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Mayor Ray Nagin of the N.O.'s latest interview


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Guest KING BLING

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.nagin/index.html

 

New Orleans mayor lashes out at feds

Nagin: 'They are spinning and people are dying'

 

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- As his city skidded deeper into chaos, New Orleans' embattled mayor accused federal officials of dragging their feet while people are dying in deplorable conditions.

 

Mayor Ray Nagin's voice cracked with anger and anguish Thursday night in an interview with New Orleans radio station WWL-AM. (Hear the mayor tell feds to 'get off their asses' -- 12:09.)

 

"We're getting reports and calls that [are] breaking my heart from people saying, 'I've been in my attic. I can't take it anymore. The water is up to my neck. I don't think I can hold out.' And that's happening as we speak." (Transcript of radio interview with Nagin)

 

Nagin said the time has long passed for federal authorities to act on their promises.

 

"You mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on man," he said.

 

"I need reinforcements," he pleaded. "I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. This is a national disaster. (Hear Nagin's angry demand for more troops -- 1:00)

 

"I've talked directly with the president," he said. "I've talked to the head of the homeland security. I've talked to everybody under the sun."

 

After scheduled visits to devastated areas in Alabama and Mississippi, President Bush was expected to fly over the hurricane-ravaged city on Friday.

 

As he left the White House, Bush said, "The results are not acceptable. I'm headed down there right now."

 

He said he was "looking forward" to thanking people involved in disaster-relief efforts and assuring victims that short-term and long-term help is on the way.

 

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday that he thinks the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other federal agencies have done a "magnificent job" under difficult circumstances, citing their "courage" and "ingenuity."

 

Insisting that aid is coming as fast as possible, Chertoff said, "You can't fly helicopters in a hurricane. You can't drive trucks in a hurricane."

 

FEMA Director Michael Brown told CNN on Friday, "My heart breaks. What we're doing, we're ramping up." (See video of CNN asking why FEMA is clueless about conditions -- 2:11 )

 

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she hoped the amount of needed aid would begin arriving Friday.

 

"I'm not going to stand here and play the blame game," Blanco said. "We have a problem. Let's get to the problem."

 

The tempers of those waiting for food, water and relief from relentless heat continued to boil Friday as they waited for help to arrive, some in shocking conditions that were only getting worse. At least one large explosion rocked the city early Friday.

 

In the radio interview, Nagin's frustration was palpable.

 

"I've been out there man. I flew in these helicopters, been in the crowds talking to people crying, don't know where their relatives are. I've done it all man, and I'll tell you man, I keep hearing that it's coming. This is coming, that is coming. And my answer to that today is BS, where is the beef? Because there is no beef in this city. "

 

Nagin said, "Get every Greyhound bus in the country and get them moving."

 

Nagin called for a moratorium on press conferences "until the resources are in this city."

 

"They're feeding the people a line of bull, and they are spinning and people are dying," he said.

 

"I don't know whether it's the governor's problem, or it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get ... on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now," Nagin said.

 

"They thinking small, man, and this is a major, major deal," he said.

 

"Get off your asses and let's do something."

 

The mayor said except for a few "knuckleheads," the looting is the result of desperate people just trying to find food and water to survive.

 

Nagin blamed the outbreak of crime and violence on drug addicts who are cut off from their drug supplies and wandering the city "looking to take the edge off their jones."

 

Nagin is in his first term as mayor. He was sworn in May 2002. A Democrat, he was a popular reform candidate who promised to clean up the city's political corruption. He's a former cable company executive.

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he's probably going to come out looking like a hero...good for him. i just saw a clip of him walking with george bush...nagin looked like he was about ready to serve the prez...he's right, i realize FEMA and the national guard take time to mobilize, but seriously...if i had left my house on tuesday, i could have hitchhiked or hopped trains and been there by now...what's their excuse? i hope he can get folks to rally around him, crack some skulls. it's hard for me to watch this on TV...i can't imagine what he must be feeling, it's his fucking CITY. that's one strong man. i wish him the best, and all the luck in the world.

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Originally posted by Biggus Dickus@Sep 3 2005, 12:54 AM

Kabar is right on that, what the fuck were they thinking. I didn't really know anything about the city before this, but had I known I probably would have wondered why they built a city 8 feet below sea level that close to the ocean.

think about how many cities, or major ports, that were built on floodplains...or on top of faultlines, in my case. back in the day, "risk assessment" wasn't exactly considered a high priority, or, as my dad would say, "man builds, God laughs." so, unless there was a thirty foot high wall around NOLA with a moat next to it, this was bound to happen, regardless of what anyone says, like, "we never anticipated this." to which i reply, "anticipated it? you should have COUNTED on it."
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Ray Nagin was the best addition New Orleans has had in a long time. Before Nagin, there was Morial who was ridiculously crooked. Days after Nagin took office, he had the crooked DMV workers lined up in shackles on the news. The best part is, one of them was his own cousin. I hate when I hear the people on TV saying that Morial whould have them out of the city already. Morial would have left when he heard the storm was coming.

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Originally posted by ciste@Sep 3 2005, 02:04 PM

Ray Nagin was the best addition New Orleans has had in a long time. Before Nagin, there was Morial who was ridiculously crooked. Days after Nagin took office, he had the crooked DMV workers lined up in shackles on the news. The best part is, one of them was his own cousin. I hate when I hear the people on TV saying that Morial whould have them out of the city already. Morial would have left when he heard the storm was coming.

 

ain't that the truth..

 

I tell you what I wish---I wish the people of New Orleans had decided twenty years ago to limit development within the levees, and required every new home built to be built up on stilts.

 

They fucked up, and now they are paying for it.

 

people don't think that far ahead when money is an issue. some of the areas that sustained the highest flood waters (9th ward, chalmette) are the poorest areas in the entire city. it was cheap to develop there because the ground sits a lot lower than the rest of the city.

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Guest KING BLING
Originally posted by KaBar2@Sep 2 2005, 11:13 PM

I tell you what I wish---I wish the people of New Orleans had decided twenty years ago to limit development within the levees, and required every new home built to be built up on stilts.

 

They fucked up, and now they are paying for it.

 

 

Once again, you offer very little outside of your own emotions...

 

http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=107560

 

Source: Reuters

 

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bush administration funding cuts forced federal engineers to delay improvements on the levees, floodgates and pumping stations that failed to protect New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters, agency documents showed on Thursday.

 

The former head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that handles the infrastructure of the nation's waterways, said the damage in New Orleans probably would have been much less extensive had flood-control efforts been fully funded over the years.

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Originally posted by KING BLING@Sep 7 2005, 01:10 PM

Once again, you offer very little outside of your own emotions...

I am assuming that you are using 'emotions' in a context synonymous with 'opinions' (because I don't really understand what you are saying if you actually mean emotions). What else is he supposed to offer?

Or is it that he is not sympathetic enough...?

 

The funding cuts info is a nice touch to this obscenely shitty mess. Someone needs to turn that claim into a graphic so I can easily understand how closely related the cuts are to the administration's actions.

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Guest KING BLING
Originally posted by Krakatau+Sep 7 2005, 07:17 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Krakatau - Sep 7 2005, 07:17 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-KING BLING@Sep 7 2005, 01:10 PM

Once again, you offer very little outside of your own emotions...

I am assuming that you are using 'emotions' in a context synonymous with 'opinions' (because I don't really understand what you are saying if you actually mean emotions). What else is he supposed to offer?

Or is it that he is not sympathetic enough...?

 

The funding cuts info is a nice touch to this obscenely shitty mess. Someone needs to turn that claim into a graphic so I can easily understand how closely related the cuts are to the administration's actions.

[/b]

 

 

Not to sound elitist , but until you've been here in this general section for a while you won't understand some of what goes on here...speak your mind, but an informed opinion offers 1000 times more than just a random angry rant/snipe that is wrong...

 

...and you will never receive a graphic presentation or anything like that here unless it is stolen from an academic or political site. But it isn't hard to see, even Newsweek called it this week <and I hate Newsweek> giving the Senate a thumbs down because in the midst of an obvious funding failure they are again starting to cut taxes...

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king bling thank you for responding to that kabarbullshit

 

we all know there are shitloads of american cities built on marshland, on floodplanes, on fault lines, in tornado territory and in the middle of the fucking desert

 

there are FEW development regulations in place anywhere in this country

 

my own state has a problem dealing with our raw sewage because no one stopped the developers from overloading the system

 

when something shitty happens to kabar's house, i'll remind him how stupid he was to not see that shit coming.

after all, disasters can happen anywhere, no?

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Normally I agree witha lot of what Kabar has to say...but, this time, I can't do it with a clear conscience.

 

Look at Amsterdam, or for that matter, the Netherlands- most of it is below sea level, and it's right on the water. I'll bet no one complains when the government there says, "Okay, we need to pony up x amount of euros to keep the water out". And, they have one of the most fiscally conservative governments in the EU....not to mention one of the highest qualities of life anywhere in the world.

 

I'm sure someone is going to poke holes in this statement, but they make the US look like it's in the Stone Age as far as responsible government goes. Also, "taxation without representation" is one of the reasons there was ever a revolution here in the first place. I cannot think of a more striking example of the people of Louisiana watching their money going to a misguided war and not having enough funding to keep NOLA above water.

 

It wasn't the storm that did the most damage...A lot of people that stayed behind did fine In the hours after Katrina.

 

It was the government's lack of foresight to even its own reports and studies that did NOLA and its people in.

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Originally posted by KING BLING+Sep 8 2005, 12:02 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (KING BLING - Sep 8 2005, 12:02 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'>
Originally posted by Krakatau@Sep 7 2005, 07:17 PM

<!--QuoteBegin-KING BLING@Sep 7 2005, 01:10 PM

Once again, you offer very little outside of your own emotions...

I am assuming that you are using 'emotions' in a context synonymous with 'opinions' (because I don't really understand what you are saying if you actually mean emotions). What else is he supposed to offer?

Or is it that he is not sympathetic enough...?

 

The funding cuts info is a nice touch to this obscenely shitty mess. Someone needs to turn that claim into a graphic so I can easily understand how closely related the cuts are to the administration's actions.

 

 

Not to sound elitist , but until you've been here in this general section for a while you won't understand some of what goes on here...speak your mind, but an informed opinion offers 1000 times more than just a random angry rant/snipe that is wrong...

 

...and you will never receive a graphic presentation or anything like that here unless it is stolen from an academic or political site. But it isn't hard to see, even Newsweek called it this week <and I hate Newsweek> giving the Senate a thumbs down because in the midst of an obvious funding failure they are again starting to cut taxes...

[/b]

 

Haha, I wasn't expecting a 12ozer to actually produce a graphic for me, I was just kind of thinking aloud with that. Essentially, I was just curious how many descision making heads the tax cuts went through before it came to the specific "let's not upgrade the levy's and flood management systems in NOLA" point. If there is one out there and available, I probably won't find it. I hate newsmedia.

 

I've been here since long before Crossfire was around. Just haven't been active in it until recently. I know Kabar is the anti-ouncer, but his comment (at least the first part) is a legitimate point. Overlooks the humanitarian aspects perhaps, but I don't think it qualifies as an angry rant or snipe, or wrong.

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Guest KING BLING

The point is, the city is an old city and it simply was where it was. Kabar is as most angry republicans so obsessed with the idea of personal responcibility while placing blame on liberals, Muslims and even on on the victims, that he rarely has a rational fact supported offering and relies more on generalities and his acute experiences...sometimes shit happens and his statement, much like your support of it is as worthless as saying its New Yorks fault 9/11 happened because they built tall buildings, or Californians should evacuate the state because it has earth quakes, or if your mom got stabbed its her fault for walking down the street she did...

 

Its nonsense that I doubt he really meant to be taken this seriously. it has no relevance to anything and is said to get a reaction and because misery <and spite> love company...here is your reaction...

 

Anyhow, welcome....

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Regardless of the city's age, this has been a known risk factor for a long, long time. The steps that had been taken are obviously not adequate, and could have gone farther. Just because things have been there for a long time doesn't mean they can't be modified and improved. Not a static locale.

 

EVERYONE relies on generalities and acute experiences. The latter is all we really have, and the former is how those experiences are best categorized and communicated. Just like you did with the "like most republicans" beginning of that thought. So we've established Kabar thinks like a human.

 

I don't see the problem on emphasizing personal responsibility. When it comes down to it, YOU are all that you've really got. And I think that was a good point he had about how the liberal-muslim-victims in NOLA should have been on the ball regarding development in the city(wtf?).

 

How is implementing a city development policy that accounts for the high risk aspects of the cities geograpic location irrational? No, Californians shouldn't evacuate, they should build structures capable of weathering the earthquakes that can be generated there, not build homes on nearly vertical hills.

 

Sky scrapers should have missle systems, and my mom should have been carrying a weapon.

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"Kabar is as most angry republicans so obsessed with the idea of personal responcibility while placing blame on liberals, Muslims and even on on the victims, that he rarely has a rational fact supported offering and relies more on generalities and his acute experiences...sometimes shit happens and his statement, much like your support of it is as worthless as saying its New Yorks fault 9/11 happened because they built tall buildings, or Californians should evacuate the state because it has earth quakes, or if your mom got stabbed its her fault for walking down the street she did..."

 

Some people might have a tendency to "place the blame on the victims" because of the reaction the victims had. You wouldn't see people raping, killing, shooting at people trying to rescue them and looting in the 1927 flooding in the same region, or in the aftermath of Nagasaki or Hiroshima. And people justify it by saying "Well they are poor, they didn't have anything so they needed to loot." That's not how the Tsunami victims reacted, those are countries that are REALLY poor. Daily wage is less than a dollar and they dont have welfare to rely on. But they conducted themselves in a civilized manner. They helped victims and collected the dead, as opposed to raping children, killing eachother and looting anything that isn't bolted down.

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Choosing to live in a particular place or to not live in a particular place is an individual choice. Houston is only about 300 miles from New Orleans. The situation in Galveston, Texas is very similar to the situation in New Orleans, it's just that the city is a lot smaller.

 

I used to live in Galveston. It was great. I love the beach, the town has a lot of funky bars, restaurants and music venues. The problem with Galveston is that the city is only 15 feet (less in some areas) above the sea level of the Gulf of Mexico. There is a concrete sea wall built all along the side of the city that faces the Gulf, but the city itself is lower than the sea wall. So, if a storm surge is higher than the sea wall, the city will flood about ten foot deep. Of course, the side of the island that faces Galveston Bay (between the city and the mainland) is lower than fifteen feet elevation, so flood waters drain towards the Bay. But, in a hurricane, the Bay usually experiences a flood tide caused by the incoming storm, which floods the west side of the island. The upshot of all this is that IF THERE IS A HURRICANE, GALVESTON IS NO PLACE TO BE.

 

Now, I had a junker car when I moved away from Galveston, and I suppose that rather than chalk up my job at the Todd Shipyards Galveston shipwright's department as a welder to my own efforts, I could chalk it up to White Skin Privelege, but frankly, I don't think that welding 4pm to midnight in the sweltering 90 degree heat and 90 percent humidity was exactly a racial benefit. I lived in a shithole ghetto apartment on 38th Street and shared the apartment with a black, former linebacker for the WFL Honolulu Hawaiians team. He worked as a brick mason and turned out to be gay. (I should get double Race Points for dealing with his alcoholic bullshit.)

 

The real reason I left Galveston was a storm that flooded my street deep enough to get water in the floorboards of my beater Volkswagen Rabbit. I thought "If it floods this bad from this little two-bit storm, what will happen when a real hurricane hits?" Fuck it, I'm outta here. Today ruined carpets, tomorrow you're fucking swimming for your life through Hurricane Carla. Fuck that. I moved back to Houston.

 

Now, the people of New Orleans, of all races, are no less intelligent than me. Anybody can see that a city built eight feet below sea level right next to the Gulf of Mexico is just a monstrous disaster waiting to happen. It's a miracle that it didn't happen sooner. So you guys can save all those accusations about poverty and race. People who choose to live in disaster-prone areas have NOBODY TO BLAME BUT THEMSELVES. Living right on the coast before the 1930's was very rare, precisely because if a hurricane or tropical storm came, you were VERY LIKELY to have your home flooded and blown all to shit.

 

What has changed? Nothing. Except now people apparently think that making decisions about where it is safe to live and where it is not safe to live is the responsibility of the Government instead of the individual. WRONG.

 

Why is this so hard to understand? YOUR LIFE IS YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY. Damn, this should be nothing but totally obvious. Stop blaming everybody else for whatever problems befall you. If you are poor, best figure out a legal way to make a good living. If you are uneducated, you had best figure out a way to go to school. If you live in New Orleans, you had best figure out a way to move away from there before the Worst Natural Disaster in American History happens right in YOUR neighborhood.

 

Or, fuck it, just go down to the beer store and get yourself another forty and turn that boom box up. Fuck yeah, we'll just chill instead. No reason to actually think about your life and your future. It's all pointless because you are a victim of racism and poverty and your only choices are massive substance abuse or felony crimes.

 

BULL SHIT. Think like a survivor, or suffer the consequences. I'll be sympathetic, but only up to a point. Who's running your fucking life anyway? You? Or somebody else?

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