we came, we saw, we cried, we left
My mother used to refer to really awful things as "a crying shame." What has happened in New Orleans since Katrina hit two years ago is the epitome of a crying shame. The ever brilliant Robert Greenwald provides this clip urging us to support Senator Dodd's Gulf Coast Recovery Bill which is in congress right now.
If Katrina affected you as it did me, the worst thing was watching the suffering of the people of New Orleans in complete helplessness while the most government of the most powerful nation on earth did nothing. Go to When the Saints Go Marching In to sign the petition supporting the bill. As Greenwald says, Psssst, do something!
Thanks to Dusty at Sirens for the kick in the pants.
If Katrina affected you as it did me, the worst thing was watching the suffering of the people of New Orleans in complete helplessness while the most government of the most powerful nation on earth did nothing. Go to When the Saints Go Marching In to sign the petition supporting the bill. As Greenwald says, Psssst, do something!
Thanks to Dusty at Sirens for the kick in the pants.
Labels: do something, katrina, new orleans
posted by BigAssBelle at 2:06 PM
4 Comments:
Hi BAB, came from Sirens and wanted to say hello. Have not been here before, always nice to meet a new blogger.
(well not new, but new to me)
My beau and I visited the Gulf Coast and New Orleans 4 months before Katrina hit. I recall viewing the antebellum mansions along the Mississippi coast and admiring them, the fantastic bridges that connected Alabama's beach communities to the mainland, and the wonderful trip we took to the swamplands and through the outlying areas of New Orleans that few tourists see.
Four months later all that we had seen and enjoyed was gone, including the tiny hotel that sat precariously poised between the bay and the ocean in Alabama.
The Bush administration demonstrated their ineptitude during Katrina. It shouldn't have surprised us, as their paralysis was no different than their actions in the so-called reconstruction of Iraq.
I feel so sorry for the poor people still living in FEMA trailers. Bush and his cohorts should be forced to dwell in them. Bet that would speed things up.
I live in New Orleans, and after Katrina (before the water had even gone down in N.O.) I signed up to do relief work with the Peace Corps in Mississippi. Peace Corps, having done this sort of thing for years in other countries, was very efficient and moved amazingly quickly. Unfortunately, for most of that time, we were partnered with FEMA, and the level of incompetence and disorganization in that agency was absolutely astounding. Day after day, I watched people who had had a few branches blown down in their yards receive checks from the government while people who had lost everything they had (often including family members) get jack shit. The worst part was that no one could ever explain why, or if they could, it was always some ridiculous beaurecratic bullshit. They had thousands of trailers in a lot, and hundreds of people begging for them every day, and no one was getting them. No one from FEMA knew what was going on, and no one really seemed to give a shit. I still get angry and sickened every time I think about that exploding clusterfuck of a "relief center." Fuck FEMA, and especially fuck "Brownie."
I have extended family(son's friend) in NOLA, he let a local hospital use his house for over a year as an Urgent Care bless his heart.
I will never let the region be forgotten and I still cry when I see videos like Greenwalds BaB.
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