Making the Gravy Trains Run on Time...

The repeal of the estate tax would mean the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. It would create a permanent underclass with permanent overlords and many Paris Hiltons.

EU, NATO prepare hurricane aid after U.S. request

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union and NATO said on Sunday they had received official requests from the United States to provide emergency assistance for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, days after the storm ravaged U.S. cities.

The United States has asked for first aid kits, blankets, water trucks, and 500,000 prepared meals, the EU executive Commission said, adding further needs were being identified.

"We are and have been ready to contribute to the U.S. efforts aimed at alleviating the humanitarian crisis in New Orleans," EU Commissioner Stavros Dimas said in a statement.

The request came after several days of "informal contacts and preparatory activities" between the U.S. and the EU, the Commission said in the statement.

A Commission spokeswoman said the EU could have acted sooner if asked.

"If the request would have come earlier we would have been very happy to act earlier," Barbara Helfferich told Reuters.

"We have (had) no positive signals from the United States that they wanted help or needed help up to this stage."

President George W. Bush has been criticised at home for what some have called his administration's slow response to the disaster.

NATO said the United States had asked it for food, medical and logistical supplies ranging from wheelchairs to tents to electricity generators.

"They have not asked NATO for troops, only humanitarian aid," spokeswoman Carmen Romero said, adding the supplies would be sent as soon as possible.

"NATO stands ready to continue to support the United States as it recovers from this natural disaster," it said in a statement.

Many members of the 25-nation EU have already made specific offers of assistance and some had specialist emergency response teams on stand-by and ready for immediate deployment.

Commission spokeswoman Helfferich said supplies would start being flown to the United States overnight or on Monday.

No monetary value of the EU aid had yet been determined, she said. The items include 50,000 first aid kits, blankets and small tarps, 25,000 camp beds, 15 water trucks, and medical supplies.

Europe is also responding to the hurricane's aftermath in the energy field.

Britain, Germany, Spain and France have said they were prepared to ship fuel to U.S. ports as part of plans by the International Energy Agency to ship 30 million barrels of crude oil and gasoline to the United States during the coming month.

(courtesy Andree)

WHY THE INITIAL HESITATION?!!

US Accepts German Help After Katrina

After initial hesitation, US officials on Sunday handed their German counterparts a "wish list" of emergency aid such as logistics experts, water purification plants and medical help for victims of hurricane Katrina.

William Timken, the new US ambassador to Germany, handed the list to German government officials during a meeting Sunday afternoon.
 
The list largely corresponds with help that had been offered by Germany: logistics experts, pumps, drinking water and water purification systems, generators, emergency shelters, blankets and medical help.
 
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has also offered with vaccines, medical equipment and large quantities of aid packages.
 
Timken (photo) thanked Germany for the willingness to help, including 25 tons of meals that have already been flown to the US. A first plane with 10 tons of food arrived on Saturday, while a second delivery was due to arrive in Pensacola, Florida at about 9 p.m. UTC.
 
Timken also thanked the German Red Cross for its support -- the national chapter plans to send seven experts to the disaster region to aid American Red Cross workers.

US officials also asked the European Union and NATO for help. According to EU officials, US government representatives have asked for first aid kits, blankets, water trucks and 500,000 prepared meals.
 
"We are and have been ready to contribute to the US efforts aimed at alleviating the humanitarian crisis in New Orleans," EU Environmental Commissioner Stavros Dimas said in a statement, according to Reuters news service.
 
The EU's British presidency will now coordinate the aid shipments.
 
Officials for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) also said they had been asked by the US to send food supplies.
 
Flying hospital due on Monday
 
Germany's flying hospital, Medevac, which was used in the tsunami areas, is expected to arrive in the US on Monday, according to German public broadcaster NDR.
 
The plane comes with "a complete team of about 40 doctors and nurses," Andreas Künkler, a German air force pilot who delivered the first shipment of aid to the US. "That's what makes this plane unique in the world."

http://www.dw-world.de

WHY WAS THIS DELAYED WHILE PEOPLE DIED

I think its time for Dems to bring back the November refrain to the RNC: If this is their priorities for America and the Deep South, then
BRING IT ON.

" In the upcoming session of Congresss, at the top of the agenda are:

*permanent repeal of the estate tax
*an extension of deep cuts to capital gains and dividend taxes
*the first entitlement spending cuts in nearly a decade
*private investment accounts for social security" says dick.

And every time Hastert/Frist and Blunt start their cutting estate taxes and social service mantra our refrain should be to replay the President of Jefferson County's tearful Russert interview and ask Is this the kind of Leadership America Wants ? And we should replay over and over and over again Hastert's statement that he is ready to bulldoze the great city of N.O. and besides that he doesn't have time to help the rescue efforts b/c he is too busy with his important fundraiser; Is This the Kind of America that We Want?

If Repubs want to start up their Nov '06 election politiking after this disastrous week for the country, we should tell them fine. America, N.O. and the deep south ask you to Bring it On. The South is about to rise up again and say No.

Dick I truly hope someone kind find a photo or even better a video of Hasstert at his fundraiser during the hurricane vote.

Maybe I am way off base here but that imagery needs to be the poster child of the RNC in November of '06.
That message needs to be in delivered to every household in America. "This is the RNC's Priorities for America, Are They Yours?".
That imagery should be plastered on billboards from coast to coast, b/c that message by Hastert speaks volumes of their contempt for all Americans who are not their Pioneers.

Pride, DiAnne. Bush pride. The kind of pride that prevents him from admitting mistakes. The kind of pride that comes before a fall

Amy
Let's hope so.

Ira
When I've been to fundraisers, they kind of try to keep photographers and press out of there. I guess the rich don't like to be exposed. But maybe there is a paparazzi type somewhere who was on hand!

maybe so Dianne but I swear I heard Hastert acknowledge via interview that he was at a fundraiser at the time but had also auctioned off a car for relief efforts(probably thought up later when he realized what a monumental blunder he had made).

Sorry for the length but this is a great column:

Below is a column from Sarah Whalen, a Bayoubuzz contributor:

U.S. Congressman Dennis Hastert, Republican Speaker of the House from Illinois, says the Federal Government shouldn´t rebuild New Orleans. He says we´re bulldozer material.

If I weren´t so busy tracking down displaced family and looking for a new job and a new home, I´d laugh.

Go to the history books. New Orleans was built, destroyed, and rebuilt long before there ever was a U.S. Federal Government. While Illinois, where Congressman Hastert hails from, was an Indian camp, and 13 tiny British colonies were busy squabbling, drinking tea, and hanging witches, New Orleans was a thriving port controlling the mouth of the Mississippi to the Caribbean, Central and South America, and all
points beyond. It had already been destroyed by fire, rebuilt, ravaged by deadly diseases and foreign wars, and always, forever, flooded—dried out—and flooded again.

Congressman Hastert doesn´t want to rebuild us? Please, don´t trouble yourself. We originally didn´t even want to become part of Hastert´s
Federal Government. Napoleon sold New Orleans, along with its vast territories, to the Americans against locals´ will, rather than have
New Orleans and its strategic port fall into British hands. New Orleanians—French citizens with self-determination—resisted the Federal Government. Many paid with their lives.

Congressman Hastert doesn´t want to rebuild us? No problem. Just give us back full control over our port, our industrial canals, our lands and
territories, and all our oil and natural gas revenues. Take back your big highways—Katrina showed how flimsy they are, whereas our river
road is about 355 years old, and it´s survived everything except Federal Government works projects. Then stand back, and watch as we
rebuild ourselves. Always have, and always will.

Send in the National Guard to restore order? Congressman, we ARE your National Guard. Check your rosters. See who´s from where. Many of
the Guard are southerners, raised to be patriots and citizen soldiers. We´ve fought in many, many wars. One war defeated us, and still, we rebuilt ourselves.

Most of us are solid citizens, obedient to the law. When Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco and President Bush urged and then ordered us to
evacuate, we did. People without money could have gone to churches, synagogues, and mosques—so many offered rides. $20.00 would´ve bought
a bus ticket out of harm´s way. On Interstate 12 North, I saw people walking, running, on bikes—just going. Others decided they´d be better off at the Superdome, waiting for Federal Government rescue. That was their choice, and some—the very ill and infirm-- had no choice. But many able-bodied folks who could´ve left, didn´t.

Local police, besieged by murderous gangs, begged for Federal Government help. The Feds sent press conferences. When the Feds finally answered the phone, Plaquemines Parish asked for automatic weapons…and dynamite. Jefferson Parish just hung up and deputized every able-bodied man—yes, "man"—who had a gun and training, and put them on the parish line: "If you´re looting, stealing, raping, killing
or shooting at people, don´t come to Jefferson," Sheriff Harry Lee warned.

Not rebuild New Orleans?

Don´t trouble yourself, Congressman. Just take away those who want to live with you in the bosom of the Federal Government, and let us back
in. We´ll clean up and pick through the rubble of our homes and rebuild them. We´ve done it many times before, and we´ll do it again,
with God´s help. Our levees flooded largely because we stupidly came to rely on the Federal Government to fix them for us. Our coastline´s
destroyed because of a curious deal, orchestrated by the Federal
Government, allowing Big Oil to cut numerous waterways. Big Oil cut canals wider than any of our natural bayous, with neither levee nor shoal protecting adjoining lands, so Big Oil´s barges dragging drilling platforms and pipelines could head straight out to the Gulf of Mexico. By law and contract, Big Oil was required to restore our
coast to its natural condition by filling in the dredged canals and replanting the marsh. A tedious task, but far from impossible.

When Big Oil laughed us off, we stupidly appealed to the Federal Government for $14 billion to fix it for us.

Liberals may still be waiting and whining, but nobody else is.

Not rebuild New Orleans? Congressman Hastert, don´t bother. Just give us back full sovereign rights over our coast. We´ll float a bond issue
and fix it ourselves.

What´s Katrina taught us? That a combination of Federal Government, welfare mentality, Big Oil, and bad weather can be hazardous to our
health.

Congressman Hastert doesn´t want to rebuild New Orleans? Good. Just get him out of our way. Or, as we say in Texas, my adopted second home,"Git!" Just git, congressman. So we can git going.

Link: http://www.bayoubuzz.com/articles.aspx?aid=4917

Posted by: Ira at September 4, 2005 08:07 PM
Check here, Ira.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/03/hastert-skipped/
Follow the link to the Wash Post too.
I'm still looking for photo of him at fundraiser. I know I saw one too, but it has magically disappeared. Go figure.

Good article, Albq John!

I read in a European article about how New Orleans is really a strategic port for the US and that in some ways, it was more important than NYC or LA. I hope I find the reference again - really good article.

BTW, we've started a new topic in the forum called Quotes to Repeat in the Choosing The Words We use section under Ideas & Interactions. I've saved stuff about Hasturd in there and Suz has been posting some juicy tidbits too. Good stuff to haunt candidates with...

http://www.democracycellproject.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=861&view=findpost&p=3332

Libertarian makes good case for impeachment & also points out that US has lost its largest and most strategic port. This website is based in Alabama.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts120.html

Posted by: abq john at September 4, 2005 08:14 PM
Thanks, abqjohn...adding that one to the forum.

Posted by: not my president at September 4, 2005 08:23 PM

BUT...if we impeach Boy George, we get Dick Dark Lord. If we impeach both Boy George & Dick Dark Lord, we get Dennis Hasturd, don't we? It's a losing battle...

Holy ****.

I have been reading the NOLA evacuation plan. Yes there was one and it was written in 2000. There is an "assumptions" part where it indicates they were actually thinking of the possibility of a storm that would flood all of NOLA and be a cat 4 or 5. They were well aware of 1.6 million people and only 400,000 private vehicles to move them.
The plan depended on everyone driving their own vehicles out. The plan is missing the table it is supposed to include that says how long it would take to evacuate everyone. That table is supposed to have a timetable for a CAT 4 moving at 15 mph which this was.
The plan is missing a lot of things. It talks about gathering those who have no transportation at "transfer sites" so that various types of public/government transportation (like city buses and school buses) could pick them up and transport them to shelters outside the affected area. But there is no mention of who's going to get those buses and run that part of the program.
The plan says that everyone else will gather in a "shelter of last resort within the impact area"...that is, as they did with the Superdome. It says bluntly that there will be no utilities, food, water, etc there. And has no plan for getting them there, even though presumably since the people who are going there and have no cars are the poor and aren't about to be bringing MRE's, bottled water, and port-a-potties.
The plan says that people will be moved from the shelter of last resort to the tranportation staging areas as soon as conditions allow. But there is no plan for the fact that conditions might not allow for DAYS and these people have nothing but a roof over their heads. A leaking one.
Long-term shelter operations: considered, but "to be completed in an appendix at a later date".
Special needs/hospitalized people: the hospitals and nursing homes are supposed to evacuate them but it doesn't say how.
And on and on and on. Basically they had a cr*p plan and nobody ever really tested it out, especially the agency cooperation part. And what is glaringly obvious in the plan is that there was NO plan for the poor.
Now I saw that in about a 30-minute read-over. Granted, I have a lot of training in planning and such. But why didn't someone at FEMA or DHS notice it? My guess is because (a) the whole DHS reorganization made it very confusing as to who was supposed to be supervising these plans ... disaster prep is being taken away from FEMA and put into a new dept that doesn't even exist yet...the pres's admin did a great job on that... and (b) nobody in DHS cares a bit about natural disasters in comparison to terrorist events. Even the CG has been yanked from all our other missions to do homeland security stuff.
If anyone is interested in reading the plan, it is here:
http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/plans/eopindex.htm

You're not going to believe this one from the editors of the National Review... No, they certainly don't want to politicize this, do they? Well, we all know they have no shame...

September 03, 2005, 4:54 p.m.
New Orleans 2008

The wind had barely stopped blowing before Katrina and the storm's aftermath had become the latest front in the nation's political/cultural war. Bush critics are already undermining their own cause with overreaching, as they denounce the president as a racist for his alleged unconcern about the suffering of so many black people in New Orleans. But an administration whose FEMA director knew less about on-the-ground conditions in the stricken city this week than the average TV viewer has a real vulnerability.

It will only address that vulnerability with a performance in coming days and weeks that is more in keeping with the GOP's image as the "daddy party," the party of competence, the party that can be trusted in times of crisis. That is the main thing. But symbolism will matter too. No single step would go further to dramatize the GOP's commitment to rebuilding New Orleans than announcing now that the party's 2008 convention will be held in the recovering city. Such a move would signal the party's confidence in the Big Easy's renewal, and put it at the forefront of what should be similar commitments from private actors to do their part to help New Orleans come back.

Critics will call it a transparent attempt to burnish the party's image after the Bush administration "failed" with the initial relief effort. The gesture would, however, reflect the genuine sentiment of Republicans who, like all Americans, want to help a city facing such a bleak future. We heard similar complaints — easily brushed off — about the Republicans' coming to New York for last year's convention.

No doubt there will be logistical problems. There were logistical problems putting on big events in New Orleans even in the best of times. But the Republicans held their convention there in 1988, and should return 20 years later. They will go to a city that then will, no doubt, still be scarred by the catastrophe of the last week, but back on its feet, and a perfect venue for a testament to the American spirit. — The Editors
http://www.nationalreview.com/editorial/editors200509031654.asp

The repeal of the estate tax would mean the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. It would create a permanent underclass with permanent overlords and many Paris Hiltons.

Posted by: DiAnne at September 4, 2005 05:39 PM

How do I become a Paris Hilton?

Posted by: madame defarge at September 4, 2005 08:26 PM

And Madame...what happens if some whistleblower WITH EVIDENCE comes forward after having witness this regimes dangerous incompetence and says, "John Kerry really won and this is what we did..." Would that mean that JK takes over or are we stuck with Darth, Hastert, or Frist?

Sparrow
If I were going to marry into hereditary wealth (fat chance!) I think I'd go ahead & marry a citizen of some other place.

Madame DaFarge
If the RNC ever tried to have a national convention in New Orleans I will move hell and high water to be there to protest.

We are going to watch Mary Landrieau on 60 Minutes tonight, a very unusual occurrance in this household.

There is alot of stuff going on locally to help hurricane evacuees (our local tv doesn't call them "refugees").

I talked to Marc in Paris & he'd returned from a workshop in the country where they'd had no news for a week. He turned on tv and had no idea what was going on. "I thought it must be the apocalypse," he said. He said the people reminded him of his Greyhound trip across the US - that he had seen, met, ridden with so many people who obviously can't afford to fly and spent 2 days in inner city St. Louis.

Sparrow
Sometimes I have so little faith in the system that I think if evidence mounted that the election was stolen, martial law would be declared or something. If we don't have fair elections, will we ever get the neocons out, or are we stuck? I think they will do most anything to keep their power. If it went to the Supreme Court (the decision for a close election, like in 2000 - after they rigged it) - we can imagine the outcome.

Now I can hear the voice of W emanating from the tv in the other room.

Someone will get rich off this:

The Navy announced yesterday that Vice President Cheney's former company, Halliburton, which has handled much of the repair work as well as support services for the U.S. military in Iraq, was hired to restore power and rebuild three naval facilities in Mississippi that were wrecked by Katrina.

I'm sorry but I disagree with those who blame "big government" or "bureaucracy" for abysmal response to hurricanes. We hardly have any "government" left - only enough for a military payed for in borrowed dollars.

Look at what little Cuba is able to do:

http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/emergencies/asian_floods_2004/background/cubalessons

Someone will get rich off this:

The Navy announced yesterday that Vice President Cheney's former company, Halliburton, which has handled much of the repair work as well as support services for the U.S. military in Iraq, was hired to restore power and rebuild three naval facilities in Mississippi that were wrecked by Katrina.

Posted by: not my president at September 4, 2005 09:16 PM

Halliburton is one of the only companies that can do this, and quickly. (don't think I'm defending them though...)

September 05, 2005

Associated Press reports that at least five people shot dead by police as they walked across a New Orleans bridge yesterday were contractors working for the US Defence department.

A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers said the victims were contractors on their way to repair a canal. The contractors were on their way across the bridge to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain, in an operation to fix the 17th Street Canal, according to the spokesman.
The shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge, across a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River.

Early on Sunday, Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley of New Orleans said police shot at eight people, killing five or six.

No other details were immediately available.

Link Here

If I'm not mistaken, Halliburton received it's contract for hurricane damage repair before the National Guard received orders to deploy to New Orleans to help hurricane victims.

It's the neocon way - privatize everything you possibly can. Why can't the Navy repair its own facilities?

If I'm not mistaken, Halliburton received it's contract for hurricane damage repair before the National Guard received orders to deploy to New Orleans to help hurricane victims.

It's the neocon way - privatize everything you possibly can. Why can't the Navy repair its own facilities?

Posted by: cali dem at September 4, 2005 09:40 PM

Because they don't have the people anymore. That was part of the cutbacks and reorganization of the military over the past 10-15 years.

Posted by: rossiann at September 4, 2005 09:33 PM

The official word on our side is 4 looters shot by NOPD, also two police officers committed suicide.

Halliburton should donate its profits or do the work for free. That would show "compassion."

It's hard to tell where the news events are taking place - shot down helicopters, contractors accidentally shot, lack of utilties & clean water. Is it Iraq? Is it the US?

New York Times reported 2 police officers committed suicide but also that a couple of hundred quit.

Again that sounds like Bagdad, where there were mass funerals today & where a big oil pipeline was exploded, cutting off oil flow totally from Kirkuk to Turkey.

60 Minutes now.

Irc down?

It's hard to tell where the news events are taking place - shot down helicopters, contractors accidentally shot, lack of utilties & clean water. Is it Iraq? Is it the US?

Posted by: DiAnne at September 4, 2005 09:58 PM

What's important to remember is that in the Gulf of Mexico, a natural disaster caused this suffering.

In the Persian Gulf, the US caused this suffering.

It's all about perspective.

MSNBC replaying this morning's meet the press right now.

MUST SEE. Turn on your tvs.

President of Jefferson Parish coming up, and Haley good ol boy Barbour.

Lady

Somethin' ain't right !

I'm sure many of you have already seen this, but if you haven't, you MUST read it. I know Frank Rich almost always has great things to say, but this tops all else:

Falluja Floods the Superdome
By FRANK RICH
Published: September 4, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04rich.html?ex=1126497600&en=f82bd551a873fefe&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Lady

Somethin' ain't right with IRC !

Only minutes after arriving in New Orleans on my first trip to the city, I was told by my cab driver to avoid walking even one block outside the carnival atmosphere and southern romance of the beloved French Quarter. At that moment, I remember thinking about how we really lived in two countries, and this was years before John Edwards rightly called us “Two Americas” in the 2004 election. Yet I also knew that if this nice cab driver was telling me the truth about the beaten path being the one I should stay on, then the one less traveled must be where I could find the beating heart of a city that I had come to see, to smell, to taste and to feel.

I didn't just want to hear the blues, I wanted to look into the faces of the people who had it running through their veins. I didn't just want to taste the hot fire of crawfish ettoufee, I wanted to shake the hands that made it. I didn't want to have beads thrown at me by drunk boys hanging off of wrought iron Bourbon Street balconies, I wanted smell the musty air of an old side alley bookstore housing books thick with dust that carried stories apart from the ones contained in their words. I wasn't’t looking for the 'Big Easy' in the French Quarter, I was looking for it in the big smiles and easy voices of this great city.

I’ll forever be grateful that I found everything I wanted to and more on that trip. I saw the faces of a gracious city so full of the passions of life. I felt warm breezes struggling to cut through the thick and sultry night air. I smelled the sharpness of sizzling garlic and onions drifting out of kitchen windows. I felt America itself. And I felt the joy that poverty struggles to steal from the riches of the human heart.

Then came the monster storm named Katrina.

And the horrific lack of response to her wrath.

New Orleans is known as “The city that care forgot”. But unfortunately, it was also a city horribly forgotten by our government in the days that followed the nightmare which tore through a late August day. Just as it has abandoned so many, in so many ways, the government also abandoned the people in one of our most diverse and treasured cities during their time of need.

And it all happened while we carelessly allow our greed and selfishness to shove millions out of the America that thrives and feasts in towns which increasingly look like duplicate corporate malls existing solely to collect money with great efficiency, straight into the other America where people struggle to keep their heads above water day after grinding day.

If it is true that the eyes are the window to the soul, then the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans should always be remembered as the eyes that gave us a very sad look into the troubled soul of our great country. They were the eyes that forced us to look, because a hurricane refused to let them remain in blindness.

We have now seen the cost of running a country like a corporation where the management lives on the hill with wealth that time could never even allow for spending, while the workers live beneath them in poverty that allows no time for even living. In recent years our government has aided the wealthy in their quest to become wealthier, yet we have turned our backs on aiding our middle class to help them from slipping into perilous places, and we have not given aid to help the poor from getting ever more deeply entrenched in the culture of poverty.

Things must change. If we don’t care for both Americas, and all Americans, we won’t just have more tear filled eyes like New Orleans to stare into our troubled soul, we will lose our soul.

And I fear it will be gone forever.

That was part of the cutbacks and reorganization of the military over the past 10-15 years.

Posted by: Veritas at September 4, 2005 09:55 PM

Exactly! And this was done to push for privatization of government services.

Citizen knows.

irc seems fine.

Posted by: DiAnne at September 4, 2005 09:58 PM

Halliburten, Bush, Cheney, and everyone in that administration donate their profits, their wages, and their income tax returns to the victims of the hurricane. (and the war too!)

Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?
By ANNE RICE
New York Times

WHAT do people really know about New Orleans?

Do they take away with them an awareness that it has always been not only a great white metropolis but also a great black city, a city where African-Americans have come together again and again to form the strongest African-American culture in the land?

The first literary magazine ever published in Louisiana was the work of black men, French-speaking poets and writers who brought together their work in three issues of a little book called L'Album Littéraire. That was in the 1840's, and by that time the city had a prosperous class of free black artisans, sculptors, businessmen, property owners, skilled laborers in all fields. Thousands of slaves lived on their own in the city, too, making a living at various jobs, and sending home a few dollars to their owners in the country at the end of the month.

This is not to diminish the horror of the slave market in the middle of the famous St. Louis Hotel, or the injustice of the slave labor on plantations from one end of the state to the other. It is merely to say that it was never all "have or have not" in this strange and beautiful city.

Later in the 19th century, as the Irish immigrants poured in by the thousands, filling the holds of ships that had emptied their cargoes of cotton in Liverpool, and as the German and Italian immigrants soon followed, a vital and complex culture emerged. Huge churches went up to serve the great faith of the city's European-born Catholics; convents and schools and orphanages were built for the newly arrived and the struggling; the city expanded in all directions with new neighborhoods of large, graceful houses, or areas of more humble cottages, even the smallest of which, with their floor-length shutters and deep-pitched roofs, possessed an undeniable Caribbean charm.

Through this all, black culture never declined in Louisiana. In fact, New Orleans became home to blacks in a way, perhaps, that few other American cities have ever been. Dillard University and Xavier University became two of the most outstanding black colleges in America; and once the battles of desegregation had been won, black New Orleanians entered all levels of life, building a visible middle class that is absent in far too many Western and Northern American cities to this day.

The influence of blacks on the music of the city and the nation is too immense and too well known to be described. It was black musicians coming down to New Orleans for work who nicknamed the city "the Big Easy" because it was a place where they could always find a job. But it's not fair to the nature of New Orleans to think of jazz and the blues as the poor man's music, or the music of the oppressed.

Something else was going on in New Orleans. The living was good there. The clock ticked more slowly; people laughed more easily; people kissed; people loved; there was joy.

Which is why so many New Orleanians, black and white, never went north. They didn't want to leave a place where they felt at home in neighborhoods that dated back centuries; they didn't want to leave families whose rounds of weddings, births and funerals had become the fabric of their lives. They didn't want to leave a city where tolerance had always been able to outweigh prejudice, where patience had always been able to outweigh rage. They didn't want to leave a place that was theirs.

And so New Orleans prospered, slowly, unevenly, but surely - home to Protestants and Catholics, including the Irish parading through the old neighborhood on St. Patrick's Day as they hand out cabbages and potatoes and onions to the eager crowds; including the Italians, with their lavish St. Joseph's altars spread out with cakes and cookies in homes and restaurants and churches every March; including the uptown traditionalists who seek to preserve the peace and beauty of the Garden District; including the Germans with their clubs and traditions; including the black population playing an ever increasing role in the city's civic affairs.

Now nature has done what the Civil War couldn't do. Nature has done what the labor riots of the 1920's couldn't do. Nature had done what "modern life" with its relentless pursuit of efficiency couldn't do. It has done what racism couldn't do, and what segregation couldn't do either. Nature has laid the city waste - with a scope that brings to mind the end of Pompeii.


I share this history for a reason - and to answer questions that have arisen these last few days. Almost as soon as the cameras began panning over the rooftops, and the helicopters began chopping free those trapped in their attics, a chorus of voices rose. "Why didn't they leave?" people asked both on and off camera. "Why did they stay there when they knew a storm was coming?" One reporter even asked me, "Why do people live in such a place?"

Then as conditions became unbearable, the looters took to the streets. Windows were smashed, jewelry snatched, stores broken open, water and food and televisions carried out by fierce and uninhibited crowds.

Now the voices grew even louder. How could these thieves loot and pillage in a time of such crisis? How could people shoot one another? Because the faces of those drowning and the faces of those looting were largely black faces, race came into the picture. What kind of people are these, the people of New Orleans, who stay in a city about to be flooded, and then turn on one another?

Well, here's an answer. Thousands didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. They didn't have the money. They didn't have the vehicles. They didn't have any place to go. They are the poor, black and white, who dwell in any city in great numbers; and they did what they felt they could do - they huddled together in the strongest houses they could find. There was no way to up and leave and check into the nearest Ramada Inn.

What's more, thousands more who could have left stayed behind to help others. They went out in the helicopters and pulled the survivors off rooftops; they went through the flooded streets in their boats trying to gather those they could find. Meanwhile, city officials tried desperately to alleviate the worsening conditions in the Superdome, while makeshift shelters and hotels and hospitals struggled.

And where was everyone else during all this? Oh, help is coming, New Orleans was told. We are a rich country. Congress is acting. Someone will come to stop the looting and care for the refugees.

And it's true: eventually, help did come. But how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for aid? Why did America ask a city cherished by millions and excoriated by some, but ignored by no one, to fight for its own life for so long? That's my question.

I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans. It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance.

They will rebuild as they have after storms of the past; and they will stay in New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago.

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.