fire erupted downtown in an old retail building in a dry section of Canal Street.

 

There were no immediate reports of injuries. But the fires deepened the sense of total collapse in the city since Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore Monday morning.

 

The explosion took place along the Mississippi River about 15 blocks from the French Quarter. It was about two miles from both the Louisiana Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center. The cause of the blast was under investigation.

 

City officials have accused the government _ namely the Federal Emergency Management Agency _ of responding sluggishly.

 

"Get off your asses and let's do something," the mayor told WWL-AM Thursday night in a rambling interview in which he cursed, yelled and ultimately burst into tears. At one point he said: "Excuse my French _ everybody in America _ but I am pissed."

 

The National Guard arrived in force after law and order had all but broken down.

 

Over the past few days, police officers turned in their badges. Rescuers, law officers and medical-evacuation helicopters were shot at by storm victims. Fistfights and fires broke out at the hot and stinking Superdome as thousands of people waited in misery to board buses for the Houston Astrodome. Corpses lay out in the open in wheelchairs and in bedsheets. The looting continued.

 

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said FEMA just learned about the situation at the convention center Thursday and quickly scrambled to provide food, water and medical care and remove the corpses.

 

Some of New Orleans' most troubled hospitals, facing dwindling supplies of food, water and medicine, resumed evacuations Friday. Rescuers finally made it into Charity Hospital, the largest public hospital and trauma center in the city, where gunshots thwarted efforts on Thursday to evacuate more than 250 patients.

 

"We moved all of the babies out of Charity this morning," said Keith Simon, spokesman for Acadian Ambulance Service.

 

While floodwaters in New Orleans appeared to stabilize, efforts continued to plug three breaches in the levees that protect this bowl- shaped, below-sea-level city, which is wedged between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

 

Helicopters dropped sandbags into the breach and pilings were being pounded into the mouth of the canal Thursday to close its connection to the lake.

 

Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, said engineers are developing a plan to create new breaches in the levees so that a combination of pumping and the effects of gravity will drain the water out of the city. Removing the floodwaters will take weeks, he said.

 

____

 

Associated Press reporters Adam Nossiter, Brett Martel, Emily Wagster Pettus, Robert Tanner and Mary Foster contributed to this report.

 

___

[saraday]

Originally posted by Killing Butterflies.+Sep 3 2005, 02:26 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Killing Butterflies. - Sep 3 2005, 02:26 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'>

Originally posted by saraday@Sep 3 2005, 03:06 AM

<!--QuoteBegin-Killing Butterflies.@Sep 3 2005, 12:46 AM

yeah i really didn't like the dead bodies. i looked anyways. that's fucked up.

 

umm. this is just a small taste of disaster. i imagine that it's pretty bad in other countries right now too. i'd bet ten dollars.

 

right now america is being watched, and people are wondering how quick it'll take us to get our shit together.

how quickly can america recover from disaster?

 

man my heart goes out to all ya'll. i wonder whose next?

 

oh yeah. i really liked fatalists' pictures.

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uhm, what the hell are you talking about? it's going to take a long time for us to get our "SHIT" togehter......

 

NO- this is NOT a small "taste" of disaster..aside from TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DEAD and large urban area suffering severe damage.. this is a MAJOR catastrophe that is already beginning to cripple our economy. you have no clue what you're talking about. new orleans has the busiest port in the world. almost ALL of our oil comes in through the port of new orleans and distributed to the rest of the country via the mississippi river. the port has been shut for 5 days and the nation has expierenced the biggest gas spike it's ever seen. for fucks sake, Bush has already tapped into the nations oil reserve. who knows how long it will be before the port is running again..... do you know what this means? RECESSION, INFLATION.... need i keep going?

 

watch the news, pick up a newspaper, use common sense.. something.

 

if cnn, foxnews, msnbc, are covering this "small taste of disaster" 24/7 going on 5 days... it's fucking MAJOR.

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i know what i am talking about. i watch the news.

this is a small taste of disaster. i don't think this is the end. my point is that america is suffering, yeah, and other nations have been suffering like this for centuries (lack of food, clean water, homes, support). and when i spoke of getting our 'shit' together i mean we are the leading power of the world, people are watching to see how long it will take us to become stable again. people are watching to see how our government handles this. we have so much of our money being poured out into war, and so much of our money has been poured out to war. we are dealing with lack of oil yes, this was a problem before the hurricane. our country is weak right now, this is the weakest i have ever seen america (i'm only 22 so that doesn't say too much)

having a city wiped out is a big fucking deal, i know that.

again, all my point is people are watching us. some people are even happy that it is happened to us. they consider us to be babylon. hell i bet there are people saying to themselves, 'this would be the best time to attack america'. i wouldn't be surprised if it happened.

 

i understand your going through tough times, sorry if i offended you.

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[/b]

 

i was under the impression that you thought this was sorta like "no big deal".. or something like that..

 

i couldn't agree more about us being watched.. it's scary.

 

i think i read a little much into the original post you made... i've been doing that a lot lately.. this stuff has been stressing me out hardcore. between figuring out if my friends are okay, watching the news (way too much), and trying to grasp the fact that i wont be going back to new orleans anytime soon.. i'm just a little bit nuts.

[villain]

I especially enjoyed that NYT article 2Blazzed.

 

You know in the army we have a rapid deployment force that can be ANYWHERE in the world in 48 hours? ANYWHERE.

We have people that can MAKE an airstrip in no time whatsoever.

But that is an Active Duty unit. Shit they are just now sending 7,000 active duty soldiers from 4th CAV in Fort Hood just today. But Bush would have to mobilize them so shit doesn't get done.

Instead they somehow managed to hobble together the citizen-soldiers of the national guard and save the day in the nick of time... or too late for some.

It is SUCH BULLSHIT that FEMA "didn't know" about the people in the superdome until thursday! Shit everyone who is watching the news knows about those people.

Fucking Horseshit!

Bush: vacation, vacation, pressconference, pressconference, briefing, pressconference....

No wonder the mayor declared a moratorium on press conferences. Shit the mayor mighta killed Bush himself if he didn't chicken out and NOT EVEN GO to New Orleans.

AL GORE went to New Orleans and medevaced people, but Bush didn't even go....

[oneeightyone]

I went and dropped off supplies at the 1st district police station in d.c. today, there wasnt that much water there, as compared to how much a city could have given.

 

please help em out.

 

I know they are asking for care packages but everthing helps.

 

and if you go it in SOUTHWEST 4th street not NORTHWEST 4th Street.

 

if you dont know the difference get at me and ill give you directions.

[wiseguy]

Originally posted by 2BLAZZED+Sep 4 2005, 01:44 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (2BLAZZED - Sep 4 2005, 01:44 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-wiseguy@Sep 3 2005, 05:22 AM

Shit, when 2 planes hit a 2 buildings in manhattan, one of the most affluent areas in america, there is instantaneous mass government mobilisation.

 

When the biggest national disaster of recent history hits a predominantly poor, black city. where people are still waiting for aid to arrive. the national guard rocks up to shoot looters. but nothing else is done to help the people there for 5 fucking days. they just said the death toll will exceed 10,000 i wonder how many of those deaths would have been preventable?

 

FUCK YOU BUSH! FUCK YOU! THE SICK FUCKS THAT ARE RUNNING AMERICA INTO THE GROUND ARE MORALLY BANKRUPT.

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you CANNOT compare 9/11 to this in any way ,shape, or form .a terroist attack on one of the biggest landmarks in america and a natural disaster hitting a part of america that was the most volunurable is like comparing apples and oranges.

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im not comparing the disasters, just the different attitude taken towards responding to them, it would seem that the response after 9/11 was alot more serious and effective.

no one can seriously say that the response to katrina was even close to sufficient or effective. 5 days after the storm finished stranded people are dying from dehydration and disease, all this in the richest country in the world.

i wonder how many people died in the actual hurricane and how many died due to the bumbled response on the part of the bush administration... the news last night estimated the death toll to exceed 10,000.

no one in the international media is reporting on the actual hurricane anymore or even the looting and anarchy, they are reporting on the draconian shoot to kill policy, bush's refusal of international aid, the disease and death on the streets of new orleans, and talking seriously about the possible racial motivations behind bush's slow and lacklustre response.

check it out for yourself...

[8onus]

Originally posted by oneeightyone@Sep 3 2005, 10:14 PM

I went and dropped off supplies at the 1st district police station in d.c. today, there wasnt that much water there, as compared to how much a city could have given.

 

please help em out.

 

I know they are asking for care packages but everthing helps.

 

and if you go it in SOUTHWEST 4th street not NORTHWEST 4th Street.

 

if you dont know the difference get at me and ill give you directions.

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1st district is not taking any more donations, dude on the phone said they were out of storage. i asked him "they are all arriving at the armory right? can i take shit there?" he said no.....doushe bags. this is just a microcosim of a bigger problem.

 

i scored about 50 cases of dasani today, more toothbrushes and toothpaste than i can count, 5 cases of deoderant and ass loads of clothes. im thinking "people are gonna need this shit, what the fuck"

 

anyway long story short i am stocking the shit in my unfinished apartment in petworth, it will be safe there, if you have donations and MPD is turning you down hit me up.

[fermentor666]

From Dailykos:

 

Here they come, ready to do what they do best -- pass the buck:

 

Tens of thousands of people spent a fifth day awaiting evacuation from this ruined city, as Bush administration officials blamed state and local authorities for what leaders at all levels have called a failure of the country's emergency management.. . . Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday [That's only 24 [ correction on time] hours ago!], the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

Absolutely remarkable. ONLY when the situation becomes a POLITICAL disaster for Bush do they seek to take charge. I repeat -- 5 days AFTER Hurricane Katrina hit, NOW they want control. Need it to manage the photo ops no doubt.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

No kidding state official. You think they might do that?

 

Criminal. I guess they're going to go with the "dogs in Louisiana ate my homework" excuse again.

 

 

"" Endquote.

[fermentor666]

 

 

# "I don't think anyone could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center."

Condoleezza Rice - May 17, 2002

 

# "And the PDB was no indication of a terrorist threat. There was not a time and place of an attack... Had I known there was going to be an attack on America, I would have moved mountains to stop the attack. I would have done everything I can. My job is to protect the American people... And had there been actionable intelligence, we would have moved on it."

Bush - April 11, 2004

 

# "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

Bush - Sept 1, 2005

 

# "Thank God, George Bush is President"

Jerkoff Giuliani - Aug 30, 2004

 

# "George Bush LOST NEW ORLEANS!"

Pat Buchanan (on The McLaughlin Group) - Sept 2, 2005

 

# "It's fair game for the Democrats to attack the president at this time”

Ed Koch – Sept 1, 2005

[fermentor666]

Don't know how true this is, but I wouldn't be surprised. Bush fakes visit to hurricane victims:

 

September 03, 2005

 

If he could go to Baghdad, why didn't Bush go to the New Orleans Superdome or the Convention Center? It was bizarre for all of the country and much of the world to be watching those scenes for days on our TVs and news reports, and for Bush's photo ops to be in areas that were far less critical. I know there are security considerations but his visit seemed extraordinarily hollow even by this administration's standard of ultra-stage managed events.

 

Dutch viewer Frank Tiggelaar writes:

 

There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.

 

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

 

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.

 

 

Posted by Laura at September 3, 2005 09:54 AM

 

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002485.html

[fermentor666]

 

Edit: (Credits: Melissa Phillip/AP)

 

 

YEAH I GUESS THAT OLD, DECREPIT LADY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER AND EVACUATED, RIGHT? I MEAN GOD SHE'S SO STUPID LOL I DON'T LIVE ANYWHERE NEAR THE STORM OF COURSE I SHOULD PASS JUDGEMENT ON A SITUATION I'M SO FAR REMOVED FROM THAT I MIGHT AS WELL LIVE IN THE NORTH POLE

[fermentor666]

From http://warandpiece.com/ , David Brooks is a conservative reporter for the New York Times:

 

Who said it?

 

This is -- first of all it is a national humiliation to see bodies floating in a river for five days in a major American city. But second, you have to remember, this was really a de-legitimization of institutions.

 

Our institutions completely failed us and it is not as if it is the first in the past three years -- this follows Abu Ghraib, the failure of planning in Iraq, the intelligence failures, the corporate scandals, the media scandals.

 

We have had over the past four or five years a whole series of scandals that soured the public mood. You've seen a rise in feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction.

 

And I think this is the biggest one and the bursting one, and I must say personally it is the one that really says hey, it feels like the 70s now where you really have a loss of faith in institutions. Let's get out of this mess. And I really think this is so important as a cultural moment, like the blackouts of 1977, just people are sick of it.

 

Three guesses?

 

David Brooks, yesterday, on the Newshour. More:

 

DAVID BROOKS: But to reiterate the point I made earlier, which is this is the anti-9/11, just in terms of public confidence, when 9/11 happened Giuliani was right there and just as a public presence, forceful -- no public presence like that now. So you have had a surge of strength, people felt good about the country even though we had been hit on 9/11.

 

Now we've been hit again in a different way; people feel lousy; people feel ashamed and part of that is because of the public presentation. In part that is because of the failure of Bush to understand immediately the shame people felt.

 

Sitting up there on the airplane and looking out the window was terrible. And the three days of doing nothing, really, on Bush was terrible. And even today, I found myself, as you know, I support his politics quite often.

 

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

 

DAVID BROOKS: Look at him today earlier in the program, this is how Mark Shields must feel looking at him, I'm angry at the guy and maybe it will pass for me. But a lot of people and a lot of Republicans are furious right now.

 

CLARENCE PAGE: Including the -- up in New Hampshire, the Union Leader, the Washington Times, our friend Tony Blankley wrote a critical editorial about President Bush today. These are the kind of things, this transcends party lines.

 

We are talking about the institution of the presidency and the sense of well-being across the country...

 

The transcript suggests the program offered some of the most penetrating early analysis of the social and political ramifications likely in the wake of the failures in government witnessed collectively by the nation over the past week.

 

 

 

[fermentor666]

[fermentor666]

NYT Op-Ed piece:

 

 

Op-Ed Columnist

United States of Shame

 

 

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: September 3, 2005

 

Stuff happens.

 

And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal stuff happens.

 

America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it's happening in America.

 

W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," he told Diane Sawyer.

 

Shirt-sleeves rolled up, W. finally landed in Hell yesterday and chuckled about his wild boozing days in "the great city" of N'Awlins. He was clearly moved. "You know, I'm going to fly out of here in a minute," he said on the runway at the New Orleans International Airport, "but I want you to know that I'm not going to forget what I've seen." Out of the cameras' range, and avoided by W., was a convoy of thousands of sick and dying people, some sprawled on the floor or dumped on baggage carousels at a makeshift M*A*S*H unit inside the terminal.

 

Why does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who could have known?" excuses.

 

Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs.

 

Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.'s prewar reports.

 

Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl.

 

In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

 

Not only was the money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq.

 

Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.

 

Just last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced how they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. Imagine the feeble FEMA's response to Katrina if they had not prepared.

 

Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.

 

Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

 

It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.

 

When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.

 

When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.

 

Who are we if we can't take care of our own?

 

E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/opinion/03dowd.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

231 mill for a bridge to an uninhabited island in Alaska? And you cut the funding for flood protection in Nola from 105 million to 40 million? Still defending our government? Fucking morons.

[fermentor666]

Daley 'shocked' as feds reject aid

 

September 3, 2005

 

BY STEPHANIE ZIMMERMANN AND SCOTT FORNEK Staff Reporters

Advertisement

 

 

A visibly angry Mayor Daley said the city had offered emergency, medical and technical help to the federal government as early as Sunday to assist people in the areas stricken by Hurricane Katrina, but as of Friday, the only things the feds said they wanted was a single tank truck.

 

That truck, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency requested to support an Illinois-based medical team, was en route Friday.

 

"We are ready to provide more help than they have requested. We are just waiting for their call," said Daley, adding that he was "shocked" that no one seemed to want the help.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he would call for congressional hearings into the federal government's preparations and response.

 

"The response was achingly slow, and that, I think, is a view shared by Democrats, Republicans, wealthy and poor, black and white," the freshman senator said. "I have not met anybody who has watched this crisis evolve over the last several days who is not just furious at how poorly prepared we appeared to be."

 

Response 'baffling'

 

The South Side Democrat called FEMA's slow response "baffling."

 

"I don't understand how you could have a situation where you've got several days' notice of an enormous hurricane building in the Gulf Coast, you know that New Orleans is 6 feet below sea level. ... The notion that you don't have good plans in place just does not make sense," Obama said.

 

Obama said he expects his counterparts in Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama will call for congressional hearings, but he is ready if they do not. "It's heartbreaking and infuriating and, I think, is embarrassing to the American people.''

 

Daley said the city offered 36 members of the firefighters' technical rescue teams, eight emergency medical technicians, search-and-rescue equipment, more than 100 police officers as well as police vehicles and two boats, 29 clinical and 117 non-clinical health workers, a mobile clinic and eight trained personnel, 140 Streets and Sanitation workers and 29 trucks, plus other supplies. City personnel are willing to operate self-sufficiently and would not depend on local authorities for food, water, shelter and other supplies, he said.

Flanked at a Friday press conference by a who's who from city government, religious organizations and business, the mayor also announced formation of the Chicago Helps Fund for storm victims.

 

"I'm calling upon every resident of Chicago to donate what they can afford, whether it's 50 cents or 50 dollars," the mayor said.

 

People can make tax-deductible cash or check donations at any of Bank One's 330 Chicago area branches or by check at Chicago Helps, c/o Bank One, 38891 Eagle Way, Chicago 60678-1388. A phone line to take credit card donations will be set up.

 

Churches were urged to take up collections this Sunday, and firefighters are planning to collect at major intersections this weekend.

 

In addition, donations will be taken at this weekend's Jazz Fest in Grant Park, and $2 of every ticket purchased through Ticketmaster for the Chicago Classic football game at Soldier Field today will go to hurricane relief. The Shedd Aquarium announced it will donate $1 from every ticket sold this holiday weekend to relief efforts and has set up "donation stations" at the aquarium.

 

Homeless shelters enlisted

 

By midday Friday, Inner Voice, a private agency that runs 27 homeless shelters for the city, had rounded up space in unused facilities for about 2,000 storm refugees, should they need it, said president Brady Harden.

 

Ed Shurna, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, suggested the city tap recently vacated units at Cabrini-Green and Lathrop Homes that were slated for demolition but still have heat and electricity available.

 

Daley reiterated that students from stricken areas are welcome to enroll in the Chicago Public Schools and in the City Colleges. Cardinal Francis George on Friday asked that Catholic schools in the archdiocese waive tuition for displaced children.

 

More than 400 students have applied to Loyola University Chicago, most coming from its sister Jesuit school, Loyola University New Orleans. Half had been admitted as of late afternoon Friday. Spokeswoman Maeve Kiley said the school "will honor their tuition that they already paid.''

 

University of Illinois campuses in Urbana-Champaign and Chicago have admitted more than 100 students, including two foreign students who had Fulbright scholarships to attend Tulane.

 

Northeastern said it would waive tuition and fees for Illinois residents who already paid another school, and would grant in-state tuition to out-of-state students. Northwestern plans to let students pay what they would have at their original school and forward the money to that school.

 

Contributing: Andrew Herrmann, Dave Newbart

 

http://www.suntimes.com/output/hurricane/c...ws-daley03.html

[fermentor666]

Landrieu Blasts Bush on Katrina Response

by Mike Liddell

Sat Sep 3rd, 2005 at 07:05:42 PM EST

 

U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., issued the following statement this afternoon regarding her call yesterday for President Bush to appoint a cabinet-level official to oversee Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts within 24 hours....

 

“.....But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast – black and white, rich and poor, young and old – deserve far better from their national government.....

 

 

 

http://www.fromtheroots.org/story/2005/9/3/19542/97952

[fermentor666]

FROM THE REDCROSS WEBSITE

 

 

 

Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?

 

* Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

 

* The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

 

* The Red Cross has been meeting the needs of thousands of New Orleans residents in some 90 shelters throughout the state of Louisiana and elsewhere since before landfall. All told, the Red Cross is today operating 149 shelters for almost 93,000 residents.

 

* The Red Cross shares the nation’s anguish over the worsening situation inside the city. We will continue to work under the direction of the military, state and local authorities and to focus all our efforts on our lifesaving mission of feeding and sheltering.

 

* The Red Cross does not conduct search and rescue operations. We are an organization of civilian volunteers and cannot get relief aid into any location until the local authorities say it is safe and provide us with security and access.

 

* The original plan was to evacuate all the residents of New Orleans to safe places outside the city. With the hurricane bearing down, the city government decided to open a shelter of last resort in the Superdome downtown. We applaud this decision and believe it saved a significant number of lives.

 

* As the remaining people are evacuated from New Orleans, the most appropriate role for the Red Cross is to provide a safe place for people to stay and to see that their emergency needs are met. We are fully staffed and equipped to handle these individuals once they are evacuated.

 

 

http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html#4524

[mullet]

I remember when the 2004 Boxing day Tsunami hit, and alot of you heartless fucks made sick jokes about the 300,000 people that had died and the millions that were devastated. So, whats up now?

 

I do feel for alot of the people in New Orleans, but in a way I'm not that fussed about it.........................................

[meateater]

This is just crazy, i was planing on visting this place again in around 2 years or so as i had such a good time there.

The stories just keep getting worse and worse. Lets hope everyone works together and the place dosnt get forgoten.

[saraday]

here's a post from a guy i know who's in the national guard:

 

"I just spent two days at the Superdome.

 

 

Wednesday evening they flew me and six others to the dome not knowing when we'd be coming back. To be honest, hell on Earth would be an understatement. Here's the story...

 

 

When we first flew in they brought us in the Superdome and there was a makeshift ER set up. Within two hours we treated four gunshot wounds and two stabbings and the riots were getting worse. Finally the National Guard moved all our supplies to the basketball arena. As soon as they were done it filled up just like the dome so it was no help. Not five minutes after moving in there two people were murdered twenty feet from us. I would say maybe 15 women were raped Wednesday night. There would be huge fights right by our area, someone would get stabbed or shot, and they would drag them in to us. We treated at least six National Guardsmen who were shot. It was hell in there. ....NONE OF THIS HAS BEEN SHOWN ON THE NEWS.... We delivered three babies right inside the basketball arena. The sniper on the roof rumor is completely true. At one point yesterday afternoon there were three shots fired at us and we retreated to a back hallway where we were escorted to a Blackhawk helicopter and flown to another shithole....The evacuee checkpoint at I-10 and Causeway. Four hours later I hitched a ride on an ambulance to Lafayette and drove home.

 

 

It was like being dropped into a war for two days in a city you're very familiar with. It was the worst smelling place you could ever fathom, over 100 degrees, and everything was either wet or pissed on. You couldn't pay me enough to go anywhere near that city right now. It's the first time I've ever been shot at and hopefully the last. They'll shoot and spit at you and you too haven't slept or eaten in days and are there to help them. Then there's the lady that floated up to the dome on a dead body. The bodies are everywhere.

 

 

I'm just glad all of you made it out ok and are safe. If there is anything me or my family can do for any of you please let me know.

 

 

Best wishes."

 

--- later he added

 

I feel I must also add that it was not the whole of the crowd acting in this manner. For every shot fired or woman raped there were 4,000 humble, grateful people. Along with all of the violent acts there were also acts of compassion and love towards their neighbors. At times it was an awesome glimpse of humanity. As I think back about the little old ladies who would grab your arm and make your heart melt with their thank yous, it was all worth it. I actually volunteered to be sent back Tuesday.

 

 

What I wrote the other night was out of sheer frustration and exhaustion. I'm still frustrated with the media's portrayal of what's going on but as I said, not all is bad.

 

 

Just wanted to clear that up.

[ODS-1]

Originally posted by fermentor666@Sep 4 2005, 02:49 AM

 

Edit: (Credits: Melissa Phillip/AP)

 

 

YEAH I GUESS THAT OLD, DECREPIT LADY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER AND EVACUATED, RIGHT? I MEAN GOD SHE'S SO STUPID LOL I DON'T LIVE ANYWHERE NEAR THE STORM OF COURSE I SHOULD PASS JUDGEMENT ON A SITUATION I'M SO FAR REMOVED FROM THAT I MIGHT AS WELL LIVE IN THE NORTH POLE

Quoted post

Word.

[Poop Man Bob]

Originally posted by Cheggit@Sep 4 2005, 03:12 AM

I remember when the 2004 Boxing day Tsunami hit, and alot of you heartless fucks made sick jokes about the 300,000 people that had died and the millions that were devastated. So, whats up now?

 

I do feel for alot of the people in New Orleans, but in a way I'm not that fussed about it.........................................

Quoted post

 

Who made jokes about it? Anyone posting in this thread? Or is this just an empty "look at me" post?

[villain]

Good articles fermentor....

And interesting story saraday...

It's like the NOPD was saying on the news earlier, it's just there's some scared men out there, only caring about themselves, pushing away women and children.

Selfish... weak...

those kinda people get weeded out pretty quick in the army.

[ODS-1]

So now that there's poor people starving in Louisiana, where's Bono and all those other live 8 people? I guess americans are so "rich" that we don't need any help.

[ODS-1]

from the BBC

" At last - we are getting a 'taste' of what lies ahead for our planet. It is decidedly overpopulated, and facing global warming cataclysms like the one being witnessed. And how appropriate for the 20% of the planet that uses 80% of the natural resources to discover the consequences of their collective actions. Of course, those actually suffering are not the ones driving Hummers, or drilling for oil in third world countries. But we all suffer when our fellow humans suffer.

Anon, Arizona USA"

Anybody who talks like this needs to have their teeth knocked out. If I have to hear anymore about how America brought this on itself then I will lose it. It seems like some of people don't really care that this happened to the US, or they are glad it happened.

[Tyler Durden]

Although this is a horrible tragedy, perhaps people are FINALLY waking up and realizing how fucked up shit is... And if this doesnt make people start to question whats going on around them and if our public officials are really acting in our best interest, then we are truly fucked...