« Please, Come to D.C... | Main | Depraved Indifference »
Invisible
Last Wednesday, Americans watched in horror as the survivors of Katrina, particularly those in New Orleans, were shown pleading for help from a government that took too long to decide or act, and too little to plan for this inevitable event.
Our televisions showed seas of faces black and white, infants and grandparents of every stripe, struggling in the midst of the dread of the storm and its even more severe aftermath. They were people who, despite the media's earlier claims were "those who chose to stay", were actually "Those Not Able to Leave".
But this population had another name long before Katrina and other major storms, long before even this current Administration. A population borne out nearly fifty years of "benign" neglect, the betrayal of LBJ's War on Poverty, the Great Society, of supply-side economics and trickle-down theories. This generations-long onslaught on an entire society of the underclass left completely and literally "raftless" on a sea of economic and societal uncertainty.
Landless. Voiceless. Powerless. America's "Invisibles".
To be Invisible in America is the certainty that one small wrong step can lead to your impoverishment and/or your imprisonment. Starting with your birth, if you get to stay with your birth parents or put into foster care. You're shunted from school to school, and if lucky, you hopefully can last long enough to get a high school diploma, if not, you stay permanently stuck because you didn't learn how to read. You are caught in a veritable Infrastructure of Poverty. Given a choice between homelessness and incarceration, some choose incarceration. At least you have three square and a roof over your head.
Being Invisible is to have absolutely no societal expectations of you, other than to further drive you down, caricaturizing you as "welfare bum", "hanger-on" or worse. You become the target of total derision by those with wherewithal (the haves) to begrudge the percentage taxed from their income to take care of you (the Have-Not), and by politicians all-too willing to demonize you for their own political gain because of it.
Here in post-Katrina America---the un-earthing by water exposed what lay in America's heart of darkness. The entire world watched in embarassment as the world's richest country was exposed for its systemwide policy of neglect of entire generations of people. We are currently under an Administration whose compassion can be boiled down to a few photo-op minutes on national media. An Administration whose design and selection of federal management going all the way up the ranks and across the boards shows its disregard for the underclass in its foreign and domestic policy.
And they're still actually doing this with a straight face.
This is why I bristle when I hear the survivors of the Katrina disaster being referred to as "these people" as if they are somehow separate from our experience. They are still, and always will be Our People.
And we are killing them.
What happened in New Orleans is political payback and Genocide.
Add that to Bush's attrocities against humanity...
I lost count of how many times I heard this statement from people in Louisiana AND Texas this past weekend:
"I say we screw the justice system and just get a rope right now!"
Bye bye W...bye bye.
The Jefferson Parish president, Aaron Broussard, told CBS news that government would have to be held accountable for what had happened.
"Bureaucracy has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area and bureaucracy needs to stand trial before congress today," he said.
"Take whatever idiot they have at the top, give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don't give me the same idiot."
According to CNN: Superdome will likely have to be torn down.
Scotty had a very bad day at the office today...
check it out... the reporters were all over him...
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001055403
Pity that Scotty had a bad day - I wonder how many evacuees had a bad day.
Screw Scotty - he didn't lose anything like the evacuees did. He can still nourish on the manna of this administration - the evacs cannot.
Ream me up, Scotty.
Is it really payback, folks? Or is that just anger talking?
If anyone else listened to MSM infotainment news tonight you will have heard that Darth Dickie will be in the Mississippi Delta on Thursday....
Grrrrrrrrr..........
The local in-state news has the info that 3000 people from New Orleans will be brought to Camp Ripley, MN (where the National Guard troops have their monthly and yearly training) some ten miles or so from Little Falls, MN. Film footage showed the militarily spartan group living quarters, but what looked like non-military community people are there already setting up places for single women, single men, families, and they've already got some supplies (coloring books, crayons) set up at tables for children, and the medical community has been called on to volunteer to help anyone who may need medical and/or counseling services. To bring that many people here, our neoCon Repub governor had to ask to have our state declared a disaster area to obtain funds to help the victims of the hurricane and flood (no lie, that's what two local in-state networks quoted!). Some people who already had family in the Twin Cities area were featured a day or two ago as having found refuge with family members who already lived there. Tonight there was one young couple who were taken in by another family (not related), and the engaged couple who apparently arrived today did not have any other relatives so plan on settling down in the Cities, they're looking for jobs, and will look for their own housing shortly after. Both station's blurbs prominently featured the images and info that the governor ordered flags flown at half staff through the 20th of this month in official mourning for those who died as a result of Hurricane Katrina (like that's really gonna help the mourning process when no one knows yet how many people are even dead?).
Reminder: Don't eat before watching news on TV. You really need a barf bag next to you.... They were showing sound bytes of Dimwit Nitwit saying not to play the blame game now 'cuz there's work to be done (No $h*t, Sherlock! What was your first clue?!?) right now and there's time for that later (meaning he's hoping to get his PR image back in shape and that everyone will forget about it) - he says he's going to have an investigation... Yeah, right, and I suppose he'll have to be forced into that investigation like the 9/11 widows and survivors had to force the issue, too....
WH "news" conference had a sound byte of ABC's Terry Moran asking for "clarification" for where the buck stops ... and Scotty saying "with the president." Hmmmm..... I wanted to ask if that was on or off the record....
Time for us to get "the" messaging, our talking points and begin now. Whenever anyone says:"It was up to the local and state levels to respond to this crisis":
REPLY:"The state and local levels under this ADM have been stretched to the max,and there was very little money as Bush sent it all to Iraq and gave the rest to his rich friends in high places.
Any other ones you can come up with,lets get going on ours and send them of to the DNC.
You can bet over the next days to come,Rove/Bush in the WH are staying up late to come up with theirs...it's already getting blammed on the locals. Listen very carefully and we won't let them get ahead of us this go-round.
Hi everybody!
Truth here, from good ol' Reno, NV. Having a good visit with my family, am sitting here in the public library with my best friend from high school who has been a Bush voter, but she is "questioning his ability after this happened."
Can't wait to catch up.
Keep the faith everybody, and keep the fight!
And remember, TRUTH DOES PREVAIL!!!
I will be home in two (2) (count them) days!
Hi truth!
SPARROW!
Long time no talkee. lol
I was talking to Sparrow yesterday after a visit with my son to the Reno Rib Cookoff and a little trip to Margaritaville.
Today best friend and I visited Margaritaville again at a Mexican restaurant here in Reno where we used to hang together.
It's so good to get out of "Fundieville" up north.
Also, my whole family is Dem, and we have had alot of good talks about the *ahem* state of the union.
Gotta go my time is up.
Patti, my Kool-aid IV drip father-in-law was all over me about the state & local response, and how the states with republican governors seemed to fait just fine... oh, and if Guiliani were mayor, none of this would have happened, and "those people" were stupid for staying behind. Ya know, the legendary compassionate conservative talking points.
The question is is, why did the Bush Administration fail to act according to the National Response Plan they created in December of 2004 to deal with an incident like Katrina?
The National Response Plan was accepted and implemented by Bush Administration in December 2004. According to the PREFACE, President Bush, "directed the development of a new National Response Plan (NRP) to align Federal coordination structures, capabilities, and resources into a unified, all discipline, and all-hazards approach to domestic incident management. . . .The end result is vastly improved coordination among Federal, State, local, and tribal organizations to help save lives and protect America's communities by increasing the speed, effectiveness, and efficiency of incident management."
Efforts by Chertoff and other Administration spinmeisters to pin the blame on the delayed response on State and local authorities does not hold water. Although the NRP recognizes that State and local authorities have a responsibility to ask for help, the NRP correctly provides a provision to take proactive steps to deal with a threat. On page 43 of the NRP the section is titled, "Proactive Federal Response to Catastrophic Events":
The NRP establishes policies, procedures, and mechanisms for proactive Federal response to catastrophic events. A catastrophic event is any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions. A catastrophic event could result in sustained national impacts over a prolonged period of time; almost immediately exceeds resources normally available to State, local, tribal, and private-sector authorities in the impacted area; and significantly interrupts governmental operations and emergency services to such an extent that national security could be threatened. All catastrophic events are Incidents of National Significance.
Implementation of Proactive Federal Response Protocols
Protocols for proactive Federal response are most likely to be implemented for catastrophic events involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive weapons of mass destruction, or large magnitude earthquakes or other natural or technological disasters in or near heavily populated areas.
there's more... http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/4/171811/1974
TRUTH! (wassup!)
JUSTICE!
AND THE AMERICAN WEIGHT!
Albatross, Aisle W
Is it really payback, folks? Or is that just anger talking?
Posted by: sparrow at September 6, 2005 07:49 PM
It is payback and unrelenting cruelty and genocide.
Hey they got away with torturing Iraqis...and Gonzalez IS Attorney General...
Why not Americans?
Bastards!
Matt,
The Superdome was slated to be torn down anyway...they wanted to build a BIGGER stadium...and THEY are in the Bush fold.
The NFL...its not just for entertainment any more.
MonKey...
Have you been IRCed lately?
Me too...
Let's dance!
Put on your red shoes and dance the blues...
I'm with INDY inasmuch as I believe it was
G-E-N-O-C-I-D-E. Look, get rid of the poor,the drugs,gay pride parades,unwanted pregnacies,and then blame it on bad local and dem leadership in those vulnerable places and we continue to get our message out,win elections so we can rebuild bigger and better and make that place "right" as can be...our way!! There will be looting,let it happen as we can show them what and who "they" really are!!
Hard to prove,you bet! But then again NO one believed HITLER could be that cruel and do that much dammage either.
When Chertoff called the Louisianna a city,I got it!
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050906030909990004
So, Mississippi gets first dibs on the disaster aid funds. Wonder why? Could the huge sucking sound coming out of Haley Barbour's mouth in the last few days have anything to do with it?
Or could the fact that New Orleans is blue possibly matter to the kind and gentle Bush administration. Just an interesting article to read.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/09/06/department-of-homeland-se_n_6937.html
Says it's written in the policy..Department of homeland security is in charge of natural disasters.
If it is genocide, it's not gonna work in New Orleans. The quarter is still there, & the mayor reminded all of America today that "hey, New Orleans is a party city. Get over it." I'm not with those who think this is the death of New Orleans- I've been there way, way too many times. That city will survive- St Louis Cathedral has been destroyed once by fire, and once by a hurricane, and this hurricane didn't even scathe it. If the quarter had been washed away, the city might not have survived. But it's still here, Cafe duMonde is still there, and by next summer, take my word for it, the tourists will be back in the quarter. No matter what the rest of the town looks like. As long as that 10 block section is ok, and it is, there'll always be debauchery and partying in New Orleans. Not even George W Bush can destroy that city- it's just got too much soul.
it's just got too much soul.
Posted by: Linda Enterkin at September 6, 2005 09:38 PM
You hit the nail on the head, sister.
Oh, meet de boys on the Battlefront.
Meet de boys on the Battlefront.
Meet de boys on the Battlefront.
Yeah, the wild Tchopatoulas gonna stomp some rump!
Prettiest little thing that I ever seen -
Mardi gras Injuns in New Orleans.
Sew all night and they sew all day;
Mardi gras mornin' went all the way.
(Chorus)
Injuns comin? from all over town
They drink firewater, gonna bring 'em down.
A Jackimo feeno, hey-la-hey,
have some fun on a holiday.
(Chorus)
I'm an Injun ruler from the thirteenth ward,
A big Chief Kahuna and I can't be bought.
I walk through fire and I swim through mud
Snatch a feather from an eagle, drink panther blood!
(Chorus)
Mardi gras comin' and it won't be long,
Injuns comin', gonna carry on.
They sew all night and they sew all day;
Mardi gras mornin' went all the way.
(Chorus)
Yes, it's a Rudy Poopalina and a hoo-na-no!
Big Chief Jolly everywhere I go.
Don't you touch my flag, yeah, steal my queen,
You have more trouble than you ever seen.
(Chorus)
(Chorus)
Oh, the wild Tchopatoulas gonna stomp some rump!
Yeah, the wild Tchopatoulas gonna stomp some rump
the Saints are permanently moving to San Antonio so if N.O. with all their problems wants to spend $400 million to replace the Superdome to lure another NFL team that would really be inappropriate; especially now. Let them tear it down and turn it into something useful like downtown housing.
Fe,
Thank you for this post and for saying what so many people are unwilling to hear. These people were abandonned long before Katrina. This is because they were already abandonned that nobody cared about a plan to help leave the city. (It is very telling that so many people call them refugees, as if they were foreigners).
Bush, with his total incompetence and indifference, augmented to this problem and turned what was already a tragedy into a total horror.
If we dont want to forget these people, the two problems have to be addressed:
- improving the conditions these people live in and the fact that they become visible to all (and mostly to the politicians).
- ask for accountability to the Bush administration. Cronyism and a total negation pf the fact that the governement could be used for public good are responsible for that. (See Grover Norquist's thought, terrible today, that a perfect govt could be drowned in a glass of water - more or less).
Ira- ooooooooooo- Texans are really dreamers, aren't they?
Posted by: Mass at September 6, 2005 09:53 PM
Are you "Mass" from the kerry blog?
(welcome by the way...!)
Patti and the rest,
Not to bring you into my disfunctional family life, but here was my rant today to my neocon brother, who sent me the Ruddy article, after I sent hime the Broussard clip:
Keep towing that line. I'd like you to tell me what it would actually take for you to criticize Bush. Do you actually believe that any city, particularly one of the poorest in the country, but even new york, has the money/resources to deal with something like this on their own?
The dept of homeland security says this: In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness.
Are you really so cold that, even after being in that city days before the event, you don't see any federal responsibility for this? Did you watch the clip? Or are you just so enamored with Bush that you are blind to everything that has happened? Do you really think the country is safer now? We can't even protect our citizens from a flood for five days? How many people died because FEMA and Homeland Security failed so miserably to do their jobs? Bush appointed those idiots, and he has some responsibility here.
"No one could have anticipated the breech of the levy"? Maybe he couldn't have, but the rest of the country could and did. Failure. The gov. and Senator of Louisiana were asking for funds for years, to no avail. The citizens of N.O have been predicting this for years.
There are many, many republicans and conservatives who are seething over the inhumanity and indifference of this administration's inaction. It is disgusting, appalling, and un-american, and thousands of deaths are on their heads.
This has nothing to do with liking or hating Bush. This has to do with being able to rely on our government to do it's job. It was clear from Tuesday that N.O. was not able to get itself out of trouble. They requested help on the 28th, before the hurricane even struck - and that is part of the public record. Their request was ignored, and people died of THIRST because your damn government couldn't do a freaking air drop of water.
So how about acknowledging that your president has some ultimate responsibility for giving jobs to unqualified cronies while claiming to be protecting the citizens of this country. He's built a house of cards for a government and now the whole world can see how easy it would be to topple that house. Your lack of acknowledgment makes you no different than the Bush haters you think are just whining.
For someone who is so concerned about national security, you don't seem to concerned about the lack of it here. Which leads me to believe that it is really just all about the money.
Sorry - makes me sweat just reading it again!
and now, to repost from suz on the last thread, for a good laugh: LOL!
This is toooooooooo funny! I'm not even going to tell you what it is, just click on it.
http://www.peacecandy.com/gwbush/dishonestdubya/
Posted by: suz at September 6, 2005 11:29 AM
sparrow,
Yes, I am. I have been lurking for a while here, but I dont really have time to post.
However, Fe's post touched a nerve and I decided to answer.
Wow
Bangladesh donated one million!
Right on!
& we've located friends in New Orleans -
they made it to Santa Fe
& Cris at work - located her uncle who had
gotten from Rue Royale, NO to Corpus Cristi.
For those who fault people for not leaving -
her cousin was 77 year old, with many health
problems. He had gotten ahold of a bicycle,
& had a plan to try to somehow ride it to
the airport when he was rescued.
Thank you carol- I have been steaming over that all night and I am borrowing some of you wonderful answer(if that's OK of course....)
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS YET?
Senator suggests penalties for survivors who stayed in flood zone
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Senator_suggests_penalties_for_survivors_who_stayed_in_flo_0906.html
(Can you guess which senator? Of course, none other than RICK SANTORUM! Kill him with this, guys.)
Posted by: Mass at September 6, 2005 10:19 PM
Mass,
You should see this too, then.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/2671
thanks Linda for the compliment.
Carol made an excellant point about N.O. My wife went to Tulane graduate school, lived there for 3 years and constantly tells me what abject poverty their schools system is,and how low people are taxed there, and that N.O. corruption is well documented.
All large cities have pockets of poverty but N.O. is pervasively poor. We have many friends who live there and not one single person we know sends their kids to the N.O school system its just that bad. Most anyone with any resources send their kids to private schools, even many minorities,which I think is unique to N.O. How many people would have the means to leave Watts, Harlem, etc. if a similar calamity happened there?.
I disagree with the conspiracy theorists. I just think that folks like Barbara Bush and her family really don't know any better and think that everyone in N.O. should have just packed up their SUVs and Hummers and gotten the hell out of there. Russert said as much to Chertoff on Meet the Press. Its a pathetic excuse, but I just don't think these elitist have any concept of poverty.That is what JE would be telling us right now. The Bush family just thinks that the neighborhood church can meet all of the poor's needs with random acts of kindness. Do we forget poppy Bush's thousand points of light? We just need a grocery scanner moment for W so that the public can understand how he was raised;just like poppy.
more-should be unbelievanble stuff-
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197
snip
"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."
The firefighter, who has encouraged his superiors back home not to send any more volunteers for now, declined to give his name because FEMA has warned them not to talk to reporters.
snip
"There are all of these guys with all of this training and we're sending them out to hand out a phone number," an Oregon firefighter said. "They [the hurricane victims] are screaming for help and this day [of FEMA training] was a waste."
Firefighters say they want to brave the heat, the debris-littered roads, the poisonous cottonmouth snakes and fire ants and travel into pockets of Louisiana where many people have yet to receive emergency aid.
But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.
mkh - of course!
Ira and others, slightly off topic, but for a good (in a depressing way) read about the education system for the poor in our country, read:
Savage Inequalities, by Jonathan Kozol
Grr...spent much of the day fighting w/FEMA and local NOLA police...both are helping themselves liberally to our (limited) resources when such resources showed up at shared staging areas (clearly marked for USCG of course)...and worse, FEMA has been kicking CG personnel out of hotels and other housing in the Mobile area...so someone goes to work on a boat all day, comes back to their hotel and their bags are packed in the lobby, the manager says "sorry FEMA has priority and took the whole hotel for its field workers"...we have people staying 100 mi away. Grr.
Anyway this is what I wanted to post. If anyone wants to send a Coastie a "thank-you" card, or just a card to cheer them up as they deal with day after day of grisly duty (or maybe you know a group of kids who want to send cards?), here are the addresses for the folks "in theater":
IMT ST. Louis: US Coast Guard ISC, Attn: IMT (logistics), 1222 Spruce St., St. Louis, MO 63103
ICP Mobile: US Coast Guard Sector Mobile, Attn: ICP (logistics), S. Broad Street, Mobile, AL 36615
ICP Alexandria: US Coast Guard ICP, Attn: logistics, 2225 N. MacArthur Dr., Alexandria, LA 71303
Please, only cards, they don't have room for anything else at this point. But a cheery thankyou card would really lift their spirits after dealing with death and disease etc all day.
Thanks to all...take care
Those of you concerned about which funding goes where,well Trent Lies-a-Lott was noted on NEWS NIGHT with this response:"I know Pres. Bush and he really cares,was on-the-spot with us and I looked into his eyes."(something like that,but the eye thing for sure) Guess these creeps think we're dumb and dumber this time around,and are having difficulty getting their talking points out these days. Rove must be losing a lot of sleep figuring out what to say next!
CNN has asked some evironmentalists to do a water study of "what's in there anyways." Just to see that water pumped back into the lake,then back out into the gulf makes me bleed internally. Can you just see the response if JK had done this! We all know we would have been better prepared and these "disasters",diverted.
Welcome back to all the last year bloggers..miss you with all my heart!!
Perhaps we need to forward this blog site to JK/JE so they know how hard we're working,have got their backs and take OUR message out there...ya think??
Has anyone ever questioned our shelter's policy of refusing to allow pets into shelters. I know this may sound trivial but how many of the people who stayed behind in N.O. did so to stay and protect their pets they love so much. How many lives did that cost? Surely money was a primary reason for most deciding not to leave, but if thousands also lost their lives to stay with their pets, as I have read, just think how sad and potentially unnecessary that was.
Certainly shelters barely have resources to feed and house their human evacuees but perhaps we need a strategy to allow those who would otherwise leave if they had a place for their pets, some kind of alternative other than insisting that they just leave their pets to die in the hurricane. Just a thought.
My brother in law thinks that we're all just still mad because Kerry "lost".
Putz.
mad as in angry which I am; or mad as insane? But what the h*** does that have to do with anything I would ask your brother in law.
Tell him to get over it. He won.
Now ask him take responsibility for that vote and its miserable consequences, which our Pres. certainly won't.
Did anyone know that Oregon offered a new prison that would house about 3,000 people complete with dental facility,meets state standards,wonderful kitchen and infirmary ? They (meaning Red Cross) refused by saying:"we don't want these people in a prison." But it's really a very nice looking place and could be anything but a "prison" if they got creative b4 the victims arrived and they take down the damned "prison" sign. Many Oregon MD's would even sign up for duty there. I'll check out the OREGONIAN for more details and post.
These idiots don't even know "pet therapy" is a good thing.
Uh...pets? Pet evacuation is something that I agree should be planned for in advance of a storm or disaster, maybe through a coalition of humane society shelters or no-kill shelters outside the area.
Once disaster hits, it is very hard to rescue pets as well. First of all, they have to go into a helicopter or boat. Then they have to go in a shelter...along with thousands of people...and say hundreds of pets. Feeding issues aside, you also have allergy issues, issues of pets potentially attacking each other, pets needing to go to the bathroom, people who are afraid of pets, pets perhaps attacking young children or the elderly, etc etc.
Again I agree there should be a plan in place ahead of time for pets, but once disaster hits there is just no real way to evacuate most pets. I think that people should consider what they will do with their pets if disaster strikes just as they consider what they will do with themselves. I realize there are some people who do not have the means to evacuate in an emergency and perhaps that is the direction that the "pet shelter" plans should take. If someone wants to have provisions for pet shelters in their state or local disaster plan, they should contact local shelters or ASPCA etc, get a group together and then contact the people in your state or city who write/update the disaster plan. I'm sure it's an angle they won't have considered and they will appreciate the input...and they will likely incorporate it into their plan. That's really what everyone should take from Katrina...get proactive in your state and local governments in getting them to make sure their disaster plans have a plan for the poor, the elderly, the disabled, the (fill in the blank). Yes YOU as a citizen can get together a group of people who are subject-matter experts on the group you want to include in the plan and as a group, YOU can make a difference in the plan and make sure that the ignored among us are properly taken care of the next time disaster strikes. If anyone wants some advice/guidance on how to go about making a change like this please contact me, I have a lot of training in contingency planning and can help point you in the right direction.
Fe, great header.
I'm getting really ticked about this comparison of 9/11 and Katrina, and the respective mayors. The two disasters couldn't be more different.
And the two cities couldn't be more different.
Yes, Giuliani managed to do very well in photo ops. His disaster lasted hours, not weeks, before the worst had happened. He had time for photo ops.
Compare the relative wealth of both cities compared to the population, the locations of the disaster, the type of disaster, the size of the effected area, etc....
Apples and oranges.
Where are the DEMS??? NO needed immediate federal intervention, pronto. It was asked for, and it wasn't delivered.
Anyone hear Randi today, with a tape of some Fox reporters freaking out, and O'Reilly trying to calm them down? Very telling....
I know this is slightly off topic, but then it's really not...
Just returned from Evanston where we had a candlelight vigil for one of the Camp Casey bus tour people. It's confirmed that we had at least 500 people show up on very short notice. As the Mayor of Evanston proclaimed,Evanston is now the "People's Republic of Evanston" because they are passing an ordinance (like Cambridge & Berkeley & one other city I can't remember) against the war. Many comparisions and references were made to the hurricane and its similar path of devastation & destruction of Americans as the Iraqi War.
Members of the Gold Star & Blue Star Families and Cody Camacho, an Iraqi War vet spoke to the crowd. Here's one of the memorable quotes from the evening from Sherwood Baker's father. (Sherwood was killed in Iraq.)
"We've been preaching to the choir. It's time for the choir to start preaching to America. I can't tell you how to do it...but talk to your neighbors, talk to your congresspeople, get into the media, but talk..."
The bus group is talking to college & high school students about the pitfalls of war and why they shouldn't enlist in their "College, Not Combat" campaign. They're also going to visit Dennis Hasturd's office tomorrow (with special guest Cindy Sheehan, who is flying in for that visit!), another rally in Wheaton tomorrow night, and then a visit to Mark Kirk's office on Thursday followed by a ceremony at Highland Park's Eyes Wide Open display.
These people are so amazing to get up there day after day telling their heartwrenching stories of war and its impact. We are their choir, their hope, their light. We cannot and will not fail them.
Just found out we'll have a local newspaper reporter with us tomorrow for our briefing. So far we've been the "safely in the shadows" part of the whole operation. Guess someone finally decided we were the engine behind it and decided to shed some light on us. Yikes...better go iron my uniform :)
Veritas,
Speak truth to power...
We have your back.
Amy the reporter was Geraldo who was holding a black baby at the time that hadn't had any water in days and O'Reilly being his usual jerk self telling Geraldo to move on and give him some good news.
veritas I compeletely understand your concerns regarding pets, I just know how attached people including myself are to their pets and how difficult it is to just get up and leave them. Certainly we have the means to just pack up our cats and drive to Dallas, I just believe that there were many in N.O. for better or worse who could not do that and made that crucial wrong decision to just ride it out with their pets. There has to be some kind of sollution to that calamity.
Great work,Veritas..we are sooooo proud!!
Wonder when Bush's next polling #'s are due out and what they will be ? By all means..get involved,locally.
Ken Schram, a vocal voice on Seattle KING 5 NEWS,said this about our CIC:"I didn't EVER believe this president was up to the task and we thought it couldn't get any worse.....how wrong we were."
BTW. Fe...great great thread header.
Firefighters from other states wanted to help rescue stranded people, not spend a couple of days taking training such as sexual harassment, before being dispatched to hand out FEMA flyers and stand behind Bush as a backdrop during his photo op.
http://www.sltrib.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?article=3004197
People in Utah are reading this.
Posted by: Patti Ferschke at September 6, 2005 07:58 PM
Patti, it's time for OUR DEMS to get working on talking points. Yes, Rove et all are working 24/7 on theirs, and they're getting them out there. Why aren't the Dems getting theirs "out there" in the same way?
I send money every month to the DNC and it irks me that throughout this disaster there's been very little evidence that they are even there. I'm not referring to the Dems directly involved in the disaster, who have been doing a fine job; i'm referring to the DNC, and the DLC.
Thank goodness for the media! We'd have NO talking points for truth right now without them. I never thought I'd say that....
Ira, I am SOOOOOO proud to know you!
Great work and super post upthread!
Amy,well said. Most would donate IF they grew a spine !! Haven't we learned anything..yet? CAll them what they are,call them out and defend your stance..the people are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiting,and wailing!!
Obviously,the pictures and images are louder than any words...however,the reps are now saying,"things aren't as bad as they looked." New in on CNN!
Amy/Patti I believe that the DNC and Reid are singularly responsible for at least temporarily stopping the insane and poorly timed plan to end all inheritance taxes. Their next move should be to now shame Republicans for even thinking to bring it up;especially now. Hopefully we will hear more about expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Reid has talked about imposing the 1970s era Windfall Profits Tax on Oil Revenues and using the revenue for gasoline tax rebates.
Taking on the needs of the imPoverished and our still out of control Gasoline Prices will hopefully will be at the front of their issues they push on the floor of Congress. Have we forgotten that gasoline prices are well over $3/gallon.
We don't have the megaphone of the reins of govt. but yes I do hear our Dems; Howard Dean was on the Rhandi Rhodes show this afternoon discussing the failures of FEMA but he would not go as far as demanding Brown's immediate firing which I thought was a mistake.
Ira, the clip I heard on Randi (I was doing errands, so in and out of the car) was about "the government" preventing the occupants of the convention center from crossing a bridge to get to higher ground. They weren't allowed to go to Jefferson parish, and were forced to stay in the flooded area at the convention center. One reporter was saying "LET THEM Go!! LET THEM GO!" I did also hear someone saying "look at the face of this baby. There's the real truth of this, just look at this baby."
Posted by: Ira at September 6, 2005 11:55 PM
Ira, what do you think the chances are of finding out who this idiot of a pres. is going to nominate for the other SCOTUS position, now that Pretty Boy Roberts is heading for Chief Justice? Have you heard any word about the Dems (& other respectable senators) demanding the names as well as the missing papers on Roberts?
And yet another brilliant move from FEMA...
Right city, wrong state
FEMA accused of flying evacuees to wrong Charleston
Tuesday, September 6, 2005; Posted: 11:29 p.m. EDT (03:29 GMT)
(CNN) -- Add geography to the growing list of FEMA fumbles.
A South Carolina health official said his colleagues scrambled Tuesday when FEMA gave only a half-hour notice to prepare for the arrival of a plane carrying as many as 180 evacuees to Charleston.
But the plane, instead, landed in Charleston, West Virginia, 400 miles away.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/06/katrina.charleston/index.html
Oh, you just have to see this picture... Made an old hag knitter like me laugh out loud...
http://phoenixwoman.blogspot.com/2005/09/laissez-les-bonnes-ttes-rouler.html
Ira, I think Dean on Randi is another example of what the father who was referred to upthread called "preaching to the choir." We need Dems all over the TV media. That's what we need, and that's what Cindy managed to do. If Cindy can do it, they can. If CNN can get to the dome, FEMA can. Same thing.
Now we need Dems screaming that this administration has demonstrated it's incompetence over and over and over, and it's time for people to know it. This is the president who a year into his presidency thought Sweden didn't have an army because it was neutral. This president didn't know the name of the prime minister of Canada, our largest by far trading partner, the country which imports more of our manufactured goods than the rest of the world combined. The longest undefended border in history. If that's not an important name for the president to know, I don't know what is. Larry, Moe and Curly are running this country.
This president is incompetent in the extreme. He is endangering the United States of America. He invaded a sovereign nation unprovoked, against all advice from wiser men and women. Then he was incompetent at it. He screwed up homeland security. He trashed the budget, plunging it into the worst deficit state in history, worsened the trade deficit, another record, presided over the first net job losses since the great depression, and yet he still encourages outsourcing! He cut taxes and shifted the burden to the middle and lower classes, and in spite of dramatically rising costs due to his ill-advised war. He's mortgaged the country to communists by increasing our foreign debt. He appoints friends without any expertise or experience to key posts and we all watch as they flounder. With all the competent Republicans there used to be in this country, Bush has chosen the motliest crew in history.
Surely, surely, Dems can find something here to say. As one newsguy in Seattle said, we thought it couldn't get worse, but how wrong we were.
And another thing....!
How could I forget, the scariest part of all? This president has been working behind the scenes and in hidden ways to dismantle our environmental protections and to concentrate powers in the executive. Both unAmerican activities.
What a surprise...
UPDATE 1-Halliburton to increase prices in October
Tue Sep 6, 2005 12:56 PM ET
NEW YORK, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Halliburton Co. (HAL.N: Quote, Profile, Research) will increase prices across all of its energy services business lines next month, the company's Chairman and Chief Executive David Lesar said on Tuesday, although he declined to specify the sizes of those price increases.
"With the demand that's out there and what we see coming forward in the marketplace, we are announcing that we are going to put another price increase in across all of our business lines," Lesar said in a presentation at a Lehman Brothers energy conference, monitored via Webcast. "We will put a price increase through in October."
In mid-day trading, Halliburton shares were up 2.5 percent at $63.89, an all-time high for the stock.
http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle...
I don't know if folks here saw this... an update from Sandra on the condition of her home in Metarie - http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=36348&view=findpost&p=380253
From Josh Marshall -
National Hurricane Center Chief Max Mayfield made sure the president knew the full extent of the threat of Katrina:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
"But according to this August 30th article in the St. Petersburg Times, on Sunday the 28th, Mayfield arranged a video conference call with President Bush himself at the Crawford Ranch during which he explained the hurricane's force and destructive potential.
Perhaps this is common knowledge. But I hadn't heard it before. And it would seem to leave little question that the president himself knew the critical information from Mayfield before Katrina even made landfall.
Said Mayfield, according to the Times: "I just wanted to be able to go to sleep that night knowing that I did all I could do."
That was Geraldo talkin to O'Reilly on Faux News:
"One reporter was saying "LET THEM Go!! LET THEM GO!" I did also hear someone saying "look at the face of this baby. There's the real truth of this, just look at this baby."