Someone at work today said, “We are a third world country.”
She wasn’t the only one…I’ve heard a lot of people say the same.
Cuba has offered medicine and medical assistance just tonight.
Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?

What is so outrageous, aside from the fact that we obviously can’t respond adequately or with any due speed to a catastrophic event, is the fact of who was left after the mandatory evacuation — the poor. the sick, the infirm, and most of them black (New Orleans had a very large poor, black population) — those who had no means to evacuate. Why was there no plan in place to evacuate these people? They were simply left to fend, then herded into a hell-dome. Then, once herded and contained, left with no food, no water, no sanitary facilities.

When looters were spotted in a certain part of town, a bus came through under cover of night, with headlights off, and evacuated the whites who were holed up in a nice hotel. The poor blacks in the hell-dome and the civic-sewer remained.

This is not just a tragedy. It’s a travesty.
And it is being perpetuated along class and racial lines.

Today, finally, provisions were trucked in.
4 days after.
Today, after widespread media attention and criticism — after relentless public outcry — after poor countries offered us aid — after the mayor of New Orleans called the government out for its failure and its lies and its bullshit — President Bush found the balls to set foot in Louisiana.
4 days after.

I’m not hopeful. I’m convinced that things are going to get worse. People are going to face more hardship and the government is going to make more wrong decisions before this is over. And all I can do personally (besides lie awake at night ever since this happened) is donate dollars to the Red Cross and hope they are used wisely.

I don’t know what more to say. This hits me on so many levels. There’s so damn much going on and so little being done. One thing’s for sure, this really shows us what a waste of time and money Bush’s Department of Homeland Security has been. They had TIME! They had WARNING! They KNEW the hurricane was coming and they knew it was gonna be bad but still they could not cope.

Lesson? Don’t rely on the government, be it local, state or federal to take the precautions, to make the plans, to step in with relief in the event of anything more serious than a traffic tie up. And don’t let them herd you anywhere…better to convert your plastic to cash, buy yourself a good tent and a pair of sturdy hiking boots and have your backpack at the ready with whatever supplies and medicine you can carry on your back.

I received email from a dear friend who lives in Louisiana. He and his wife left their home before the storm hit and luckily, have a home to go back to…here’s his take on the devastation. These are 3 posts to my old politics list, which Jon forwarded to me (for those who also read Brni’s lj, this is a repeat).

I just want to say, the French Quarter of New Orleans is–was–one of my favorite places to visit. In 94, Brni, Jesse and I took a road trip to New Mexico and on our return we passed through New Orleans. it was about 6am, just after a light rain when I first walked the Quarter. It was all I’d imagined. The wrought iron balconies dripping with ferns and fuschia, banana trees tucked in narrow walkways, their tops peeking out over the high spiked gates, men dragging out tables and chairs outside the Cafe Du Monde. Some years later, we returned to New Orleans for a week long stay. We stayed in the French Quarter Suites on Rampart Street, a couple blocks from the Quarter. After Brni went off to his ISP convention, I would walk the Quarter, taking in the architecture, the atmosphere of the place, poking into nooks and crannies full of flamboyant history. So, even though I’m not of the place, I have special memories and feel a personal loss. Nothing compaired to the intense loss those who are of the place must endure.
my heart is with them.

Louisiana Louisiana
They’re tryin to wash us away
They’re tryin to wash us away
-chorus from “Louisiana 1927” by Randy Newman.

from John: (more…)