The financially downtrodden in NOLA left in the cold, By wealthy America - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

host · 09-14-2005, 12:28 AM

To their credit, two of your favorite "news" sources actually carried reports of this....but we'll begin with this column, first.....to set the "tone"....

Examine your own culpability if you've supported and defended this........

Friedman's observations, over the past three years, have been a lot more relevant and accurate than the contents of white house press briefings.

Quote:

http://nytimes.com/2005/09/14/opinio...iedman.html?hp
Op-Ed Columnist
Singapore and Katrina

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: September 14, 2005

Singapore

There is something troublingly self-indulgent and slothful about America today - something that Katrina highlighted and that people who live in countries where the laws of gravity still apply really noticed. It has rattled them - like watching a parent melt down............

.......The discipline that the cold war imposed on America, by contrast, seems to have faded. Last year, we cut the National Science Foundation budget, while indulging absurd creationist theories in our schools and passing pork-laden energy and transportation bills in the middle of an energy crisis.

We let the families of the victims of 9/11 redesign our intelligence organizations, and our president and Congress held a midnight session about the health care of one woman, Terri Schiavo, while ignoring the health crisis of 40 million uninsured. Our economy seems to be fueled lately by either suing each other or selling each other houses. Our government launched a war in Iraq without any real plan for the morning after, and it cut taxes in the middle of that war, ensuring that future generations would get the bill.

Speaking of Katrina, Sumiko Tan, a columnist for the Sunday edition of The Straits Times in Singapore, wrote: "We were shocked at what we saw. Death and destruction from natural disaster is par for the course. But the pictures of dead people left uncollected on the streets, armed looters ransacking shops, survivors desperate to be rescued, racial divisions - these were truly out of sync with what we'd imagined the land of the free to be, even if we had encountered homelessness and violence on visits there. ... If America becomes so unglued when bad things happen in its own backyard, how can it fulfill its role as leader of the world?"

Janadas Devan, a Straits Times columnist, tried to explain to his Asian readers how the U.S. is changing. "Today's conservatives," he wrote, "differ in one crucial aspect from yesterday's conservatives: the latter believed in small government, but believed, too, that a country ought to pay for all the government that it needed.

"The former believe in no government, and therefore conclude that there is no need for a country to pay for even the government that it does have. ... [But] it is not only government that doesn't show up when government is starved of resources and leached of all its meaning. Community doesn't show up either, sacrifice doesn't show up, pulling together doesn't show up, 'we're all in this together' doesn't show up."

After you've discounted and dismissed the account above, here's another report about Americans coming together......

Foxnews actually corroborates the following UPI report, six minutes into the video available here:
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2678976?htv=12

Links to Foxnews Shepar Smith's reporting about Gretna, which can been seen six minutes into the eight minute video, linked above.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...na&btnG=Search

Quote:

http://washtimes.com/upi/20050908-112433-4907r.htm
United Press International
Front Page > UPI Page

Cops trapped survivors in New Orleans

By Shaun Waterman
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
Sep. 9, 2005 at 10:48AM

Police from surrounding jurisdictions shut down several access points to one of the only ways out of New Orleans last week, effectively trapping victims of Hurricane Katrina in the flooded and devastated city.
An eyewitness account from two San Francisco paramedics posted on an internet site for Emergency Medical Services specialists says, "Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the city on foot."
"We shut down the bridge," Arthur Lawson, chief of the City of Gretna Police Department, confirmed to United Press International, adding that his jurisdiction had been "a closed and secure location" since before the storm hit.
"All our people had evacuated and we locked the city down," he said.
The bridge in question -- the Crescent City Connection -- is the major artery heading west out of New Orleans across the Mississippi River.
Lawson said that once the storm itself had passed Monday, police from Gretna City, Jefferson Parrish and the Louisiana State Crescent City Connection Police Department closed to foot traffic the three access points to the bridge closest to the West Bank of the river.
He added that the small town, which he called "a bedroom community" for the city of New Orleans, would have been overwhelmed by the influx.
"There was no food, water or shelter" in Gretna City, Lawson said. "We did not have the wherewithal to deal with these people.
"If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned and pillaged."
But -- in an example of the chaos that continued to beset survivors of the storm long after it had passed -- even as Lawson's men were closing the bridge, authorities in New Orleans were telling people that it was only way out of the city.
"The only way people can leave the city of New Orleans is to get on (the) Crescent City Connection ... authorities said," reads a Tuesday morning posting on the Web site of the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, which kept reporting through the storm and the ruinous flooding that followed.
Similar announcements appeared on the Web site of local radio station WDSU and other local news sources.
"Evidently, someone on the ground (in New Orleans) was telling people there was transport here, or food or shelter," said Lawson. "There wasn't."
"We were not contacted by anyone" about the instructions being given to survivors to use the bridge to get out of town, he said.
The two paramedics, who were trapped in the city while attending a convention, joined a group of people who had been turned out by the hotels that they were staying in on Wednesday. When the group attempted to get to the Superdome -- designated by city authorities as a shelter for those unable to evacuate -- they were turned away by the National Guard.
"Quite naturally, we asked ... 'What was our alternative?' The guards told us that that was our problem, and no, they did not have extra water to give to us.
"This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile law enforcement."
As they made their way to the bridge in order to leave the city "armed Gretna sheriffs (sic) formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads."
Members of the group nonetheless approached the police lines, and "questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge ... They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City.
"These were code words," the paramedics wrote, "for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans."
The authors say that during the course of that day, they saw "other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally berated and humiliated."
Efforts to contact the authors of the Internet posting were unsuccessful, but UPI was able to confirm that individuals with their names are employed as paramedics in San Francisco.
Lawson says that his officers "acted in the manner they were instructed to" and defends the order to close the bridge as "the right decision."
He said that in addition to his security concerns, an unmoored vessel on the river "raised the threat that it might crash into and breach the levee, which would have flooded Gretna."
He says that his officers did assist about 4000 people who "arrived at the doorstep of (Gretna City)" either by crossing the bridge before it was closed or approaching from another route.
"We commandeered public transit buses and we took them to higher and safer ground" at the junction of Interstate-10 and Causeway Boulevard where "there was food and shelter," he said.

Quote:

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ema...2570710012D2D2
St. Louisans survive lawlessness in French Quarter
By Tom Uhlenbrock
Of the Post-Dispatch
Friday, Sep. 02 2005

A St. Louis lawyer and his wife spent most all of four days in a French Quarter
hotel while the streets outside were filled with looters. Finally, they escaped
New Orleans in the back of a pickup.

At one point, Tim Scheer and his wife, Judy, were among some 500 hotel guests
who paid $22,500 for 10 buses to rescue them from the city. However, the buses
were commandeered by police just minutes from the hotel and were redirected to
help to evacuate people waiting at the Superdome................

...........A group of about 200 Monteleone guests decided to try to walk out of the city to the east, and got to the on-ramp at the Crescent Connection bridge, where they were met by Gretna, La., police with shotguns. "They told us the bridge was closed to foot traffic," Scheer said. "Some locals had joined us and became extremely unruly, threatening to rush the officers. They fired their shotguns into the air."

The Scheers and the three other couples began walking to the west down a highway, where they flagged down two locals in a pickup who offered to drive them to a shelter about 12 miles away in Kenner, La., to meet Scheer's cousin.

"Bottom line, we're in the back of the pickup, riding like hell through the rain," Scheer said. "They didn't want anything, but we forced several hundred dollars on them. Those guys saved our ass."

Quote:

http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/...elays001.shtml
2theadvocate > News > Mayor Nagin, Blanco irate about delays 09/02/05

Mayor Nagin, Blanco irate about delays
Advocate staff report

.........."We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev. Isaac Clark, 68, said outside the Convention Center, where corpses lay in the open and he and other evacuees complained they were dropped off and given nothing -- no food, no water, no medicine.

About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at the convention center to await buses grew increasingly hostile. Police Chief Eddie Compass said he sent 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly beaten back by a mob.

In hopes of defusing the unrest at the convention center, Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across the Crescent City Connection bridge to the west bank, which was not flooded, for whatever relief they could find.

But the bedlam at the convention center made leaving difficult.

A military helicopter tried to land at the convention center several times to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet up and flew away..............

Now it is "out there" for the entire world to observe, and, if you want to check, you can see the scant coverage of how affluent, powerful, mostly white America, first in N.O., where they packed up their SUVs and drove out of town....without offering rides to their less resource rich, fellow citizens.

Then consider your president, and his FEMA and DHS chieftains, with the reports above easily accessible to them, if they wanted to look, react, help people....what they could have done to open the bridge to Gretna.

Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin, reluctant to bite the hands that enable their politcal careers....danced around the issue...failing to openly criticize wealthy white citizens in and around New Orleans.....

This is your America today folks, your tax cuts for the rich at work. The "trickle down" that you advocates of Bush's selfish and destructive agenda is "shit", just like the stuff that the lower castes were left to drown in around the superdome. Almost five years into your POTUS's reign, observe the thirty percent poverty rate in the Mississippi delta region.

Your priorities are "less government", income tax cuts, elimination or inheritance taxes, "self empowerment", and $200 billion plus to bring "freedom" to the Iraqi people, except for Iraqi women, non-shiites, and non-kurds.

I want to remind you that your "God of the rapture", made the children that the policies you advocate and the politicians that you voted for, helped force into circumstances that for a week, you would not let your own dog ever be subjected to.....

When roachboy describes an American political system of two parties, that are two "right" wings....do you even fucking consider what he might be talking about?

Grey2000 · 09-14-2005, 12:53 AM

And, I suppose, those terrible, '3rd world' images wouldn't have happened had George Bush not been president ?

Just asking.

ObieX · 09-14-2005, 02:25 AM

Some speculate that a big reason why FEMA didnt respond so well was because it was encorporated into the super-massive "Homeland Security". So instead of them being able to respond right away, they're forced to go through a bunch of endless red tape and get permissions from places they wouldn't normally have to get them from before they can get to work saving lives, etc. President Bush was the creator of that gigantic Homeland Security agency.. so, one could say that he was responsible for a massive slowdown that helped contribute to the deaths of many people.

So he isn't completely blameless for some events that have occured. He even took the blame himself this week for some problems that happened. *shrugs*

Just saying.

host · 09-14-2005, 02:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grey2000

And, I suppose, those terrible, '3rd world' images wouldn't have happened had George Bush not been president ?

Just asking.

We've had two, recent presidents-OTUS who were from poor, southern backgrounds. I can't say for certain that they would have reacted differently, but their tax policies, and certainly Carter's energy policy, were more slanted towards the best interests of more Americans than the policies of the political cabal that currently comprises the federal majority.

Quote:

http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story...8-30-05&cat=AN
More Americans fall into poverty, government reports

By MARY DEIBEL
Scripps Howard News Service
August 30, 2005

- Despite robust economic growth and record corporate profits, the average American household's income held steady at $44,400 for the third straight year in 2004, the government reported Tuesday.

Another 1.1 million Americans fell into poverty last year, bringing the total to 37 million people living below the poverty line, defined as $19,307 for a family of four, the Census Bureau said in its 2004 income and poverty report. The poverty rate was 12.7 percent last year, up from 11.3 percent in 2000 before the beginning of the last recession.

Real median earnings for fulltime year-round workers fell in 2004. Men working full-time saw their earnings decline 2.3 percent, to $40.789, while women's wages fell 1 percent, to $31,223. Reflecting the larger drop in men's earnings, women workers' pay rose to 77 cents for every $1 a man earns, up from 76 cents in 2003.......

The passage of the bankruptcy "reform" bill and the lack of an increase in the federal minimum wage during this presidential administration impact the ill and the "have nots" more than anyone else. Last fall, a referendum in Florida bypassed the control of lawmaking in the hands of Jen Bush and his republican legislature by forcing an increase in the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6/15 per hour. It took effect in April and was approved by 70 percent of voters. https://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=2668

IMO, what happened in N.O. is a symptom of what our "two right wing" political parties and their corporatist candidates are moving us towards. We actually do it to ourselves; for they gain and keep power by reacting to the sentiments that the more intuitive political operatives (Rove) "see" in us, and then fanning it into the talking points that ring a favorable chord with voters.

Gretna and Jefferson Parish, LA are our homegrown, "Green Zone"......

Quote:

...............At any event, with evacuation gaining traction it was clear that a historic diaspora of New Orleans residents is under way. The last three days have seen a forced, perhaps permanent, scattering of tens of thousands of New Orleanians - first among evacuees who fled the city before the storm and later those who survived it. The loss of so many will affect the character of the city in ways yet to be determined.

Authorities were loading evacuees on commercial airlines, buses and AMTRAK trains bound for destinations as far away as Michigan and Indiana.

But there were complaints that some refugees, hauled out of the city in desperate condition, were being refused safe haven in some places, including some that said they already were filled beyond capacity with storm victims. New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas blasted the city of Baton Rouge and other Louisiana communities for what he called a callous refusal to take in refugees from his devastated city.

"They don’t want them," Thomas said, after bursting into the press room at the Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge. "They have put out the word all over the state: ’Those bad New Orleans people. You don’t want them.’ "

State Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, said the state’s Legislative Black Caucus would charter buses to pick up 5,000 residents stranded along Interstate 10. He said they would deliver them to the closed England Air Force Base in Shreveport and demand that they be sheltered.

Mayor Ray Nagin criticized Jefferson Parish for closing the door to exhausted refugees who trudged over the Crescent City Connection to escape the ruined city and reach high ground on the West Bank.

"We were taking in people from St. Bernard Parish. If we had a bottle of water, we shared it. Then when we were going to let people cross the bridge, they were met with frigging dogs and guns at the parish line," said Nagin during an aerial tour of the city.http://www.nola.com/weblogs/print.ss...int076766.html

"They said, ’We’re going to protect Jefferson Parish assets.’ Some people value homes, cars and jewelry more than human life. The only escape route was cut off.

They turned them back at the parish line." Meanwhile criminal justice officials said they had invented a temporary system for handling criminal suspects arrested in the post-Katrina chaos..................

The bridge to Gretna is no more than 2.7 miles from the superdome.
Here are links to two maps.....
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/arc..._09/007087.php

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Gretna...1911&t=k&hl=en

It seems likely that much violence, death, and trauma, not to mention the international PR debacle that the management of this disaster response has caused.....could have been avoided if there was not such an aversion to being in close proximity to large numbers of poor, predominantly dark skinned, inner city residents. The fact that access to a dry, safe, and high capacity escape route in close proximity was not used to evacuate refugees in a timely manner, and that the press has provided scant coverage of this, the local politicians acceptance of it while it was happening, and the ignorance of the situation that passed for the reaction of federal officials, as they apparently needlessly squandered huge sums on air rescues and air drops of food and water, subjecting both rescuers and refugees to avoidable personal injury and health risks, speaks to their incompetence and indifference.

Quote:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NG07EJ2F11.DTL
DESPAIR OVER DESTRUCTION, BUT POCKETS OF PROGRESS
RESIDENTS RETURN TO WRECKAGE — LEVEE BREAK PLUGGED: JEFFERSON PARISH, LA.
Broken homes, blurry future

Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

.............Jefferson Parish is hardly exempt from the disparity between rich and poor, black and white that exists throughout the region and was vividly displayed on national television in the wake of Katrina.

About 70 percent of the population is white, and nearly 23 percent is black, according to the 2000 census. The median household income is $38,435 -- falling short of the national average -- and nearly 14 percent of individuals live below the poverty level.

One home had clear messages spray-painted on its boarded-up windows: "You loot, we shoot" and "Looters shot dead."

Jefferson Parish's divide between races and classes was evident in those who returned to check on their homes -- whites -- and those who were noticeably absent -- blacks.

Much of Jefferson Parish's black community had been evacuated to the Houston Astrodome on buses and had no means of returning.

"They bused people out of the city, and now they don't have a way to get back," said Henry, who is black. "If this was the upper class, it wouldn't be this way, that's for sure." .............

There is much evidence that Mayor Nagin complained of the Gretna bridge blockade on ABC Nightline, on Sept. 4, yet news.google offers no link to his comments on that news segment......

download abc news nightline program's podcast

http://a.abcnews.com/podcast/050905ntl.mp3

and fast forward about 11 or 12 minutes and hear mayor Nagin describe the sheriff and deputies guarding the foot of the bridge, and hear the sheriff defend himself. Ted Koppel avoids confronting the sheriff by avoiding asking him why he did not simply provide an evacuation route through and out of Gretna to areas further away where...evn if plentiful food, water, and shelter were not available in Gretna, they xould conceivably be available further away
from the most adversely storm and flood affected region.

scout · 09-14-2005, 03:35 AM

Sooooooooooo, if your poor and lack incentive to move away and make a better life for yourself the whole city should be opened up for you to loot and pillage?? It's pretty easy to set across the Atlantic Ocean and pick apart every single thing you believe went wrong. I'm sorry but there is plenty of avenues for people that really want to make life better paid for by the tax payers. There is tons of government programs for education etc. so that even if your poor you can still get an education and make things better. There is no excuse in today's America for people, black or white, to sit on their collective asses and expect everything to be taken care of be the taxpayers. These people had plenty of chances to leave before the hurricane hit. Most had years prior to take advantage of government programs and get an education. There was poor white people in that mess down there too. This wasn't just whitey keepin' the black man down. There was plenty of affluent black people that got out just like their white counterparts. I would imagine there was even a few Republicans trapped in that mess too {gasp!!}. If you really want to start placing blame then start at the bottom and work your way up. Let's start with the people themselves. They was told if they came to a community shelter to bring enough food and water for FIVE days but no one had shit the day after the storm. What's up with that? I could go on but I will let it go, obviously the people had little money and had even less common sense. On to the mayor. He had plenty of city buses available on election day to make sure that all the poor poor pitiful people that don't have rides could make it out to vote but he couldn't find one damn bus before the hurricane hit to assist the same poor poor pitiful people in getting out of the city. Pathetic. The mayor is responsible for having a adequate emergency evacuation plan in place. What happened there? The mayor is responsible for having shelters stocked with adequate food and water. What happened there? I guess since he is a liberal Democrat he shares no blame in this complete fiasco?? No sense beating a dead horse. On to the Governor. Now here is a real piece of work. She had the whole LA National Guard at her disposal. She could have ordered them to do anything she wanted and she chose to do nothing. Did you read the article from Newsweek that was posted on MS News? Apparently not. Anyway, in the article her, the mayor, and the POTUS had a meeting on Air Force 1 about the and during fiasco and the mayor first took a shower then proceeded to slam his fist on the table and demanded that it be "federalized". The Governor said she wanted to talk to the POTUS privately about that, she didn't want to discuss it with the mayor present for whatever reason. So she gets her wish and in the end she turns down "federalizing" the relief because she didn't want to lose control of her state. WTF?? You can lead a fuckin' horse to water but you can't make'em drink..... For all you people out there that don't live here in the states, for the federal government to move in and take over relief the state has to officially request it because of some stupid law that was passed years ago. So while the Governor had her people out researching what she needed to do, New Orleans and the poor poor pitiful people, looters and pillagers there basked in the hot LA sun with no food and water. Finally after a few days she figures out what needs to happen and the cavalry arrives. Now it's a giant mess left up to the taxpayers to clean up.

All that to say this, ..... Respectfully said I might add..... before you sit across a huge ocean picking and choosing a few clips to make your point, research the whole point you want to make before you go shooting your mouth off via your fingers on a message board.

Cynthetiq · 09-14-2005, 05:10 AM

my car fits 4... when and if I'm leaving the area for whatever reason BEFORE everyone else does, it's either going to be filled with my friends or my things....

because I don't pick up the smelly homeless man and force him into my car that makes me a bad uncaring person??? I don't think so and I don't believe you would do so either.

Just because I plan and prepare doesn't mean that I have to sacrifice even further because someone else didn't plan or prepare.

Bill O'Rights · 09-14-2005, 05:19 AM

What's really new here?
Plenty of fingers pointing in 50 different directions. It's a huge shit sandwich, and there seems to be plenty to go around. Maybe even enough for seconds, I dunno.
Actually, what I'm more interested in, is what is now being done to insure that something like this doesn't happen in the future. Let's figure out a way to move on.

StanT · 09-14-2005, 06:01 AM

Quote:

But there were complaints that some refugees, hauled out of the city in desperate condition, were being refused safe haven in some places, including some that said they already were filled beyond capacity with storm victims. New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas blasted the city of Baton Rouge and other Louisiana communities for what he called a callous refusal to take in refugees from his devastated city.

"They don’t want them," Thomas said, after bursting into the press room at the Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge. "They have put out the word all over the state: ’Those bad New Orleans people. You don’t want them.’ "

My oldest daughter is currently living in a tent city in Baton Rouge. She is one of 1,000s of EMTs and paramedics that have come from other states to help. I talk to her daily. The stories that you hear in the press do not reflect what she tells me nightly. Baton Rouge is packed as full as it can get. Between volunteers and victims the cities population has more than doubled. She tells me stories of extraordinary generosity and hospitality from the local residents, opening up their private homes to both volunteers and victims for laundry, showers, and food. My daughter has evacuated people from shelters and nursing homes. She gives shots, hands out meds, and takes blood pressure at the shelters. While I have no doubt that the racism and elitism that is described in the article exists, it is not what my daughter sees on a daily basis.

Baton Rouge is half the size of New Orleans, it simply cannot absorb the entire population and that of it's surroundings. There are one hell of a lot of people down there, busting their asses to do what is right for these victims. I hope the media eventually catches up with them.

Lebell · 09-14-2005, 06:57 AM

So let's summarize.

America has poor. The rich don't care for them. The Republicans only care for the rich. Every government agency starting with the mayor's office on up shares responsibility (I thought he was a Dem, but oh well). People for some odd reason didn't want their town looted.

I'm tempted to close this thread as a dup of every other Katrina thread already out there.

martinguerre · 09-14-2005, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

People for some odd reason didn't want their town looted.

The issue at stake is if we believe that the chance of negative consequences, such as looting, justify the closure of the only escape route for the citizens of a disaster area. This wasn't a national decision, so far as i can tell, but a product of our nation's larger discussion on class and society. Does a locality have the right to close public roads, especially for class related reasons?

Does this reaction deserve more press than the generosity and selflessness that we know to be one of the primary reactions to this disaster?

No. But it does not deserve to be forgotten, either. I'm sure the video is still floating around, but Hannity and Colmes had a clip where they went to Shep Smith and Geraldo on scene. Both Smith and Geraldo basically flip shit over this very issue. Geraldo holds a child and demands to anyone who will listen that these people need to be let go. Smith snaps at Hannity and makes it clear that there is no known reason for this road being closed, and that it is the only way out of the city. Fox News, folks. The closure of this road was, by most accounts, a major mistake, and an humanitarian disaster. Why it happened is an important question.

pan6467 · 09-14-2005, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights

What's really new here?
Plenty of fingers pointing in 50 different directions. It's a huge shit sandwich, and there seems to be plenty to go around. Maybe even enough for seconds, I dunno.
Actually, what I'm more interested in, is what is now being done to insure that something like this doesn't happen in the future. Let's figure out a way to move on.

Hear hear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We can point fingers and argue all day, but is that truly getting what needs to be done, done?

host · 09-14-2005, 07:37 AM

Lebell....if I didn't believe that it was more important for people who come to read these threads to receive information that they might not otherwise encounter if it was left to the MSM media to distribute it, than it is for me to post a more detailed reaction to your last post, I would do so.

As I recognize that you have the ability to limit or end my participation here, I have to accept that you have me at a disadvantage. My observation is that you are more free to post your opinion regarding what I post than I am to express mine, with regard to what you post.

Your comments convince me that you did not fully consider what I wrote towards the end of the initial post in the thread.

Bill O'Rights · 09-14-2005, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martinguerre

The issue at stake is if we believe that the chance of negative consequences, such as looting, justify the closure of the only escape route for the citizens of a disaster area.

The sad, but realistic, answer to that question, lies entirely upon what side of the baricade that you're standing.

Bill O'Rights · 09-14-2005, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

As I recognize that you have the ability to limit or end my participation here, I have to accept that you have me at a disadvantage. My observation is that you are more free to post your opinion regarding what I post than I am to express mine, with regard to what you post.

A couple of points...if I may;

A.) Lebell is not, in any way, attempting to "limit or end" your participation here. What he accurately pointed out was that all of this has been hashed, rehashed, and ground into dust, on any number of similar threads.

B.)As usual, I resent the implication that you are now, or ever have been, in any way...censored. Lebell, myself, and the other moderators have an obligation to keep these boards as "clean" as possible, while still stimulating healthy debate. He is no more "free" to post what he wants, than you are. What he may be, is more judicious about it.

host · 09-14-2005, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights

A couple of points...if I may;

A.) Lebell is not, in any way, attempting to "limit or end" your participation here. What he accurately pointed out was that all of this has been hashed, rehashed, and ground into dust, on any number of similar threads.

B.)As usual, I resent the implication that you are now, or ever have been, in any way...censored. Lebell, myself, and the other moderators have an obligation to kepp these boards as "clean" as possible, while still stimulating healthy debate. He is no more "free" to post what he wants, than you are. What he may be, is more judicious about it.

I vehemently disagree with the accuracy of the observation that throroughly documented reports of police from a neighboring parrish of N.O., blocking pedestrian traffic, at gunpoint and with attack dogs, from passing over a bridge that was in close proximity to the superdome, at a time when doing so would be reasonably considered by many to be a cruel, unusual, inhumane, and, taking into account the conditions that small children, the elderly, and the infirm were subjected to at the time, criminal action.....have been "hashed, rehashed," etc.

I have provided links to reports of this abuse of authority from both Foxnews via video, and ABC, via audio. This is an alarming and distrubing news story, made even more so if one watches the video and clicks on one of the links to the map that demonstrated the close proximity of the superdome to the bridge out of N.O. Please point me to where I can find this information readily available elsewhere on this forum. If I've missed it, I am sorry to present it here again.

On edit....a search of this politics forum, using the search term, "Gretna", yields, aside from my posts in this thread, only a result from a post about last fall's election. Is this not a news story with implications weighty enough to merit a unique thread? I would not have believed, two weeks ago, that police and dogs would be deployed for a lengthy time period in any location in America, to effect such a distressing experience on our fellow citizens.

Bill O'Rights · 09-14-2005, 08:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

This is an alarming and distrubing news story...

You are, of course, correct. This is an extremely disturbing news story. I'm neither questioning, nor debating, that point. However...There are literaly countless individual stories, that make up the whole, of this tradgedy. To examine, and critique, each and every facet, is not only time consuming, but pointless, in my opinion.
Shit happened.
Shit happened that shouldn't have happened.
People acted like shit.
People reacted like shit.
Actually, I'd be more inclined to say that people reverted back to the animalistic behavior that sits inside all of us. But, that's for another thread, perhaps?
Point is...how much laundry are we going to air before we clean it?

edit

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

I vehemently disagree with the accuracy of the observation that throroughly documented reports of police from a neighboring parrish of N.O., blocking pedestrian traffic, at gunpoint and with attack dogs, from passing over a bridge that was in close proximity to the superdome, at a time when doing so would be reasonably considered by many to be a cruel, unusual, inhumane, and, taking into account the conditions that small children, the elderly, and the infirm were subjected to at the time, criminal action.....have been "hashed, rehashed," etc.

That's a run on sentence, by the way.

Hey! I'm just sayin' is all.

flstf · 09-14-2005, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

When roachboy describes an American political system of two parties, that are two "right" wings....do you even fucking consider what he might be talking about?

I have read most of roachboy's posts and can even understand most of them. Some of us don't see much difference between right wing and left wing labelling. Both parties seem hell bent to grow the federal government larger and larger. I believe that less power should be consolidated in Washington D.C. and people should be encouraged to be more self reliant.

The blocking of escape routes from a disaster area over a public highway should not be condoned and I hope that the people responsible are held accountable for their actions hopefully at the local level. The feds should only get involved if absolutely necessary. If the current crop of polititians condone this sort of activity then maybe it's time to get rid of them. I wouldn't hold my breath though since the Democrat/Republicans have the elections pretty much in their control.

host · 09-14-2005, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights

That's a run on sentence, by the way.

Hey! I'm just sayin' is all.

Guilty.....I have to work on avoiding my too frequent output of those.

I have to disagree with your reaction to what I posted in response to Lebell's opinion that "this thread as a dup of every other Katrina thread already out there", because it is not a dupe...it is a unique story that deserves it's own thread.

His post also comes on the heals of other comments that he directed towards me, early in the morning of Sept. 8.....the series of exchanges posted between Lebell, smooth, and myself, is all cleaned up now....with a number of posts "purged". Mods can do that.....I guess....but I can only edit my posts.

You can get a sense of what went on, at this link.
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...3&postcount=32

My posts on that thread remain as I originally posted them. The "clean up" and removal of other posts there, now make it appear that I was talking to myself, instead of responding to what Lebell originally posted.......
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=94240

I maintain that this thread was "singled out" by Lebell as a "rehash", when others that are much more arguably redundant, with regard to discussion of the N.O. disaster, have not been similarly critiqued. I perceive that I am being "taunted", and my reaction to it, today, is the closest that I've come to reacting to it "in kind". I should have just let it pass, but I disagree with your
opinion, B' o R', that I am on an equal footing with all other members, as to the consequences that I would face if I deviated from the "high road", to the extent that I've observed in posts by others here.

Ustwo · 09-14-2005, 09:04 AM

I have to agree its a shame. Its a shame what the welfare politics of socialism have done to several generations of people, leading them into a condition where they are too uneducated, unmotivated and unable to not wallow in thier own shit.

Its really shameful that rich white men voted for these programs and I only hope that we have learned our lesson!

martinguerre · 09-14-2005, 09:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights

The sad, but realistic, answer to that question, lies entirely upon what side of the baricade that you're standing.

I don't think this is true at all. People on the other side of those barricades tried their damndest to get to the hurt and the pain, and to do what they could to make things better. I don't buy for a second that this nation operates purely on self-interest.

host · 09-14-2005, 09:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I have to agree its a shame. Its a shame what the welfare politics of socialism have done to several generations of people, leading them into a condition where they are too uneducated, unmotivated and unable to not wallow in thier own shit.

Its really shameful that rich white men voted for these programs and I only hope that we have learned our lesson!

So the blocking of the only exit with police using guns and dogs to threaten those too poor to own and operate a private vehicle, forcing them to live in filth, among corpses, with no food or water, for days......is not the "injustice" that you choose to react to, here. The obvious avoidance of MSM "coverage" of this assault to our sensibilities does not merit comment from you, either.

Is a sarcastic response to this, all you are willing to muster? Is roachboy, for example.....off the mark by that much, with his repeated observation here that we live with a "two right wing" dominant political party system in America today?

smooth · 09-14-2005, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Guilty.....I have to work on avoiding my too frequent output of those.

I have to disagree with your reaction to what I posted in response to Lebell's opinion that "this thread as a dup of every other Katrina thread already out there", because it is not a dupe...it is a unique story that deserves it's own thread.

His post also comes on the heals of other comments that he directed towards me, early in the morning of Sept. 8.....the series of exchanges posted between Lebell, smooth, and myself, is all cleaned up now....with a number of posts "purged". Mods can do that.....I guess....but I can only edit my posts.

You can get a sense of what went on, at this link.
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...3&postcount=32

My posts on that thread remain as I originally posted them. The "clean up" and removal of other posts there, now make it appear that I was talking to myself, instead of responding to what Lebell originally posted.......
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=94240

I maintain that this thread was "singled out" by Lebell as a "rehash", when others that are much more arguably redundant, with regard to discussion of the N.O. disaster, have not been similarly critiqued. I perceive that I am being "taunted", and my reaction to it, today, is the closest that I've come to reacting to it "in kind". I should have just let it pass, but I disagree with your
opinion, B' o R', that I am on an equal footing with all other members, as to the consequences that I would face if I deviated from the "high road", to the extent that I've observed in posts by others here.

lol, host, don't get me banned, too

I'll heartily agree that I know how "judicious" lebell's posts can be... of course, reasonable minds can differ as to whether it's more or less than others...

Lebell · 09-14-2005, 09:32 AM

BOR stated things too elequently for me to recap.

I actually find the title of the thread to be racist, as if being white means that you are inherently racist.

Many many white people went out on a limb to help people of all races down in NO while more than a few of color did not.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/Hurrica...1123495&page=1

Quote:

Amid Katrina Chaos, Congressman Used National Guard to Visit Home
Two Heavy Trucks, Helicopter Were Involved in Lawmaker's Trip at Height of Crisis

By JAKE TAPPER

Sept. 13, 3005 — Amid the chaos and confusion that engulfed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck, a congressman used National Guard troops to check on his property and rescue his personal belongings — even while New Orleans residents were trying to get rescued from rooftops, ABC News has learned.

On Sept. 2 — five days after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast — Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., who represents New Orleans and is a senior member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, was allowed through the military blockades set up around the city to reach the Superdome, where thousands of evacuees had been taken.

Military sources tells ABC News that Jefferson, an eight-term Democratic congressman, asked the National Guard that night to take him on a tour of the flooded portions of his congressional district. A 5-ton military truck and a half dozen military police were dispatched.

Lt. Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard tells ABC News that during the tour, Jefferson asked that the truck take him to his home on Marengo Street, in the affluent uptown neighborhood in his congressional district. According to Schneider, this was not part of Jefferson's initial request.

Jefferson defended the expedition, saying he set out to see how residents were coping at the Superdome and in his neighborhood. He also insisted that he did not ask the National Guard to transport him.

"I did not seek the use of military assets to help me get around my city," Jefferson told ABC News. "There was shooting going on. There was sniping going on. They thought I should be escorted by some military guards, both to the convention center, the Superdome and uptown."

The water reached to the third step of Jefferson's house, a military source familiar with the incident told ABC News, and the vehicle pulled up onto Jefferson's front lawn so he wouldn't have to walk in the water. Jefferson went into the house alone, the source says, while the soldiers waited on the porch for about an hour.

Then there are those on the left side who are also trying their damndest to make this a race issue:

http://www.wcnc.com/news/topstories/....4fb21767.html

Quote:

Farrakhan visits Charlotte, criticizes federal response
07:13 PM EDT on Monday, September 12, 2005

By ANNA CROWLEY / 6NEWS

Minister Louis Farrakhan was very critical of the Red Cross and FEMA response to hurricane Katrina.

Minister Louis Farrakhan was in Charlotte Monday to rally support for his Millions More March. However, he did have some choice words about the response to Hurricane Katrina victims, some of whom are staying at the Charlotte Coliseum.

Farrakhan's been traveling across the country to visit shelters like the one that is set up at the coliseum. He said he's not happy with the job the American Red Cross is doing.

He had harsh words for FEMA too. But that was just the warm up. Farrakhan also shared his thoughts on how the levee breached in the first place.

"I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25 foot deep crater under the levee breach. It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry," Farrakhan said.

Gilton Balanos lived in the very neighborhood Farrakhan was talking about.

"I think that's ludicrous," Balanos said. "When this happened we were caught by surprise. Individuals, the government and everybody were caught by surprise."

Farrakhan also said that the Red Cross’ response to the disaster was inadequate. Red Cross Spokesperson Pam Daigle said "there was no basis for the criticism."

As for the issue of how the Red Cross spends money and on whom, Daigle said "the Red Cross’ books are open for anyone who wants to see the audits, who wants to see how we spend money."

"I'm sure some good is being done, but not enough to answer the cry." Farrakhan said.

Some evacuees who spoke to 6NEWS said they support Farrakhan and his look into what happened in New Orleans and other affected areas.

President Bush said Monday that Hurricane Katrina did not discriminate and neither will recovery efforts.

To reiterate, what happened was shitty and there is plenty of blame to go around, but to make this an example of class/race warfare completely bites.

Seaver · 09-14-2005, 10:31 AM

Quote:

So let's summarize.

America has poor. The rich don't care for them. The Republicans only care for the rich.

Isn't this how almost all of his posts go?

host · 09-14-2005, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Isn't this how almost all of his posts go?

Thank you, Seaver. IMO, your post speaks volumes, and you obviously did read my comments at the bottom of post #1 on this thread.......

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

BOR stated things too elequently for me to recap.

I actually find the title of the thread to be racist, as if being white means that you are inherently racist.

Many many white people went out on a limb to help people of all races down in NO while more than a few of color did not.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/Hurrica...1123495&page=1

Then there are those on the left side who are also trying their damndest to make this a race issue:

http://www.wcnc.com/news/topstories/....4fb21767.html

To reiterate, what happened was shitty and there is plenty of blame to go around, but to make this an example of class/race warfare completely bites.

Lebell, the sources that I've quoted here include reports that were originally broadcast on Foxnews, and printed in the Washington Times, from a UPI news source. I've accused local Louisiana politicians and both major political parties of corporatism as a priority and of placing self ambition before the welfare and safety of constituents.

I placed the word "poor" before "dark" in the thread title. Is your decision to cite statements by Farrakhan as the second of only two sources used to bolster your arguments, any more "even handed" than what I have contributed to the thread, via title and content, in view of the details of the news reports about the Gretna bridge blockade?

The damage is in the perceptions now, Lebell. You seem to be choosing the side of the argument espoused by Richard Mellon Scaife financed, L Brett Bozell III, http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...2&postcount=45

and I'm lined up with those who perceive the superdome / Gretna bridge reports, and possibly other segments of this disaster, as extremely aggravated by the politics of poverty and race. It seems clear that if you could afford to own or rent a vehicle, you were allowed to pass over the bridge to Gretna, and away from the conditions experienced by those at the superdome. If not, you were forced back into N.O. by police firing warning shots in a blockade of pedestrian traffice, complete with menancing dogs.
The comparison to the use of dogs and firehoses on racial protestors in Selma in '65 may be lost on you, but it's an easy one to make.

This thread/forum is intended to draw out sentiment and opinion that further indicates, to each other.....where all of us stand.....an incomplete but growing picture of who we are....I think that it is doing that.

Quote:

http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/13/asb.01.html
CNN NEWSNIGHT AARON BROWN

President Bush Accepts Responsibility For Katrina Failures; Controversy Over Gathering of the Dead in New Orleans; Did Racism Effect the Governments Response to Hurricane Katrina?

Aired September 13, 2005 - 22:00 ET

(Scroll to bottom 30 percent of the transcript, to begin the following....)

......BROWN: Of all the complicated questions the response to Katrina raises, questions of race and class in the country rank right at the top. We have on the program, on three different occasions, talked about issues of race and Katrina, and the other day we recalled a race baiter by a conservative media website. Needless to say we don't agree, which made our conversation with the piece's author Brent Bozell that much more interesting tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Brett, just dealing with the column you wrote on the 7th, the other day, to me a fair reading of the column is that you don't want us to talk about race at all, probably class at all, but surely not race at all, ad it may or may not relate to people's perceptions of the relief effort.

BRENT BOZELL, PRES., MEDIA RESEARCH CTR.: Well, I think the problem is that the perceptions, which are wholly false, are being created, on the one hand, by demagogues, and on the other hand, by some in the media who are giving the demagogues a hearing on this.

The fact of the matter is that two-thirds of New Orleans is black. Katrina didn't aim for that. Nor was the federal relief response as inadequate as it was inadequate because they were blacks. You know, in 1992, Hurricane Andrew decimated the East Coast. The response from the federal government was terrible. It was mostly whites. Was that racism?

BROWN: You've decided, which is absolutely your right, that there is no -- there is no truth to anyone's belief that race is somehow involved in how people were treated in the week after the hurricane. Fair enough. I don't disagree with that. But perception is powerful and perception is important, and what we know from polls is that black Americans do look at this differently than white Americans, as they look at a lot of things differently from white America.

BOZELL: And Aaron, perception is dangerous if it's not rooted in reality, which is my point. If anyone had come forward in the last 15 days with any tangible proof to back up the suggestion that there may have been racism at place, I'd like to hear it, and then report it. But there's no evidence. It's just this accusation that's being thrown out.

What I see is whites and blacks helping each other in New Orleans. I don't see any racism.

BROWN: I don't support the notion that race as such is the issue here, though I'm less sure honestly about class. I wonder the degree to which class played a role in how the government responded -- governments, plural, responded. I don't know. But I am interested in what people think, and I think it's my job to ask.

BOZELL: Well, but you know, it is appropriate to ask, Aaron. I don't question that. But when someone is making a very dangerous accusation -- and by dangerous I mean an accusation that splits the seam of the cultural fabric in this country...

BROWN: If it's appropriate to ask these questions, which is how you began that answer, why do you call me, little old innocent me, you know, why do you call me a "race baiter" for asking the question...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Do you think black America is sitting there thinking, if these were middle class, white people, there'd be cruiseships in New Orleans...

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D), OHIO: No, wait, wait...

BROWN: ... not the Superdome?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOZELL: You may say, well, I'm just a questioner, I'm just a reporter, I'm just asking questions. But in fact, when people hear you, they believe that what's coming from you is not a question, but a statement of fact. Now, you may say that's unfair because I don't mean it that way, but that's the reality.

BROWN: So, journalists ought not ask these because their questions are perceived as statements?

BOZELL: I think journalists ought to be careful that they not create perceptions that are based on falsehoods.

BROWN: How do you know it's based on a falsehood unless you ask questions?

BOZELL: Well, I think that somebody making the acquisition ought to have some evidence before making the accusation.

BROWN: No one makes -- Brent, there's no accusation there.

BOZELL: Oh, sure there is. Sure, there is.

BROWN: No.

BOZELL: There are public policy leaders in New Orleans right now, and they've been there for a week, who have been making this accusation. I'm not saying the press is. I'm saying they are. But if the press' role, I think, ought to be to go to those people and say, put up or shut up.

BROWN: I think it is the role of the reporter to ask the question, even when the question is uncomfortable, and here I think that's all we did.

BOZELL: Well, Aaron, but when I see a reporter say those infamous words, "some people say," and then you go on to continue with the sentence, I'm always wondering who those some people are. You know, if somebody's saying something, put that person's name on the record.

BROWN: I actually think it's possible this would be a moment for us...

BOZELL: Holy moley, here it comes.

BROWN: There really is an opportunity to discuss a complicated and important American question about race and class and poverty, and how they fit together. And Katrina gives us that opportunity.

BOZELL: There's something else, Aaron, yeah, but there's something even better than that. There is the opportunity to celebrate the colorblindness that we saw after 9/11, the colorblindedness that we saw after Hurricane Katrina in so many quarters. That ought to be celebrated.

BROWN: I'll give you the last word on that.

BOZELL: Thank you, sir.

Quote:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050919/foner
comment | posted September 6, 2005 (web only)
The Power of Outrage

Eric Foner

........The only bright spot in this man-made disaster has been the wave of public outrage at the Bush Administration's abject failure to provide aid to the most vulnerable. Indeed, it is hard to think of a time, other than at the height of the civil rights movement, when the plight of poor black Southerners so deeply stirred the conscience of the nation. Perhaps Hurricane Katrina will go down in history alongside Bull Connor's fire hoses in Birmingham and the Alabama State Troopers' nightsticks at Selma as a catalyst for a new national self-awareness regarding the unfinished struggle for racial justice..............

Are you familiar with this under reported news story, Lebell? Your memory may be shorter and less complete than the memories of those who disagree with you. Your wholesale dismissal of the consideration of poverty and race with regard to what has happened in N.O. cannot occur in a vacuum. History is not unlike a conveyor belt of linked incidents unfolding in sequence, and 84 years is not too long a period to completely forget other disaster response...

Quote:

http://www.ideajournal.com/articles.php?id=2
Conspiracies of Silence
The Political, Economic and Sociological Correlates of the Tulsa
Drama Triangle and Massacre of 1921
by James R. Allen, M.D.

On the morning of May 30, 1921, Sara Page, a white elevator operator in Tulsa, Oklahoma, screamed, and a black man, Dick Rowland, ran out of the downtown store where she worked. He was soon arrested and taken to the Tulsa County Jail. The next day, the editors of the local white newspaper, The Tribune, published an editorial and front-page article about the event entitled, "To Lynch Negro Tonight."

To protect Rowland, a group of black men marched to the courthouse. Outgunned when a white mob showed up, they retreated into Greenwood, a black area outside the white city. The Tulsa police then deputized a number of men from the lynch mob, reportedly including members of the Ku Klux Klan. These men went out, killed, and set fire to the very homes and businesses they had been deputized to defend.

By June 1 when the Oklahoma National Guard arrived, about 1200 buildings, including 23 churches, had been burned, bombed, or looted, and as many as 300 people had been shot, burned alive, or dragged behind cars.(2) And so, a great drama triangle of persecutors, rescuers, and victims was played out in Tulsa. Some of those who posed as rescuers, however, were really wolves in sheep's clothing.

Karpman (4) made a significant contribution to understanding human problems, when he described the reciprocal roles of victims, persecutors, and rescuers. Switches in these roles and their related existential positions make for great drama, high emotion, surges of stress hormones-and much unhappiness. However, with the notable exceptions of Jacobs'(5) work on the Holocaust and the abuses of power, the correlates of the resulting drama triangle have not been well elucidated. It is our hope that this history of a few days at the end of May 1921, will add to this literature.

Built on oil fortunes and the Atlantic-Pacific Railroad, Tulsa had grown rapidly between 1910 and 1920. The Greenwood area grew up because blacks were forbidden by law to live or own businesses in the white city and were expected to be out of town by sunset. However, by 1921,the Greenwood area had grown to include 191 businesses and about 15,000 people, including lawyers, doctors and dentists, a movie theatre, hotel and newspaper.

Perhaps 10,000 whites crossed the railway tracks that separated Greenwood from the white city. Most of the 35 square blocks of Greenwood were destroyed, including the wealthy business district known nationally as "the Black Wall Street," and about 6,000 men, women, and children were marched at gunpoint to internment. (3) Survivors reported white families standing with their children around the borders of the area, watching the killing and burning in much the same way they would have watched a lynching. Then, all records of the event disappeared, and most civil discussion of it stopped. (6) It was as if the "riot," as it was termed, had never occurred.
Behind the Drama Triangle

Tulsa was not unique among American cities in terms of racial wars during the 1920's, but what were the causes? As in many other places (11) - Omaha, Nebraska; Kansas City, Kansas; Knoxville, Tennessee - rumors that a black man had harmed a white woman were the catalyst. However, it would seem highly unlikely that a black man would assault a white woman in a busy public building at the height of rush hour. Indeed, Miss Page refused to press charges. Behind this precipitant, however, lay a variety of less obvious psychological, political and economic factors.

In the name of decency and public morality, the Tulsa Tribune had long blamed blacks for all manner of vice, labeling "niggertown" as a "cesspool of inequity and corruption."(8) In reality, all of Tulsa at the time had a boom town atmosphere, much criminal activity, selective law enforcement and an active vigilante tradition. This was a period, it should be recalled, when the Ku Klux Klan was gaining strength. They became strong after the collapse of the Oklahoma Socialist Party, previously the strongest political group in the area.(7) Even before 1921, when Oklahoma was to be a Black-Indian state, the Kansas KKK had threatened to kill a black man who had been proposed as governor.

In the 1920's, Oklahoma had twenty-eight black townships and over forty black municipalities and was known as a capitol of black economic independence, a "promised land," and Greenwood was the most affluent all-black community in the United States.(2) However, on the other side of the tracks, in the white city, many young men had recently returned from World War I penniless.

Cynthetiq · 09-14-2005, 10:37 AM

it won't change until we ALL learn

From the 10 Rules of Being Human

Rule Four - The lesson is repeated until learned. Lessons repeat until learned. What manifest as problems and challenges, irritations and frustrations are more lessons - they will repeat until you see them as such and learn from them. Your own awareness and your ability to change are requisites of executing this rule. Also fundamental is the acceptance that you are not a victim of fate or circumstance - 'causality' must be acknowledged; that is to say: things happen to you because of how you are and what you do. To blame anyone or anything else for your misfortunes is an escape and a denial; you yourself are responsible for you, and what happens to you. Patience is required - change doesn't happen overnight, so give change time to happen.

host · 09-14-2005, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scout

Sooooooooooo, if your poor and lack incentive to move away and make a better life for yourself the whole city should be opened up for you to loot and pillage?? It's pretty easy to set across the Atlantic Ocean and pick apart every single thing you believe went wrong. I'm sorry but there is plenty of avenues for people that really want to make life better paid for by the tax payers. There is tons of government programs for education etc. so that even if your poor you can still get an education and make things better. There is no excuse in today's America for people, black or white, to sit on their collective asses and expect everything to be taken care of be the taxpayers. These people had plenty of chances to leave before the hurricane hit. Most had years prior to take advantage of government programs and get an education. There was poor white people in that mess down there too. This wasn't just whitey keepin' the black man down. There was plenty of affluent black people that got out just like their white counterparts. I would imagine there was even a few Republicans trapped in that mess too {gasp!!}. If you really want to start placing blame then start at the bottom and work your way up. Let's start with the people themselves. They was told if they came to a community shelter to bring enough food and water for FIVE days but no one had shit the day after the storm. What's up with that? I could go on but I will let it go, obviously the people had little money and had even less common sense. On to the mayor. He had plenty of city buses available on election day to make sure that all the poor poor pitiful people that don't have rides could make it out to vote but he couldn't find one damn bus before the hurricane hit to assist the same poor poor pitiful people in getting out of the city. Pathetic. The mayor is responsible for having a adequate emergency evacuation plan in place. What happened there? The mayor is responsible for having shelters stocked with adequate food and water. What happened there? I guess since he is a liberal Democrat he shares no blame in this complete fiasco?? No sense beating a dead horse. On to the Governor. Now here is a real piece of work. She had the whole LA National Guard at her disposal. She could have ordered them to do anything she wanted and she chose to do nothing. Did you read the article from Newsweek that was posted on MS News? Apparently not. Anyway, in the article her, the mayor, and the POTUS had a meeting on Air Force 1 about the and during fiasco and the mayor first took a shower then proceeded to slam his fist on the table and demanded that it be "federalized". The Governor said she wanted to talk to the POTUS privately about that, she didn't want to discuss it with the mayor present for whatever reason. So she gets her wish and in the end she turns down "federalizing" the relief because she didn't want to lose control of her state. WTF?? You can lead a fuckin' horse to water but you can't make'em drink..... For all you people out there that don't live here in the states, for the federal government to move in and take over relief the state has to officially request it because of some stupid law that was passed years ago. So while the Governor had her people out researching what she needed to do, New Orleans and the poor poor pitiful people, looters and pillagers there basked in the hot LA sun with no food and water. Finally after a few days she figures out what needs to happen and the cavalry arrives. Now it's a giant mess left up to the taxpayers to clean up.

All that to say this, ..... Respectfully said I might add..... before you sit across a huge ocean picking and choosing a few clips to make your point, research the whole point you want to make before you go shooting your mouth off via your fingers on a message board.

scout, page 11 of this newly released non-partisan report of the Congressional Research Service, says
http://www.opencrs.com/rpts/M20050912_20050912.pdf
"It appears that the governor did take necessary steps in declaring a state of emergency"......

Quote:

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=53236

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Pursuant to a September 7 request by Representative John Conyers to review the law and legal accountability relating to Federal action in response to Hurricane Katrina, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a report today about whether the Governor of Louisiana took the necessary and timely steps needed to secure disaster relief from the federal government. The report unequivocally concludes that she did.

Congressman Conyers issued the following statement:

"This report closes the book on the Bush Administration's attempts to evade accountability by shifting the blame to the Governor of Louisiana for the Administration's tragically sluggish response to Katrina. It confirms that the Governor did everything she could to secure relief for the people of Louisiana and the Bush Administration was caught napping at a critical time."

In addition to finding that "...it would appear that the Governor did take the steps necessary to request emergency and major disaster declarations for the State of Louisiana in anticipation of Hurricane Katrina. (p.11)" The report found that:

-- All necessary conditions for federal relief were met on August 28. Pursuant to Section 502 of the Stafford Act, "(t)he declaration of an emergency by the President makes Federal emergency assistance available," and the President made such a declaration on August 28. The public record indicates that several additional days passed before such assistance was actually made available to the State;

-- The Governor must make a timely request for such assistance, which meets the requirements of federal law. The report states that "(e)xcept to the extent that an emergency involves primarily Federal interests, both declarations of major disaster and declarations of emergency must be triggered by a request to the President from the Governor of the affected state";

-- The Governor did indeed make such a request, which was both timely and in compliance with federal law. The report finds that "Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco requested by letter dated August 27, 2005...that the President declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina for the time period from August 26, 2005 and continuing pursuant to (applicable Federal statute)" and "Governor Blanco's August 27, 2005 request for an emergency declaration also included her determination...that 'the incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of disaster."

You did not include links to sources for your critique of the performance of Louisiana state and local officials......
Who is setting across the Atlantic Ocean, "picking apart every single thing that ...........went wrong"?

j8ear · 09-14-2005, 04:37 PM

Is anyone else struck by the fact that host's links to other people's opinions, observations, and conclusions does nothing to substantiate his bigotted and hate filled thread title?

Well, except for maybe that historical piece from 80 some years ago.

Oh well...we're learning little by little.

1. Government fails. The poor and "LESS FORTUNATE" are hardest hit.
2. More government is the only solution to this government failure, created by past government failures.
3. Host hates Bush, blames him for everything and his solution is Democrats.
4. Self reliance is becoming a shameful characteristic, because those who aren't, or can't suffer.

This stuff is fascinating.

For the record, I take great offense as a white man to this thread title. I find it abhorent, bigoted, out of step with reality, unsubstantiated by anything presented here, or anything I have seen anywhere, unworthy of this great forum, and a blatant disregard for decorum and decency. Of course, this is all the left has become recently, and I fully support their right to continue disintergrating into obscurity and irrelvance. None the less, I welcome and relish this sort of rhetoric as part of the American Way...my offense be damned.

-bear

tecoyah · 09-14-2005, 04:53 PM

I have changed the thread title in an attempt to get you people to act like adults......

If There Is One More Personal Attack In This Thread.....It Is Closed

Seaver · 09-14-2005, 05:14 PM

Quote:

Thank you, Seaver. IMO, your post speaks volumes, and you obviously did read my comments at the bottom of post #1 on this thread.......

Can you name ONE post of yours, outside of the Iraq war, which didnt read that way?

tecoyah · 09-14-2005, 05:21 PM

You people should just exchange IM information and trade insults in private....I for one, dont really want to see it

Closed

09-14-2005, 02:25 AM	#3 (permalink)
ObieX Pickles Location: Shirt and Pants (NJ)	Some speculate that a big reason why FEMA didnt respond so well was because it was encorporated into the super-massive "Homeland Security". So instead of them being able to respond right away, they're forced to go through a bunch of endless red tape and get permissions from places they wouldn't normally have to get them from before they can get to work saving lives, etc. President Bush was the creator of that gigantic Homeland Security agency.. so, one could say that he was responsible for a massive slowdown that helped contribute to the deaths of many people. So he isn't completely blameless for some events that have occured. He even took the blame himself this week for some problems that happened. shrugs Just saying. __________________ We Must Dissent.

09-14-2005, 05:10 AM	#6 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	my car fits 4... when and if I'm leaving the area for whatever reason BEFORE everyone else does, it's either going to be filled with my friends or my things.... because I don't pick up the smelly homeless man and force him into my car that makes me a bad uncaring person??? I don't think so and I don't believe you would do so either. Just because I plan and prepare doesn't mean that I have to sacrifice even further because someone else didn't plan or prepare. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

09-14-2005, 05:19 AM	#7 (permalink)
Bill O'Rights will always be an Alyson Hanniganite Location: In the dust of the archives	What's really new here? Plenty of fingers pointing in 50 different directions. It's a huge shit sandwich, and there seems to be plenty to go around. Maybe even enough for seconds, I dunno. Actually, what I'm more interested in, is what is now being done to insure that something like this doesn't happen in the future. Let's figure out a way to move on. __________________ "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony "Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

09-14-2005, 06:57 AM	#9 (permalink)
Lebell Cracking the Whip Location: Sexymama's arms...	So let's summarize. America has poor. The rich don't care for them. The Republicans only care for the rich. Every government agency starting with the mayor's office on up shares responsibility (I thought he was a Dem, but oh well). People for some odd reason didn't want their town looted. I'm tempted to close this thread as a dup of every other Katrina thread already out there. __________________ "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU! Please Donate!

09-14-2005, 09:04 AM	#19 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	I have to agree its a shame. Its a shame what the welfare politics of socialism have done to several generations of people, leading them into a condition where they are too uneducated, unmotivated and unable to not wallow in thier own shit. Its really shameful that rich white men voted for these programs and I only hope that we have learned our lesson! __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

09-14-2005, 12:53 AM	#2 (permalink)
Grey2000 Upright Location: Cape Town, South Africa	And, I suppose, those terrible, '3rd world' images wouldn't have happened had George Bush not been president ? Just asking.

09-14-2005, 03:35 AM	#5 (permalink)
scout Psycho	Sooooooooooo, if your poor and lack incentive to move away and make a better life for yourself the whole city should be opened up for you to loot and pillage?? It's pretty easy to set across the Atlantic Ocean and pick apart every single thing you believe went wrong. I'm sorry but there is plenty of avenues for people that really want to make life better paid for by the tax payers. There is tons of government programs for education etc. so that even if your poor you can still get an education and make things better. There is no excuse in today's America for people, black or white, to sit on their collective asses and expect everything to be taken care of be the taxpayers. These people had plenty of chances to leave before the hurricane hit. Most had years prior to take advantage of government programs and get an education. There was poor white people in that mess down there too. This wasn't just whitey keepin' the black man down. There was plenty of affluent black people that got out just like their white counterparts. I would imagine there was even a few Republicans trapped in that mess too {gasp!!}. If you really want to start placing blame then start at the bottom and work your way up. Let's start with the people themselves. They was told if they came to a community shelter to bring enough food and water for FIVE days but no one had shit the day after the storm. What's up with that? I could go on but I will let it go, obviously the people had little money and had even less common sense. On to the mayor. He had plenty of city buses available on election day to make sure that all the poor poor pitiful people that don't have rides could make it out to vote but he couldn't find one damn bus before the hurricane hit to assist the same poor poor pitiful people in getting out of the city. Pathetic. The mayor is responsible for having a adequate emergency evacuation plan in place. What happened there? The mayor is responsible for having shelters stocked with adequate food and water. What happened there? I guess since he is a liberal Democrat he shares no blame in this complete fiasco?? No sense beating a dead horse. On to the Governor. Now here is a real piece of work. She had the whole LA National Guard at her disposal. She could have ordered them to do anything she wanted and she chose to do nothing. Did you read the article from Newsweek that was posted on MS News? Apparently not. Anyway, in the article her, the mayor, and the POTUS had a meeting on Air Force 1 about the and during fiasco and the mayor first took a shower then proceeded to slam his fist on the table and demanded that it be "federalized". The Governor said she wanted to talk to the POTUS privately about that, she didn't want to discuss it with the mayor present for whatever reason. So she gets her wish and in the end she turns down "federalizing" the relief because she didn't want to lose control of her state. WTF?? You can lead a fuckin' horse to water but you can't make'em drink..... For all you people out there that don't live here in the states, for the federal government to move in and take over relief the state has to officially request it because of some stupid law that was passed years ago. So while the Governor had her people out researching what she needed to do, New Orleans and the poor poor pitiful people, looters and pillagers there basked in the hot LA sun with no food and water. Finally after a few days she figures out what needs to happen and the cavalry arrives. Now it's a giant mess left up to the taxpayers to clean up. All that to say this, ..... Respectfully said I might add..... before you sit across a huge ocean picking and choosing a few clips to make your point, research the whole point you want to make before you go shooting your mouth off via your fingers on a message board.

09-14-2005, 07:37 AM	#12 (permalink)
host Banned	Lebell....if I didn't believe that it was more important for people who come to read these threads to receive information that they might not otherwise encounter if it was left to the MSM media to distribute it, than it is for me to post a more detailed reaction to your last post, I would do so. As I recognize that you have the ability to limit or end my participation here, I have to accept that you have me at a disadvantage. My observation is that you are more free to post your opinion regarding what I post than I am to express mine, with regard to what you post. Your comments convince me that you did not fully consider what I wrote towards the end of the initial post in the thread.

09-14-2005, 10:37 AM	#26 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	it won't change until we ALL learn From the 10 Rules of Being Human Rule Four - The lesson is repeated until learned. Lessons repeat until learned. What manifest as problems and challenges, irritations and frustrations are more lessons - they will repeat until you see them as such and learn from them. Your own awareness and your ability to change are requisites of executing this rule. Also fundamental is the acceptance that you are not a victim of fate or circumstance - 'causality' must be acknowledged; that is to say: things happen to you because of how you are and what you do. To blame anyone or anything else for your misfortunes is an escape and a denial; you yourself are responsible for you, and what happens to you. Patience is required - change doesn't happen overnight, so give change time to happen. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

09-14-2005, 04:37 PM	#28 (permalink)
j8ear Gentlemen Farmer Location: Middle of nowhere, Jersey	Is anyone else struck by the fact that host's links to other people's opinions, observations, and conclusions does nothing to substantiate his bigotted and hate filled thread title? Well, except for maybe that historical piece from 80 some years ago. Oh well...we're learning little by little. 1. Government fails. The poor and "LESS FORTUNATE" are hardest hit. 2. More government is the only solution to this government failure, created by past government failures. 3. Host hates Bush, blames him for everything and his solution is Democrats. 4. Self reliance is becoming a shameful characteristic, because those who aren't, or can't suffer. This stuff is fascinating. For the record, I take great offense as a white man to this thread title. I find it abhorent, bigoted, out of step with reality, unsubstantiated by anything presented here, or anything I have seen anywhere, unworthy of this great forum, and a blatant disregard for decorum and decency. Of course, this is all the left has become recently, and I fully support their right to continue disintergrating into obscurity and irrelvance. None the less, I welcome and relish this sort of rhetoric as part of the American Way...my offense be damned. -bear __________________ It's alot easier to ask for forgiveness then it is to ask for permission.

09-14-2005, 04:53 PM	#29 (permalink)
tecoyah Illusionary	I have changed the thread title in an attempt to get you people to act like adults...... If There Is One More Personal Attack In This Thread.....It Is Closed

09-14-2005, 05:21 PM	#31 (permalink)
tecoyah Illusionary	You people should just exchange IM information and trade insults in private....I for one, dont really want to see it Closed