Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer
What follows is a short compilation of video footage I took when visiting New Orleans earlier this month. While some parts of the city have made significant progress, the poorer and lower situated areas like the Lower 9th Ward remain devastated. Yet, the most difficult part for me was not viewing the destruction but witnessing the lack of activity, building, people, hope. All were conspicuously absent. Hence the final clip taken from the Convention Center just after Katrina of the stranded masses chanting for help. Although 20 months have passed since those desperate cries, it seems we are still waiting for someone to hear them.
The music is “Monday Night In New Orleans” by Kermit Ruffins (and The Barbeque Swingers) who, for my money, is the best living musician in the city.
Dear New Orleans,
Change your name to Baghdad, and call the 9th Ward “the green zone”.
That will change you from “that part of the world” and thus the US Government will then care for you.
Yes, vioala the US Government will come and save you.
(PS: You may be worse off if they do.) 🙁
Every time I see the mess that the Lower 9th Ward still is I think of Kanye and his astute and succinct observation.
Bush just doesn’t care.
It’s a bad location…I wouldn’t go back or have hope either. People should learn from this to build their dreams on some solid ground, instead of building their dreams in a swamp and expecting someone else to help when things go wrong.
That’s the problem with this country…No one looks at what they are building their dreams on, and when it doesn’t work out you blame someone else. We’re not even accountable to ourselves anymore.
Good luck with that.
Off The Grid,
I agree with you that all of us need to be more accountable. For example, we all have a duty not to believe the gov’t and msm propaganda and search out the truth. You might start with Katrina.
Here is just one paragraph from a great article explaining that “You’re Probably Wrong” about everything you think about Katrina (NY Times, Aug. 20, 2006)
I lived in New Orleans for many years and every resident understood that the City was designed to withstand a Catagory 3 hurricane. Well, it didn’t and that was 100% the fault of Congress and the Army Corps of Engineers. To place any blame on the people is entirely misguided and gross. When you buy a defective product do you eat your losses and blame yourself?
Every time I see such drivel as from #3 Off The Grid, I am amazed. Should Los Angelos and San Fransisco move? They are important to America; particularly as ports, just like NOLA. The next time there is an earthquake there will there be no help for those folks? Probably not if the Bush FEMA is still in business…
Though I live in Nashville now, I’m a longtime Louisiana resident and musician. My family lost four houses to Katrina. Fortunately my folks are fairly well off, insured, and can cope; but the unrelenting “all Katrina all the time” pace of trying to re-invent our world has caused some of them to leave anyway, perhaps never to return.
I just found out today of a dear friend, a Katrina survivor, who passed away yesterday. He had been living here, doing his chemo, working happily in the music biz, appreciative of the chance we offered, but always simply wanting to go home. When he did go, the promised work wasn’t there; the $500 apartment became a $1000 dump (all part of the “freedom” available down there now) and he had to return to Tennessee. It was at that point that I think he just gave up. Fifty-five years old. A Katrina victim if you ask me…
How can you help today? Go down and ask. There are things you can do. If nothing else, just go down and hit the Quarter, drink some beers, eat some of the best food you’ll ever have, and tip well. That will help…
Pray for New Orleans.
And work to make sure we have free fair elections so Americans will never be treated so badly again…
peace,
shw
We talked about this before Katrina on this blog. About the conservative ex-congressman who was the civilian head of the Corps of Engineers; who requested 30 to 50 million to work on the levees; which he explained were inadequate; and who was fired by bushies for actually doing a good job by wanting to secure the levees of one of our American cities.
And we talked about the
WhiteWhat House opposing that amount of money; and the rubber stamp congress only giving them about 5-7 million; which wasn’t enough; the money was being spent screwing up Iraq; all of which was negligent.And we talked about the european areas where they have had dikes and have lived below sea level for 2,000 years; and about 36 million there who live below sea level competently; and about the competency of their engineers and the incompetency of ours.
Then we talked about it after Katrina.
But the neoCon drivel from the neoCon trolls just keeps coming like it was honest or something. Delusion will do that to head-in-the-sand folk whose minds are below see level.
Dredd,
What do you have to say to the millions of people living in suburbia that will have to deal with peak oil?
Will you tell them it is the fault of the politician that didn’t fund the engineer?
I say to the engineer(and #5)… Will the status quo remain the same during peak oil? Will the grocery store have food? Are you as free as you thought you were, or do you just have some $$$. You can’t eat $$$. What can you learn from Katrina? And Iraq? And 9/11? And Form letters from Democrats? And walking down the street?
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
-Emerson
Off The Grid #7
You asked:
I would tell them:
You next asked:
Asked and answered.
Finally you asked:
To which I say:
Dredd out!
OTG #7 (update to post #8)
Actually in the final analysis I would tell them I am one of them.
We the people are the fuckees and the oil barons are the fuckors.
Off the Grid,
What, do you work for Fox or something? Your initial post stated:
And then you rightfully get called out by multiple commentors for your lack of factual knowledge and utter b.s. so you reply by changing the subject and making an apples to oranges comparison without even addressing your initial assertions. What a joke.
And you complain about accountability to ourselves? Pot Kettle Black!
Katrina is nothing in the face of peak oil. Did Katrina threaten food production and transportation nationwide. The average piece of food travels about 1500mi. before it is consumed in the USA. Can you afford apples at $300/barrel? Katrina has also already happened, unlike most of the effects of peak oil.
Dredd–> “Actually in the final analysis I would tell them I am one of them. We the people are the fuckees and the oil barons are the fuckors.”
Dredd desides to take the side of the victim. I think the Democrats play to victimization, and inside the beltway environment hipocrocy. It’s all part of the parental figure for president thing Gore speaks out about. He also does it. He plays to the people that want someone to stand up and save them, but his solutions aren’t enough to fix the problem. His solution are enough to keep him popular with the masses. I guess that’s all that will matter for the the next president.
The Republicans play to the people who want to survive at the expense of others. Fuckers.
I am neither, I will not make myself a victim. Period. I will not victimize others.
There are other possibilities than the two that don’t work.
#10–If you can’t make the comparison between Katrina and Peak Oil and how the the effects might be similar…good luck. I hope you have a big garden. Call me whatever the fuck you want.
I can call you whatever the f i want? okay, heartless, jerk, inhumane and off the grid. at least i get your pen name now. i’d like to think you don’t understand what you just wrote because it’s truly shocking.
“Katrina is nothing in the face of peak oil.”
sick. close to 2,000 people dead, hundreds of thousands of lives ruined or forever changed. people lost everything they had. all there photo memories, houses, belongings, pets, loved ones, sanity, etc. the pain and suffering is literally incomprehensible. and literally none of it needed to happen. but it happened and then instead of rectifying the situation we did nothing. the richest country the world has ever seen has done nothing. meanwhile these poor people have watched the richest among us get hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in tax cuts year after year. talk about kicking someone when they are down. hard to even argue that we are a moral society.
but, according to you, this pales in comparison to a highly contested theory that, if true, could possibly cause some suffering many years down the line if alternate forms of energy are not perfected in the interim. dude, these are grossly incomparable events. i mean event where thousands died and and a theory whose only victim may be your common sense and empathy.
Consumers feel the heat from rising food prices…link
It’s not years away, it’s right now you dumb ass! The food for the whole country is produced and transported by machines that run on OIL. Denial is sickest epidemic of all.