Voices From Louisiana- "We're Way Past Angry"

[buzzsaw_23]

Voices from Louisiana—“We’re Way Past Angry”

Revolution #13, September 4, 2005, posted at revcom.us

Revolution correspondents in Louisiana submitted this report:

On the way towards New Orleans, I talked to a man from Thibodeaux who had flown into New Orleans by helicopter to help repair generators. “They’re not telling people what’s happening there,” he said. “There are bodies everywhere. There are dead bodies on the streets of New Orleans. A natural disaster has become a human catastrophe; a furious storm has broken open a torrent of fury and bitterness among the people.”

A man who grew up in New Orleans’ 9th Ward—right up against the levee and the banks of Lake Pontchartrain—spoke to me. He broke down sobbing as he said he still didn’t know where his mother, aunt, and sisters were. He then told me this: “Don’t say they didn’t have a plan. That ain’t the problem. They had a plan, and this is their plan. Block off the city and let the people who don’t get out die. They’re poor, and they’re black. Let them die, that was their plan.”

A woman called in to a radio show, desperate for help. She told of an elderly friend who had been holed up for days, desperate, sick, and dehydrated. On Friday, he tried to walk across the Mississippi River bridge. But he was turned back by heavily armed troops because he had an Orleans Parish ID, and wasn’t allowed to cross the “border” into Jefferson Parish. “He’s going to die in his apartment,” she said.

Everyone we talked to is seething with anger and bursting with sorrow. People are shocked—that they are being treated like refugees; that they are being called refugees. They are shocked that government at every level did nothing to help them. “How can we be refugees in our home state? My family has been here since slavery days,” a man from Kenner said. “And now I’m supposed to be a refugee?” “We’re not angry. We’re way past angry,” one young man from Uptown New Orleans said. “If someone could look inside us and see how we feel, they’d see that. We’re way past angry.”

http://neworleans.indymedia.org/print.php?id=5397

[Lancer]

1. Thank you for posting this. eom

[joanne]

2. That's awful

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Where's Blanco or Nagin in all this?

Why don't they go out and confirm these reports and tell us what they need to help these people?

[buzzsaw_23]

6. Nagin is pro business

Blanco's main advisor for this is James Lee Witt who headed up FEMA during some of the Clinton years. Mr. Witt is a consultant/ advisor/agent....whatever to companies who are bidding for reconstruction projects in NOLA.

The people are being pushed out and sold down the river. They know that and they are upset-Big Time.

Diaspora


From d.a. levy
"Really"
                     the police try to protect
                     the banks - and everything else
                     is secondary"

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. Time to shame them on a national level.

We need film and photos. Would be powerful to see them trucking in workers with so many in NOLA with nothing to do.

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. This story is almost two weeks old

This report is from just two days after Blanco took back control from Bushco.

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. Are you saying that things are better now?

Is there fairness in the contract distribution?

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. In New Orleans, yes things are getting better

60% of the water is gone. HS/FEMA said it would take 8 weeks. Since the NG took over there is law and order and all the people who wanted or need to be evacuated have left. Nagin is pushing to allow 185,000 back in next week at least into the areas that aren't flooded anymore. Even electric is being restored in some areas.

However this has nothing to do with the 100,000's of people who were evacuated and their fate at the moment, but unfortunately they are at the mercy of the Federal Government unless they can get back to NO.

[Skidmore]

4. "They had a plan, and this is their plan."

That is so damning. But this gentleman is absolutely right about what the plan was.

[Karenina]

16. Yes. It was an intentional, deliberate

culling of the black, poor (and Democratic) herd entrenched in the Gulf port.

[leesa]

5. How do we make sure these people are able to vote next year?

[gratuitous]

7. Well now, that can't be right

I was watching ABC last Thursday when our resolute commander-in-chief strode resolutely out to the microphones and under the resolute glare of the stage set, with his shirt resolutely misbuttoned, Mr. Bush resolutely told us all just what's resolutely what.

Afterwards, ABC went to interview a half dozen people sitting in the parking lot of the Astrodome, and they all said the president sounded resolute, and they were happy with his resolute promises.

I missed the rest of the report though, because I'd just eaten four chili cheese dogs and had to take a massive resolute.

[jimshoes]

8. Here I thought Resolut

was some kind of Vodka.

[xchrom]

9. that is indeed their plan.

it's been the plan for a long time -- but americans love to pretend to be shocked.

makes them feel useful or something.

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. Hey gang, this story is TWO WEEKS old

The situation on the ground in NO is still bad but very much improved since this report was written.

Blanco and Nagin have made all this happen with still very little help from the Bush Administration, thank you very much.

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. Thank you for sharing that