Katrina-Bush and the political questions begin

Okay, that's the second time in 2 pages you have misspelled "Thieves." I figured the first to be a typo, now I think I should point it out so you don't make a third error.



It's Team Anti-Bush/Shrub/Chimpy McBushitler, and you are a charter member, boss.



But it appears you are trying to speak for your team when you interject yourself into a discussion I was having with BBB concerning her beliefs about whether Bush caused the hurricane, and type this drivel:




If you aren't a member of "the team," why come riding to your teammates defense, particularly when you don't know what we were talking about (not to mention what you were talking about)?



You can keep uttering these useless phrases, but you really ought to bring some substance at some point.

Oh boy. I quit. As soon as we get into the long back and forths with more than 4 quoted sections, we know we are doomed to be another Cindy Sheehan thread.

For the record, I don't have a problem with the first responders being sent to LV for R&R.

As though there were any substance in your posts which attempt to divert discussion by characterizing disparate individuals as a "team" bent on attacking the Shrub (with the implication that the attacks are unjustified).

You deploy partisan rhetoric with a fervor few other people here match. I am free to comment on any idiocy you post, and attempting to characterize it as "riding to the defense" of someone does nothing to mitigate the idiocy of your contentions. You have not demonstrated that any members involved in this discussion have blamed the Shrub for the storms themselves.

So, when you next dredge what passes for an argument on your part up out of the gutter, you really should attempt to provide something of substance.

I believe you are part of the anti-Bush team. Why are you trying to convince me otherwise? Just because you'd prefer to be part of the anti-Shrub team?

I have not demonstrated that any members involved in this discussion have blamed Bush for the hurricane. I've not even tried. What on earth lead you to think I had? If you would pay attention to what you are responding to, perhaps engage your brain before your fingers, you might have understood the question I was asking BBB ... or perhaps not and just jumped in anyway, blathering away as if you knew what you were talking about, when you clearly did not.

You ooze rancorous contempt in your postings on a regular basis, apparently trying to bully other posters, usually dragging entire threads down to where your blackened heart dwells. Don't even claim the high road in that regard. You simply don't care for when others push back at you.

Tico
Tico wrote: "I have not demonstrated that any members involved in this discussion have blamed Bush for the hurricane. I've not even tried. What on earth lead you to think I had?"

That is horse pucky. You've been accusing everyone disagreeing with you of blaming Bush for the hurricane.

But using clever lawyer parsing, you say you didn't "demonstrate" that people were doing such things. That's right, you only accuse, not demonstrate much of anything. It's a clever game that many of us see through.

I call your statement a wimpy excuse for a failed tactic.

BBB

No, I haven't. But on the Bush Supporters thread you were asserting Bush was to blame for all the dogs that died in the hurricane because his own dog was not a victim of the hurricane( ), and I said a hurricane was "a force of nature that Bush did not create, regardless of how many anti-Bushies imply that he did," ... to which you accused me of lying, and I then posted the article from your friend, Robert Kennedy, where he does accuse Bush of causing the hurricane. I never said you blamed Bush, but in this thread you seemed to be jumping back on that line of thought, implying that Bush did indeed have a hand in causing the hurricane ... which prompted my question that elicited such a big reaction from your teammate Setanta.



You realize that "clever lawyer parsing" was first uttered by your teammate, and I was only repeating it ... right?



I doubt very much you see though much of anything I do.



Bully for you.

Here's an interesting account about NO's finest, the R&R boys:

"My professor was in New Orleans for a health
conference the week before the storm, Two of the
paramedics at that conference had planned to stay for
the weekend and fly out Sunday. Before they could
reschedule their flights, they got caught in the
hurricane and this is what they sent to my professor
about it. My professor did give me permission to
pass this on and these are personal friends of hers.
I guess this explains why people didn't leave the city
on foot...

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans,
the Walgreen's store at the corner of Royal and
Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display
case was clearly visible through the widows. It was
now 48 hours without electricity, running water,
plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning
to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and
managers had locked up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.

We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days
ago and arrived home yesterday (Saturday). We have yet
to see any of the TV coverage or look at a newspaper.
We are willing to guess that there were no video
images or front-page pictures of European or affluent
white tourists looting the Walgreen's in the French
Quarter.

We also suspect the media will have been inundated
with "hero" images of the National Guard, the troops
and the police struggling to help the "victims" of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.

Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had
not heard from members of their families, yet they
stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the
20% of New Orleans that was not under water.

On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in
the hotels in the French Quarter. We were a mix of
foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves,
and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and
shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone
contact with family and friends outside of New
Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of
resources including the National Guard and scores of
buses were pouring in to the City. The buses and the
other resources must have been invisible because none
of us had seen them.

We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our
money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come
and take us out of the City. Those who did not have
the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by
those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours
for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing
outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes
we had. We created a priority boarding area for the
sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into
the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The
buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute
the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered
by the military.

By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water.
Sanitation was dangerously abysmal. As the desperation
and despair increased, street crime as well as water
levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and
locked their doors, telling us that the "officials"
told us to report to the convention center to wait for
more buses. As we entered the center of the City, we
finally encountered the National Guard.
The Guards told us we would not be allowed into the
Superdome as the City's primary shelter had descended
into a humanitarian and health hellhole. The guards
further told us that the City's only other shelter,
the Convention Center, was also descending into chaos
and squalor and that the police were not allowing
anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, "If we
can't go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was
our alternative?" The guards told us that that was our
problem, and no they did not have extra water to give
to us. This would be the start of our numerous
encounters with callous and hostile "law enforcement".

We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on
Canal Street and were told the same thing, that we
were on our own, and no they did not have water to
give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a
mass meeting to decide a course of action. We agreed
to camp outside the police command post. We would be
plainly visible to the media and would constitute a
highly visible embarrassment to the City officials.
The police told us that we could not stay. Regardless,
we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order,
the police commander came across the street to address
our group. He told us he had a solution: we should
walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the
greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses
lined up to take us out of the City. The crowed
cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation and wrong information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you that the buses are there."

We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for
the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we
marched pasted the convention center, many locals saw
our determined and optimistic group and asked where we
were headed. We told them about the great news.
Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and
quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again.
Babies in strollers now joined us, people using
crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others people
in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the
freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now
began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our
enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs
formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we
were close enough to speak, they began firing their
weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in
various directions. As the crowd scattered and
dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to
engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told
them of our conversation with the police commander and
of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed
us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied
to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek
shelter from the rain under an overpass. We debated
our options and in the end decided to build an
encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain
Expressway on the center divide, between the O'Keefe
and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be
visible to everyone, we would have some security being
on an elevated freeway and we could wait and watch for
the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and
groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt
to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some
chased away with gunfire, others simply told no,
others to be verbally berated and humiliated.
Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and
prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot.
Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further
into squalor and disrepair. The only way across the
bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks,
buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could
be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to
escape the misery New Orleans had become.

Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole
a water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's
hear it for looting! A mile or so down the freeway, an
army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a
tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in
shopping carts. Now secure with the two necessities,
food and water; cooperation, community, and creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).

This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath
of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find
food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only.
You had to do whatever it took to find water for your
kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs
were met, people began to look out for each other,
working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the City
with food and water in the first 2 or 3 days, the
desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would
not have set in.

Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water
to passing families and individuals. Many decided to
stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90
people.

From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned
that the media was talking about us. Up in full view
on the freeway, every relief and news organizations
saw us on their way into the City. Officials were
being asked what they were going to do about all those
families living up on the freeway? The officials
responded they were going to take care of us. Some of
us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an
ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the
sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a
Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol
vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get
off the ******* freeway". A helicopter arrived and
used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the
freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared
threatened when we congregated or congealed into
groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of
"victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in
numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible
because the agencies would force us into small
atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and
destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small
group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day,
made contact with New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.

We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift
had begun. The airport had become another Superdome.
We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as flights
were delayed for several hours while George Bush
landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After
being evacuated on a coast guard cargo plane, we
arrived in San Antonio, Texas.

There the humiliation and dehumanization of the
official relief effort continued. We were placed on
buses and driven to a large field where we were forced
to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not
have air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us
were forced to share two filthy overflowing
porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with
any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered
plastic bags) we were subjected to two different
dog-sniffing searches.

Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations
had been confiscated at the airport because the
rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no food had
been provided to the men, women, children, elderly,
disabled as they sat for hours waiting to be
"medically screened" to make sure we were not carrying
any communicable diseases.

This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the
warm, heart-felt reception given to us by the ordinary
Texans. We saw one airline worker give her shoes to
someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street
offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist. There was more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost. "
Thomas Savino Edit (Moderator) Link removed

hey we got unlocked here

I see that after this thread was locked, my response was deleted. Calling in your conservative moderator buddies, Tico? That won't discourage me. Your beliefs are a matter of complete indifference to me. I don't use blogs, i don't use op-eds, i don't regurgitate anyone else's opinions. I have my own reasons to criticize the Shrub, and i do so. What you think on the subject is irrelevant.



You wrote: "Do you Blame bush for the hurricane, or don't you?" Whether or not you like it (and i've no doubt you don't like being contradicted), i've the right to comment on anything posted here. So i pointed out that you can't accuse anyone here of claiming that the Shrub is responsible for the storms. As one can see above, you acknowledge that you cannot. Your comments about what i do or do not know are just more personal vituperation, something in which you always indulge when people don't roll over and play dead in response to your attempt at rebuttal.



There is no long-lasting, bitter resentment which i cherish toward you, which is the meaning of rancor. On the contrary, i find you often hilarious, indulging in personal invective and diversionary discussions of semantics and writing rather than the topic at hand. You are often an endless source of comic relief, such as with purple prose like "blackened heart." And it certainly is not an exercise in attempting to take a high road to stand at street level and observe your residence in the gutter.

Tikimayo, The amount of people smart enough to see what Bush is is far larger then a "team".It's more like say.......an international league?

The Bush supporters'? Now they don't even make up a team anymore. It seems their members came to their senses and ran away.Only those not to sharp stayed behind. Now they make a kind of pathetic side show act."Step right up and see the bush supporters'.See amazing feats of denial.See them cheer and defend the most incompetent leader in history as he destroys there own country."

The 'Bush supporters' side show act.It's a site to see.(and to think they were once big & proud

McTag, that is a stunning report. It fills in some of my fears with personal description.




The link seems to be an ad for website hosting though.

Amazing report, McTag. I don't want to be over-credulous -- who knows if it's true or not. I bet there will be a lot more of those, though, and a picture will start to emerge.

Great story Mctag. Thanks

I don't want to be over-credulous either, but it read true..

It did.

corroboration:
http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/2748

This is going to be a sh*t-fit once the media gets a hold of it....

Cycloptichorn

Thanks, Cycloptichorn.

Already in the Chronicle, Chip Johnson's column (link in the link you had, Cycloptichorn..) and other places. Johnson's article explains a little more, re the situation in Gretna.

I usually post links that interest me from the LA Downtown News site on to my lonnnng land use thread, but in this case, I think it fits here. Maybe I'll post the link in both places.
Anyway - Sam Hall Kaplan on Tears for New Orleans
http://www.downtownnews.com/articles/2005/09/12/news/opinion/edit01.txt