Powerful NYT editorial: "We are about to lose New Orleans."

[DeepModem Mom]

Editorial
Death of an American City
Published: December 11, 2005

We are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.

We said this wouldn't happen. President Bush said it wouldn't happen. He stood in Jackson Square and said, "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans." But it has been over three months since Hurricane Katrina struck and the city is in complete shambles.

There are many unanswered questions that will take years to work out, but one is make-or-break and needs to be dealt with immediately. It all boils down to the levee system. People will clear garbage, live in tents, work their fingers to the bone to reclaim homes and lives, but not if they don't believe they will be protected by more than patches to the same old system that failed during the deadly storm. Homeowners, businesses and insurance companies all need a commitment before they will stake their futures on the city.

At this moment the reconstruction is a rudderless ship. There is no effective leadership that we can identify. How many people could even name the president's liaison for the reconstruction effort, Donald Powell? Lawmakers need to understand that for New Orleans the words "pending in Congress" are a death warrant requiring no signature....

***

If the rest of the nation has decided it is too expensive to give the people of New Orleans a chance at renewal, we have to tell them so. We must tell them we spent our rainy-day fund on a costly stalemate in Iraq, that we gave it away in tax cuts for wealthy families and shareholders. We must tell them America is too broke and too weak to rebuild one of its great cities....

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/opinion/11sun1.html?hp

[Erika]

Rebuild New Orleans or Iraq

It seems that the GOP Congress has forsaken its own Americans. Surprise, surprise.

[Deja Q]

3. They've been forsakening America ever since Nixon went to China.

[me b zola]

6. Just a side note

But it was bush 41, supposedly on behalf of Nixon, who made those deals with China. It kind of explains a lot.

[EFerrari]

1. kick

[Deja Q]

2. When * says one thing, expect the exact opposite to follow.

Haven't people figured that by now? It's only been (glancing at the clock) five YEARS, and do note one Presidential term is FOUR years...

[AwakeAtLast]

5. Just like Bizarro Jerry

I don't know what happened, I just felt like throwing in a Seinfeld reference. I'm going to bed now.

:yoiks:

[G_j]

4. and to think the Pentagon "lost" over a trillion dollars

:cry:

& what is the current Pentagon/military budget, 400 Billion?

[JDPriestly]

10. Let's get the money that Cunningham and Abramoff

and DeLay took for favors and political campaigns. That should be enough to rebuild all of New Orleans including the levees.

[Dagaz]

7. most seem happy elsewhere

Apparantly not much opportunity in New Orleans. Most don't want to move back. It will be rebuilt but maybe not in areas that can't be protected.

[babylonsister]

14. Again, I say bullshit. If the survivors could go home, knowing they

have a home and secure levees they should have had to begin with, they would be home.
There would be plenty of opportunity and money if this flippin' war wasn't being waged.
Where are you from? :eyes:

[DoYouEverWonder]

25. Have you ever even been to New Orleans?

Do you have any idea what it is like to lose your home, your job and your friends? Because you sound like you really don't have a clue.

[Cooley Hurd]

33. Sounds a lot like what Babs the Beautiful Mind was saying in Sept...

Almost everyone I've talked to says, 'We're going to move to Houston.' What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them.

[Canuckistanian]

68. Babs should have that pic up on her wall...

Just to remind herself of reality....

Oh, I forgot, they're not reality-based, my bad.

[annabanana]

38. newspeak happy talk...

I saw it on TV. It must be true.

[Straight Shooter]

47. "most seem happy elsewhere" ... Babs bush, is that you?

Ya know, I've often thought that if only I could lose my home and all my possessions and be set adrift in America, at the mercy of the incompetent federal agencies and compassionate conservatives, I would be happy. :eyes:

[long_green]

48. You have no damned idea what you're talking about

The people who have left the city and the people who are returning are all heartbroken. A great many people are leaving but no one is "happy" about it. I have heard from people who are leaving, and from some who are gone. They tell me what they have been forced to do, not what they are glad to be doing.
Next time you lose your home, or your hometown, and are forced to restart your life somewhere else, please let us all know about it so we (or just I) can tell you how thrilled you are with your new opportunity.

I don't know you but I know you're better than what you posted.

[Anita Garcia]

53. Who have you been talking to?

It is not whether they do or do not want to. It is whether they can or can not.
You are asking these "most" that you mention the wrong question.
The evacuated, displaced, and interned people of the devastated areas that have not moved back to their homes, either have no homes to return to or have gotten jobs where they are currently residing.

In essence, those that have no choice but to return, can not return and those that can choose to come back have established residences elsewhere.

The haves and the have-nots.

The next question would be: "What are you willing to do to ensure that the devastated areas will be rebuilt so that the have-nots can come back?"

[Leopolds Ghost]

73. Define "no homes". Define "rebuild".

Just like in Baltimore, New York and other large US cities,

vast swaths of the city that have been blighted by disorder and wilful neglect (capped by a much anticipated hurricane affecting the areas officials anticipated and expected/hoped would be destroyed)

are currently CONDEMNED.

Most Americans and I daresay even most New Orleanians who don't work in the construction industry probably have no idea what CONDEMNED means.

Growing up in a throwaway culture where if something is "broken" you throw it out, where from the 1800s to today if a building is in bad shape you year it down and build another to get MAXIMUM VALUE out of your property,

They think CONDEMNED means IRRECOVERABLE. It does not. CONDEMNED means the government has declared that the building is unsafe. Not unsafe to be renovated -- unsafe for its present (invariably impoverished) occupants. Not future (invariably wealthy) owners and their contractors -- or slumlord lawyers, in the case of owners who simply wish to sit on it and speculate. Only the current owners.

It is a tool used to kick people out of a damaged building and allow the government to tear it down without the owner's permission -- unless the owner is rich enough to hire a contractor (who, in a city as poor as New Orleans, will assuredly ask the owner to assist with the cleanup and renovation if he wishes it to be done in a timely manner.)

These houses (especially the older ones, the ones you -- Americans all -- are prone to think of as more vulnerable or somehow "damaged goods" or "not worth recovering anyhow" because they are SMALL and many of them OWNED OUTRIGHT by longtime impoverished "land poor" residents) --

have been CONDEMNED, not destroyed.

Many -- NOT MOST -- homes were destroyed in the flooding. A large majority of homes in even the most damaged areas are recoverable. It requires a willingness to finance reconstruction by the owners -- who many of us already like to think of as the FORMER owners now that the government has declared their homes UNSAFE (not irrecoverable, just unoccupiable exept by contractors -- and they only enforce this provision against blacks, not white lawyers busily mucking out their own first floor Victorians in the midst of "uninhabitable, totally destroyed" Mid City)

I wish everyone would spare the mawkish bullcrap about how all the homes are just "destroyed". This is not the first time a house has
been flooded and if people were willing to stop repeating fiction it would be the first step to giving people a leg up. Repeating fiction is telling people they have nothing to return to -- don't bother looking. And plenty of people don't have a clue how simple it is to refurbish a house that has been subject to this level of destruction, so long as the structure is sound.

[jeffrey_X]

66. Really???? I had Thanksgiving dinner with my wife's uncle who's been...

in Chicago since the hurricane. He's living in a spare bedroom at my wife's, mother's (his sister) house. He has yet to find a job and is desparate to get back down south.

With 5 degree temperatures, 8 inches of snow on the ground and no job....I guess he seems happy. :rolleyes:

[Leopolds Ghost]

74. According to the WaPo, he SHOULD BE... if he's priveliged enough to be

evacuated to a majority white area, that is.

They wrote a front page news article about how it was worth the death of a guy's entire family -- drowned before his eyes -- to have a chance to live in a white section of Fayetteville, Ark. with his remaining relatives -- a place where they would be safe. Safe from looters, officials, and other New Orleans scummy lowlifes. This was not a quote, mind you, just the reporter's interpretation. That the guy was "happy" and that it was all "worth it" in the end -- to work at a Wal-Mart in Fayetteville, a place he "otherwise would never have had the opportunity to live". I kid you not.

[RagingInMiami]

8. And despite allowing one of this country's greatest cities to die

People still support the sonofabush.

[babylonsister]

9. Bullshit! REBUILD the damned levees equivalent to

the Dutch, Italians, is it Norwegians or Swiss?
The Gulf Coast and New Orleans, the culture and history, is so-o-o worth saving! It has to get done, and we have to keep the pressure on.
Tonight, people are living in tents on the gulf coast. This sucks beyond words and has to be changed. Do you know someone who has enough or everything? Give a donation in their name!!!

[texpatriot2004]

12. American citizens...taxpayers are living in tents in the USA while

this evil regime does nothing. Outrage fatigue!

[patricia92243]

40. The usual-NOT being covered by the press. People don't realize how bad it

still is. Have to cover up for the Bush administration you know. Gag!

[Leopolds Ghost]

75. I'm assuming Greenpeace no longer opposes building Dutch-style floodgates

Across the swamps at the mouth of Lake Ponch'train, parallel to I-10, right??

I hope not. It's bad enough the (R) fuckups oppose any reconstruction.

I'm just sayin' -- if people (liberals and conservatives) are unwilling to trade the expense / environmental harm of a massive sea-gate system to protect the city from the LAKE, then we haven't learned anything from 9-01-05.

[me b zola]

11. I think that most of us, as we watched the murder of New Orleans

--and the murder of her people--I think we knew what fate was planned for her. :cry:

[Leopolds Ghost]

76. White Power-ists in the Louisiana Republican party have been planning this

For years, they knew eventually the big one would hit if the levees were allowed to crumble. Near misses kept happening and each time they eagerly awaited the big one.

They knew they could rely on the indifference / mistrust / outright racial animosity of many white Louisiana Dems (and conservative creoles like Nagin) to distract America from solidarity with the so-called "looters" who were deliberately left to remain, in hopes that they would burn down the city in the absence of authority and "prove to the world what happens when you leave those people to their own devices."

They've been saying these things for years.

[necso]

13. What the piece does not mention

is that the longer the delay and the greater the uncertainty, the better the chances (and the longer the opportunity) for speculators to buy up property (relatively) cheaply.

The whole damn thing is a mess. At least some of the levee failures (again, used broadly) should not have happened. (And I doubt that we'll get honest (official) answers about the cause of all (perhaps any) of the failures.) And the whole delta is a problem, with a major effort being needed just to deal with the unpopulated areas. Moreover, I'm not sure that what's best for the wetlands is best for the populated areas, and vice-versa. (And I could go on.)

But one thing is clear to me, spending a fortune rebuilding and protecting a gentrified New Orleans is not my idea of reconstruction, and, personally, I'm not willing to pay for it.

[Dagaz]

16. amen

I'm willing to pay for suffering people to reclaim their lives but we need to be real about NO.

[long_green]

49. here is real

New Orleans had inadequate flood protection. The US Army Corps of Engineers shortsheeted the levees by sinking the foundations for the walls to only a fraction of the depth required for Category 3 flood protection. If the job by your government and my government had been done properly we would be talking almost exclusively about the devastation of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

[Leopolds Ghost]

77. If I hear one more Dem or even radical declare gentrification inevitable

I'll puke.

I've been hearing this for years because frankly, many people in the Democratic Party for some reason cannot imagine any other way of helping people in the inner city, than moving them somewhere else, and helping someone else rebuild their former homes. Tear down the home if necessary, to get the poor people into a better place, but not for any structural reason... get the local Historic Preservation society or Homeowners Assn to tear down the only homeless shelter on the block on the grounds that it is "uninhabitable" while the other (equally damaged) homes around it are busy being renovated by their new owners painted fuscia and green...

Benefiting Dems politically as well (supposedly) by spreading the poor people around where they are less of a liability and (supposedly) introducing more artsy-fartsy DINKS into the inner city. It deosn't take a hurricane for Dem mayors across the US to vote to turn schools into gyms for the new custodians of the inner city to take a break from their efforts to help poor people escape places like New Orleans (by kicking them out and rebuilding their houses once they're gone.)

Alwyst remember when it comes to rebuilding "blighted" areas... Where there's a wallet... there's a way. He who has the gold makes the rules.

[Swamp Rat]

15. YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!!!

:cry:

[...of J.Temperance]

26. Hey Mr. Swamp Rat

I know...and I feel the same, I know that a part of your soul is dying, just like I know a part of my soul is dying :cry:

But don't give up...the light will win, the good will win, we'll find a way to rebuild and protect the place we love, we will and we must.

Don't despair :hug:

[Swamp Rat]

27. abraço

:hug:

[...of J.Temperance]

30. Aw, you sweetie

:hug:

Here further down this thread I posted this, do you agree with what I wrote about leaving NOLA shut off completely until 2009...or am I talking crap?! ;)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5569330#5569833

[Swamp Rat]

32. Well, that would make me literally homeless for three years.

I have no money and no place to go, except back to a fucked up house. Plus, I need to BE there in order to fight for the proper restoration on my beautiful Crescent City.

[...of J.Temperance]

34. Heck

I'm sorry about the situation you're in :( I don't know what we do...the only solution then that I can see is some direct action.

People have been contacted about this, and yet NOBODY seems to be listening. I don't know what to do, I WISH that I did :cry:

It's like talking to a brick wall.

[Swamp Rat]

36. Well, if the rest of America gives up on New Orleans,

then I'll have no reason to live in the USA anymore. How cold does it get in Northern Scotland?

[druidity33]

42. as cold as Buffalo...

just not nearly as much snow. Beautiful landscape though. Try Cape Breton, Nova Scotia... a little closer, nearly as many bagpipes, and just as gorgeous. Look for hot springs in these places.... mmmmmmmmm....

[long_green]

50. Not me. I'm gonna stay and wait for the next catastrophe to hit

it will be cold comfort to watch the United States become a fourth rate power to go with its fifth rate intellect and tenth rate morals but I'll manage to smile every now and then.

[HeeBGBz]

71. They really are

Evil fuckers.

(((Swamp Rat)))

[northerdar]

17. The Dying of New Orleans is the crack of

the great American Empire breaking up. When an Empire can not take care of and fix its broken cities it has passed its time of greatness. My wonderful High School History teacher, Mr. Baur, taught my class that all great empires reach their peak at about 250 years. It appears he is quite right. I am so sorry America that facism by Bush is killing the once great country I looked up to admired.

[babylonsister]

18. Regardless of what your teacher taught you, I trust

1) the Bush cabal isn't considered a great empire and, 2) greater and better forces will overcome.

[northerdar]

21. American was a great empire

It started 1776 and after WWII it reached it's highest peaks of respect and admiration and success. Now as all great empires it is on its decline. It has imploded from the corruption of its own government. The new budding empires are now in Asia. That is why the American corporations are selling out and getting the last drops of profit it can before the house of The United States of America falls like a deck of cards.

[rman]

37. You think decline started with GW Bush?

What about Nixon, Reagan, Bush sr., Bay of Pigs, Iran-Contra? What about all the RW dictators supported by the US since WW2?

Decline started after WW2 when it was decided behind closed by policy makers that the wealthy nations should exploit the poor nations for their riches (resources primarily) - by any means necessary.

Thus is revealed in now declassified documents of the State Department, created in 1948.

========

US State Dept. docs : "3rd world a source of raw material to be exploited"

What follows are excerpts from the famous debate between Noam Chomsky and Richard Perle at The Ohio State University in 1988 (http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=8409).

In the debate Chomsky cites from now declassified documents from the State Department. Even an academic of high standing such as Noam Chomsky has a hard time getting access to such documents:

"One learns a lot from looking at the documentary record, and one learns a lot from the fact that certain people don't want you to look at it."
- Noam Chomsky

Chomsky makes a distinction between what he calls "official doctrine" - doctrine as created behind closed doors, and "widely proclaimed doctrine" - the policies as told to the public.
He notes that what's actually happening in the world (much of which goes unreported in the mainstream media) - ie US/Western support of various dictators and genocides, and the 'debt-trap' of so-called "Free Trade Agreements" - is in fact consistent with (secret) official doctrine, but inconsistent with publicly announced policies.

"Official doctrine is quite inconsistent with the historical and documentary record. (Official doctrine) conforms to the pattern of evolving events, and is entirely inconsistent with widely proclaimed doctrine."
- Noam Chomsky


Quotes from declassified State Department documents:

On the 3rd World:

"...a source of raw material and markets for the industrialist capitalist powers, to be exploited for their reconstruction"...

On Latin America:

"Prime concern is the protection of our raw materials. We have 50% of the worlds wealth but only 6% of its population, we must maintain this disparity to the extent possible, by force if necessary, putting aside vague and idealistic slogans such as human rights, raising of living standards, democratization, preferring police states if needed over democracies that might be to liberal and to indulgent to communists, the latter has lost any substantial meaning in US political rhetoric, referring simply to anyone who stands in our way."

"The primary threat to the US in Latin America is the trend towards nationalistic regimes that respond to popular demand for improvement in low living standards and production for domestic needs. That's not acceptable because the US is committed to encouraging a climate inductive to private investment, in particular guaranties for opportunity to earn and in the case of foreign capital to repatriate a reasonable return."

"We must therefore oppose what is regularly called ultra nationalism in secret documents, that means efforts to pursue domestic needs. We must foster exports or (...) production in the interests of US investors. It is recognized such programs have very little appeal to the Latin American public. So the conclusion is that we must therefore gain control over the military which can in turn control domestic opposition and overthrow civilian governments if necessary."

===

"There is a declassified State Department paper from 1948 that outlines what the US intended to do with various regions of the world after World War II. The US decided to take the Middle East and Asia. When it came to Africa, the document essentially says that we're not so interested in Africa, so we'll give it to the Europeans to "exploit"-that's the word used-for their reconstruction." - Chomsky
http://www.madre.org/articles/chomsky-0801.html

===

I. Fundamental Principles: Straight Power Concepts

The fundamental aims of Western foreign policy under American leadership, were stated in a now declassified top-secret planning report produced by the US State Department’s policy planning staff, headed at the time (February 1948) by the ‘liberal’ George Kennan: "We have about 50 per cent of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3 per cent of its population... In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain’ the ‘position of disparity’ between the West and the rest of the world. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction... We should cease to talk about vague and... unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we will have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.’
http://www.transcend.org/t_database/articles.php?ida=78

[tom_paine]

20. Sorry to say I mostly agree

[eppur_se_muova]

19. "President Bush said it wouldn't happen."

Hell, It's been three months. He's forgotten by now. Wasn't his idea, so he forgets it.

Of course, he was willing to spend two months on the road for Social Security "reform". Clearly there's a link between attention span and ideology.

[SoCalDem]

24. He cannot be bothered.. he and laura are planning for

their "fabulous' Christmas..

[...of J.Temperance]

29. EVERY promise Junior has EVER made he's gone and BROKEN

Should we REALLY be surprised by THIS promise being broken too? I KNEW the pig fucker was LYING when he stood in Jackson Square and gave that truly weirdo performance...Little Hitler standing there, in an EMPTY Jackson Square promising the EARTH and yet in his warped mind promising shit.

Remember he promised New York City things after September 11th, promises that he broke...more lies.

The underlining matter with regard to the Crescent City is this...the Repukes have ALWAYS HATED NOLA, they've hated it for what it stood for, for how the people were, for how the people lived amongst each other all creeds and colors and sexualities and how happily they lived next to each other. They hated the spirit and the love of life and the laid-back, easy going attitude, they hated the mystery and the exotic and the sensual and the soul that NOLA was famous AND infamous for.

Hurricane Katrina to the Repukes was their wet dream...it destroyed a city that these pig fuckers have LONG HATED...they didn't allow NOLA to drown for six days by accident, it was DELIBERATE, just like the Diaspora of NOLA's black population was DELIBERATE...and now after watching a city they HATE be destroyed instead of wanting to rebuild it, they're DETERMIND to KILL it off for GOOD.

But we mustn't let them...to be honest, I would rather NOLA be shut down COMPLETELY to the outside world UNTIL we get a Democratic President back in the WH...because we'll be able to TRUST that President with the proper rebuilding of NOLA...I would rather the city be closed off until 2009...because I DO NOT trust these Repuke bastards with NOLA.

How can we possibly expect the Repukes to do whats right by NOLA, how can we possibly expect the Repukes to rebuild a city that they've ALWAYS HATED? We CANNOT.

I would rather do without NOLA until 2009, if that means that we will then SAVE NOLA and rebuild it back to how it was and then bring the NOLA black and white population home to WHERE they BELONG.

On Edit: The majority black population, but I know that there's also a white population that's been displaced and we need to bring them home WHERE they BELONG too.

Just my two cents opinion.

[JackDragna]

46. It's not just the culture the Republicans hate.

It's the very idea of a liberal city being an oasis in a sea of conservatism. Rural areas, not just in the south, have become overwhelmingly Republican. The big cities of each state are now the sole bastions of liberalism, tipping the scales for Democrats in state elections and ensuring Democratic representation in state governmental bodies. If Republicans could have their way, they would have Chicago destroyed to strengthen the power of the idiots in the rest of Illinois. They would love to see Minneapolis steamrolled. And Des Moines. And Phoenix. And New York City. And Las Vegas. And Seattle. And..(insert name of largest city in any particular state here).

This is why, in many ways, I simply consider the disaster in New Orleans to be an acceleration of processes the Republicans were instituting anyway in our larger cities. Cut welfare, prosecute the war on drugs, make the schools terrible, gut the support infrastructure of the city, and what do you get? Neighborhoods full of crime, broken people and broken lives. New Orleans was already damned in that sense, but Katrina just made things easier. That's what really pisses me off about all this: if people just opened their eyes, they'd see the Republicans had been destroying urban America for years in their political wars with the Democrats.

[Raksha]

78. And don't forget San Francisco!

Re >>If Republicans could have their way, they would have Chicago destroyed to strengthen the power of the idiots in the rest of Illinois. They would love to see Minneapolis steamrolled. And Des Moines. And Phoenix. And New York City. And Las Vegas. And Seattle. And..(insert name of largest city in any particular state here).<<

I think the Repukes hate San Francisco almost as much as they hate New Orleans, and for very much the same reasons. It's a very liberal, very multicultural city that doesn't want to be anything else but what it is...EVER! I don't live in San Francisco, but my own nearest metropolis (Los Angeles) is a close second. I'm sure the Repuke bastards are happy we're on the San Andreas fault and can't wait until the Big One wipes us out. Hopefully, they won't be in power then--or any time in the foreseeable future if I have anything to say about it.

[daleo]

22. Germany rebuilt its cities, so did Japan (after WWII)

It is frankly amazing that the U.S. won't do the same for New Orleans.

[long_green]

54. People forget that large portions of N.O. were flooded

by Hurricane Betsy in 1965. I used to shudder over the stories of privation of people rebuilding their lives but it by God got done. Today? The most optimistic of us down here think we might have half our population back by Mardi Gras (another three months or so).
I used to believe that human beings progressed over time. I especially used to believe this about America; I believed our constitution was the best guarantee of the rights necessary to safeguard the progress of civilization. But 25 years ago, we decided to chuck all that nonsense and live for one ideal: that one day, we would be fabulously wealthy. The net result of this change is that we now live for another ideal: though we will never be fabulously wealthy, we can at least temporarily act like we are by drowning in bright toys. The net result of this change for New Orleans is that she is now part of a "nation" that won't, and possibly can't, help her get back on her feet.
In 25 years we have gone from "the last best hope of mankind" to a rich, white Guatemala with the bomb. And we did it to ourselves at the ballot box.

[Paulie]

63. What about Poland??? (wink)

Warsaw was leveled... and they rebuilt the old part of town the best they could based on pictures, to be just like it was before the Nazi's blew it to dust.

[Hekate]

23. The danger to the city's people and cultural heritage is twofold...

New Orleans is an important, vital commercial port, to say nothing of the oil offshore. It's too important to be left to rot. The question is: who will do the fixing, and for whom?

The danger to the city's people and cultural heritage is twofold:

The first is that Bushco, in keeping with their policy of privatizing and faith-basing everything to do with people and social programs, is treating the refugees as charity cases best dealt with by private charitable outfits such as churches.

The second danger is that when the rebuilding is finally done, it will be done by major corporations for the benefit of major corporations, instead of being managed by the government for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana, and the rest of the US.

Rebuilding as managed by corporations will first take care of the needs of those who use the ports, the oil rigs, chemical plants, and large commercial fisheries. They will have plants, offices, and some worker housing.

As the city itself decays until former residents despair and abandon their properties, interested corporations such as Walt Disney enterprises can buy up the land. People will actually be grateful as the bulldozers finally clear the rubble.

Disney can then rebuild New Orleans according to its Main Street USA model -- i.e. wonderfully sanitized. There will be a lot of low-paying jobs for people called "cast members" doing everything from staging Jazz Funerals to cooking jambalaya for the tourists.

"Cast members" will have to commute from outlying districts, as their housing is not the problem of Disney.

In addition, probably simultaneously, time-share condos are sure to spring up everywhere. People who use time-shares don't ask a lot of awkward questions about toxics in the soil, the condition of the levees, and the presence or absence of quality public schools.

Is this genius or what, here in the land of opportunity?

Hekate

edited to correct typo in subject line

[pitohui]

61. doesn't seem realistic to me

if disney were planning to buy new orleans, we'd already have cat 5 levee protection guaranteed to us by congress

the wealthy take care of their own

if you want the city to rebuild, don't fear-monger or spread paranoia, instead focus on getting adequate levees replaced and improved

it is not helping those of us who actually live here to hear scare theories repeated that seem to have no basis in anything except dystopian science fiction

worrying abt the rich developer buying our property is a luxury problem

disney will always be with us, right now let's focus on POSITVE memes that will help save our homes rather than causing despair & destruction of our homes

some of us, even on this board, are still here & negativity is not useful to our cause

[Hekate]

81. I am sorry that my excursion into Dystopia upset you

>sigh< Truly. And I am sorry for your losses, which are great.

I got carried away -- I think so little of George W. Bush that sometimes I think nothing he does can surprise me any more, and then it does. I need not go into details, I'm sure.

If it's any consolation at all, I dug deep and directed my donations to Dennis Kyne and the other Vets for Peace on the bus The White Rose when they left Camp Casey and headed for Louisiana. They were in Covington, not New Orleans, but they did solid hands-on work there. A separate donation will eventually go to Starhawk and her permaculture group, who have been working directly in New Orleans -- her online newsletter mentioned the lack of rubble clearance as well.

I can sign petitions, write my congresswoman, nudge my senators ... I don't know what else to do. I've been doing this for 5 years and George W. Bush is still occupying the White House.

Give me a positive meme, my friend. I need one as much as you do.

Hekate

[The Backlash Cometh]

28. As New Orleans goes, so goeth America.

[NMMNG]

31. Bush doesn't give a damn about NO or the people who lived there

If he did he would have taken steps to prevent the devastation that occurred there. He would have responded immediately to the tragedy instead of partying and plucking a guitar. He would have made sure that prompt relief efforts reached the citizens of NO. He would have had much more work done towards rebuilding the city. He did none of the above. He simply doesn't give a damn.

[...of J.Temperance]

35. The Bush bastard doesn't give a damn about anything, except for

His cronies, his fellow war-profiteers, his fellow spoilt brats and HIMSELF. That's all he cares about.

The Monster is a true Sociopath, and he has a BLACK heart and a hollow soul.

He saw people dying from thirst and hunger and a CITY drowning...and he just yukked it up with his cronies and probably cackled to himself and to them about what was happening in NOLA.

[rman]

39. 80% of residents not returned to NO, even if homes not

damaged, or suffered minimal damage.
Of the 20% that did return, most are well off, and white.

Democracy Now
Friday, December 9th, 2005
New Orleans Evacuees and Activists Testify at Explosive House Hearing on the Role of Race and Class in Government's Response to Hurricane Katrina
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/09/1443240

REP. JEFF MILLER: Miss Hodges, would you be offended if I respectfully asked you not to call the Causeway area a concentration camp?

LEAH HODGES: I am going to call it what it is. If I put a dress on a pig, a pig is still a pig.

REP. JEFF MILLER: Are you familiar with the history?

LEAH HODGES: Yes, sir, I am. And that is the only thing I could compare what we went through to: a concentration camp.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: And that's the truth.

LEAH HODGES: And everybody in the place with me, the lady sitting next to me was there, my mother was there, my younger brother was there, my two sisters; we ran into others. That is the point, that they broke up families and dispersed us.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: That's right.

LEAH HODGES: And they stood over us with guns and enforced their authority, and yes, they tortured us. And then they used various forms of torture. And yes, I know what a concentration camp is. I'm a college-educated woman.

REP. JEFF MILLER: Not a single --

LEAH HODGES: And I love the study of history.

REP. JEFF MILLER: Not a single person was marched into a gas chamber and killed.

LEAH HODGES: They died from abject neglect. We left body bags behind. Pregnant women lost their babies.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: That's one of the reasons why some of these people wouldn't come out of those houses, because you was told to come on the street, and when people came out –

LEAH HODGES: They were shot

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: -- they were killed.

[lanlady]

41. I hope the NYT is not surprised

that Bush didn't keep to his word, that it was all posturing for the TV cameras. We're gonna smoke Osama out of his cave, we're gonna rebuild New Orleans, we're gonna cure Social Security, mission accomplished. Most underachieving s.o.b ever to occupy the Oval Office.

[kevinbgoode]

43. The wingnuts had no real intention to rebuild this city

They seemed quite clear about that from the first parrotting in the media after the disaster. They'll make the media ignore this issue until the city rots away. The War on Christmas is much more important. . .and wingnuts can't do much about substance on anything, but symbolism is everything.

[qanda]

44. Just when I thought I couldn't hate Bush more than I do

God help us all.

[NashVegas]

45. New Orleans Is Changed Forever & No One Will Admit It

It's not very different from the 9/11 flight that got shot down over Pennsylvania. No one dares to admit to having giving the order to do what was necessary. No one wants to take the heat for it.

Even if the levees are rebuilt, right now, it would be a temporary fix.

Until someone steps forward with an engineering plan that takes future riverflow and sediment build-up into account, and works with it instead of trying to defeat it, the mighty Mississippi will fuck with anything we humans come up with.

My unpopular recommendation: evacuate the city and send off the bulk of land and business owners with deeds/entitlements/whatever you want to call them that will guarantee them and/or their heirs right-of-return and claimance.

Consider New Orleans, for the foreseeable (10-20 years) future, a military base. The mouth of the river that splits the country in half must be protected. Allow only the portion of the population necessary to support that.

The purpose is to give the engineers and others entrusted with coming up with a permanent fix the time they need to come up with said plan.

[long_green]

51. There are still 100k people here RIGHT NOW

and that number is going to start climbing rapidly as people who stayed gone while their children were in school out of town start coming back over the next few weeks.
Also, Orleans Parish is the nucleus of a metropolitan area with a pre-Katrina population of 1.3 million. Your suggestion will force a huge fraction of these folks to up stakes and move somewhere else. The city is also the biggest economic engine for a state with a population of four and a half million people. The loss of revenue from your suggestion, as opposed to the loss of revenue the state will sustain anyway, would force hundreds of thousands of people who lost nothing to Katrina to move elsewhere due to the decrease in the ability of Louisiana to offer opportunity to her people.
The other part of your plan, to have the government guarantee the rights of the old owners, are you serious? THIS administration? The one that doesn't want to take care of the young men it maims in Iraq? It will cost less money to build the levees to the modest specs they WERE NOT built to pre-Katrina and adopt the plan to channel the river in such a way as to allow her to dump her silt and rebuild the wetlands barrier south of the city (a steal at only $14 billion).

[pitohui]

65. maybe the poster is pulling our leg?

i also responded to this ridiculous suggestion but the more i think abt it the more i realize this individual prob. just forgot to use the :sarcasm: tag

[pitohui]

64. that's perfectly ridiculous

i guess we are less intelligent than the dutch and the germans and all the rest who do provide proper levees for their people?

the dutch have come here & told mary landrieu that there is no technical reason we can't be protected, the problem is not a technical one, it's a FINANCIAL one

you want to steal our land & give it to the military, hell, cripes, that'll teach 'em, how many other cities will they kill to get that land under federal control also, as bartcop says if a man makes a mistake that puts money in his pocket he'll keep making that mistake

i hope you'll take my criticism in the spirit intended & i'm aware that brainstorming is sometimes needed but that suggestion is the dumbest one i've heard all week

you said--Consider New Orleans, for the foreseeable (10-20 years) future, a military base. The mouth of the river that splits the country in half must be protected. Allow only the portion of the population necessary to support that.

[NashVegas]

67. How Often

Do they have hurricanes in Amsterdam?

[JVS]

69. I agree with you

[Blue_Tires]

52. kicked/recommended n/t

[faithnotgreed]

55. kick

[Al-CIAda]

56. .

[Al-CIAda]

57. .

[Time for change]

58. I think the fact that BushCo can get away with this is proof that

we are hanging onto our democracy by a thread, if at all.

[leeroysphitz]

59. "no effective leadership that we can identify"

That sums up the last five years for the entire country. I'm not being flip when I ask why anyone would expect anything different from the Bush admin.

Our nation has been viciously attacked, gone to wars, suffered economic set backs and all without any sign of forthright, competent leadership. Why would the rebuilding of a city (ruined, in the first place, through this adiministrations incompetence) be ANY different?

Impeach Bush now, indict him now...

[Junkdrawer]

60. PR = Reality...or does it?

When you live in a world of Corporate Media and Public Relations, those in power perceive ALL problems as PR problems to be "solved" by more propaganda.

Until the differences between reality and the reporting of reality become so stark that even the brain-washed can't ignore it.

[DeepModem Mom]

62. I've been offline most of the time since I posted this, and want to thank

everyone who posted thoughtful, and caring, posts in this thread, and to acknowledge the pain in the posts from those who call this great city home. At this point it may be only a dream, but my dream is that those who call NO home will be truly at home there again, and that my family and I, and millions of others, will one day return to a city we've visited many times, a city like no other, exotic, and full of magic, music, deliciousness, and haunting beauty.

[Wordie]

70. Does anyone have Anderson Cooper's email? This should be sent to him,

as he was great in covering Katrina, and might be very willing to follow up.

This is shameful. We are focusing on nonsense about "holiday" vs "Christmas" cards, and in the meantime a major US city is failing. It's way past time for GWB to do something meaningful about this.

Edited to add: recommended.

[Hailtothechimp]

72. New Orleans will not be mentioned once when Congress returns

Those fucking criminals will extend the Patriot Act but let NOLA die. SHame on them all.

[Leopolds Ghost]

79. Already posted the Washington Post's answer to the New Orleans Problem

Editorial might as well be a rebuttal to the New York Times.

Perhaps they should have a debate:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5529777

[The Judged]

80. Not right now. More tax cuts for the rich and public land giveaways first!

W

[Al-CIAda]

82. .

[Al-CIAda]

83. .