In other Katrina developments, Bush administration officials warned that the $51 billion it is seeking for relief was “just the beginning” of a string of special appropriations that would be used to award huge multi-million reconstruction contracts to politically well-connected contractors and consulting firms.
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September 8, 2005
WB: Katrina Update
Comments
i was surprised that fema hadn’t already started moving the evacuees to liberia
Posted by: b real | Sep 8 2005 16:43 utc | 1
I’m reminded of the angels coming to visit Lot in Sodom.
If Katrina is not enough to cause the Just of America to expose the evil that permeates the country, then they (the Just) should pack up and go and America deserves to be burned to the ground.
Pass the salt, Mrs. Lot.
Posted by: Lupin | Sep 8 2005 16:44 utc | 2
Just wait. Soon we’ll be reading that this was all God’s plan to move the poor blacks out and recreate New Orleans as a white Christian Republican stronghold.
And speaking of Liberia, don’t give them any more ideas. I’m sure there’s some wingnut somewhere who has already proposed that.
Posted by: Phil from New York | Sep 8 2005 17:13 utc | 3
To free up National Guard and regular Army in Lusianna, NATO troops will take over (nearly)
U.S. Seeks Larger NATO Role in Katrina Aid
The United States asked NATO on Thursday to take on a bigger role transporting European aid to areas hit by Hurricane Katrina and the alliance immediately ordered military experts to draw up plans to offer more assistance.
WTF do they need NATO for. To convoy ships over the Atlantic? Fighting the War Against Weather?
Well the Chinese have got it right!
China’s most important state-run newspaper has accused US President George W. Bush and his administration of “negligence of duty” in its response to the disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina.
People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’s mouthpiece, said there was no excuse for Bush’s slow reaction to the unfolding tragedy.
“For the Bush administration, ‘unexpected’ perhaps can be a lame excuse, but it can never explain away the government negligence of duty,” it said in an opinion piece carried on its English language website Thursday.
“As a matter of fact, ever since ‘September 11’, the Congress had cut anti-flood allocation to Louisiana, which later became a main reason for the slow rescue work this time,” said the officially controlled paper.
“In the face of the hurricane, Americans accepted the challenge but failed to beat it off. This is really a shame on the United States.”
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Sep 8 2005 17:39 utc | 5
If Corporocrats get their way, New Orleans will become “New Orleans World!” with animatronic jazz musicians who don’t need to be fed, and who won’t drink too much or smoke.
Young people from around the world will take summer jobs there to sweep up the streets with little brooms and long-handled dust pans.
Families can bring their children into New Orleans to visit erstaz strip shows that stop with the removal of gloves, and a boat ride through still-flooded areas can include a cleaned-up hazardous waste warehouse with animatronic jazz legends who will sing “It’s a Small Jazz World After All.”
Excursions will include offshore oil platforms for a “Pirates of the Gulf Coast” show with Bush, Cheney, Brown, Rice, Rumsfeld and Chertoff puppets singing “Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.” You can’t get out of the exhibit if you take any pictures, unless you contribute to the southern baptist gop center at the end of the ride.
Every evening at sunset, Bourbon Street will have an ersatz Mardi Gras parade and Pat Boone will always be the King of the Krews…or an animatronic version of Pat Boone once all that remains of him is a faded tan.
“Tutti Frutti…a bomp bomp alomp bomp a bomp bam boom…”
…will lead off the parade, but the bulk of songs will consist of hymns with syncopated arrangements.
Everyone will wear white shoes and faux hawaiian shirts and sport deep tans and rosaries will be said on Mardi Gras beads, or the beads will all have a holographic image of Jesus the Christian Soldier for those Protestants who are offended by the idolotry of Catholicism.
Exorcisms for former practioners of voodoo will be held in Jackson Square.
Gaydar will be set up at strategic points around the perimeter of the city to keep out all those who threaten the sanctity of marriage (tho husbands may find an “Underground New Orleans” in the Cities of the Dead where they can indulge in a little sin of the flesh while the wife and kids shop for slave chain replicas on sale in the former superdome and convention center, now Malls of America, New Orleans Branch.) …but that information will only be available through word-of-mouth.
All in all, the devastation of New Orleans could be a real blessing to make sure family values are protected across the nation.
(oh, and those who were too poor to leave New Orleans will be attached to mill wheels to keep the whole illusion turning…sort of like before…)
Posted by: fauxreal | Sep 8 2005 18:01 utc | 6
WTF do they need NATO for?
there’s more bodies to sneak out than they have transport/cover for
Posted by: b real | Sep 8 2005 18:19 utc | 7
What a joke. I thought this was supposed to be a blog about the Katrina relief efforts…instead, I find a few pathetic left wing liberals drowning in their own little political sewage. Get a life. Oh, before I go; Dear Cloned Poster – you and your friends in China should research something called Facts – When you finally do begin to think for yourself you will see that you and all of your liberal left wingers are wrong. If you find the time between your whining and drivel, research the history of past hurricanes and how past administrations handled them…you’ll be surprised to see that our Government, at that time, was much slower and less involved than our current administration…regardless of what you read in the NY Whines or falls from H Clintons pie hole.
Is this blog funded by Al Gore?
What a joke.
Posted by: Reality First | Sep 8 2005 18:21 utc | 8
Typical conservative — can’t even read a fucking link.
Posted by: Billmon | Sep 8 2005 18:42 utc | 9
I have been calling it economic urban cleansing. For some reason the word ethnic eluded me. It had temporarily dropped out of the wetware lexicon.
’tis so strange,
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
(Henry V, Act 11, scene 2)And the implications? . So much easier to be distracted by the phenomena than to consider what they mean.
Posted by: eftsoons | Sep 8 2005 18:46 utc | 10
I just saw the BBC headline, “Cheney Hails Storm Relief Efforts.” I had to laugh, Billmon, because it’s reminiscent of your faux newspaper headline, “Cheney Declares Victory over Katrina.” They’re handling this just like they tried to handle the war. These guys are so predictable now. But it keeps on working. . .
Posted by: Phil from New York | Sep 8 2005 18:54 utc | 11
Did a little poll shopping. Found this one. Maybe americans are not as stupid as I perceive them to be.
LINK
Posted by: Groucho | Sep 8 2005 19:03 utc | 12
I suppose this is obvious, but with all the Vietnam (&60s) analogies informing the public debate, I find it a little fascinating that now that, Americas No. 1 dirty little secret IMPERIALISM has again been joined forces with No. 2 dirty little seceret RACISM to complete the witches brew that made the 60’s (in)famous. So, maybe its no accident, maybe there is a nefarious and willful intent to re-live the 60’s — and this time the red-neck hubris will emerge glorious and tirumphant. You just have to wonder that with the war not delivering the promised immediate results of a clear and conscise victory, that old No.2 has been allowed once again, out of the cage. If for nothing nothing else, to reassure the brain dead part of the republican base that a little feel- good ass kicking can still be demonstrated amongst all the pissing and moaning and hand wringing creaping into the party itself. Nothin’ like a little lynchin to lift the spirits outa the blues.
Posted by: anna missed | Sep 8 2005 19:08 utc | 13
anna missed,
You express it well.
Just the week before the hurricane hit I was watching a blues video called, “Lightning in a Bottle”. The singer, India Arie, did a version of the old song, Strange Fruit, about lynching, made popular by Billie Holiday.
Something struck me to the core and I couldn’t stop crying for 24 hours. I’d heard the tune before but never felt the truth of it and the impact. It is all so odd that this all has happened together for me but it reminds me of the power of poetry and song. Not that anything changes, but this haunting thread of human expression seems to go on forever to taunt the human family if nothing else.
The 60’s seems to be about to relived with the meeting of a Katrina survivors’ protest with Cindy Sheehan’s anti-war group in Washington. Looks like the blending of the Civil Rights ans anti-Viet Nam Monements.
Posted by: jm | Sep 8 2005 21:30 utc | 14
I guess we’ll never really know why it was one of the newest sections of the canal levees that “failed” most dramatically. Oh well. Now these Haiti relocation packages of which you speak–where exactly can I sign up for one?
Posted by: michaelFromDC | Sep 8 2005 21:57 utc | 15
I suspect that
Reality First | Sep 8, 2005 2:21:43 PM | #
is the same troll from the thread, U.S. Loses Territory in Iraq 9/5/05
Posted by: hamidreza | Sep 5, 2005 3:26:47 PM | #
and again at
Posted by: hamidreza | Sep 5, 2005 5:39:46 PM | #
Trolls like Reality First (aka Hamidreza, I think) are really searching for something. They know that their intellectualism is breaking down as they try to adhere faithfully to their ideology.
It would be a hell of a lot easier to examine more of your premise Reality or hamidreza. There is a huge disconnect between them and the realities that we as an evolving species are able to intellectualize.
“Get a life” is a very common theme from which to judge others when one is projecting.
Hang around here and lurk for a while. I think you might find you’re able to evolve a little. I hope you don’t believe you’re static.
Or are you a deliberate plant from some patron?
Posted by: Juannie | Sep 8 2005 22:34 utc | 16
What a relief, huh? When blacks were no longer needed to pick cotton, they kept welfare to $30/mo in louisana, Mississippi, Alabama and there abouts. Blacks left for California and Illinois where they could live on welfare even if they couldn’t get a job. Then the federal government screwed everything up by making southern states pay welfare enough (equal) to live on. Damned worthless blacks started sticking around, even wanting education for their kids, police protection, and everything. But Katrina, now this is a godsend; let the good folks in California, Utah and Missouri deal with the problem and we get to keep the land.
Posted by: ken melvin | Sep 8 2005 23:43 utc | 17
I don’t remember which network aired the interview, but people who evacuated to a highway near the broken levee say they heard an explosion just before the levee broke. They are convinced the levee was intentionally bombed. Makes you wonder.
Posted by: Disgusted | Sep 9 2005 0:32 utc | 18
@ disgusted, try this from Wayne Madsen
September 7, 2005 — Locals from Lakeview subdivision of New Orleans report that after Katrina passed a loose barge struck levee causing breach that flooded city.
Posted by: andrew in caledon | Sep 9 2005 1:19 utc | 19
@Lupin
We all can’t just pack up and go Lupin. Some of us (not me necessarily) don’t have the possibility or wherewithal to actuate that luxury. But what all of us can do and have the wherewithal to accomplish is exposing and opposing the empire builders. This post brings to mind for me the lot of a military enlistee. How many of the grunts doing the man’s dirty work really wholeheartedly support the man? Having been there myself, not many I’d guess.
Where do we go from here? We truly do live in a police state here today. But there are many of we x-military/police that have seen through the bullshit subterfuge and view the emperor without his clothes. Stan Goff is an excellent example. The grunts are more and more educated by the internet, the blogs. We need to encourage more of them, both active and retired, to speak out. The more we articulate a rational and viable alternative, the more the guys in the man’s army will be able to understand that they are working for the WaspMafia. Just keep up the pressure and the unevolved troglodytes will self destruct in a poof of the nothing they really are.
Posted by: Juannie | Sep 9 2005 2:47 utc | 20
Just wait. Soon we’ll be reading that this was all God’s plan to move the poor blacks out and recreate New Orleans as a white Christian Republican stronghold.
It is (was) the only blue city in the state.
Blacks in Baton Rouge don’t vote.
Posted by: F’in Librul | Sep 9 2005 3:45 utc | 21
From Josh Marshall:
Fully $50 billion of those recovery and reconstruction funds passed by Congress today are going to FEMA. FEMA is going to administer those funds. That is just friggin’ crazy.
Even if FEMA were still a model government agency, as it was by most accounts in the 1990s, this would still be a really, really bad decision. As the title says, FEMA is an emergency management agency, not a reconstruction agency. It doesn’t have the organizational structure or competence to run the economy of a significant chunk of the United States for the foreseeable future, which is what this amounts to.
In the ten “Principles of Reconstruction” he posted yesterday at TPMCafe, Reed Hundt had these as #6 and #7 …
6. Don’t confuse reconstruction with emergency relief. Whatever reforms are necessary at DHS, it is clear that DHS should have nothing to do with reconstruction because its mission is to protect the rest of America from the next calamities and to provide emergency relief when necessary.
7. Don’t build a permanent reconstruction bureaucracy. Every reconstruction agency or authority should be managed by real managers, not political appointees, and should go out of business when the work is done.
Both of these are just right. And principle six applies to FEMA every bit as much as it does to DHS.
And all that of course would all apply if FEMA were a well-run agency. But obviously, it’s not. It’s currently run by a crew of political hacks. The agency itself — if its recent performance is any example — is in deep disarray. It’s become thoroughly politicized. And there are already very credible claims that it has used its disaster relief funds to advance narrowly political agendas. And then add on top of that what we’ve seen this administration do with the contracting mess in Iraq. Contracting cronyism defines this administration. And we’re giving $50 billion to one of its most cronyfied outposts.
Posted by: small coke | Sep 9 2005 5:07 utc | 22
Times-Picayune: “A private firm, Kenyon Worldwide Disaster Management, has been hired by FEMA to coordinate the recovery of bodies in Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes.”
Posted by: Wolf DeVoon | Sep 9 2005 8:09 utc | 23
After the disaster, NO may be ethnically cleansed; gentrified; turned Red; cleaned up; configured differently – whatever. Very often – something old is destroyed and the powerful make something new they like better. It’s going on all the time all over the world. I mean, it is to be expected. It will happen, no one will be able to stop it. Saving people takes precedence over saving streets and buildings, and the former didn’t work too well did it?
But these considerations serve to focus attention away from the disaster itself, as does the discourse about race (America still a racist society, etc. etc.) Just like for 9/11, the blame game, enquiries, commissions, rolling heads and endless agitation will be completely ineffective and will change nothing. Moreover, they will serve to mask many of the after effects.
The first thing the dead deserve is to be taken seriously, that is, for example, to be counted. Second, people who have lost their homes and all they had deserve compensation, even those who were uninsured. (In other W countries, this is routine.) I guess neither of those things will happen.
How many millions have been given for the victims? To which organisations? How is that money to be spent? These are important questions. I see above that 50 mil. is to go to FEMA – that is possibly the worst news yet.
I know its hopeless. I’m just sayin’…
P.S. I am not trivialsing racism. But: countering its effects or eradicating it is not the same thing as catching criminals – I am not referring to Black “looters.”
Posted by: Noisette | Sep 9 2005 12:25 utc | 24
$50 Billion for 40 to 50 thousand displaced people is $125,000 a head. I say call everybody and say they’ll recieve $100,000 in a few weeks and they can do whatever they want with it. Start a new life in another city, rebuild their house in NO, put it in stock market, whatever. The govt should use the remaining $1 billion to cleanup NO and rebuild the destroyed infrastructure. That is the way to do it, but these bastards will let the corporations skim the 90% off the top and leave the poor destitue as they were.
Max
Posted by: Max Andersen | Sep 10 2005 8:54 utc | 25
Blackwater: Now in New Orleans.
“As the threat of forced evictions now looms in New Orleans and the city confiscates even legally registered weapons from civilians, the private mercenaries of Blackwater patrol the streets openly wielding M-16s and other assault weapons. This despite Police Commissioner Eddie Compass’ claim that “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons.””
Privatization is cool.- zpousman
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 11 2005 1:46 utc | 26
The following was sent to me by e-mail from a friend thought I’d share it…
Dear America,
I suppose we should introduce ourselves: We’re South Louisiana.
We have arrived on your doorstep on short notice and we apologize for that, but
we never were much for waiting around for invitations. We’re not much on
formalities like that.
And we might be staying around your town for a while, enrolling in your schools
and looking for jobs, so we wanted to tell you a few things about us. We know
you didn’t ask for this and neither did we, so we’re just going to have to make
the best of it.
First of all, we thank you. For your money, your water, your food, your prayers,
your boats and buses and the men and women of your National Guards, fire
departments, hospitals and everyone else who has come to our rescue.
We’re a fiercely proud and independent people, and we don’t cotton much to
outside interference, but we’re not ashamed to accept help when we need it. And
right now, we need it.
Just don’t get carried away. For instance, once we get around to fishing again,
don’t try to tell us what kind of lures work best in your waters. We’re not
going to listen. We’re stubborn that way.
You probably already know that we talk funny and listen to strange music and eat
things you’d probably hire an exterminator to get out of your yard.
We dance even if there’s no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too much and
laugh too loud and live too large and, frankly, we’re suspicious of others who
don’t. But we’ll try not to judge you while we’re in your town. Everybody loves
their home, we know that. But we love South Louisiana with a ferocity that
borders on the pathological. Sometimes we bury our dead in LSU
sweatshirts.
Often we don’t make sense. You may wonder why, for instance – if we could only
carry one small bag of belongings with us on our journey to your state why in
God’s name did we bring a pair of shrimp boots? We can’t really explain that. It
is what it is.
You’ve probably heard that many of us stayed behind. As bad as it is, many of us
cannot fathom a life outside of our border, out in that place we call Elsewhere.
The only way you could understand that is if you have been there, and so many of
you have. So you realize that when you strip away all the craziness and bars and
parades and music and architecture and all that hooey, really, the best thing
about where we come from is us.
We are what made this place a national treasure. We’re good people. And don’t be
afraid to ask us how to pronounce our names. It happens all the time.
When you meet us now and you look into our eyes, you will see the saddest story
ever told. Our hearts are broken into a thousand pieces. But don’t pity us.
We’re gonna make it. We’re resilient. After all, we’ve been rooting for the
Saints for 35 years. That’s got to count for
something.
OK, maybe something else you should know is that we make jokes at inappropriate
times. But what the hell.
And one more thing: In our part of the country, we’re used to having visitors.
It’s our way of life. So when all this is over and we move back home, we will
repay to you the hospitality and generosity of spirit you offer to us in this
season of our despair. That is our promise. That is our faith.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 11 2005 2:40 utc | 27
Yikes!
Is it over yet? , If there is any truth to the two Level-3 biolabs in New Orleans and ubiquitous escaped primates, it may just be begining…
The two Level-3 biolabs in New Orleans and a cluster of three in nearby Covington, have been working with anthrax, mousepox, HIV, plague, etc.
Not to be alarmist, but it is something to think about.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 11 2005 13:58 utc | 28
You Americans don’t know a first thing about refugees and what a hellish experience it is for these people and for those who are about to host them…but you’ll learn…
After some time the whole experience even make animosity between them and their hosts even if they are close relatives…it just gets uglier and uglier…
It’s just quickly turning into the hell especially when there is no chance for most of them to go home in a near future…or ever…
What’s happening with those other two hurricanes that are approaching?
Posted by: vbo | Sep 11 2005 15:13 utc | 29
Well maybe in the rest of the backward world, refugees are a problem, VBO, but Queen Bitch Barbara says our refugees are better off now then before they were homeless. I guess she would know since she is rich and the mother of the presnitz and wife of another.
Posted by: stoy | Sep 11 2005 16:41 utc | 30
Posted by: Juannie | Sep 8, 2005 6:34:41 PM | #
>“Trolls like Reality First (aka Hamidreza, I think)”
>“Or are you a deliberate plant from some patron?”
More than likely some fat-headed fat-assed trog with a wrecked rectum from sitting on it too long and is addicted to oxycontin.
Posted by: pb | Sep 11 2005 16:45 utc | 31
Max Andersen,
Good idea. That’s about what U.S. taxpayers paid settlers to move out of Gaza, to a total of 1.7 billion.
Posted by: Hamburger | Sep 11 2005 17:15 utc | 32
Bingo hamburger!, if we can give $200,000 to $300,000 per family to Israeli settlers, for doing what should have been done long ago; it just burns my ass that we wont treat our own as good as we do another nation. I posted about this last week, perhaps, it got looked over as I may post far to much for some-including myself- to digest, or, better to process.
Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 11 2005 19:35 utc | 33
We all know it is bound to happen, luckly, this confrontation with armed private security was incident free…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 13 2005 0:58 utc | 35