New Orleans has been taken over by the United States Government

[donsu]

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=8086

The entire city of New Orleans is under evacuation orders. I just spoke to my friend Daniel in the Bywater (9th ward). He reports that unmarked police vehicles (cadillacs) are driving through the neighborhood with SWAT team police armed with ’big black machine guns’ telling people through bullhorns they are under orders to evacuate and must leave the city now.

People in that neighborhood are being told to go to the big pool on the corner of Lesseps and St. Claude (this is one block from my house) to be airlifted out, tho people are allowed to leave by their own means if they can.

He reports helicopters all over the place of all kinds - everything from large Army helicopters with guns to Red Cross helicopters - they are swooping down low in the neighborhood and ’buzzing’ houses - he said one just flew low enough over him to blow shingles off the roof.

He is starting to see National Guardsmen marching through the streets with guns to make sure people obey evacuation orders.

-snip-

He also reported that Dr. Bob, Bywater artist, was beaten by NOPD who thought he was a looter - they beat him up severely and took his weapons.

We are being forced out of our city, with no word as to if and when we will be allowed to return. We’ve been wondering what they would do after enough people were forced to die of starvation. Population reduction has been accomplished.
-snip-
-------------------------------------


have they kicked out the media? are todays reports from the city or all from safe places? I haven't been watching.

[paula777]

1. I think there are some Blackwater employees in the mix too n/t

[bloom]

2. Account from Tuesday August 30th

Intimidating people to leave... (David Gladstone, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at the University of New Orleans)
---
"By Tuesday morning, the streets were flooded. My hotel had diesel fumes, diesel fuel floating in about two feet of water in the lobby. It was a chaotic situation, and I realized I had to leave the hotel, as many other people were doing, because of fire hazard. So I found myself on the street with really nowhere to go. I had a couple of bags. I was wandering around Canal Street observing – observing looting and other things in the downtown area. I made my way to one of the residential neighborhoods adjacent to the French Quarter, Faubourg Mariné, where I was able to find some cold beer. New Orleans is New Orleans, after all. And I met some people with a car, and I helped them get it out of the city. And we left sometime Tuesday night.

AMY GOODMAN: What happened when you were walking by a car with military or whoever walking by?

DAVID GLADSTONE: The person I was with had driven with me back to the central business district to find some people he had offered a ride out of the city to, as well, and while he was in waist-deep water looking for them, I was standing by the car when some official people on a Caterpillar tractor pulled up to me and were screaming at me to move the car, even though they could get around it. I yelled back that I -- that it wasn't my car, and I didn't have the keys. And I was yelling for the owner of the car to come back and move it, and in the yelling and screaming, at one point, the officer removed his gun from his holster and pointed it right at me and then another one jumped off the Caterpillar and butted me up against the side of a building with his – what looked like an M-16 rifle or something like that. And it was really at that point I realized that social order, at least as I knew it, had broken down in the city, and that I had to get out. Fortunately, I was able to do that."

--

On Democracy Now! today:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/07/1415225

[...of J.Temperance]

3. I've had the vibes about this for nearly two days

And I've been trying to point it out, in several threads, to no avail.

I knew that by Governor Blanco's silence, Ray Nagin's change from warrior to silence. I knew it. The Fascist bastards got to them and now it belongs to Cheney and the Carlyle Group.

I didn't even want to believe it myself, but I'm now trying to be realistic. The sheer amount of 60,000 troops, that wasn't an accident, there's more troops in NOLA than there are in Baghdad, and like the troops in Baghdad are staying for years, the troops in NOLA will be staying for years too. Until the city is secured and sold to Disney and all of the white fat cats.

I'm ASHAMED to be white :(

I have NEVER hated ANYBODY as much as this in my life. Hate ISN'T even a strong enough word.

[Robert Oak]

13. look this isn't "white cats" per say

I'm not saying there are not many blatantly racist incidents in NO/Katrina, there are...
but that said...

there are millions of white people living in abject poverty across the US and believe me, if the Caryle group had a national disaster to
take their property and displace them...they would do it in a heartbeat.

They care no more of a hoot for white people as for black people...
they only care about their "investor class" friends...

they have basically created a new feudal lord system and by-passed democracy and all of use are basically serfs/slaves in their world view.

This is about power and privilege and these "new world order"
cats basically taking over the world.

[ThomWV]

4. That's About WhatThey Are Trying To Do In Bagdad Isn't It?

These incompetent assholes are lucky to be able to control their own back yards.

[malaise]

5. The only question

is what do the citizens of other states plan to do about this?

Is this really happening in the US? Where is the outrage?

[onenote]

11. so you think they should let people stay there?

They have to get people out. Its a public safety issue. And if people won't leave voluntarily, they have to make them leave. I don't think you're going to see a lot of outrage about this. The place is a dangerous, festering stew and you have to move people out. There is no infrastructure to care for them or provide them services. If they stay, they will die. And cause others to die.

onenote

[phusion]

Why can't people stay who aren't flooded out?

It seems they are kicking people out of the entire metropolitan area. Why? Why shouldn't someone be able to stay if their house and the immediate are is not flooded?

[onenote]

15. here is the mandatory evacuation proclamation

http://www.nola.com/cityofno/

It only covers Orleans Parish and even then exempts the Algiers section of the West Bank of the parish, which suffered less damage, as I understand it. While there are areas within Orleans Parish that are not as badly damaged, my understanding is that the safety of the water supply is still in question and that other services are generally non-existant. Re-supplying the area -- getting stores and services up, is going to take a bit of time. So you need to get folks out of there. Now, getting them out is just the first step. It does no good to take them from a situation where they lack access to the necessities of life and put them somewhere where such necessities aren't provided. That's my concern. Once you move these folks, you have to provide for them. And so far, FEMA and the feds have done a piss poor job of figuring out how to do that.

onenote

[phusion]

17. Thanks

that clears things up a bit.

:hi:

[xultar]

6. URGENT....Where is Daniel in the Bywater! How is 917 Desire?

My Ex was on vacation when the storm hit and left the cats in the care of a friend. I'm very concerned.

[jimshoes]

7. Something tells me

the real looting is hasn't started yet. Who watches the watchers?

[MetaTrope]

9. Yes, I expect the BFEE is going to be VERY well financed

come hell and high water.

[GumboYaYa]

8. I hear that Audobon Park is like a military base right now.

[OneBlueSky]

10. more precisely, NO has been taken over by the New World Order . . . n/t

.

[Robert Oak]

12. this stinks I believe it

They moved all far away.

Hearing reports of bulldozing the city.

Now I can see on CNN these military people going through houses,
in SWAT gear, and the thing is, the houses are fine.

Gorgeous furniture, paintings, basically a home.

Now, if this is on high ground, or the water is receding there
and the person is basically ok

what legal right does the government have in forcing them to leave?

They also are refusing to allow people to take their pets, never mind
their possessions.

I personally would never leave my pet.

Why are they demanding at this point, people leave their pets to die
when most are out and there isn't a lack of resources at this point?

That is trauma on top of trauma. A lot of people are like me, where their pet is basically their child or family member.

It's cruel and unnecessary also at this point.

To me, there is something very smelly going on. I don't see mandatory forcing from the area in Mississippi and have never heard of forced
evacuations from any disaster area when the person basically was not in danger significantly.
So far, I see no danger on some of these people where this is justified.

Now the guy swimming around in the sewer water who doesn't want to leave his dog is in danger...but if those people would just allow him
to bring his dogs he'd probably get to safe ground.

[onenote]

16. the situation in Mississippi is not comparable

the damage is nowhere near as widespread and extensive. The parts of Mississippi impacted most by the storm were not under water for days on end. There have been mandatory evacuations in Mississippi where its been determined that people are in structurally unsound buildings. In New Orleans (not the entire metro area, just the city) they simply are passed the point of being that selective.

onenote

[The Stranger]

14. There is something very, very bad in the water there.

But they aren't telling . . .