City Needs to Control Recovery, Bush Says

[buzzsaw_23]

City needs to control recovery, Bush says
President tours N.O. with governor, mayor

Feds now responding quickly, Nagin says

By James Varney and Bruce Nolan
Staff writers

President Bush got his boots on the ground of New Orleans on Monday, touring some still waterlogged areas in the 7th Ward and Mid-City before conducting an ad-hoc press conference under the elevated Interstate 10 at Cleveland and South Claiborne avenues.

Flanked by Mayor Ray Nagin and Gov. Kathleen Blanco, Bush said the federal government is prepared to offer whatever assistance Louisiana's leaders require but that the design and implementation of the Hurricane Katrina recovery plan would be led locally.

"This great city has ample talent and ample genius to set the strategy, to set the vision," Bush said at Cleveland and South Claiborne avenues, a spot that until late last week was still under water and where the smell of the septic glop now coating much of New Orleans was noticeable.

"My attitude is this," he said. "The people of New Orleans can design the vision. They can lay out what New Orleans ought to look like in the future, and the federal government can help."

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_13.html#079204

[Child_Of_Isis]

1. boots on the ground

He's a real soldier now, eh?

[saigon68]

12. HE'S A COWARD AN AWOL CHIMPANZEE

[MaineDem]

2. Why didn't he go to the Ninth Ward?

Wasn't that the hardest hit area?

Photo ops...it's all about photo ops. Not getting the real view of things.

I really despise this man.

[lumpy]

5. Photo- ops and empty rhetoric

He should be run out of town.

[...of J.Temperance]

3. When the Monster says "the people of New Orleans can design the vision"

What he ACTUALLY means is the wealthy, white, Republican's who live Uptown...that's the Bush bastards version of "the people of New Orleans."

I've noticed that these "developers" have a new buzz phrase and it's:

"We're going to build a better New Orleans, it'll still be the same BUT the POPULATION WILL BE SMALLER."

Yep, "the population will be smaller" = no blacks allowed...unless they're J.C. Watts kind of "blacks"

I HATE THESE PEOPLE. My Grandmother, aged 86, her house in the Crescent City survived, she's lived there her ENTIRE life, but I don't think she's going to want to go back if the better New Orleans is populated with vultures like Ashton O'Dwyer and Jimmy Reiss.

Oh heck :( Why did Katrina have to hit, why did the Crescent City HAVE to get the Big One when the Bush bastard was in. They've been waiting and avoiding for 50 years and it HAS to happen when the fucking VAMPIRES are in and they'll KILL the proper New Orleans.

My heart is broken. I'll NEVER recover from this :cry:

[Peace Patriot]

9. Don't give up, J. Temperance! Fight for it! It's not over yet!

I was thinking the same thing, and I've never even been to New Orleans. But it's a symbol to me of the best aspects of our culture, the ones more influenced by African Americans, the French, the Cajuns. William Carlos Williams once wrote an essay on what America would be like if the Indian-loving French with a culture more rooted in nature and beauty had beat out the cold-hearted British Puritans. New Orleans was like an exemplar of that wish--with its music and its Mardi Gras. And its music, and its Mardi Gras, and its languages, and its ancient beauty are essential components of our national cultural heritage, and are largely expressions of the creative spirit of the poor and the black, and exist, to a great extent, within the communities that were dispersed by the storm and by Bushite cruel policy--that is, that precious cultural heritage exists within living people, who should be encouraged to reconnect with each other, return to New Orleans and restore their communities.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a roundtable hearing last week where this very thing was discussed: how to restore the communities and cultures of NO and the Gulf coast.

I suggest you write to this Committee, and get others who know and love NO culture to write to them, and work with the ranking Democrat--Sen. Edward Kennedy--to save as much as we can, and to push aid and restoration in the right directions. Write to

Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Email: [e-mail]
Web site: http://help.senate.gov/

And cc Sen. Kennedy.

Work needs to be done to contact dispersed communities and help people to return--and perhaps his staff can help with this. And work needs to be done to get funding, for instance, for a new WPA cultural project to preserve and restore NO culture, and I'm thinking of the funding of current, living musicians and artists, and also oral historians (to chronicle the storm and what was there BEFORE the storm).

Yes, the Bushites are making all the wrong decisions, and have their own devious, greedy purposes. But they are very weak right now. They are being reviled for their behavior by a wide spectrum of people--not just for Katrina, but also for the Iraq war and other wretched policies. And we might be able to get some goals of the funding right. It's very, very important that the goals and principles of funding be set on the right path. Because the Bushites have only 2 years of diminishing power left. And it's going to take decades to restore NO and the Gulf coast.

See my letter (sent to Senate H.E.L.P. Committee). They are setting priorities NOW. They are setting the goals NOW. Don't be silent!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4735625


(Note: There was a deadline of 9/11 for input to the H.E.L.P. roundtable, but it was extended once, for more input, and I would just ignore that deadline, and continue writing to Kennedy and the other Senators on that Committee. This will be an on-going process for some time. This was just the earliest opportunity to influence funding priorities.)

[...of J.Temperance]

13. Well I try, but it keeps overwhelming me you know?

I'll shoot off a letter to Senator Kennedy as you request.

I'm hoping and counting on the Landrieu family to SAVE New Orleans, heck if the Landrieu's can't stop the vultures then nobody can.

We NEED to get NOLA back, people need that gorgeous, dangerous, sinful, humid, sexy and mysterious place back the way it was.

I don't want bloody Branson, Missouri on the Bayou :(

Thanks for your good words mon amie.

[leesa]

4. Wasn't he blathering on about not playing the blame game because

they needed to focus on recovery and restoration? If only he would keep his hands off it. The rich folk are positively frothing at the mouth to get their piece of the pie in NOLA.

[...of J.Temperance]

6. He'll NEVER keep his hands off it, he's going AGAIN on Thursday

He's going to address the nation from NOLA and he's going to tell the people:

"New Orleans is now MINE...it's MINE, MINE, MINE. It's for ME and my fat cat cronies. It's now a Republican stronghold, we got those uppity blacks out FINALLY ya see and we're NEVER allowing them back!"

[tonkatoy57]

7. City Needs to Control Recovery, Bush Says

Uh, let's see. I believe that's shorthand for, "we'll talk a good game about how much money we're going to allocate for rebuilding your city, hell we may even have a press conference to announce a staggeringly large amount of money going to the rebuilding effort, but, nod, nod, wink, wink, don't ever think you're going to get even half of the money we say we're going to give you".

Remember how much they were going to give to New Yorkers post 911? How about all that cake they were going to send to Africa? Good, I thought you did. This is going to be no different than those two instances. Make a big splash talking about your largess, then when the kleig lights go off....sorry suckers.

[Orsino]

8. Translation: "Mission Accomplished"

Compassion has left the building. Enter conservatism.

[Laelth]

10. Bush code

"My attitude is this," he said. "The people of New Orleans can design the vision. They can lay out what New Orleans ought to look like in the future, and the federal government can help."

That's Bush Code for:

I have no clue what the heck I'm doing or what I'm supposed to do. Would somebody please tell me what to do?

Pathetic. Some leader.

-Laelth

[rocktivity]

11. Too bad he didn't come up with this idea two years ago

after he decided to stop funding the upgrading of the levees. Imagine if he National Guard had been able to spend the weekend before the storm getting the non-mobile residents to the Super Dome, where FEMA was ready to transport them to fully-equipped shelters outside the storm's path. Of course, if he'd funded the upgrading of the levees, maybe none of that would have been necessary.

:headbang:
rocknation