New Orleans: Drowning Government in the Bathtub

[jjw1965]

Isn't interesting China can move 600,000 people out of the way of Typhoon Talim and yet the United States was unable to move around 100,000 people out of New Orleans in the days before Katrina hit. Is it possible a communist dictatorship -- well, actually a globalist socialist dictatorship -- is more effective at protecting its people than the "democratic" government of the United States? It runs against all the brainwashing the U.S. "education" system attempted to pump into my brain since I entered kindergarten in the late 50s.

Hurricane Katrina is a huge and unavoidable demonstration of the political reality the government and the corporate media strive every moment to conceal or divert attention away from -- the United States government exists to service the elitist plutocracy and its corporations and banking-financial institutions. It does not exist to protect citizens who pay outrageous taxes for which they receive nothing in return. It was known the levees in New Orleans were insufficient and sooner or later a hurricane would decimate the city and yet the federal government did nothing about it because it has other priorities -- servicing a small number of rich people and multinational corporations. Recall Grover Norquist declaring it was the intention of the fanatical right now firmly in control to reduce government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Norquist's comment is prophetic, considering what happened on the Gulf coast and the response of the government. Drown, indeed.

It remains to be seen if the American people will wake up to the fact the government does not exist to protect them but instead is a parasite that steals their hard-earned money at gunpoint and uses it to cater to the whims of the plutocracy and their globalist agenda to reduce large swaths of the world into a miserable and (as in the case of New Orleans) Darwinian gulag where the poorest or poor are allowed to starve and fend for themselves after natural disasters.

Bush's typical lackadaisical response to the disaster reveals his true state of mind -- the poor and disenfranchised, who he long ago as a student at the Harvard Business School characterized as lazy and shiftless, more or less get what they deserve. Katrina is a public relations issue for Bush, not a humanitarian crisis. He was similarly unmoved by the Asian tsunami and as a privileged son of the plutocracy (and as a sociopath) feels absolutely nothing for people (or poor and middle class people) in need because his "base," as revealed in a video snippet in Michael Moore's documentary, is the rich and powerful, not the people, even the dupes who voted for him. It will be nothing short of astounding if these people continue to support Bush in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. However, considering the severity and depth of brainwashing in the United States, it would not be surprising if the "little people" continue to fawn over Bush, even as they soon begin to pay four or five dollars a gallon for gas.

 

[Ocean Breeze]

September 2, 2005

Take a step back for a minute, then take a deep breath, because what we are seeing now is the beginning of the end of America's darkest hour; the end of the Bush Administration.
Bush will never survive this disaster; the tectonic political-plates have shifted too dramatically; the failure too colossal.
Nearly overnight the familiar voices that sang his praises from every media pulpit in America have either been silenced or turned against him. It is truly extraordinary; and a tad suspicious.
The friendly cheerleaders are bailing-out across the spectrum; NBC, CBS, MSNBC and even the "bullish" FOX News have all descended on their prey like feral dogs on a wounded squirrel.
Suddenly the callousness and rustic hauteur of our esteemed leader, the "Fly-over" President, seems to be wearing-thin on leaders and pundits alike. They smell blood in the water and they are preparing to do what they do best; dismember the flailing carcass with gnashing, razor-like teeth.
But, why the abrupt change?

Can anyone remember a time when the government has failed as miserably as it has with Hurricane Katrina?
While tens of thousands of desperate Americans are hunkered down in 90 degree heat without food or water, President Imposter is circling at 30 thousand feet blowing kisses to his drowning people below.
Bush has become a Texas Louis 14, completely detached in his bubble-world echoing the shallow bromides of his ideological predecessor, "Apres moi, le deluge".
His first response to the storm was to suspend the EPA's clean air restrictions on the profitable oil industry and to promise government aid for offshore drilling facilities.
No surprises there.
The second part of the administration's strategy was to work up an elaborate public relations charade that involved trotting out every waffle-bottomed bureaucrat in Washington in front of the TV cameras to make officious-sounding statements.
Meanwhile, nothing has been done to relieve the desperation of victims in New Orleans who are suffering through America's greatest natural disaster.
In fact, that appears to be the strategy; do nothing!
Many of the reports that are being filed mention that National Guard installations are set up just blocks away from the Superdome and the Convention Center; the epicenter of the human tragedy, and yet, the Guard is doing nothing to meet the needs of the people inside.
Why?
Many people are asking if it is because they are predominantly black and poor.
Certainly as we see the footage of poor, black people dragging across the city, 3 days without food and water and no busses in sight; we have to wonder if there is a racial element involved.
Rather than address the dire needs of the stranded people, Bush has approved "shoot to kill" orders for looters.
Unbelievable?!?
So, now its "open season" on starving people scavenging through the ruins of the city looking for sustenance for their family?
Bush is set on repeating the same mistakes he made in Falluja and Baghdad when angry townspeople were mowed-down during peaceful protests.
Look how that turned out.
Is that what Bush wants; a revolution?
What possible purpose does it serve to take 1500 Guardsman off their duties of treating the wounded and feeding the hungry, and making them patrol the streets to round up petty-thieves?
And why has Bush approved the deploying of snipers to the tops of New Orleans buildings instead of health-care workers to its overcrowded facilities?

"I think there should be zero tolerance for people breaking the law during an emergency such as this," Bush boomed on ABC's Good Morning America.

Bush's "law and order" approach to the tragedy is consistent with his utter inability to grasp the pain of the average victim of this colossal disaster. As always, he simply parrots the inane bromides about private property that underscore the Republican ideological world-view.
Bush is a firm believer that looting should limited to the class of carpet-baggers and war criminals to which he belongs. He has no problem with the "no-bid" contracts and war-profiteering that has plagued Iraqi debacle from day-one. The $9 billion of pilfered Iraqi oil revenue never even drew a raised eyebrow from our benighted leader, but the notion that that corruption might be extended democratically to everyone regardless of class. That's the REAL crime as Bush sees it.
The vast looting and destruction in New Orleans is an object lesson to the ruling class and one that ultimately benefits antiwar activists and civil libertarians. The people in power need to grasp the ephemeral character of society; there's nothing permanent about it. Order is a transitory phenomenon that papers-over the primordial swamp of human rage, desire and barbarity. When we peel back the outer layer of society, we see those same dark forces at work; a cauldron of competing emotions and shadowy cravings. Those forces are now in play on the streets of New Orleans, along with the even more elemental drive to survive.
What bothers men like Bush is the prospect that everyone may partake in the same nihilistic-revelry that he and his confreres have enjoyed for so long. It is the anarchy of unrestrained greed that puts a shiver in his spine; the selfishness that infects every man's heart. And, yet, this is the true face of present-day America; a lawless, twisted waif unleashing waves of terror across the globe; feeding the burgeoning coffers of its privileged few.
Why not uncork the bottle and let everyone take part in the festivities?

As the poet Yates said,


"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed And everywhere the celebration of innocence is drowned".

What's good for Bush is good for everyone. Isn't this what we see unfolding in New Orleans?
The roving gangs of looters are like a giant mirror hung in front of the White House reflecting the anarchic soul that lies within; Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Falluja; this is the Bush legacy. And, now, it is America's, too.

America has become like Rimbaud's dissolute drifter in "A Season in Hell" who boasts:

"I stretched myself out in the mud, I dried myself in the air of crime, And I played some fine tricks on madness."

Bush can't have it both ways. He cannot destroy the law and then pretend it still exists for the poor and helpless.
The looters in New Orleans are the offspring of the Bush political ethos; a no-holds-barred culture of violence, thievery and impunity.

If we cannot have a society based on justice and mercy, than let's tear it down and start over.

 

[peapod]

who wrote that ocean?

 

[no1important]

RE: New Orleans: Drowning

It is a very good article and the truth.

 

[jjw1965]

How New Orleans Was Lost

Paul Craig Roberts | September 2 2005

Chalk up the city of New Orleans as a cost of Bush's Iraq war.

There were not enough helicopters to repair the breeched levees and rescue people trapped by rising water. Nor are there enough Louisiana National Guards available to help with rescue efforts and to patrol against looting.

The situation is the same in Mississippi.

The National Guard and helicopters are off on a fools mission in Iraq.

The National Guard is in Iraq because fanatical neoconsevatives in the Bush administration were determined to invade the Middle East and because the incompetent Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld refused to listen to the generals, who told him there were not enough regular troops available to do the job.

After the invasion, the arrogant Rumsfeld found out that the generals were right. The National Guard was called up to fill in the gaping gaps.

Now the Guardsmen, trapped in the Iraqi quagmire, are watching on TV the families they left behind trapped by rising waters and wondering if the floating bodies are family members. None know where their dislocated families are, but, shades of Fallujah, they do see their destroyed homes.

The mayor of New Orleans was counting on helicopters to put in place massive sandbags to repair the levee. However, someone called the few helicopters away to rescue people from rooftops. The rising water overwhelmed the massive pumping stations, and New Orleans disappeared under deep water.

What a terrible casualty of the Iraqi war--one of our oldest and most beautiful cities, a famous city, a historic city.

Distracted by its phony war on terrorism, the US government had made no preparations in the event Hurricane Katarina brought catastrophe to New Orleans. No contingency plan existed. Only now after the disaster are FEMA and the Corp of Engineers trying to assemble the material and equipment to save New Orleans from the fate of Atlantis.

Even worse, articles in the New Orleans Times-Picayune and public statements by emergency management chiefs in New Orleans make it clear that the Bush administration slashed the funding for the Corp of Engineers' projects to strengthen and raise the New Orleans levees and diverted the money to the Iraq war.

Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune (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, 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."

Why can't the US government focus on America's needs and leave other countries alone? Why are American troops in Iraq instead of protecting our own borders from a mass invasion by illegal immigrants? Why are American helicopters blowing up Iraqi homes instead of saving American homes in New Orleans?

How can the Bush administration be so incompetent as to expose Americans at home to dire risks by exhausting American resources in foolish foreign adventures? What kind of "homeland security" is this?

All Bush has achieved by invading Iraq is to kill and wound thousands of people while destroying America's reputation. The only beneficiaries are oil companies capitalizing on a good excuse to jack up the price of gasoline and Osama bin Laden's recruitment.

What we have is a Republican war for oil company profits while New Orleans sinks beneath the waters.


* * *

On the day Katrina devastated New Orleans, America lost its most optimistic pundit, Jude Wanniski, who died of a heart attack at age 69. Jude often misplaced his optimism, but he was never without it. Jude never gave up on anyone and would invest his persuasive talents on everyone who would listen and even on those who wouldn't. Jude was not an economist, but he understood long before most economists that fiscal policy changed incentives and affected aggregate supply in contrast to the Keynesian emphasis on aggregate demand. Jude rose to fame as the publicist for supply-side economics. As a journalist, he was a natural. Robert Bartley, the Wall St. Journal editorial page editor, once told me that Jude had the best nose for news of any journalist he had ever known. Those he favored with his missives will miss his insights.

 

[Ocean Breeze]

who wrote that ocean?

{ Mike Whitney




:: Article nr. 15308 sent on 02-sep-2005 23:50 ECT


:: The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=15308



}


(sorry folks....... shoulda included the name of the author ....etc..

very well stated , isn't it???

 

[peapod]

I thought it was very well said ocean.

 

[jjw1965]

I thought it was very well said ocean.

ditto!

 

[Ocean Breeze]

I thought it was very well said ocean.

ditto!

I would have posted the link........but have found that if I post a link from that site....... , it will not work properly, or bring up the article intended. Kinda too bad as the site has some excellent writers, analysts and thinkers . (ergo the article in its entirety.;-)

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Worshipping the Dollar: The Immorality of New Orleans Police, Mayor and GW Bush
Sam Hamod


September 2, 2005

“Don’t save people, stop the looting.” thus sayeth the government of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans.

You can see what is most valuable—business, not people, not the citizens who might be saved if the police, national guard and others concentrate on saving people who may be trapped and alive in the flooding in New Orleans and environs. But no, the word went out today—forget about saving the people, stop those looters.

What has American come to? Has it finally become that dastardly nation that Middle Easterners have claimed for a long time—that we are inhumane, that we use and abuse people, and that we worship the almighty dollar? Sorry, but New Orleans is clear proof that the real worship is not that of God, or the messages of Jesus, but of the almighty dollar—the golden calf that all the great prophets spoke against, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed.

Of course, our president, GW Bush, joins in this same matter; no reason to spend money on veterans and their wounds—so he has ordered cuts in the budget for military hospitals and doctors, has refused to allow the facts to come out about the overcrowding and long waiting periods for care in the military hospitals, and has even refused to divulge how many troops have been wounded, maimed or killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, he has made clear, he will stay the course—but on someone else’s back, with someone else’s blood and let the mothers and loved ones who complain be damned! Just like New Orleans, let the people die, save the business people’s merchandise.

Also, have you noticed, that not until today did we see that there were actually two white people involved in the looting. Prior to this, CNN and others gloated as they showed black people doing the looting; finally, today, it all came out, many of the organizers of the looting are white, and many white people have been looting as well—but the media decided once again that only black people break the law. This is analogous to the myth in America that only Arabs and Muslims can be “terrorists”, while Bush poisons the soil and the people of Iraq with Depleted Uranium, destroying hospitals, homes, water supplies, electric facilities and then calls those who defend their land, “terrorists.” In the case of America, the white man can do no harm, only black people break the law and join the outcasts and terrorists. One never hears the name of Timothy Mc Veigh any more or any other white men who have committed terrorist acts. Incidentally, no Arab or Muslim has ever been convicted of any terrorist crime against America. No Arab or Muslim has ever been charged with spying against America for an Arab country, but many Israelis and American Jews who identify with Israel have been caught spying and selling American secrets to Israel, China and Russia.

Something is wrong in our country, and the illness starts at the top with the world’s number one terrorist, GW Bush, followed by his cronies, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.

Let New Orleans be a wake up call—nothing was done to help set up safety dikes to save the city, though this threat of a major storm has been on the horizon for over a dozen years; now that the “big one” has come, the people are to be allowed to drown, but don’t one single “looter” get away. Police, man your guns, let the people drown, but stop that looting, save our business’. Ah, worship of the dollar, worship of power, worship of the devil for sure.

another article that tells it as it is....... and how sad to read this in "black and white."......sad, because this is what has been known for so long.....but not directly addressed. Talk about a reality check....

 

[Vanni Fucci]

I think I'll post that Yeats poem referenced in Ocean Breeze's anonymous article...I find it to be very apt of late...

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight; somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

~ W.B. Yeats

Well would you look at that...I just did... :lol:

 

[jjw1965]

This is a very disturbing story, I didn't really know if I should post it or not, so if you are weak of stomach just skip this post, and if it offends you, please forgive me.

HuffingtonPost.com

 

[Ocean Breeze]

I think I'll post that Yeats poem referenced in Ocean Breeze's anonymous article...I find it to be very apt of late...

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight; somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

~ W.B. Yeats

Well would you look at that...I just did... :lol:

Nice touch!!

 

[Ocean Breeze]

This is a very disturbing story, I didn't really know if I should post it or not, so if you are weak of stomach just skip this post, and if it offends you, please forgive me.

HuffingtonPost.com

thanks for posting this. In a way it is not surprising. Been trying to imagine what it would be like stuck there under those conditions ...in the heat, dirty water all around, everything destroyed, or in that smelly stadium ......that turned into a rapists haven...... and it is beyond comprehension. It is beyond comprehension that THIS is taking place in the so called progressive, technologically advanced nation called the USof A. Seems we have been fooled by their propaganda for so long we believed this myth........as now we are seeing the underbelly of what the current "America" is. Racist, cold, callous, power hungry, money worshipping.......and war mongering. .......and this only covers a few of the adjectives that apply to the current US. Add the fact that PRIDE/ARROGANCE has been the obstacle that prevented bush from accepting all kinds of excellent help from the international community. Just listened to a list of items etc that international nations have offered..........and all would have made such a fantastic difference......yet bush refused them......or showed such reluctance to accept.....they are in holding pattern, while people die, get sick, and gosh knows what else.

and some of us thought the bush invasion of Iraq was uncivilized and barbaric..... seems we had not seen 'nothin' yet. :x

 

[jjw1965]

Where is our Huey Long?
The National Public Radio news anchor was so excited I thought she’d piss on herself: the President of the United States had flown his plane down to 1700 feet to get a better look at the flood damage! And there was a photo of our Commander-in-Chief taken looking out the window. He looked very serious and concerned.

That was yesterday. Today he played golf. No kidding. :evil:
I’m sure the people of New Orleans would have liked to show their appreciation for the official Presidential photo-strafing, but their surface-to-air missiles were wet.

There is nothing new under the sun. In 1927, a Republican President had his photo taken as the Mississippi rolled over New Orleans. Calvin Coolidge, “a little fat man with a notebook in his hand,” promised to rebuild the state. He didn’t. Instead, he left to play golf with Ken Lay or the Ken Lay railroad baron equivalent of his day.

In 1927, the Democratic Party had died and was awaiting burial. As depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin Roosevelt, called for balancing the budget.

Then, as the waters rose, one politician finally said, roughly, “Screw this! They’re lying! The President’s lying! The rich fat cats that are drowning you will do it again and again and again. They lead you into imperialist wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they push your kids under. I say, Kick’m in the ass and take your rightful share!”

Huey Long laid out a plan: a progressive income tax, real money for education, public works to rebuild Louisiana and America, an end to wars for empire, and an end to financial oligarchy. The waters receded, the anger did not, and Huey “Kingfish” Long was elected Governor of Louisiana in 1928.

At the time, Louisiana schools were free, but not the textbooks. Governor Long taxed Big Oil to pay for the books. Rockefeller’s oil companies refused pay the textbook tax, so Long ordered the National Guard to seize Standard Oil’s fields in the Delta.

Huey Long was called a “demagogue” and a “dictator.” Of course. Because it was Huey Long who established the concept that a government of the people must protect the people, school, house, and feed them and give every man or woman a job who needs one.

Government, he said, “We The People,” not plutocrats nor Halliburtons, must build bridges and levies to keep the waters from rising over our heads. All we had to do was share the nation’s wealth we created as a nation. But that meant facing down what he called the “concentrations of monopoly power” to finance the needs of the public.

In other words, Huey Long founded the modern Democratic Party. Franklin Roosevelt and the party establishment, scared senseless of Long’s ineluctable march to the White House, adopted his program, called it the New Deal, and later The New Frontier and the Great Society.

America and the party prospered.

America could use a Democratic Party again and there’s a rumor it’s alive—somewhere.

And now is the moment, as it was in ‘27. As the bodies float in the streets of New Orleans, now is not the time for the Democrats to shirk and slink away, bleating they can’t “politicize” this avoidable disaster.

Seventy-six years ago this week, Huey Long was shot down, assassinated at the age of 43. But the legacy of his combat remains, from Social Security to veterans’ mortgage loans.

There is no such thing as a “natural” disaster. Hurricanes happen, but death comes from official neglect, from tax cuts for the rich that cut the heart out of public protection. The corpses in the street are victims of a class war in which only one side has a general.

Where is our Huey Long? America needs just one Kingfish to stand up and say that our nation must rid itself of the scarecrow with the idiot chuckle, who has left America broken and in danger while he plays tinker-toy Napoleon on other continents.

I realize that the middle of rising flood is a hell of a bad time to give Democrats swimming lessons; but it’s act up now or we all go under.

A pedagogical note: As I travel around the USA, I’m just horrified at America’s stubborn historical amnesia. Americans, as Sam Cooke said, don’t know squat about history. We don’t learn the names of a nation’s capitol until the 82d Airborne lands there. And it doesn’t count if you’ve watched a Ken Burns documentary on PBS.

I suggest starting with this: read “Huey Long” by the late historian Harry T. Williams. If you want to ease into it, get the Randy Newman album based on it (Good Old Boys) with the song, “Louisiana 1927.” Listen to part of the song at www.GregPalast.com

Do NOT watch the crappy right-wing agit-prop film, “Huey Long,” by Ken Burns.

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Where is our Huey Long?
The National Public Radio news anchor was so excited I thought she’d piss on herself: the President of the United States had flown his plane down to 1700 feet to get a better look at the flood damage! And there was a photo of our Commander-in-Chief taken looking out the window. He looked very serious and concerned.

That was yesterday. Today he played golf. No kidding. :evil:
I’m sure the people of New Orleans would have liked to show their appreciation for the official Presidential photo-strafing, but their surface-to-air missiles were wet.

There is nothing new under the sun. In 1927, a Republican President had his photo taken as the Mississippi rolled over New Orleans. Calvin Coolidge, “a little fat man with a notebook in his hand,” promised to rebuild the state. He didn’t. Instead, he left to play golf with Ken Lay or the Ken Lay railroad baron equivalent of his day.

In 1927, the Democratic Party had died and was awaiting burial. As depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin Roosevelt, called for balancing the budget.

Then, as the waters rose, one politician finally said, roughly, “Screw this! They’re lying! The President’s lying! The rich fat cats that are drowning you will do it again and again and again. They lead you into imperialist wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they push your kids under. I say, Kick’m in the ass and take your rightful share!”

Huey Long laid out a plan: a progressive income tax, real money for education, public works to rebuild Louisiana and America, an end to wars for empire, and an end to financial oligarchy. The waters receded, the anger did not, and Huey “Kingfish” Long was elected Governor of Louisiana in 1928.

At the time, Louisiana schools were free, but not the textbooks. Governor Long taxed Big Oil to pay for the books. Rockefeller’s oil companies refused pay the textbook tax, so Long ordered the National Guard to seize Standard Oil’s fields in the Delta.

Huey Long was called a “demagogue” and a “dictator.” Of course. Because it was Huey Long who established the concept that a government of the people must protect the people, school, house, and feed them and give every man or woman a job who needs one.

Government, he said, “We The People,” not plutocrats nor Halliburtons, must build bridges and levies to keep the waters from rising over our heads. All we had to do was share the nation’s wealth we created as a nation. But that meant facing down what he called the “concentrations of monopoly power” to finance the needs of the public.

In other words, Huey Long founded the modern Democratic Party. Franklin Roosevelt and the party establishment, scared senseless of Long’s ineluctable march to the White House, adopted his program, called it the New Deal, and later The New Frontier and the Great Society.

America and the party prospered.

America could use a Democratic Party again and there’s a rumor it’s alive—somewhere.

And now is the moment, as it was in ‘27. As the bodies float in the streets of New Orleans, now is not the time for the Democrats to shirk and slink away, bleating they can’t “politicize” this avoidable disaster.

Seventy-six years ago this week, Huey Long was shot down, assassinated at the age of 43. But the legacy of his combat remains, from Social Security to veterans’ mortgage loans.

There is no such thing as a “natural” disaster. Hurricanes happen, but death comes from official neglect, from tax cuts for the rich that cut the heart out of public protection. The corpses in the street are victims of a class war in which only one side has a general.

Where is our Huey Long? America needs just one Kingfish to stand up and say that our nation must rid itself of the scarecrow with the idiot chuckle, who has left America broken and in danger while he plays tinker-toy Napoleon on other continents.

I realize that the middle of rising flood is a hell of a bad time to give Democrats swimming lessons; but it’s act up now or we all go under.

A pedagogical note: As I travel around the USA, I’m just horrified at America’s stubborn historical amnesia. Americans, as Sam Cooke said, don’t know squat about history. We don’t learn the names of a nation’s capitol until the 82d Airborne lands there. And it doesn’t count if you’ve watched a Ken Burns documentary on PBS.

I suggest starting with this: read “Huey Long” by the late historian Harry T. Williams. If you want to ease into it, get the Randy Newman album based on it (Good Old Boys) with the song, “Louisiana 1927.” Listen to part of the song at www.GregPalast.com

Do NOT watch the crappy right-wing agit-prop film, “Huey Long,” by Ken Burns.

gosh, when I see that photo of him...... I want to do the "create a caption" thing.

( "gee, do I really have to deal with this mess NOW??? Aren't I still on vacation.??? What a nuisance!! ".......... ) would be what comes to mind when I see that photo.

 

[jjw1965]

( "gee, do I really have to deal with this mess NOW??? Aren't I still on vacation.??? What a nuisance!! ".......... ) would be what comes to mind when I see that photo.

Can I use it on my website?

 

[Ocean Breeze]

( "gee, do I really have to deal with this mess NOW??? Aren't I still on vacation.??? What a nuisance!! ".......... ) would be what comes to mind when I see that photo.

Can I use it on my website?

sure !! :wink:

 

[no1important]

RE: New Orleans: Drowning

Bush pledges long-term storm aid :roll:

Up to 20,000 people had been stranded there for six days in conditions described by the BBC's Matt Frei as the most wretched he had seen anywhere - including crises in the Third World.

The situation was made worse by a lack of trust between the mainly poor, African-American population left behind in New Orleans and the predominately white police force, our correspondent adds.

Leroy Fouchea, 42, said two babies had died because of the sluggish rescue operation.

"They died right here, in America, waiting for food," he told Reuters news agency.

Click above link for full story.

What a goddam crying shame, America land of opportunity, so called most powerful nation in the world. Yet they do not have resources for emergencies. What a despicable debacle. No leadership from "W" on down.

 

[jjw1965]

Thanks Ocean, I'm posting it on my website!