I find it all quite terrifying.

[Bouncy Ball]

I just read the article about "combat operations" in New Orleans and how they described them as an "insurgency."

I've been watching my fellow Americans being abandonded, left for dead, treated worse than animals, screaming for help, babies and children dying, people sitting in feces.

Now I find that the military is terming their work there as combat.

I started to tremble when I read that. I saw footage last night on PBS of a woman screaming "this is SHIT, this is SHIT, they treat us like DOGS, like ANIMALS!" The helicopters would come down and they would literally kick off bottled water while the people scrambled under the rotor blades and grabbed whatever they could get and the copter took off right away, no one even stepping off.

Like animals. Like animals.

I'm horrified by how my fellow citizens are being treated, how they have been treated. Sickened to my core. NO ONE should be treated like that, not anywhere in the world.

But I never thought....I have to admit, I really never thought it could happen here.

If those people had been helped in the first place, if they had had food, clean water, if they had not watched their children die in front of them, if they had even FELT as if someone was coming, if they weren't allowed to languish, to grow more and more scared and panicked, then there would not be the problems we are seeing now.

I can't believe people don't understand that not everyone owns a car, not everyone was even able to evacuate. In any situation like this, it is the more well-off who get out. The poor don't survive. But I thought in THIS country it was different. I THOUGHT we were better than that. I always heard that, growing up. America doesn't let its sons and daughters flap in the breeze.

Oh but it does. It does now.

There is no government. There is only the facade of government. There are corporations. There are well-funded lobbies. Every agency of the government is being broken down intentionally. Privatized, outsourced, and then cut to the bone. That's how they have slowly been killing the agencies that existed in order to ensure that America never abandoned its sons and daughters in times of need.

I'm terrified.

And every American who makes excuses for this Horrible Shame is completely lacking in character and ethics. Every American who blames these people for being too poor to get out is completely lacking in character and ethics. These are the same Americans that go along with breaking down the structure of government to help its citizens. They should not call themselves Americans. I don't know what they are, but they are not Americans.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. "There is only the facade of government."

You finally crystalized the whole thing....

[Bouncy Ball]

4. Oh I hate this breaking down inside me.

What's that Zappa quote? About the curtain being pulled back and the people finally seeing that there is only a brick wall behind it?

It's chilling. Those are not just words, I am chilled to the bone.

My eyes were open before, but now I feel as if they are opening wider and wider. It's scary to see how little is left of government. The government that is supposed to help people, the government of a CIVILIZED SOCIETY.

It's gone. It was whisked out from underneath us.

[lapislzi]

14. Not whisked

Nibbled away, crumb by crumb by a pack of rats over the course of the last 70 years, until there is nothing left now BUT crumbs.

[malaise]

2. Do not be terrified

be glad this is fueling unbelievable rage and not just in the US. The cabal has been exposed permanently and will never recover from this. We must help the victims but the people must hit the streets and expose these evil men and women for what they really are - why did you expect political hacks to be able to help or save people. That is not why they seized power.

[liberaliraqvet26]

3. I don't think the Guard thinks their mission is combat...

The shitheads walking around NO with assault weapons that terrorized civilians should be dealt with harshly, however the guard realizes this is a humanitarian mission

[Minstrel Boy]

5. The army does:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4605494&mesg_id=4605494

[liberaliraqvet26]

9. maybe I just have faith in the guard....

because I was in it for so long. I know the civilian leadership is terrible but I really don't see them (the soldiers in the guard) acting in this manner. I actually saw the general in charge yelling at NO Police officers to lower their weapons from the ready position. I think most of the civil unrest is over.

[libhill]

6. I wouldn't be surprised

if they were planted there by the Government, to create chaos. I wouldn't put anything past the fecal matter running this disgrace of a fucking country.

[LisaL]

7. We shouldn't be surprised by any of it.

Considering what they are doing in Iraq, it was only a matter of time before they turned on our own.

[Bouncy Ball]

8. I know I *shouldn't* be.

But it's one thing to think something, to suspect it, quite another to really see horrific evidence of it in front of you.

I keep thinking of Rwanda.

[Cleita]

10. Bush said that the ravaged areas would be "secured" not that

they would be bringing needed relief.

What kind of monsters are they?

[Swamp Rat]

11. Sociopaths... psychopaths ... not human

[libhill]

21. Pond scum / fecal matter -

I have more respect for fucking amoeba.

[ananda]

15. very racist monsters..

That's what they are. Bush and his admin have been waging race and class warfare on Americans for several years now.

NOLA is the ultimate result.

Sue

[earth mom]

12. We are in a Class War.

Only now it's totally out in the open for everyone in this country and the world to see....

Also, your post was excellent and I nominated it because I feel exactly the same way. :cry:

Thank you.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

13. This is what happens when "Compassonate Conservatism" reigns.

The boy king and his elk have allowed american to become the land of the rich built on the backs of the poor.

I am sickened and disgusted. The fact that the army is now attacking and soon to be killing americans at home.....i am at a loss for words.

[smurfygirl]

16. I'm sorry bouncy...I guess there are alot of us feeling

this way. It's sickening, all of it is sickening.

[LibertyorDeath]

17. Excellent post....Recommend

"But I never thought....I have to admit, I really never thought it could happen here."

There is no government. There is only the facade of government. There are corporations. There are well-funded lobbies. Every agency of the government is being broken down intentionally. Privatized, outsourced, and then cut to the bone. That's how they have slowly been killing the agencies that existed in order to ensure that America never abandoned its sons and daughters in times of need.

I'm terrified.

And every American who makes excuses for this Horrible Shame is completely lacking in character and ethics. Every American who blames these people for being too poor to get out is completely lacking in character and ethics. These are the same Americans that go along with breaking down the structure of government to help its citizens. They should not call themselves Americans. I don't know what they are, but they are not Americans.

:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick:

[bmcatt]

18. This isn't my country any more...

I posted this yesterday and still stand by what I said.

Kick and recommended.

[ikojo]

19. WHERE ARE THE DEMOCRATS in codemning this

action by the military, whose ranks are made of the very class of people forced by economic circumstances to remain behind?


Class and race....

Two of the great unspoken truths of the US.

[MadeinOhio]

20. Get to the core of the cancer.....

Remove the cancer and make it stick......and the virus will stop its eventual spread of destruction.

http://www.conservativeusa.org/mega-cong.htm

Call on and rally all reps to fire and impeach the federal cabinet. Never let up on them for a day and hold the congress accountable too. All congress who continue to allow it are criminals as well.

[RevCheesehead]

22. Bouncy does it again - saying exactly what I couldn't .

It's heartbreaking to realize that this part of the United States resembles more and more a third-world country.