What has happened down here, is the winds have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it start to rain
It rained real hard, and it rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline
The river rose all day, the river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood, some people got away alright
The river had busted through clear down to Plaquemine
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline
Louisiana, Louisiana
They’re trying to wash us away, they’re trying to wash us away
Oh Louisiana, Louisiana
They’re trying to wash us away, they’re trying to wash us away
President Coolidge come down, in a railroad train
With his little fat man with a note pad in his hand
President say “little fat man, oh ain’t it a shame,
What the river has done to this poor cracker’s land”
Oh Louisiana, Louisiana
They’re trying to wash us away, you’re trying to wash us away
Oh Louisiana, oh Louisiana
They’re trying to wash us away, oh lord, they’re trying to wash us away
They’re trying to wash us away, they’re trying to wash us away
I’m surprised no one responded to your post yet. I’ve been looking at it all day.
The fact that this disaster was avoidable, and due to human apathy, is all over the front page and all over the TV news. This was identified by FEMA as one of the top 3 potential disasters years ago. Proposals were drawn up to prevent it and ignored. There’s a NYTimes Op-Ed column today about this.
Then, even after it happened, Bush did nothing while people died. But he’ll look good because he’s now complaining about how this was handled…
Jesus just left Chicago and he’s bound for New Orleans.
Well now, Jesus just left Chicago and he’s bound for New Orleans.
Yeah, yeah.
Workin’ from one end to the other and all points in between.
Took a jump through Mississippi, well, muddy water turned to wine.
Took a jump through Mississippi, muddy water turned to wine.
Yeah, yeah.
Then out to California through the forests and the pines.
Ah, take me with you, Jesus.
You might not see Him in person but He’ll see you just the same.
You might not see Him in person but He’ll see you just the same.
Yeah, yeah.
You don’t have to worry ‘cause takin’ care of business is His name.
Yea, I agree Billy. Bush should have made the Louisiana National Guard that was under the authority of the Governor move much faster. He should have been overseeing the evacuation of New Orleans to ensure those that had difficulty could make it out. Obviously the Mayor of New Orleans wasn’t up to the task, and had no plan in place to ensure a successful evacuation. For that matter neither did the Governor. I think it would be a good idea for the president of the United States to go around the country from city to city and look at the disaster management plans for each city and be sure that they are adequate. Otherwise he will be to blame.
The National Guard is directed by the State they reside, unless called to “Active” duty. Secondly, if the Mayor or Governor had half the brains of the teenage kid that appropriated a school bus and drove 90 women and children from New Orleans to Houston, we may not be having this conversation.
Dispite the conversation here, the levees were tall enough. Water didn’t come over them, it came through them. The fear has always been, as I understand it, that a flooding Lake P would overrun the north levee and flood the city. That didn’t happen.
If you saw the pictures of the helicopters dropping sandbags into the flattened levee, that was a “new” reconditioned one. The old ones held. Water didn’t come over the top. Chances are good that alot of the damage started with the soil liquified due to the high water table. It’s not necessarily true that a higher levee would have stopped this process.
The mayor and city government of N O will be held accountable for gross negligence in this issue, and should be. The Governor of Louisiana and the state will be held responsible as well, and should be. Blaming Washington for something Washington can’t do cannot hold water (poor choice of words, I guess). The only city in this country that Washinton is responsible for is DC.
So why didn’t local and state government know that 10,000, or 50,000 people couldn’t get out of the city? How smart would you have to be to recognize the need to at least contemplate the “unthinkable”? 100,000 people need to get inland in the face of a storm with two, maybe three days notice. Let’s see, I’m thinking we need 2000 bus trips at 50 people each. That lets you carry two carry-ons, plus maybe two suitcases or four shopping bags each. Let’s assume each bus trip is six hours round trip to get people as far as 150 miles inland. That means each bus could do six to eight trips in 48 hours, assuming six trips, a total of 330 busses, and 660 drivers are needed. Between school districts and coach lines, the New Orleans government couldn’t have come up with enough busses to have 10 thirty bus convoys running for two days to get 100,000 people out of harm’s way? Our school district moves 20 busloads of students sometimes 40 to 50 miles on Friday nights for football games, NO BIG DEAL!
So, you identify every person at risk and have them report to a designated “departure” area. Your radio and TV stations broadcast that “Group C” or “Level C” people are to depart at 6PM this evening. Call this number for help if you cannot walk to your departure point. If you are not there, you cannot go until the end. Simple as that.
You create a South Louisiana Disaster Management System, where you cache food supplies strategically at 20 miles, 40 miles, 100 miles from the city. State will coordinate distribution, with help from Feds as they are mobilized. The comment made earlier about how rapidly the Feds have mobilized is right…they were moving stuff in one day after this happened. A friend working with FEMA was deployed to Houston the day before the hurricane hit, along with hundreds of others. New Orleans and Louisiana government were grossly negligent on this issue, and are trying to throw the blame on Washington, which is not right
If we rebuild that city where it’s at now, our kids should be able to file suit against our generation. Move it 50 miles inland, or at least to the north side of Ponchaitrain. Build expressways to the refineries and industrial districts, but get the people out of there. Grow rice where the city was. We’ll spend billions anyway, spend a few more so this doesn’t need to be redone in two, or ten, or twenty years.
Implement a Federal level initiative to develop hurricane proof offloading, transfer, and refining pathways where they currently exist. It’s steel pipe…it can be made capable of withstanding 80 foot waves if necessary. Better yet, put the whole thing UNDERWATER, so waves are no problem at all. What, maybe three or four billion dollars?
On the issue of the “poor, oppressed peoples of New Orleans”…
The Federal gov’t has one responsibility…not a “living wage”, not a “minimum wage”, not “equality of outcome”. The best we, as a government or as a people, can do, is to provide EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY.
The “wretched poor” in New Orleans or on Pittsburgh’s North Side are the “wretched poor” not because they have too little money. They are poor because they have too little VISION. There are poor African Americans and Caucasians in every city who will not be poor tomorrow, simply because they have something to shoot for and a minimum number of barriers in the way of pursuing their goal.
There are the “children of privelege” in every city and suburb tonight who will lose substantially all that they have in the next generation simply because they don’t have the VISION and discipline to not only keep it, but build on it.
One thing nobody has talked about in this whole discussion of the breakdown of the social fabric of N O is the effect of thousands of drug addicts and alcoholics who haven’t had a fix (or enough of a hit) in five days. Alcoholics can probably find a little booze floating around. But where’s the heroin, the crack, the acid, the meth, the oxycontin, that keep the demon at bay? You think these thousands (and they will number in the thousands) would be thinking, “sure, I’ll get on the bus and hang out in the superdome for a week” when they know they can’t go six to eight hours without a fix?
Did you wonder, like I did, why people would steal a plasma TV when they don’t have a house to put it in, a plug to power it, or a TV station to watch? They would do it because their habit compels them to in many cases.
Others, in the presence of this example, will join in as well…it is, unfortunately, human nature.
Finally, for those of you who’ve read this far, you may have noticed I didn’t mention politics other than to discuss “function” and “structural responsibility”. Our propensity in this country to focus our disappointment, even our hatred, on someone like GW or Bill Clinton (or my favorite, his wife!) is rapidly destroying the underpinnings of our government’s structure. When we polarize on personalities, it’s a pretty sure bet that we are not focused on policy, on implementation, or on philosophy.
If I don’t like a person, and focus all my attention on him or her, I am likely missing some other pretty important things going on around me, or around them. This “cult of personality” that our culture worships is rapidly undercutting our ability to be effectively governed by anyone.
One last thought: If you notice, I believe we are seeing the emergence of a new, and very troubling, social phenomenon in our country. Where in the past we referred to ourselves as Democrats and Republicans (and Libertarians and Anarchists, etc.), my observation is that there is another dichotomy developing in our culture. Civilists vs. Neo-barbarians. The first word is mine. A civilist is someone who believes that social conventions, laws, morals, and history have an integral part in our general society and our individual worldview. Such individuals would be likely to be social and fiscal conservatives, thoughtful liberals (in the Hubert Humprey mold), and others of many stripes that value and accommodate dissent, recognize that we discuss, even passionately argue, our issues and causes, and at the end of the day shake hands, live beside each other, encourage one another, and pick it up again tomorrow.
The Neo-barbarian is one that is dropping the trappings of convention, the conventions of our culture and history, the wisdom garnered from generations of experience before them. These are people who tend to see life as divided into “oppressors” and “victims”, who have little or no faith in working within any “system” to effect a solution or improve a situation. NB’s eschew conventional wisdom, conventional morals, and are particularly focused on “what’s in it for them, and how soon will I get it”. When they demand “entitlements”, they are dead serious. The social “injustices” that they suffer are all they need to justify any and all behaviors, however abhorent they may be.
I really believe that in the next decade, this will be our greatest threat internally as a nation. It is like Pogo said a generation ago: “We has seen the enemy, and he is us”. If our peers, and particularly our children, fail to buy into an outward-focused and forward-looking way of life that is characterised by selflessness, discipline, and personal and communal responsibility, then they will march headlong into the captivity of their “brave new world”.
And so will end not only the dreams that we may have for them, but as well the destiny that the world may be waiting for them to fulfill. And the great American experiment, and the hope of so many others that watch it with anticipation, will end–not with the clamor of warfare, but with the wimper of self-absorption, narrow-minded parochialism, and the lack of a motivating and passion generating goal worth living–and dying–for.
Well, I’ve probably said more than enough. Thanks for listening.
When I decide to work out my issues in public, I forgo all the neo-constructive psychobabel and rationazations and just make up quotes. Here’s a couple good ones:
-Simon Qamandirq, Inuit, explaining his intolerance for city folk who speek mostly to vent the pressure of all those words in their brain, from Shadows of the Sun, by Wade Davis.
(ahh… a double quote- Nice!)
-George W. Bush, on weather it is OK for starving people to survive by theft amidst catastrophe.
-Raphael, on Haleburton’s creation of catastrophe to steal from starving people, from A Conversation I Just Had With Myself, by Christopher LeFay
Why New Orleans Is in Deep Water
By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
Thursday 01 September 2005
Austin, Texas - Like many of you who love New Orleans, I find myself taking short mental walks there today, turning a familiar corner, glimpsing a favorite scene, square or vista. And worrying about the beloved friends and the city, and how they are now.
To use a fine Southern word, it's tacky to start playing the blame game before the dead are even counted. It is not too soon, however, to make a point that needs to be hammered home again and again, and that is that government policies have real consequences in people's lives.
This is not "just politics" or blaming for political advantage. This is about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do about their responsibilities. And about who winds up paying the price for those policies.
This is a column for everyone in the path of Hurricane Katrina who ever said, "I'm sorry, I'm just not interested in politics," or, "There's nothing I can do about it," or, "Eh, they're all crooks anyway."
Nothing to do with me, nothing to do with my life, nothing I can do about any of it. Look around you this morning. I suppose the National Rifle Association would argue, "Government policies don't kill people, hurricanes kill people." Actually, hurricanes plus government policies kill people.
One of the main reasons New Orleans is so vulnerable to hurricanes is the gradual disappearance of the wetlands on the Gulf Coast that once stood as a natural buffer between the city and storms coming in from the water. The disappearance of those wetlands does not have the name of a political party or a particular administration attached to it. No one wants to play, "The Democrats did it," or, "It's all Reagan's fault." Many environmentalists will tell you more than a century's interference with the natural flow of the Mississippi is the root cause of the problem, cutting off the movement of alluvial soil to the river's delta.
But in addition to long-range consequences of long-term policies like letting the Corps of Engineers try to build a better river than God, there are real short-term consequences, as well. It is a fact that the Clinton administration set some tough policies on wetlands, and it is a fact that the Bush administration repealed those policies - ordering federal agencies to stop protecting as many as 20 million acres of wetlands.
Last year, four environmental groups cooperated on a joint report showing the Bush administration's policies had allowed developers to drain thousands of acres of wetlands.
Does this mean we should blame President Bush for the fact that New Orleans is underwater? No, but it means we can blame Bush when a Category 3 or Category 2 hurricane puts New Orleans under. At this point, it is a matter of making a bad situation worse, of failing to observe the First Rule of Holes (when you're in one, stop digging).
Had a storm the size of Katrina just had the grace to hold off for a while, it's quite likely no one would even remember what the Bush administration did two months ago. The national press corps has the attention span of a gnat, and trying to get anyone in Washington to remember longer than a year ago is like asking them what happened in Iznik, Turkey, in A.D. 325.
Just plain political bad luck that, in June, Bush took his little ax and chopped $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, a 44 percent reduction. As was reported in New Orleans CityBusiness at the time, that meant "major hurricane and flood projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now."
The commander of the corps' New Orleans district also immediately instituted a hiring freeze and canceled the annual corps picnic.
Our friends at the Center for American Progress note the Office of Technology Assessment used to produce forward-thinking plans such as "Floods: A National Policy Concern" and "A Framework for Flood Hazards Management." Unfortunately, the office was targeted by Newt Gingrich and the Republican right, and gutted years ago.
In fact, there is now a governmentwide movement away from basing policy on science, expertise and professionalism, and in favor of choices based on ideology. If you're wondering what the ideological position on flood management might be, look at the pictures of New Orleans - it seems to consist of gutting the programs that do anything.
Unfortunately, the war in Iraq is directly related to the devastation left by the hurricane. About 35 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is now serving in Iraq, where four out of every 10 soldiers are guardsmen. Recruiting for the Guard is also down significantly because people are afraid of being sent to Iraq if they join, leaving the Guard even more short-handed.
The Louisiana National Guard also notes that dozens of its high-water vehicles, Humvees, refuelers and generators have also been sent abroad. (I hate to be picky, but why do they need high-water vehicles in Iraq?)
This, in turn, goes back to the original policy decision to go into Iraq without enough soldiers and the subsequent failure to admit that mistake and to rectify it by instituting a draft.
The levees of New Orleans, two of which are now broken and flooding the city, were also victims of Iraq war spending. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, said on June 8, 2004, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq."
This, friends, is why we need to pay attention to government policies, not political personalities, and to know whereon we vote. It is about our lives.
United States of Shame
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 3, 2005
Stuff happens.
And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal stuff happens.
America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it’s happening in America.
W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn’t dry. Bye, bye, American lives.
“I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees,” he told Diane Sawyer.
Shirt-sleeves rolled up, W. finally landed in Hell yesterday and chuckled about his wild boozing days in “the great city” of N’Awlins. He was clearly moved. “You know, I’m going to fly out of here in a minute,” he said on the runway at the New Orleans International Airport, “but I want you to know that I’m not going to forget what I’ve seen.” Out of the cameras’ range, and avoided by W., was a convoy of thousands of sick and dying people, some sprawled on the floor or dumped on baggage carousels at a makeshift MAS*H unit inside the terminal.
Why does this self-styled “can do” president always lapse into such lame “who could have known?” excuses.
Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs.
Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.'s prewar reports.
Who on earth could have known that New Orleans’s sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy’s uneasy fishbowl.
In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: “It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.”
Not only was the money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq.
Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.
Just last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced how they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. Imagine the feeble FEMA’s response to Katrina if they had not prepared.
Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn’t know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.
Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”
It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo’s on Fifth Avenue and attended “Spamalot” before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.
When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.
When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.
much as i don’t generally hold with what i refer to as MTV-speak (with the notable exceptions of u and kewl), i believe the word i’m looking for here is ‘PWNED’
