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Catastrophes

  • Declaration of New Orleans
    5 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    A Declaration of The People of the United States of America Concerning the Present Crisis in the City of New Orleans.
    In the name of the People of the United States of America, we declare:
    That for the last four and a half years the President and his administration have served the interests of a few wealthy citizens and not the interests of the American People.
    That he has acted with contempt for the People and for the Constitution and the laws of the United States.
    That an edict of (…)

  • FROM THE IRAQI FRONT
    5 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    By William Fisher
    Iraq “is failing, or perhaps already failed”, says an American contactor who continues to carry out economic development work there as the country descends into “expanded gang warfare” and “the saddest story since Vietnam”.
    The contractor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described some of the missteps of U.S. and Iraqi authorities and of the daily power struggles among and between factions.
    “The problem is the government and the country, which is failing, or (…)

  • The President’s Priorities: State of Marriage Took Precedence over State of Louisiana
    5 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    by Jason Leopold
    Why is President Bush more concerned with the state of marriage than the state of Louisiana?
    That’s what the New Orleans City Business paper asked in early February, a couple of weeks after Bush’s State of the Union address, in which the president called for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages, upon learning that Bush’s budget proposal recommended slashing $34 million from the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, leaving the city (…)

  • What Happens to a Race Deferred
    5 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    By JASON DePARLE
    WASHINGTON
    THE white people got out. Most of them, anyway. If television and newspaper images can be deemed a statistical sample, it was mostly black people who were left behind. Poor black people, growing more hungry, sick and frightened by the hour as faraway officials counseled patience and warned that rescues take time.
    What a shocked world saw exposed in New Orleans last week wasn’t just a broken levee. It was a cleavage of race and class, at once familiar and (…)

  • SPINNING IN CIRCLES
    4 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    5 comments

    SPINNING IN CIRCLES
    By Peter Fredson
    A minor rant in the aftermath of Katrina
    September 4, 2005
    Coincidence? Just before the Twin Towers attack George W. Bush was on vacation, getting on with his life, cutting brush on his ranch. After the attack Bush was reading a kid’s book, got on a plane, headed for a bunker, then later stood on rubble with his arm around a fireman. For the next 2 years he made speeches about his heroic action in failing to recognize that terrorists would strike (…)

  • Citizens Stranded in New Orleans: “One of the Worst Abandonments of Americans on American Soil Ever”
    4 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    4 comments

    The president of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans, Aaron Broussard, just issued an emotional appeal on NBC’s Meet the Press. By the end, he was completely broken down, sobbing uncontrollably:
    [Crooks and Liars, as always, has the video.]
    RUSSERT: You just heard the director of homeland security’s explanation of what has happened this last week. What is your reaction?
    BROUSSARD: We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst (…)

  • Amphibious HumVees
    4 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    Does anyone have information on all the flood enabled Humvees which used to be in Louisianna and Mississippi. Apparently they were all shipped to Iraq and were criticised over there as being defficient in protecting against roadside bombs.
    Floods in the desert? Well I’ve got an open mind there.
    The question of the Humvees will be very important as its has a ring to it which is easy for Mr Average to grasp.
    Real facts and figures required or links.

  • Bush Wanted These People To Die
    4 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    16 comments

    President’s photo-op may fool you, but not me
    by Jennifer Monroe
    NEW ORLEANS, LA — (OfficialWire) — 09/04/05 — More than five days after it should have happened, thousands of storm victims in New Orleans and the surrounding area are finally being bused and airlifted to safety.
    Because the Bush administration does not want to admit the truth, the public isn’t being told how many people were killed by Hurricane Katrina’s floods and how many more American citizens succumbed waiting to be (…)

  • America Stripped Bare: Privilege vs. Survival (See Kanye)
    4 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    4 comments

    Support the People of New Orleans: Sept. 7 National Day of Emergency Action
    Join a protest on September 7 see below for details of protests in Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle - or organize one in your community or on your campus. List your event on the A.N.S.W.E.R. website! www.pephost.org/Sept7localaction
    What is taking place today in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is a crisis rarely seen in this country. It has provoked an outpouring of concern for the (…)

  • On BBC: Northern Command was in position, waiting for Presidential orders
    4 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    5 comments

    This was on the episode of BBC World News which played on a local (Philadelphia area) PBS station at 6:00 am this morning. I can’t find a stream or transcript online. It’s sitting on my TIVO right now marked do not delete but I have no way to put it onto my hard drive and no place to serve it from anyway. If you do have a recording of it, it starts about 9 minutes in. I’ve done a hand written transcript, the spelling and punctuation are mine. The bolding is also mine to emphasize what I (…)