Go to Making Light's front page.
Forward to next post: Welcome, Jon Carroll readers
Subscribe (via RSS) to this post's comment thread. (What does this mean? Here's a quick introduction.)
Warning: I’m about to link to a page that has a little “sfsocialists” logo in the upper left corner. If that makes you twitch, skip this post. You’ll be doing yourself a disservice, though. The piece is descriptive. What the authors are writing about is what happened to them during the time they were stuck in the city after the storm passed.
The authors, Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, were attending a paramedics’ conference in New Orleans, staying in the French Quarter, when the hurricane hit. Afterward, they were in the same situation as other survivors in the city: no food, no water, no transportation, and no help from the outside world:
If Bradshaw and Slonsky are socialists, of course they were excited, hopeful, determined, and optimistic, with undampened enthusiasm: they were taking part in an honest-to-god self-organizing people’s march in search of peace, freedom, and better treatment for all. Once in a while, situations do arise where the trad socialists are the ones who understand what’s going on.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 into 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 newborn babies. We waited late into the night for the “imminent” arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute they arrived at 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 been 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 two 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.
Don’t give me any knee-jerk reactions. I’m a centrist, not a socialist, and I know perfectly well that that translation is correct. I could drag in a half-dozen translators, of diverse political leanings, and they’d tell you the same thing. Gretna law enforcement panicked at the prospect of letting some half-starved shell-shocked hurricane survivors, grannies and little kids and all, come limping on foot through their area. May they be ashamed of themselves forever.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 six-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.
Until I read this story, it had never once occurred to me that law enforcement might be keeping people from leaving the city on foot. That’s mainly how New York City evacuates when we have a disaster. If you’re prudent, you keep a pair of comfortable walking shoes at the office where you work.* It may take you hours to reach home, or a place with working transit, or just an area that’s less affected by the disaster, but you’ll eventually get there.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.
Walking out lightens the load on services in the city core. It frees up resources that can be better spent evacuating people who are injured, elderly, frail, or disabled, or who commute long distances by rail. It means everything doesn’t have to go into and out of one small central area. In the case of New Orleans, it would move people who need relief out of the worst-flooded areas, which could only make things easier for everyone.
Why should people be prohibited from leaving New Orleans on foot, but the same people be allowed to leave if they’re in cars and trucks? We already knew the people stuck in the city didn’t have cars. That’s why they’re stuck there.
Corroboration: the story of three intrepid Duke University students who cobbled together enough fake ID to pass for journalists, then made two trips ferrying survivors to LSU and Baton Rouge. They got a look at the situation in the Superdome, and the arbitrariness of the situation:
More corroboration: this segment, from (of all places) Sean Hannity & Alan Colmes’ show on Fox News, with Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith reporting from the NOLA convention center and the encampment on I-10. Shepard Smith reported that there were thousands of people still stuck on freeways and bridges, with no food or water, ignored there for days. Back in the studio, O’Reilly said that what they needed was a strong leader like Rudy Giuliani. Smith shot back that what they needed “on the first day was food and water and what they needed on the second day was food and water and what they needed on the third day was food and water.”“We found it absolutely incredible that the authorities had no way to get there for four or five days, that they didn’t go in and help these people, and we made it in a two-wheel-drive Hyundai,” said Hans Buder, who made the trip with his roommate Byrd and another student, David Hankla. …
“Anyone who knows that area, if you had a bus, it would take you no more than 20 minutes to drive in with a bus and get these people out,” Buder said. “They sat there for four or five days with no food, no water, babies getting raped in the bathrooms, there were murders, nobody was doing anything for these people. And we just drove right in, really disgraceful. I don’t want to get too fired up with the rhetoric, but some blame needs to be placed somewhere.”
Geraldo tried to describe the inhuman conditions at the shelter, then broke down and cried as he begged the authorities to let people still stuck in the convention center walk out of town. Shepard Smith confirmed that the authorities had set up checkpoints, and were turning back people who tried to leave. When Sean Hannity said Smith and Rivera needed to get some perspective, Smith yelled “This is the perspective!”
See also the comments on this at Digby and TalkLeft.
FEMA’s contemptible excuse for not letting the Red Cross into New Orleans was that if they alleviated the suffering there, people might be disinclined to leave. As every report from the city attests, the people in New Orleans are desperate to get out. And how does FEMA’s excuse fit in with law enforcement’s refusal to let the citizenry leave the city? Furthermore, what reason can there be for keeping obviously harmless people from walking along public roads in order to get out of a dangerously unlivable situation and into safer areas where the civil authorities could give them assistance and get them into shelters?
We return now to Bradford and Slonsky and the rest of their group, huddled in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway between the O’Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits, where they’re organizing a cooperative:
Emphasis mine. They’re right. People in stressful emergency situations tend to cooperate rather than panic. It takes a terminal weenie like Jonah Goldberg to come up with masturbatory post-holocaust fantasies about the imminent breakdown of civilization. (I’ve met his type in the consuite. They tend to own lots of knives, talk big about how dangerous society has become, not know their neighbors, and never have gotten into so much as a streetcorner shoving-match, much less a fight.) What Goldberg is actually demonstrating is that he’s never dealt with real human beings during real civil emergencies.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 cleanup 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.
It takes very little to turn people into part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. You practically have to work at it to get them to do anything else. But if you make them feel like they’ve been abandoned and are on their own, they’ll do whatever they can to ensure that they and their loved ones survive. You’d do the same.
We return once again to Bradshaw and Slonsky in the freeway-median cooperative:
Let’s rehearse the situation: There are no available shelters in New Orleans. Poor pedestrians aren’t being allowed to leave the city. Since they’re stuck in the city, the freeway cooperative people are taking care of each other and organizing the provision of food, water, sanitation, and other basic needs. Nobody is using their chunk of freeway. What possible reason can there be for destroying their encampment and scattering its inhabitants?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 fucking 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.
As a bonus question, what legitimate use could the sheriff have for water and C-rations, other than to put them into the hands of refugees?
It would appear that sick, starved, homeless, and weary though they were the refugees were nevertheless so frightening to law enforcement that they had to hide from the very people who should have been helping and protecting them.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 eight 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.
Tell me again who’s been firing off all those shots that’ve been reported in New Orleans?
Bradshaw and Slonsky’s adventures weren’t over, but they were eventually airlifted out by an urban search-and-rescue team. Given how much search-and-rescue work remains to be done, one wonders why Bradshaw and Slonsky couldn’t be allowed to walk out of the city under their own power, and let the pros concentrate on rescuing less resourceful survivors.
Official priorities didn’t improve once they were out of the city:
Any lingering suspicions that Bradshaw and Slonsky’s account was an exercise in ideology should dispelled by the brevity and austerity of their conclusion:Those who managed to make it out with any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) 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 for the men, women, children, elderly, and 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, heartfelt 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.
I'm not sure that Bradshaw and Slonsky are socialists; I think their account was just posted at the sfsocialists site by someone who'd assembled it from a series of craigslist forum posts. Their account is also available at EMSNetwork.org without the socialist logo.
I'd hate for this story to be found to be falsified. I also hate the idea that it's true, because of what it says about my fellow humans.
Sadly, I know enough history to bet on my fellow humans as being capable of far worse than what was described in the post.
Anyhow, This would seem to be the original posting.
I think the ur-source is socialistworker.org to which the two of them also contributed this Nov. 4 2004 article.
Heh. I knew I should have used my full name.
But, yeah. The possibility that it's true makes me ill, and I hate that conditions are such that I'm inclined to believe it. What the hell is going on?
It's easy for me to believe that it's true, and you don't even have to believe that all of the authorities in New Orleans are engaged in a coordinated effort to increase the misery of people who are already miserable.
Believing that this is true "only" requires you to believe that the people who are supposed to be providing help and order are completely uncoordinated, that those nominally in charge don't care one way or the other what happens to the people in the city, and that each local cluster of officials is thinking of nothing more than its own local convenience.
I doubt if anyone set out to create the nightmare where each place the refugees went, they were told that they had to be somewhere else. It's the sort of pattern that emerges from selfishness and the absence of leadership.
I actually saw the Hannity & Colmes bit with Shep and Geraldo. They were in fact very vocal about the people under the underpass.
Thank you, Tom. I was a little worried when I read Josh Larios' first post. It hadn't occurred to me that they might not be socialists, because that's what they sounded like.
I regret to tell you that so far all the stories I've seen from the same time and place -- I've added a major one since I put the post up -- corroborate Bradshaw and Slonsky's account.
I had wondered if they were attending the paramedics' convention. Tom's additional link answered that question. What that tells us is that when Bradshaw and Slonsky say conditions were intolerable, they're not just being squeamish. Paramedics get the squeam knocked out of them during their first week or two on the job.
I think I'm going to keep the link to the socialist-flagged version of the story.
I can confirm part of it. Four EMS personnel from Hawai'i were also attending that conference, and they managed to report to their management people out here. We got TV news every night for four nights about the bus being commandeered and the cops being less than helpful (understatement? Don't know. When they get back here they may have more to say). Last I heard they were in Dallas.
Television news articles here.
I'd misread part of the thread on the craiglist forums, leading me to believe that the version at sfsocialists was assembled from the craigslist posts--I see now that it wasn't. My mistake, sorry.
Either way, it's an astounding account. I'd seen the Geraldo Rivera/Shep Smith clip before, but the full import of what they said didn't really sink in until I read this piece. Every time I think I can't be any more disheartened by the massive ineptitude/malice on the part of the authorities down there, I'm proven wrong.
Another dab of corroboration from the Health Care Blog.
This goes beyond appalling to "complete abrogation of the social contract between governors and governed".
What I find particularly disturbing is the implication that has been coming through these sorts of story that the crisis in New Orleans did not cause that abrogation, but merely stripped back layers which were hiding the constituent elements of that breakdown -- the contempt and selfish hostility which the police and other authority figures showed towards those whom they ought to have been protecting and serving.
The gross incompetence at the very top is in some ways less disturbing, because its very quality of deer-in-the-headlights paralysis suggests an incapacity which is a breakdown in the ability of part of the system to operate, rather than a complete abnegation and renunciation of the values of the system itself. Whether the administration has good or bad intentions now seems to be irrelevant, because it seems to be incapable of doing anything effective. The forces on the ground had power and were, simply and deliberately, misusing it.
Now, now, we must always be on guard against moral hazard. Feed, clothe, and house a man and he will want the same or better tomorrow; teach him that he's not going to get food, clothing, or shelter, and before long he won't complain at all.
I used to love to read apocalyptic science fiction and daydream about what I would do if civilization ended. I have to say that most fictional accounts seem not to be as vicious as reality.
but going back to survivor stories from New Orleans, has everyone seen Charmaine Neville's account of her experience? She is sister to the Neville brothers in New Orleans and quite a performer in her own right. She is, in my mind, a bona fide hero after all she did to keep a group of folks alive. Here is her account. Make sure you bring kleenex.
http://www.wafb.com/Global/SearchResults.asp?qu=charmaine+neville&x=13&y=10
Looks like the entire Gretna PD will be in line for one of Bush's Medals of Freedom. Probably on the stage alongside Brownie and Chertoff.
I don't know wheter to be pleased or horrified that this story seems to be credible.
Another first-person account has appeared here, this one from a French-Canadian tourist. (It's already been translated into English.)
What truly boggles me is not that these things happened, but that a large fraction of the American public seems to think they're perfectly fine. According to Gallup 35% of the public thinks the Federal government response has been "good" or "very good", and another 20% think it's been OK ("neither good nor bad," not "no opinion"). (State and local governments get 37% "good" or "very good.") What would it take to make these people believe the Federal government screwed up? Mass public executions on prime time TV?
Fuck.
FUCK.
I knew something was wrong the moment I saw the first sat photos. Why didn't they just walk across the bridge to dry land? It was *right there*. The highway runs right by the Superdome, and the Convention Center, and across the Mississippi.
Answer: The police departments decided that they were better dead. And their mayors must have agreed with them. They could have easily stopped this. They didn't even try. Hell, they probably gave the orders.
Fuck you, Ray Naglin. You could have gotten your people out, and you didn't even try. Just one little lean, and that bridge would have been open. But you wouldn't do it. Why, I neither know, no care. The only consolation you should have is that you'll only rate the third or fourth circle, while those bastards on the bridge are heading to the ninth. Unless you knew of those orders, in which case, they'll be digging a hole next to Old Scratch Himself, to shove your ass in next to Bush and Brown.
You saw this image. It's not hard to find. It's been on the net for a fucking week -- and you had helicopters and such flying about. There's no rational world in where you didn't know that they could walk out, other than those fucking cops at the far end.
TNH: Why should people be prohibited from leaving New Orleans...
For a week now, I've been wondering out loud if this business of herding poor people into a stadium to die was deliberately modeled on Justinian and the Nika riots.
From today's NY Times:
[Pelosi] related that she urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Brown.
''He said, 'Why would I do that?''' Pelosi said.
''I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.'
And he said 'What didn't go right?' ''
Erik, I'm stunned. I've been assuming all along that anyone who hadn't walked out had a good reason for not doing so.
You know, New Yorkers, we've got it down to a routine. Last evacuation -- that was the blackout -- we had the Brooklyn Beep standing at the end of the Manhattan Bridge with a megaphone, yelling about how everything's okay now, you're in Brooklyn, greatest place in the world. He knew half the borough (okay, not half, but lots) would be walking past that point. It's fast, it's easy, it's remarkably effective.
What bloody right did the Gretna police force have to keep people from walking across that bridge? And why didn't other agencies tell them to knock it off?
I keep hearing people blaming these things - and the internment camp in Oklahoma - on "bureocracy", "centralized governament" and such.
I have a better explanation.
It's racism.
Not neccessarily skin-color racism, but it seems to me that the prime mover in a lot of these things is "we don't want Those People" around here. They loot, they rape, We Know What Their Kind Do.
That's why the good people in Baton Rouge at one point didn't want to accomodate their next-door neighbour.
That's why the grocery store owner in the city selected to host the New Orleans morgue said "Oh well better that than a refugee camp."
What struck me in the story about the Oklahoma camp was how much these people - people that were, until last week, free adult citizens with jobs and houses and lives of their own - have become to be considered too stupid or too emotional to be trusted with a kitchen fire.
It is "kinda scary", isn't it?
I found that story earlier today. Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky are also union leaders for the SEIUC (probably sic, but) in SF. You can find older hits for them on the Web. This story has been propagated all over the place.
I believed the story because it filled in a bunch of dots for me, particularly the bit about people showing up at the convention center and on the highways. I also wondered why people just didn't walk over the bridges, the way that they did after 9/11 in NYC, and this story made it clear why.
Complete optimist that I am, I'm going to suggest once again writing to your Congressmen and Senators, requesting articles of impeachment against Bush.
Or, at least getting him declared an enemy combatant.
JDM - Writing my congressman to demand articles of impeachment won't be terribly effective - he's on the short list of most liberal and therefore somewhat marginalized. BUT, I will write him about demanding an effective investigation into not only FEMA's immediate (lack of) reaction, but also into what seems to be happening right now.
For whatever good that might do.
Further proof that assuming everyone is True Evil alignment backfires mightly. All you do is piss off the majority that is Lawful Neutral and annoy the shit out of the True Goods.
Why, yes, I have developed an entire theory of human behavior based on the D&D alignment system.
Now, now, we must always be on guard against moral hazard. Feed, clothe, and house a man and he will want the same or better tomorrow; teach him that he's not going to get food, clothing, or shelter, and before long he won't complain at all.
That was what the Chennault's Flying Tigers ran into in China when they ran out of fuel or something like that, the attitude of the local culture was that someone who rescued someone else, was forever after responsible for that person. Not coming to the rescue of strangers and letting them die, in that particular culture, was the culturally approved action to take.
I read this story yesterday. Shocking but not surprising, like much of what's happened/happening. I haven't been sleeping too soundly the last few nights. I don't think we've had a serious discussion of original sin yet, though I have seen at least one elsewhere.
The Senate & House have announced that they will hold a "joint, bipartisan" investigation into the Federal response to Katrina.
This thread made me get out my ancient Methodist Hymnal and flip to the prayers of confession in the back (translated into more recent form):
"... We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Your holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ourght not to have done. But You, o Lord, have mercy upon us. Spare those, o God, who confess their faults. ..."
Right now, it looks to me like the only parts of government that are actually reasonbly unblameable are the Coast Guard and possibly the Army Corps of Engineers. Which is truly appalling. The worst part of it may be that the ones who caused the harm, by their actions or inactions, think they haven't done anything to be ashamed of; hence no confession of fault. (I suspect the NOLA police who suicided did know, and couldn't live with it.)
In case of irony, break glass
September is emergency preparedness month
You may now remove your fist from the monitor.
Anna: I have a better explanation.
It's racism.
Not necessarily skin-color racism, but it seems to me that the prime mover in a lot of these things is "we don't want Those People" around here. They loot, they rape, We Know What Their Kind Do.
Back in the old days when SF fans thought we were better than everybody else, fans called it "xenophobia," and we thought it was a sin.
You read this, and you begin to wonder about some of the claims made by the supposed leadership. You hear about these vile actions, and you wonder if a Mayor and a Sheriff would want FEMA to cut their phonelines so they could say they didn't know.
Yes, I know, not the same place, but what has happened in Jefferson Parish that we haven't heard of?
Is there anyone in a position of authority in New Orleans that we can trust?
When I read this yesterday at Andrew Sullivan's, I've wondered why the SF Chronicle, that ran a story about these two coming home almost a week ago, with brief quotes, never really explored. After all, newspapers usually love anecdotical accounts of catastrophes. Obviously, this one was too much, even for the SF Chronicle.
Also, I remember reading a story by a New Orleans'writer that corroborates the part of the buses, down to the sums: 25.000$ for the buses, 45$ per ticket. Unfortunately, I don't remember his name, I just remember he hunkered down at home in the French Quarter with some friends until they thought it was too much (one of his neighbors had to have a dialysis and needed medical attention) and they joined the crowd for the buses in the hotel. These local people eventually got away very quickly in a bus driven by a resourceful guy (bus looter?). It was all very well written, in a light tone (the underlying message was, don't write off NO yet), probably in the NY Times.
Of course, this does not corroborate the rest of the story, but it is a good indication that it is true, I think.
Anna, do you have a pointer to information on the Oklahoma camp? I hadn't heard about one and am not finding anything that looks relevant.
Todd, I dunno if this is what Anna meant, but http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/fema.html is an interesting take on camps in Oklahoma....
Isabel, if you've remembered the timing right there's something that needs some checking. Count the days and see if they add up.
But I've noticed that I'm losing track of the days on this; is it really Thursday already? Again?
I think we'd all appreciate a link to any SF Chronicle report.
Police and militia attacking citizens? Defended by the leaders of our national government and the leaders one of our major parties? This is fascism--the thing itself, not a tendency or a pale copy. May its reign be short.
Anyone care to argue that I'm being alarmist?
Good thing you made me check, Dave Bell. Memory does play tricks on you. The Chronicle article refers some paramedics in a convention in New Orleans, but not the same ones:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/04/BAG6TEIBDF1.DTL&hw=paramedics+orleans&sn=002&sc=846
And after my post I thought that, of course, the fact that some details were published a couple of days ago (like the prices of the buses) were not a proof (maybe au contraire). Anyway, I'll try to find that article, that was interesting, although it might be difficult.
I apologize for relying on my memory and relaying false information.
And he [Bush] said 'What didn't go right?' ''
Sorry to nitpick, but that's a slight misquote. What he actually said was "We are quite safe here from your pitiful little band. Everything which has happened has done so according to my design."
Seriously: leave, now. I was being generous and saying things like "Well, it's just a disorganised response to what is after all a really big disaster. It's chaos, but would any other country do better?"
Then you start hearing about people cutting phone lines. And now this. If it's true - and I almost hope it isn't - this is very bad indeed.
(Incidentally: It hadn't occurred to me that they might not be socialists, because that's what they sounded like - they don't sound like socialists to me; just decent human beings. Two sets which overlap, but not completely.)
If I were living in the US, I would leave.
I I were a US citizen, I would still leave. I know there's the whole "No! Don't desert your country! Stay and make it better!" argument, but I think it's gone beyond that point. Life's better outside and you can get more done.
Think Huguenot.
Todd: I think the link floated in the comments somewhere, but yes, that's the story I meant. Link: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread167902/pg1
"If I were living in the US, I would leave."
And go where, Ajay?
I can see why the red clenched fist logo might put people off. The funny thing is that it's some evidence that the story is true. The International Socialists come from a tradition that is very strong on not making shit up in matters of fact and reportage. The authors have responsible jobs and union positions. I doubt they would risk all that by making shit up.
On the Today Show this morning, Haley Barbour, former chair of the Republican party, when asked about the early federa response to Katrina, said, "I don't know about New Orleans, but here in Mississippi..." and then went on to praise how well everything went in Mississippi. Given that Barbour is a Republican and that Mississippi doesn't have a large, denely populated area like New Orleans, that indicates a huge, unacknowledged problem.
Hurricane relief in Louisiana is still quite screwed up - this story was front page news on the Post Gazette today:
Frustration, Boredom for Pensylvania Troops on the Gulf
With all the work that needs to happen in the Gulf it's amazing that these folks don't seem to have a job yet...
Randolph Fritz said: And go where, Ajay?
Come to the Isle of Man! Our government is so small that corruption is of the pettiest kind. Plus we have no army so we won't feel let down if there's a disaster and the army doesn't turn up to help. And, even better, almost all the important stuff (power stations, hospitals, supermarkets, government offices, people) is on the coast so the whole country would effectively be destroyed if there was a flood. And, even better than that, being an island we don't even have the choice of evacuating on foot.
I've been thinking, ever since Katrina, how I'm kind of glad to have such limited options of survival over here. I'd rather face a storm, flood, tornado, hurricane, etc on my own than see my government and emergency services failing to do the human thing.
And go where, Ajay?
I'd say Scotland (we need the people), but I'm biased. Ireland. Australia. England. Wales. New Zealand. Hong Kong. Canada. France. Germany. Spain. Czech Republic. Sweden. Denmark. South Africa.
And yes, I know, most people don't have the option of leaving - jobs that require you to be in one place or another, families, schools, or just lack of money - and that's bad for them. But if you can leave, do. This sort of thing is really getting worrying.
Or come to Holland. Most of my country may be below sea level, but after the flood disaster of 1953, we've implemented the Delta Works and now everything is (reportedly) up to speed for conditions that occur once every 10.000 years. As opposed to once every 50 years, as I heard knowledgeable guy from Rijkswaterstaat (our Army Corps of Engineers) say about New Orleans, where he'd been for talks with his USA colleagues. 'Well, they do things differently over there,' he said.
Now if we can only keep the neo-con agenda out of the country, all will be fine. I hope. I expect.
"Once in a while, situations do arise where the trad socialists are the ones who understand whats going on."
Socialists! My God, why don't you just link to the NAMBLA site and get it over with!
Seriously, have we come so far in this country that you have warn readers that they might be encountering a political belief system to the left of Bill Clinton? But then, I'm a union member, so what do I know?... :)
I'm not sure I believe that Oklahoma story. I'm not saying that it can't be true, but it's coming out of some flaky places. Also, whenever the administration screws up really, really badly, Rove's favorite technique is to float a false story that's similar to the true one, and let them be discredited together.
I keep thinking about the bridge thing. It's as though, during a crisis, the local police in Fort Lee, Weehawken, Jersey City, Bayonne, Elizabeth, and Perth Amboy, or in Brooklyn and Queens, had decided all on their own that they didn't want pedestrians from Manhattan crossing over into their area.
It's just wrong. They don't own the bridges. And even if they did try it, they couldn't make it stick for more than a few hours, because local police don't make those kinds of policy decisions.
So here's my question: All kinds of government and law enforcement agencies were operating in the New Orleans area. How come not a single one of them told the Gretna police to stop blocking the bridge?
Ken, I didn't know that socialists had that tradition -- and good on them if they do -- but I'd noticed as of a couple of elections ago that their news reporting can be very solid.
Luthe, you need to meet Greg London. He self-identifies as Lawful Good.
That the bridges were closed to people on foot was in the Montreal Gazette, not known as a socialist organ, nor a hysterical one, on Saturday.
I'm afraid we're seeing corroboration all over the place. Looks like this story's true.
I've been assuming all along that anyone who hadn't walked out had a good reason for not doing so.
They did. It was called "Not being shot by police." This doubled when the order to concentrate on "looters" and the force authorizations went out. Now, all they needed to do was state that you were looting, and hell, you'd be just one more body on the ground, and the "looters" probably shot you anyway.
And the big blame game is "City, State or Feds?" Bullshit. They all fucked up badly, but I'm starting to feel while the fucked up federal response was merely mid-level "We don't want to spend money, besides, we've got cronies to seat", the city evil was "Do not let those people out."
If you're talking information warfare, or black propaganda, faking incompetent enemy propaganda is part of the history.
But when it looks as if one part of the local government system is out of control, look carefully at what the people supposed to be in control are saying. It's a different suburb of New Orleans which had FEMA cutting phone lines, but there are also stories of deliberate radio jamming.
Just who is trying to hide what?
It's sing along time, kids. Sing with me now!
"When in the course of human events..."
Sung to the tune of Greensleves.
Given that the story is true, and hypothesizing that situation underlying it--armed cops keeping displaced citizens from crossing the bridge--was known to him, consider Ray Nagin's dilemma.
A gun battle between my cops and the Gretna cops would be an absolutely perfect reason to federalize the situation, bring in the armed forces, and turn the place into a wasteland.
Oh, wait.
Okay, the place is already a wasteland, but there were still survivors of it, and witnesses to it.
I remember seeing that the bridge had been closed to peds, although I seem to remember it being described as unsafe for peds. Unsafe is such a nice, neutral, all for the best sort of word. Its use suggested that the bridge had sustained structural damage or something, not that there was a police force that would be hard to distinguish from a KKK chapter occupying the far end of the bridge and shooting at refugees.
I'm not shocked that the 'burbs of NOLA contain raving racist scum willing to murder people to keep their fantasies of black people from entering their town (nor that those people are the police), but I'm a little surprised that no one in the major news outlets thought this was worth mentioning, particularly given how much time they were spending talking about the horrific conditions of the convention center. Perhaps it would have been worth mentioning, "And these people could just walk out of NO, if there weren't an army of racist cops blocking the only route out of this drowned city."
But I guess not.
I wouldn't put a stamp of reliability on socialist reporting in general, for reasons too notorious to mention, but the ISO is a US splinter (don't ask) of a group whose British newspaper, Socialist Worker, has been the training ground of such journalists of repute as Paul Foot, John Palmer, and Eamon McCann. (McCann started off his journalistic career by sending Socialist Worker reports scribbled in pencil from the front lines in Derry, 1969.)
Speaking of socialists, I would be interested to know what folks better placed than me to judge make of this analysis on the World Socialist Web Site.
Anyway ... we now have an answer to 'Why didn't people just walk out?'
What would it take to make these people believe the Federal government screwed up? Mass public executions on prime time TV?
Depending on how the media spun this scene, you might end up with a 60-70% aproval rating.
I'd love to write my congresscritter demanding articles of Impeachment against Bush but alas, I live in Georgia. Every time I write my reps, I get a form letter back that is the verbal equivilent of the orgy scene from Caligula. Guess who plays Caligula.
"You forgot Holland!"
Sorry, Marrije. I have nothing against Holland as a destination (it's every bit as good as the others I suggested and better than some of them). I'm just thinking that it might make the Amis rather nervous to be behind dykes again; but, then, the Czech Republic and Germany have had massive floods as well; in '97 a third of the Czech Republic was under water.
Erik: no, the mayor will be in Caina, the first zone of the ninth circle of hell, which is reserved for traitors to city or state. Fittingly, while his victims were immersed in water, he will be immured in ice.
FYI, FEMA is still keeping volunteer first responders out of New Orleans --- and lest anyone think that's not policy, it's being justified right from the top, by our friend Michael Brown. The Huffington Post has the key quote from this LA Times article right at the top as I write:
"They can't just yet," Brown said during a briefing in Baton Rouge. "There is going to come this natural time when we will release this floodgate of cops and firefighters who want to help. It's the same for anyone who wants to volunteer we have over 50,000 offers of donations from the private sector. It has to be coordinated in such a way that it helps."
As to the "Oklahoma story", if it's the same one I've seen here, it's worth noting some, shall we say, points of resonance between it and the coverage in local media here of where the Massachusetts state government was planning to put the 2500 evacuees that it was expecting (though the Globe headline yesterday said tht was on hold, as the evacuees are objecting to being warehoused in states where they don't know anybody).
Briefly, the plan was to put the people in the barracks of a National Guard base out on Cape Cod. They would have been four to a room, in two bunk beds; not a whole lot of privacy, nor many amenities. On the one hand, the local government here was arranging for shuttle buses to shopping in Falmouth and off-base schooling for the kids --- which is rather different from the Oklahoma story. But on the other hand, for all the talk about the base's swimming pool and nine-hole golf course, the sheer crowding would have made basic living conditions for the people stuck there, perforce, pretty bleak.
Put an operation like that in the hands of local cops whose attitude is what we saw in New Orleans itself, and what you get is, well... the Oklahoma story.
(Cites: here and here on the Cape Cod story, for those with an interest).
BTW, another story we're hearing a lot about is of families that got split up because the helicopter pilots promised to come back for the rest, and didn't. Well, here's one reason that didn't happen: two of those helicopter pilots were acting on their own initiative, and got reprimanded for it. (via King of Zembla).
adamsj,
as far as an armed battle between New Orleans and Gretna police drawing in the feds, it appears that part of the reason for the delay was that the Bush Administration was trying to force the state of Louisiana to give up total sovereignty as a condition for assistance. A friend sent me the following on it:
"It now seems to be coming out that at least part of the delay in getting out-of-state national guard and regular army in to New Orleans was caused by some as yet unreported on legal wrangling between the White House and Louisiana Democratic governor. One poster on DailyKos says
>And maybe someone will ask what the "two options" were that Bush offered Blanco the day he flew in and before he gave the go ahead to let rescuers in. "Two options" that were evidently so "loaded" that she responded she had to have time to think them over.
What were the options? Let the Fed's use the "Insurrection Act" to bring in the military, instead of FEMA operating under the local authorities in conjunction with the NG?
There was a stall while political arm twisting went on.. I betcha, I betcha . . . It [the Insurrection Act] also allows the president to use federal troops to enforce federal laws when rebellion against the authority of the U.S. makes it impracticable to enforce the laws of the U.S. There is reason to believe that President Bush, running out of patience with Blanco by Saturday morning, used the only option that remained to him. It is being reported that Bush went around Blanco and utilized the Insurrection Act to federalize the National Guard and send in active military troops to take over the rescue and put down the lawlessness that had taken over New Orleans. The forces that Bush had poised to move into the city, swung into action.
the rest of my friend's information:
"...Is it really possible that the President of the United States has become the first modern president declare a "rebellion against federal authority" and no one knows about it? Or could it be that the Governor of Louisiana has been the first governor ever forced to declare an "insurrection" and we don't know about that? Both seem very unlikely to me and so I assume that the out-of-state national guard and federal active duty troops that are finally helping in New Orleans are doing so on the basis of the very same authority that they have in Mississippi: a disaster has been declared and FEMA has asked them to help.
In other words Bush used some sort of bogus legal opinion to try to bluff Blanco into declaring "insurrection" and she called his bluff believing that he would not have the balls to declare a "rebellion". Bush blinked and discovered in the end that neither of these were necessary. We need a full investigation to get to the bottom of this. If even a few hours, let alone days were wasted over such arguments clearly national security requires that the congress find out about the problem and solve it with clear new laws."
I hope we get a full, fair and impartial investigation of this by someone other than Bush and his cronies.
Ok, while we're on the subject of methods of contacting our senators and reps, who has any insight into what will actually be read/listened to/acted on?
Each time I send something in postal mail, I get a bulk reply (if I'm lucky). If I call, they tell me they'll just tally my name, if they answer the phones after putting you on hold. If I email, it generally never gets a reply.
Considering the resources of this group, someone must have a better insight into the best method to get your message across to your congress members?
I don't create the most publishable letters to the editor, but the Chron will definitely be getting mine.
The march in SF on the 24th is a definite for me now. I hate crowds, but my comfort isn't what the day should be about.
Tying together the folk song and Katrina threads, a bit of salient pardody:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/katallen/110898.html?#cutid1
Patrick points out to me that the Oklahoma story comes from a very iffy site of UFO conspiracists.
I don't know. I have a hard time disbelieving the Oklahoma story for a couple of reasons:
First, even a UFO nut can be in good faith.
Second, the whole setup is a whole lot like the typical refugee housing setup. And I use the word refugee advisedly. My friend in Dublin tells me for example that asylum seekers in Dublin are housed in apartments where they are forbidden to cook; they are issued some money, they can't of course work, and they have to eat out in Dublin.
When I went to Ellis Island what struck me was how immensely better the conditions were compared to what illegal immigrants who have the ill luck to be rounded up in Italy are subjected to.
All in all, although the Oklahoma story is not as well substatiated as the other, I had a much harder time believing that the police would shoot on evacuees than in beliving they would house them as described by the Oklahoma story. It still might turn out not to be true, of course. So far, everything I've heard from evacuees is good words for how they've been treated, especially in Texas.
Charles not-Dodgson: that bridge being blocked off was reported by none other than FOX News, in the now-famous "Shepard Smith and Geraldo shout down Sean Hannity" segment.
Also, the Oklahoma camp seems to have been closed down, for now.
A journalist for the St Louis Post-Dispatch has interviewed another guest of the Monteleone hotel whose story corroborates Bradshaw and Slonsky. The report can be found here.
Good post. Except for this:
FEMAs contemptible excuse for not letting the Red Cross into New Orleans was that if they alleviated the suffering there, people might be disinclined to leave.
It wasn't FEMA. That's the federal agency. It was the STATE homeland security department that requested that the Red Cross stay out. That's what the Red Cross's website says, anyway.
Then you start hearing about people cutting phone lines. And now this. If it's true - and I almost hope it isn't - this is very bad indeed.
This thread collided during the night with a couple of thoughts that have been in the back of my mind for a while:
(1) that there are people in government who really, truly believe that liberals and ACLU members are unAmerican and traitors; and
(2) that there are people (not necessarily the same ones) in government who are willing (and probably capable) of making people disappear (I have this picture in my mind of guys who show up, probably in the evening, and tell you that you've just 'won' a trip to Iraq/Afghanistan; you're leaving now and the movers will pack your stuff the next day).
The result of the collision was the really awful thought that the incompetence involved may lie in the stories getting out. There may actually be malice involved, but it isn't what we were thinking it was: these people really don't care about poor and minorities (they don't exist on any significant level of thought for "those who"); it's really a practice run for clearing out the liberals.
A wonderful thought to start my day with. Back up the links and stories, before they disappear.
Charles--thanks for posting that quote. I watched the briefing yesterday, but failed to take notes. His answer of "there has to be TEH PLAN" falls pretty damn short. People *died* waiting for TEH PLAN.
I do recall that Brown was also asked, "Are you worried about getting fired?" and "Will you be tendering your resignation?" His answer was "I serve at the pleasure of the President".
He was also asked, "Can you comment on why the Red Cross are being kept out of the city?" He sort of "um er well"d for a second, and then another official stepped between him and the microphones saying that "Mr. Brown won't be taking that question; we'll be getting you a better answer" from someone else, presumably from Homeland Security.
The briefing ended without that "better answer" ever materializing.
Jordin Kare September 07, 2005, 10:34 PM:
Clipped.
"According to Gallup 35% of the public thinks the Federal government response has been "good" or "very good", and another 20% think it's been OK"
Clipped.
"What would it take to make these people believe the Federal government screwed up? Mass public executions on prime time TV?"
I would like to note that most of what this story condemns is the local response, not the federal response. It does little good to conflate the two where blame is concerned. They have different responsibilities and different capabilities.
It's too bad there's no warranty on governments - this one's in need of an RMA.
The airlift to the Cape Cod National Guard base is also on hold; that may well be the case more generally.
Sigh. I'm always amazed at how people are so eager to gobble up all of the awful stories. Somehow the amazing stories of courage and endurance and sacrifice get lost. Not all police officers are fascist pigs out to kill and destroy all of the lower-class citizens. Some of us down here are busting our asses to help our fellow man--even after suffering losses of our own.
I know, that's not as fun to rant about.
The Senate & House have announced that they will hold a "joint, bipartisan" investigation into the Federal response to Katrina.
Yeah, the Republicans put out an announcement of a "bipartisan" investigation without even letting the Democrats read it first.
This story definitely makes me wish I believed in Hell. (Alas, I still don't in any theological sense. We just make our own hells for our fellow earthlings, right here.) Despite being something of a pacifist, I've also been harboring some "Bring on the guillotines!" emotions for years now. But I very much doubt we'll even get impeachment, or criminal condemnations on any level.
I also have some friends in Australia. But it's not just financial or family considerations that will lead me to stay here in the wretched US of A. Just as nature goes through cycles of disaster and recovery, society does too. And if the "good folks" all leave for the sake of their own souls, what's left? Much as I hate what's going on here, the country as a whole isn't a drowned city (or sinking Titanic) fit only to be abandoned now. As a cowardly, introverted wimp, I may not be able to do much for it (even protest marching scares me), but some day my anger and my votes may still do some good.
Foolish optimism? Well, I do have a back-up belief: If we human parasites become too much for Earth to take, it will "shrug us off" and life in some form will go on. Gaia or no Gaia, that's a likely result.
Getting off my high horse, one more evacuation note. Some refugees recently arrived in Phoenix (as shown on TV). It makes me wonder about the effects of a long-term diaspora on the people of New Orleans, scattered all over the place.
Anna said: My friend in Dublin tells me for example that asylum seekers in Dublin are housed in apartments where they are forbidden to cook; they are issued some money, they can't of course work, and they have to eat out in Dublin.
Just a slight correction: I am indeed in Dublin, but I was talking about asylum seekers in other parts of Ireland (I don't think there are any major accommodation centres in Dublin); and I think they get some kind of food delivered to them, so they don't have to eat out -- but they also can't choose what they eat (and I could make comments about standard Irish cuisine here, but I won't, and I'll mention standard Irish institutional cuisine instead).
(This of course changes nothing in the point that Anna was making -- if anything, the parallels are even closer: I just wanted to be precise.)
May they be ashamed of themselves forever.
World without end, amen.
But I think Ajay's wrong, and I choose to stay and fight. I just got here, and if a big chunk of America seems to have abandoned the America I came here to join, well, that's no reason for me to do so as well. Not just yet.
(And Ajay, don't include Australia in your list of destinations. That's where I came from. You think the US is a racist society, go live in Aus for a while. It's also homophobic, wilfully ignorant and generally bass-ackward as far as culture goes, and moving rapidly to the right politically. There are some wonderful people living there, and I'd have stayed there and fought if I hadn't had extra reasons to come here (married a 'merican), but Aus is no improvement on the US in any way. And the US has the advantage that what happens here matters, no one really gives a rat's what Australia does or says.)
When I first saw this story on Anna's blog before you guys ran it, I was very doubtful about its authenticity. Alas, it looks confirmed beyond doubt at this point. I still find it hard to believe that it was that easy to get a large group of unrelated individuals to behave in a unified fashion though. But I'm used to large crowds of sf fans ratther than 'normal' people. I'm going to go check on the OK internment story now and see if I think I still know anyone in OK who might confirm or disavow.
MKK
Ajay,
It's all very well to talk about leaving, but aside from the ideological objections to it (and the fact that anywhere you go will have its own problems, e.g. NPD (neo-Nazi) election gains in some German states), you have to be able to get a visa, which is often a difficult thing to do. I recently did a student stint in Scotland (graduated too early for the Fresh Talent thing to apply) and would have had to find a job specialized enough that I wouldn't have been outcompeted by local jobseekers (since they will and I believe have to prefer locals where possible), or chosen to go on for a PhD, which would have involved getting a scholarship that's quite hard to obtain, and wasn't what I wanted anyway. Or married someone, but that wasn't really in the cards.
All things considered, I prefer to stay here and keep trying.
It seems clear that this is going to be the federal (and in some places, state) response to climate disaster...and we are going to have more climate disasters.
Bad weather as an excuse for totalitarianism?
Louisiana wants 40,000 troops
FEMA defends response; Congress considers $10.5 billion bill
Thursday, September 1, 2005; Posted: 11:26 p.m. EDT (03:26 GMT)
Terri Jones, right, and others try to cool down fellow flood victim Dorothy Divic, 89, in New Orleans Thursday.
WATCH Browse/Search
How a 94-year-old survivor is not 'ill enough'
An update on the military response to the disaster (9:54)
RELATED
Gallery: Storm damage
FEMA
American Red Cross
E-mail us: Send us storm stories
Your e-mails
QUICKVOTE
How would you describe the response to Katrina's destruction?
As good as could be expected
Patchy
Too little, too slow
or View Results
SPECIAL REPORT
Interactive: Safety Tips
Gallery: Top 10 worst hurricanes
Flash: How hurricanes form
Gallery: Saffir-Simpson scale
Special ReportYOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Disaster Relief
or Create Your Own
Manage Alerts | What Is This? BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) -- Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said Thursday she has requested the mobilization of 40,000 National Guard troops to restore order and assist in relief efforts in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans
I'm not sure I believe that Oklahoma story. I'm not saying that it can't be true, but it's coming out of some flaky places. Also, whenever the administration screws up really, really badly, Rove's favorite technique is to float a false story that's similar to the true one, and let them be discredited together.
If you look at the original site, it's pretty believable; the pictures are a coherent set, the author isn't a driveby but a member of the site who sticks around for discussion afterwards, she's not assuming that they are there to be gassed or anything -- there's a later part in the thread where they debate if the movement restrictions are meant to be just temporary for quarantine purposes, whether maybe these are actually displaced prisoners and thus the extra security and paranoia, etc.
There is at least one poster in the thread that's kind of paranoid UFOish, but the majority are carrying out a perfectly logical discussion based on direct evidence, so I see no reason to disbelieve.
Okay. That Oklahoma report may have been on an iffy site, but I can confirm that the Baptists do have a camp called Falls Creek. I've never been there, but I knew people who did go. (We belonged to a Baptist church until I was about 15.) The pictures included with the article look genuine -- that's certainly how that part of the state looks. I did my undergraduate and graduate degrees both as OU which is south of OKC and I'm pretty familiar with the area. So there certainly was a very strong Highway Patrol presence at the camp.
As for the weird regulations. What it sounds like to me is bureaucracy in action. They've made one set of regulations about what will and won't be allowed based on the worst possible places, i.e., the Astrodome, and are applying them to ALL situations. And they're gawdawful fearful about liability.
The newspaper report which talked about the operation being put on hold is from the Pryor paper -- Pryor is a small town in northeastern Oklahoma probably about 4 hours drive from the camp area. Which seems odd. What seemed doubly odd is that the announcement of the hold was made by a major in the OK Highway Patrol. Why would they be using the HP for coordination rather than H&HS or somesuch? I'll do some more checking of other papers later, but I haven't eaten anything yet today and I should go do that soon.
MKK
A friend who used to live in Jefferson Parish heard the "armed cops blocking the bridge" story days ago and told me that she wasn't surprised and had a good idea who might have ordered it. She's looking forward to hearing what Broussard, who she otherwise describes as very admirable, will have to say about it.
So, why doesn't this weaken anybody's faith in the whole concept of having this big, powerful state which does all these things for us?
Seriously, the story of the survivors in New Orleans could easily be a chapter from a novel by L. Neil Smith. One might conclude that we need better government, or one might conclude that we need a lot less. If nothing else, he'd love the bit about how government officials interfered with a market transaction by commandeering buses which had been hired by private parties for evacuation. Under other circumstances, socialists like that sort of state intervention.
I'm not trying to make a cheap shot here. Rather, it does seem that government officials at all levels -- local, state, and federal -- seem hostile to the whole notion of private relief efforts, spontanous self-organization, and even using the resources at one's disposal to make one's life better. In effect, they infantalize people, encouring them to stand in line, do what they're told, wait to be ground through the machinery. It's not a conspiracy; it's a mindset, a philosophy of governance. Mike Brown's comments about how everything has to be organized and coordinated is a part of this mindset.
One of my concerns about the long-term effect of this is that exactly the wrong conclusions will be drawn. Many will say we need more of the same, only better this time. So we'll end up with more rules, more regulations, more controls.
When, in fact, one lesson ought to be "first, do no harm." If anything, we need to harness the power of spontaneous mutual aid and citizen volunteers. How many more people could have been evacuated quickly if they'd asked for volunteers to drive to certain locations to pick up people, a sort of vehicular Dunkirk?
Two other smaller comments while I'm at it.
First, I think it's a mistake to go overboard with the whole Bushiltler thing. Bush screwed up, and he deserves to be criticized, condemned, even excoriated for it. It's inexcusable that the top three guys at FEMA are all political operatives or cronies. But if Bush fell on his sword tomorrow, the mindset I talked about above would still be presesnt. Recall that a lot of the screwups happened at the local and state level. And no, I don't think that the local cops were getting secret orders from FEMA to keep the blacks bottled up at the Superdome. FEMA's not that competent or organized.
Second, it sometimes is the case that decisions which seem stupid or unreasonable at some remove actually do make some sense. Not to give people an unreasonable benefit of the doubt, but the bit about not letting people walk out might be one of them. I think that I detect a certain amount of Eastocentric perspective in Teresa's comments. Of course it makes sense for people to walk across the bridge out of Manhattan -- Brooklyn is on the other side. It makes much less sense to have people wandering around on the roads in Louisiana, which is far more rural and less hospitable.
This is not to say that it was right for the cops to lie in order to get people to move from an inconvient location, or that everything they did made sense. But "just walk out" makes a lot more sense in Manhattan than New Orleans.
Diana Rowland said:
I'm always amazed at how people are so eager to gobble up all of the awful stories. Somehow the amazing stories of courage and endurance and sacrifice get lost. Not all police officers are fascist pigs out to kill and destroy all of the lower-class citizens. Some of us down here are busting our asses to help our fellow man--even after suffering losses of our own. I know, that's not as fun to rant about.
I can't speak for other people on this blog, and maybe I shouldn't even try.
Having said that, I suspect that focussing on the things that went wrong is part of the grieving process. We wish that everybody involved - from Bush on down - had been courageous, self-sacrificing and eager to do the right thing. We wish that all of you who had to live through this had gotten more help, sooner. We wish very much that this would never happen again. Hurricanes are unavoidable - the real disaster here was caused by humans.
I have just two words to say about the various government agencies harrassing survivors on foot, shooting over their heads, taking their food and water, and focusing more on what something "looks" like on TV than whether or not they actually served and protected the people they should be serving and protecting, just two words:
abso-fucking-lutely mothe
Comments on What we did on our vacation: