Katrina3

Katrina Storm Page III

"Various types of belief can be implanted in many people after brain function has been deliberately disturbed by accidentally or deliberately induced fear, anger or excitement. Of the results caused by such disturbances, the most common one is temporarily impaired judgement and heightened suggestibility. Its various group manifestations are sometimes classed under the heading of "herd instinct" , and appear most spectacularly in war time, during severe epidemics, and in all similar periods of common, which increase anxiety and so individual or mass suggestibility." Dr William Sargant, a psychiatrist at the Tavistock Institute, in his 1957 book, Battle For The Mind.

New Orleans Residents All Over The Country Should Be Put On Red Alert: The Neo Cons Are Trying To Illegally Bulldoze Away Your Homes and Steal Your Property Brandon Darby, the founder of Common Grund Relief In New Orleans, is sounding the alarm and involved in a lawsuit to stop the government from illegally taking property by lying to the people and using phony eminent domain laws.

Federal Judge Threatens To Throw New Orleans City Attorney In Jail "If One More Home is Bulldozed Down"

White House stonewalls official Hurricane Katrina inquiry

Hurricane Victims Outside N.O. Suffering Hugely

Levee 'Explosives Residue' Story Remains Unconfirmed By Jim Moore 9-11-5

New Orleans Unmasks 'Apartheid - American Style' By Jason Miller

Blackwater Mercenaries Deploy in New Orleans By Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo

'Man-Made Storm' For Profits? By Michael Shore

The New Orleans Flooding A Planned Event? Commentary By Michael Shore

'Oil Storm' Sisters - Katrina And Rita By Charlene Fassa 9-25-5

Attacks on democratic rights, breaching legal barriers: FEMA and Katrina:
REX-84 Revisited The "Black Curtain" around FEMA's Operations

New Orleans: Dress Rehearsal for American Lockdown by Carolyn Baker

The Unconstitutional FEMA by Sheila Samples September 16, 2005

Ben Livingston: Cloud physicist has eye on hurricane control

Katrina, Eugenics and 'Peak Oil By David McGowan

World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org

WSWS : News & Analysis : North America

White House stonewalls official Hurricane Katrina inquiry

By Naomi Spencer 28 January 2006

The Bush administration is withholding information relevant to a Senate committee investigating federal management of Hurricane Katrina. Invoking executive privilege, the administration has also refused to allow sworn testimony from senior White House officials on the disaster and governmental response.

At his press conference Thursday, Bush defended the practice. “If people give me advice and they’re forced to disclose that advice, it means the next time an issue comes up, I might not be able to get unvarnished advice from my advisors.” He also claimed his administration had been “fully cooperative” with the House and Senate committees.

At the committee hearing Tuesday, witness presentations focused on the extent of emergency preparedness in the months and years before Katrina, which left at least 1,100 dead, displaced more than a million area residents, and caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.

But the investigation, conducted by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has been thwarted by the White House from obtaining communications logs, and even dates and times of meetings and phone calls regarding Katrina emergency response efforts.

White House spokesperson Trent Duffy told reporters Tuesday that the administration had declined to provide testimony from Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff; Card’s deputy, Joe Hagin; and domestic security adviser Frances Townsend. Townsend’s deputy, Ken Rapuano, has given informal, non-public briefings to the committee, but has also effectively been placed under a presidential gag order. In addition, Duffy said that the administration has refused to provide staff member correspondence, including e-mails regarding the hurricane.

Joseph Lieberman (Democrat—Connecticut), the highest-ranking senator on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, accused the White House on Tuesday of enacting a “gag order” to hinder the committee’s work. “The problems begin at the White House, where there has been a near total lack of cooperation that has made it impossible, in my opinion, for us to do the thorough investigation we have a responsibility to do.”

According to Lieberman, attorneys advised former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) head Michael Brown during a closed-door session not to respond to questions on “whether he spoke to the president or the vice president, or comment on the substance of conversations” he had with White House officials during the response operation. Brown did acknowledge that he had exchanged e-mails and phone calls repeatedly with Bush, Chief of Staff Card and Card’s deputy during the two days before Katrina made landfall. When asked about the types of requests he made in preparation, Brown stated, “I’m being advised by counsel that I can’t discuss with you my conversations with the president’s chief of staff and the president.”

Republican Senator Susan Collins, also on the committee, complained of “completely inappropriate” reticence on the part of witnesses who “have told us when we begin to ask about any communications with the White House” that they had been advised not to answer, citing executive privilege.

The stonewalling by the White House on the Katrina investigation is of a piece with its now-standard practice of cloaking the activities of the administration and its officials in secrecy, claiming all-encompassing powers for the presidency and no accountability to Congress or the American public.

The White House shrugged off the criticisms and insisted it was cooperating in its own way, on its own terms. “There are numerous administration officials that have gone before the committee and testified,” spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters. “We’ve had specialized briefings by the national security adviser for the committees. And we will continue to work with committees in a cooperative way to make sure they have the information they need to do their job.” He added disingenuously, “I know there is always some separation of powers issues involved in some of these matters, but we’re committed to working in a cooperative way.” Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that it had obtained two documents that suggested that the White House was not being forthcoming with what officials knew before Katrina hit. The Department of Homeland Security’s National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC) and FEMA provided the White House with several sobering assessments of the situation shortly before Katrina’s landfall.

On August 29, a few hours before impact, a 41-page document was sent as an e-mail from NISAC to the White House “situation room,” where national emergencies are managed. According to the Post, the assessment included a warning that a storm of comparable size would “likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching,” that “could leave the New Orleans metro area submerged for weeks or months.”

Specifically, the levees along Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans were considered to be vulnerable to failure. The document also included the projection that Katrina “could leave the New Orleans metro area submerged for weeks and months.” NISAC estimated losses in the tens of billions of dollars, long-term damage to utilities, and compounded difficulties in emergency response because of power and telecommunications outages.

A separate document, sent the night after landfall, was cited by the New York Times as warning the White House of a quarter-mile-long levee breach near the 17th Street Canal, and that “an estimated 2/3 to 75 percent of the city is underwater.” This urgent assessment resulted in no immediate action from the Bush administration.

The document acquired by the Post included a slide presentation on the impending catastrophe that was presented to the administration on the morning of August 27. An accompanying document compared Katrina, then a Category 3 building to Category 4, to a computer simulation called Hurricane Pam. The simulation was built by NISAC for the Catastrophic Planning Initiative, a FEMA project begun in 2003, and was considered to be the most accurate predictive computer model yet developed. The simulated Hurricane Pam was a slow-moving Category 3 storm that moved in over New Orleans from the southeast. It carried winds of 120 miles per hour and 20 inches of rain and produced a storm surge that breached levees in southern Louisiana. Projected consequences included a death toll as high as 60,000, the submersion of the city in 10 to 20 feet of water, 234,000 collapsed buildings, 786,000 residents without power, and the forced evacuation of more than a million residents.

While the death toll from Katrina was fortunately much lower than projected, the simulation was otherwise correct. Katrina—a slow-moving Category 3 hurricane by the time it came ashore—brought 20 inches of rain, 20 feet of water in low-lying neighborhoods, 250,000 destroyed homes, 881,400 residents without power, and the displacement of more than a million. The accuracy of the model and its eerie resemblance to Katrina points to negligence on the part of the Bush administration in the days leading up to the Katrina disaster, as well as a gross lack of preparedness on the part of federal agencies for years beforehand.

Together, these documents stand as a concrete repudiation of statements made by top officials in the immediate aftermath, who maintained that widespread death and destruction were unforeseen. On September 1, as the disaster was compounding in toxic flood waters, President Bush told ABC’s “Good Morning America” news show, “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.”

Two days later, as FEMA and federal troops focused on containment of the city’s survivors rather than evacuation, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told reporters that the collapse of the levees was “breathtaking in its surprise.” He characterized Katrina as “That ‘perfect storm’ of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody’s foresight....”

In comments in the early days of the disaster, Bush made clear that the Homeland Security Department, which includes FEMA, intended to move in only after the storm had run its course, and that residents of New Orleans unable to evacuate needed to fend for themselves.

Moreover, in the emergency declaration Bush signed in response to a request from Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, FEMA aid and support was specifically authorized for 39 southern Louisiana parishes, but excluded from two of the most vulnerable to flooding, Orleans Parish (the city of New Orleans) and Jefferson Parish. On August 29, former FEMA Director Michael Brown urged local fire and rescue personnel arriving in the area not to attempt to help those parishes not listed as having requested assistance.

These two low-lying, working class parishes suffered severe damage and loss of life when the levees failed. The response from the federal government in the subsequent days augmented the crisis. Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard, describing the situation on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on September 4, said that FEMA was cutting off aid and communications. “We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water. FEMA turned them back,” he said.

“They said we didn’t need them. This was a week ago. FEMA, we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. When we got there with our trucks, FEMA says don’t give you the fuel,” Broussard said, breaking down. “Yesterday—yesterday—FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards and said no one is getting near these lines.”

Hurricane Katrina was the most costly disaster in US history, causing at least $100 billion in damage. But five months after the evacuation, the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program announced the distribution of a mere $11.5 billion in housing aid, spread among five states hit by both Katrina and Rita, which caused an additional $8 billion in damage. On Wednesday, HUD pledged a paltry $74.5 million to Texas to provide public housing for the quarter of the million residents still displaced.

Louisiana, which requested $30 billion in HUD funds, was allocated only $6.2 billion. Poor residents have been effectively locked out of the reconstruction, while corporate interests swallow up the city. Working class neighborhoods with disproportionate levels of poverty and rental housing were hardest hit, and have been abandoned by local, state, and federal governments in all but lip service. Many of these homeowners still don’t know if they will be allowed to rebuild in their neighborhoods, or whether they will receive compensation for their lost property.

On Wednesday, the White House said it would oppose a proposal sponsored by Rep. Richard Baker, a Louisiana Republican, to create a federal agency to buy homes destroyed by the recent Gulf Coast hurricanes. The plan, already approved by a House committee, would create a corporation funded by government-backed bonds to take over destroyed properties at the request of homeowners.

Donald Power, a former bank regulator and the president’s coordinator for Gulf Coast rebuilding, commented, “I think we would all be served better if the government didn’t get into the real estate business and leave that to the private sector.”

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6 Jan 2006

By Greg Szymanski

Brandon Darby of Austin, Texas, had only one thing in mind when Hurricane Katrina hit.

He had to rescue his best buddy, Robert King Wilkerson, as he was trapped and dying in the attic of his New Orleans home.

The race to save Wilkerson's life started in Texas with a frenetic, high-speed life and death drive, ending with Darby up to his neck in scummy New Orleans water and resisting arrest from uncooperative federal authorities.

And after authorities arrogantly refused to go after Wilkerson or let Darby go it alone, he jumped out of the Army Ranger jet boat, defying the law and forcing them into action.

Let there be no doubt or the slightest question Darby saved his friend's life with his heroic, in your face stand-off with cops and FBI agents. And it was Darby who refused to take no for an answer, which finally led to officials getting off their "fat behinds" to pull Wilkerson out of his home.

Wilkerson, an aging Black man who had already spent 29 years in maximum security prison for a crime he didn't commit, lasted 11 long hard days without much food and water before Darby's efforts finally got him pulled out of the high waters that flooded his home.

"I knew I had to save King's life and I wasn't going to let federal authorities or the New Orleans Police force stop me," said Darby, who has now left his Austin, Texas, business behind to stay permanently in the Crescent City to help others in need.

"I couldn't leave when I saw the misery and I saw how many people really needed help. We formed a group called "Common Ground Relief" of all political ideologies to help people save their property from government programs designed to take it away illegally."

And so after saving Wilkerson, the articulate activist immediately went to work helping others, filling a need left by FEMA and its programs filled with red tape and basically designed to keep the poor from returning home while helping the rich get on with New Orleans high society life.

"You have to say these programs are designed to racially cleanse the city," said Darby who appeared this week on Greg Szymanski's radio show, The Investigative Journal on the Republic Broadcasting Network at www.rbnlive.com. "I see it firsthand every day and the media is just ignoring what is really happening here.

"Simply, the city, state and federal government are using their illegal imminent domain powers to take away personal property. There are 14,000 homes in the 9 th Ward ready to be bulldozed and most of the people have been systematically kept away from the city and don't even know what's going on.

Darby said after assessing many of the thousands of homes in the 9th Ward and other poorer neighborhoods, it is his opinion and the opinion of many others that most of the homes are in good enough shape to be repaired, not demolished.

"The media is not telling this side of the story as they all are working together, including New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and others all the way up to the White House, who are intent on paving the way with billions of dollars of redevelopment money to first level the homes and then replace them with casinos, hotels and other expensive type housing," said Darby.

Darby added that Mayor Nagin has been "his worst nightmare" since he has not only catering to rich developers but also allowing federal agencies on the front lines to keep utilities purposely turned off in the poorer neighborhoods, discouraging people from going home.

"Think about it. Whole neighborhoods in the 9th Ward and elsewhere completely empty even though the houses can be repaired with a little hard work and effort," added Darby, who has been busy in the last four months gutting homes with other private relief workers in order to get people back in their homes.

"We have to get the word out to everyone across the country about exactly what is going on here. The government is lying and telling people to stay away in order to take their property out from under them. It's criminal, unconstitutional and we have filed a lawsuit trying to block the bulldozing which is starting as we speak."

And the sinister nature of this complete government rip-off is not being played out the evening news, but is being fought behind the veil of secrecy, as Darby and his band freedom fighters today stood between cranes and a man's house in the 9th Ward set for demolition.

"Our attorney who filed the lawsuit to block the demolitions, received a 24 hour temporary restraining order to stop bulldozing the homes," said Darby. "Guess what happens then? We get a phone call this morning from a man who said the city was now using cranes instead of bulldozers. What nonsense. So we rushed over to his 9 th Ward house, stood between the crane and the house and stopped the demolition.

"At least we stopped it for the time being as I think we will have to do the same thing tomorrow if they return. We are down here to help the thousands of people who need it and who have been deceived by the government intent on taking their property, making way for the rich developers to make millions. For example, I know this for a fact, they are offering people in far away places like Minnesota or Alaska $5,000 for their house, saying it's worthless when, in fact, it's in good condition. Worth much more and can be repaired."

And the real tragedy behind what happened before, during and after Katrina is that the tragic scene as it is playing out now catches the feds, state and local authorities red-handed at a systematic racial cleaning and land grab program of enormous proportions.

Before Katrina, Mayor Nagin was given more than $17 million after Hurricane Ivan hit, to put together an evacuation plan to get the poor out of the city quickly if another hurricane hit.

But instead of using the money wisely, no evacuation plan was ever created, according to Darby's research, as thousands of poor unable to get out were left to die during Katrina in the same manner that occurred a year earlier when Ivan struck.

"What did he do with the money? I have problems with that as I was here during Ivan and nothing changed when Katrina hit," said Darby. "After being left to die in their homes, they were left to die at the Superdome and the Convention Center, left with no water and food like animals.

"Then after that thousands of families were separated and sent to hundreds of different faraway places. Ask yourself why? Isn't it easier to bulldoze away houses when no one is around. That's why.

"But we must put up a fight and that's why I am appealing to everybody listening not to let this happen as If we let them take our fellow brothers' property here in New Orleans, the government will do it all over the country. It's a land grab, pure and simple, an illegal land grab designed to steal property and change the complexion of this wonderful city."

Darby said the problems surfacing in New Orleans go very deep, but that he has decided he's "in it for the long haul" no matter what happens, making a last stand against the government land grab.

"I have leased a home in one the areas scheduled to be demolished and they are not forcing me to leave," said Darby, adding he's hoping his story gets out to the people since the mainstream media is on the side of the rich developers.

"If you read these words, send this story all across America as we need all the help we can get. Political and ideological differences shouldn't stand in the way of helping all these people.

"Think about it. If it can happen to the good folks of New Orleans, it can happen to you next!"

Editor's Note: If you want to lend a helping hand to Darby and his cause, contact the Arctic Beacon at www.arcticbeacon.com .

For more informative articles, go to www.arcticbeacon.com .

*****

Federal Judge Threatens To Throw New Orleans City Attorney In Jail
"If One More Home is Bulldozed Down"

In The 9th Ward Activists and lower income homeowners have been successful in temporarily stopping the needless destruction of many of the 14,000 homes in the 9th Ward scheduled for demolition by the government's crooked use of the eminent domain laws. A federal judge scolded city attorneys for attempting to violate the temporary restraining order in effect until an upcoming January 16 hearing. Although activists were pleased with the ruling, they remain suspicious of the future outcome.

7 Jan 2006

By Greg Szymanski

A federal judge Friday threatened to throw the New Orleans City Attorney in jail if "one home was bulldozed down" in violation of temporary restraining order obtained by activists and lower income homeowners, trying to save their property from what is playing out to be an illegal government land grab.

While the legal wrangling continues, sinister government programs to racially cleanse and steal property from lower income homeowners in New Orleans is playing out on the streets of the poorer neighborhoods with bulldozers and wrecking balls inching closer and closer to 14,000 homes in the 9th ward.

And the only thing stopping the illegal government land grab, orchestrated by the feds, the state of Louisiana and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's office, is a group of feisty activists from Common Ground Relief, headed by Brandon Darby of Austin, Texas, who are literally putting their bodies between the wrecking ball and homes to stop the destruction.

Besides the strong activist stand taken this week, Darby said the group has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a number of lower income residents and Wednesday received a temporary 24 hour restraining order to stop the bulldozing after the case was removed from state to federal court.

And a federal court judge at the last minute stopped the bulldozing at least temporarily until the next hearing on January 16, threatening to throw the New Orleans City Attorney in jail if the restraining order was again violated.

"It was nice to hear that," said Darby in a conversation Friday night from his car parked in the 9th Ward, as he was keeping a watchful for any government shenanigans. "At least for the time being we have stopped this illegal land grab, but we will have to wait and see, as anytime there is a lot of money at stake, I do not trust these guys.

"Also, today I was contacted by federal agents, leaving a message and saying they wanted to talk with me and I have noticed being followed by Homeland security ever since we had the stand-off in the 9 th Ward.

The stand-off Darby is talking about occurred Thursday morning when he and other activists from Common Ground Relief, a private organization formed by Darby, put their bodies in between the wrecking ball and a man's home scheduled for demolition.

"We rushed to help one 9th Ward resident who called and said the wrecking ball was at his house Thursday morning in clear violation of the restraining order," said Darby about this highly important story that should be on the six o'clock news but has been suspiciously kept from the American public by a complicit mainstream press.

"So we rushed to help the man in the 9th Ward's home, calmly convincing the operator of the wrecking ball to stop the demolition job. We were successful but the government's argument for defying the court order was crazy, as officials said the order only prohibited use of a bulldozer not a wrecking ball."

Darby also wanted to emphasize that a majority of the homes scheduled for demolition are structurally sound, saying many of the owners have been purposely kept out of state by FEMA and hoodwinked into believing their property is worthless setting the stage for the one of the biggest government land grabs in the history of the United States.

"What has our country come to when eminent domain laws and fascist government intimidation is used to steal property away from thousands of Americans," said Darby.

"In the background and behind the political scenes, everybody has to know that from Mayor Nagin right on up to the White House, they are all supporting the rich developers.

"They are also planning a multi-billion dollar redevelopment plan to build expensive hotels, casinos and high rise housing and the bulldozers now being seen in the 9 th ward are the first step to achieving their rotten goals."

Besides the 14,000 homes in the 9th Ward scheduled for demolition, 88,000 are expected be next in line for bulldozing in the city's poorer east side, hard hit when the levies exploded, possibly on purpose.

Although no one in the mainstream media or in city hall has the guts to even propose such a possibility as the levies being blown up by government operatives, the same thing happened after 9/11 when everyone was frightened to openly say anything that the terrorist attack may have been a government inside job.

However, four years later many people in high places and even former Reagan and Bush Cabinet members are pointing a finger at government involvement in 9/11, saying it was the lynchpin needed to further the neo con war machine now killing hundreds of thousands of innocents in the Middle East.

Even though proof of the levies being blown on purpose has not yet surfaced, proof positive of FEMA's plans to keep New Orleans evacuees out of state is well-documented.

To prove this point, former New Orleans residents, Clothilde Mack, 85, who recently returned to her Orleans Parrish home on her own accord, said FEMA basically tried to bribe her to stay out-of-state by telling her case would be dropped unless she signed a paper stating she'd remain away from the Crescent City for one year.

Other residents are also reporting similar horror stories, saying they have been offered small amounts of money for their New Orleans property without having any opportunity to inspect the extent of damage.

"One man called me from out-of-state saying he was offered $5,000 for his home," said Darby. "He was told it was demolished when in fact it was still structurally sound and worth much more. And that is the problem. Government programs should be encouraging people to come back and take care of their land instead of being paid to stay away."

For more informative articles, please go to www.arcticbeacon.com .

Hurricane Victims Outside N.O. Suffering Hugely

From Mary Sparrowdancer 11-25-5

Hi Jeff - This commentary below was forwarded to me today by a friend who saw it posted on a group. It is written by a woman in Louisiana who is a nurse and animal rescuer, and it is about the smaller communities in Louisiana no one's ever heard of, and which are not making the "news." These are devastated communities following Katrina and they have received no help from FEMA or the Red Cross. In some places, it's difficult to even establish communication with the victims, and when the animal rescuers went in, they were stunned to find that the humans there are in such deplorable conditions, they are begging for blankets that have been donated for animals. I contacted this woman today, and she has given me permission to send the info below to you...

Written by Jeannette Ferro

"All the news is about New Orleans. I have a love/hate relation with New Orleans. I grew up there. I'm almost 60 now. But New Orleans, with all it's destruction, actually faired better than most communities. Granted, New Orleans was heavier populated, but we can't overlook the many other areas simply because no one has heard of them and because they're not tourist attractions. The other people count, too.

As a nurse and an animal rescuer, having cared for and knowing so many of these people and animals, I have been trying to do everything I can for both humans and nonhumans since Katrina hit. I will live with stories that will haunt me until the day I die. One of the most recent that has come to my attention is also one of the worst.

The coastal areas of Louisiana, in Vermilion Parish, are/were inhabited with generations of Acadian/Cajun people. This is where the dying language of Cajun French is spoken. The majority of the population are animal and crop farmers. Being closer to the Gulf, the tides and storm surges completely wiped out most of everything that was there. Crops were destroyed. Large herds of cattle, horses, pigs, and every other living animal known to those areas were either swept out into the Gulf, or were left stranded on tiny islands of slightly higher ground. The very most southern part, below HWY 82, looks like it was never inhabited by any living beings. Wells that provided water are now ruined from the salty Gulf and ocean waters. The land is a white/grayish color, completely dead, and rendered totally useless by the salt water. Animals who weren't washed out into the Gulf, and who have tried to survive on the remaining salt saturated water and grass, have either died from dehydration from the salt or are now very sick. These people are begging for the basic needs for themselves, but are also desperately asking for the basic needs to try and keep their animals alive as well.

Many of the people who lived in the area would not leave their family homesteads, homesteads that have been passed down from several generations before them. They wouldn't leave their animals or their crops as these were their only means of survival, because of the love of their animals (not all are raised to be slaughtered), and because their homes represent generations of their families and culture.

Two days ago, I heard about an animal rescuer in one such little town called Abbeville. Near Abbeville is another small, and just as unknown town called Erath. I'm told there is an estimated 3,000 people there, many now living in tents, without power and water, and who have not had any relief from FEMA and little to none from the Red Cross. The news that upset me so badly, coming from a fellow animal rescuer, is the fact that many of these people are actually coming to this animal rescuer asking for water and blankets that have been donated for the animals. As an avid animal lover and nurse, I can't begin to explain to you how upsetting this is to me. What kind of society lets it's own people go without the most basic needs to cause them to have to beg for water and blankets that were donated for animals?!?

The animal rescuer I learned about normally aids smaller domestic animals, but she's now forced to do what she can to provide water and blankets for humans, as well as hay and feed for all kinds of livestock. Fencing, like everything else, is now gone and badly needed. Vaccinations and medications are badly needed. I would bet that the majority of the people who might read this have never heard of any of this or even know there are places like Abbeville and Erath, Louisiana. I live in Louisiana and I've never seen or heard about any of this on our local news. How can that be? How can the governments and the news forget or overlook thousands of US citizens living in total despair?!?

I just saw on the news that the big CEO of Pfister pharmaceutical company donated millions in dollars and medications to earthquake victims in another country, and was quoted as saying something to the effect that it was an opportunity for him to give back to those who had nothing. Hello! What about thousands of Americans from Texas to Alabama who now have nothing?!?

Thousands of families who are trying their best to get back on their feet and rebuild or go on with their lives elsewhere are in limbo thanks to the federal government. FEMA is out of money until the federal government refills their bank account so FEMA can pay the millions of people who have paid for flood insurance protection for years. The federal government is holding up funding FEMA because they are to involved in arguing on the rights to drill for damnable oil in the protected Arctic Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and won't pass the budget bill without the provision allowing them those drilling rights. That should tell you a LOT about the priorities and the alliances of our federal government! Where is the aid from these rich and powerful oil companies that we recently heard about making record breaking third quarter profits for 2005, and that are responsible for destroying the marshes and wetlands that used to protect all of our Gulf coast states? Those marshes and wetlands, had they not been destroyed by oil drilling, would have prevented most of the destruction and would have saved many of the thousands of lives taken by hurricanes Katrina and Rita and hurricanes yet to come.

Americans have been hit and hit as hard as any people could be hit by the worst disaster in the history of our nation, and federal aid is no where to be found. Just as bad, there is no public outcry because there has been no news coverage about these people.

How can this happen in the largest, richest, most powerful country..... or was.....in the world?

Reproduced gratefully from Rense.com

From www.Rense.com

Also Read another Story on Prisonplanet.com which is more extensive: http://www.prisonplanet.com/Pages/090905levees.htm


What is the recipe for a toxic sludge potent enough to destroy a heavily populated city and inflict infection with a mere splash? Start with a force of nature powerful beyond belief. Mix in an ample supply of sewage, garbage, brackish water from Lake Ponchatrain, floating corpses of humans and animals, and various and sundry noxious chemicals. Blend well with a system of seriously inadequate levees resulting from cuts in federal funding. Of course this concoction would not be complete without heaping portions of racism, spiritual emptiness, and avarice fueling slow and inadequate federal relief efforts.

Heart of darkness revealed

The New Orleans debacle exposed America's "heart of darkness" to the world as its leaders allowed their own tens of thousands of Americans to suffer or die. Many throughout the world were aware of the damage the US government was capable of inflicting upon people of other nations, but Hurricane Katrina showed what America's decision-makers were willing to do to their own. The twin evils of raw capitalism and imperialism were on full display as the human race watched the events unfold on the Gulf Coast. As Mother Nature unleashed her ferocity, Americans witnessed the destruction of a jewel of a city and the pleasant fiction of the "American Dream" in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

With the eyes of the world upon its sole remaining superpower, President Bush, who fancies himself to be a monarch, remained on vacation, strummed his guitar, and led a federal response to the disaster which moved with the speed of a wounded snail. Several days into the aftermath, the "Queen Mum" surveyed the conditions under which the survivors were living and remarked how things were "working very well" for the "underprivileged". As the lies unraveled and the truth was revealed, the people learned that the Bush administration had significantly reduced funding for fortification of the levees protecting New Orleans. They realized that FEMA, whose purpose is to provide federal aid in the event of natural disasters, had been absorbed by Homeland Security and the military industrial complex. As humankind watched the nauseating events in New Orleans unfold, they realized that George Bush cared so little about the welfare of his people that he would appoint a grossly incompetent crony to head the federal organization upon which people counted to save them in the event of a disaster. American citizens have been in denial about the cruelty of their government's foreign policy for years, but now that their leaders have imposed that truculence upon fellow Americans, it will be difficult to evade the painful reality of the depth of the corruption and malevolence of the United States government.

Who do they think they are fooling?

Even the typically compliant mainstream media made strong note of the skin color and socio-economic status of most of the hurricane survivors, whom the federal government left to fend for themselves for several days. Stranded on roof-tops, taking refuge on islands formed by broken slabs of highway, hiding in attics, or clinging to survival inside the miserable, dangerous squalor of the "Super" Dome, tens of thousands of poor black Americans exposed a truth they have known for years. To the soulless plutocrats, aristocrats, white patriarchs, and "captains of industry" who rule the United States, black people are expendable, particularly if they are poor. The power-brokers in the US federal government only provided assistance for two reasons. One was to prevent civil unrest amongst the Proletariat. Secondly, they needed to provide window dressing in their desperate attempt to maintain their facade as champions of "freedom and democracy" so they could continue to justify their ongoing quest for global domination.

It staggers the imagination to think that The Big Easy (the home to Mardi Gras and the birthplace of jazz) has essentially been reduced to memories. The perverse emphasis on property, power, and wealth over humanity by a government "of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy" caused the demise of New Orleans. Under this twisted paradigm, the city was doomed when the hurricane struck. 68% of the population was black. Less than half owned their homes. Almost 30% lived below the poverty line. An estimated 134,000 residents did not have cars or other viable means to evacuate. The demographics virtually ensured that the Bush administration would render aid slowly and ineffectively, resulting in suffering and death on a scale usually associated with third world nations.

Hurricane Katrina's devastation and the US government's anemic response revealed the malevolent and wicked face which lurks beneath the mask of "freedom and liberty". Touting America's systems of capitalism and democracy as models for the rest of the world, the leaders of the United States have carried out an agenda of imperialism since our nation's inception. Sorry, Mr. Rove (and your staff of cunning Orwellian propagandists), but a true republic would not maintain a perpetual system of apartheid (which in Afrikaans means "separateness"). Certainly many laws have been passed to enhance the civil rights of blacks in the United States, but racism, bigotry, and separatism are still very much alive, both overtly and covertly. New Orleans provides a grim reminder that "Apartheid, American Style" is thriving in this nation.

In an address to Howard University in June 1965, President Lyndon Johnson stated:

"You cannot take a man who has been in chains for 300 years, remove the chains, take him to the starting line and tell him to run the race, and think that you are being fair."

Three months later, he signed an Executive Order requiring affirmative action by federal government contractors. Johnson understood that the journey toward equality for blacks in the United States had been a long and tortuous one, and even two hundred years after the Civil War, their struggle was far from over.

America's wealthy, predominately white power-brokers dominate the US government by utilizing their money to win elections, buying elected officials through campaign finance, applying expensive lobbying efforts to sway votes and decisions, and exerting influence through powerful corporations. When will they take responsibility for the plight of black citizens in the United States and rectify the gross injustices of US Apartheid?

Shameful history belies the nature of the beast

In 1619, the first slaves arrived at the British colony of Jamestown, thus starting the future United States of America down a path of moral repugnance and turpitude. By 1850, there were 2.5 million enslaved Africans in the United States. The agrarian economy in many southern states was so dependent upon slavery that they were willing to secede from the Union and to initiate the Civil War to ensure the perpetuation of an evil institution which had enabled them to build a thriving economy with the blood, sweat and tears human beings. White slave owners, a small minority of the population in whose hands rested most of the Confederacy's wealth, were able to convince poor, ignorant Southern whites that preserving slavery was critical for them as well. So compelling was the slave-owners, argument that poor white Southerners died by the tens of thousands defending the "great institution" of slavery.

In 1865, the Union triumphed and the Thirteenth Amendment made chattel slavery unconstitutional. Despite these events, the lot of black Americans, particularly in the South, improved little. "Mr. Jim Crow" saw to their continued suffering. In 1830, a white minstrel show performer named Thomas "Daddy" Rice blackened his face and danced an absurd jig to the song "Jump Jim Crow" as he mimicked a crippled, elderly black man singing and dancing. Jim Crow became a popular character in American culture and grew to represent "black inferiority". Faced with the Constitutional mandate to abolish slavery, vanquished states in the post-bellum South began to pass laws to ensure government-mandated suppression of the civil rights of black Americans. Jim Crow laws became common in most southern states starting in 1890.

Ironically, the US Supreme Court opened the door for Jim Crow segregation laws. In 1883 it ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional. The gist of the ruling was that the Fourteenth Amendment did not prevent individuals or private businesses from discriminating against black people. In 1896 the highest court of the "Bastion of Freedom" upheld a lower court ruling in Plessy vs. Ferguson, which affirmed Louisiana's law mandating that blacks ride in separate railroad cars. The ultimate arbiters in the "Land of the Free" made a ruling in Cummings vs. Richmond County Board of Education in 1899 which enabled local governments to maintain "whites only" schools and close schools for blacks based on claims of financial hardship.

Throughout the Jim Crow era, blacks faced many hardships. They were denied access to public areas and accommodations, like hotels and restaurants. Public restrooms and water fountains were designated for "Whites Only" and "Coloreds". White and black workers were separated. Schools were segregated. Gerrymandering, voter intimidation, fraud, manipulation by white landlords, literacy tests and poll taxes prevented many blacks from exercising their right to vote. Crop lien laws, which allowed creditors to charge outrageous interest, and the system of sharecropping reduced black farmers to little more than indentured servants as their debt perpetually exceeded their income. Debts were enforced by local police, creating a system of debt peonage. Stiff penalties for minor crimes often committed by itinerant blacks (i.e. five year prison sentences for stealing a pig) stocked the penal system in the South with slave labor. Prison farms and chain gangs became the order of the day, with black convicts returned to enslavement under unimaginable living conditions.

Vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan did their part to suppress the black race and guarantee they suffered. Nearly 5,000 blacks were lynched between 1890 and 1968. Virtually all of these atrocities occurred in former Confederate states. Many more than just the perpetrators were complicit in these murders. Railroads sold tickets for the express purpose of attending these executions committed by mobs. Many of the killings involved brutal torture prior to actual death. White families brought their children to watch lynchings. After the murders, participants and onlookers bought and sold body parts of the victims as "souvenirs".

Progress toward equality at last

Slowly and steadily through the course of the Twentieth Century, black Americans made progress toward equality and civil rights. In a significant blow to the "separate but equal" doctrine, in 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. the Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Tireless, courageous efforts by people such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Medger Evers applied tremendous pressure on the federal government to protect the civil rights of black Americans. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed Jim Crow laws, prohibited employment discrimination, and enhanced the voting rights of blacks. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 went further in protecting the rights of blacks to vote by abolishing literacy tests. To this day, the right to vote remains state-granted, but the Voting Rights Act and three Constitutional amendments prevent states from discriminating in granting the right. The push for a Constitutional amendment granting the right to vote to all Americans continues.

Renaissance of inhumanity

Sadly, despite these strides, black Americans still lag far behind their white counter-parts. Under the brutal "trickle down" economic policies which started in the Reagan era, the rich have enjoyed a succession of generous tax cuts and businesses are operating in an increasingly deregulated environment. Black Americans have simultaneously experienced a serious decline in their situation. Chanting the mantra that less government is better, US policy-makers have diligently worked to diminish domestic spending and decrease taxes on the wealthy (progressive taxes). Despite the subterfuge, their true objective has been to line the pockets of the wealthy by diverting federal money previously spent toward humanitarian ends (like education and health) to military and defense, which benefits the many affluent who have heavy stakes invested in the military industrial complex. The end result has been an increase in regressive taxes to make up for revenue lost on tax cuts for the rich, obscene federal deficits, and a serious decline in funds available for education, health care, assistance to the poor, and emergency preparedness.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said:

"There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will."

Since Reagan, the US government has consistently employed policies demonstrating a lack of will to eliminate poverty. Who has born the brunt of the obsession with greed and power which has been such a detriment of humanity?

For a concrete example, look no further than the disaster in New Orleans (bear in mind that 68% of the population was black), the 360 deaths verified as of 9/10, the government's emphasis on containing looters over rescuing victims, and the countless people who have been rendered homeless and jobless. Appropriate funding to strengthen the levees and a quick and appropriate federal response to the hurricane could have alleviated much of this suffering.

For statistical evidence, consider the 2004 US Census figures. While the overall poverty rate in the United States stood at 12.7%, the poverty rate for blacks was 24.7% compared with 10.8% for whites. Only 11.3% of white Americans did not have health insurance while 19.7% of blacks lacked coverage. At $30,134, the black median household income came in at the bottom of the ladder compared to other race groups.

As of August 2005, white unemployment came in at 4.2% while blacks were jobless at a rate of 9.6%. Black infants are more than 2.5 times as likely to die before age one as white infants. In 2001, the average net worth of a white household was $468,200.00, while blacks rang in at a mere $75,700.00. The disparities are indeed staggering.

Separate and unequal

A "separate and unequal" educational system continues to exist in the US. How can this be, you ask, after the federal government ordered school desegregation? "White flight" to the suburbs and inequitable distribution of education dollars are the principal reasons. Using their higher economic means, many whites have fled deteriorating urban cores for the haven of the suburbs. A 2004 report by the Harvard Civil Rights Project found that in the Midwest, 46% of black children attend schools in urban areas which are 90 to 100% black. Of these children, 88% are from poor families. The HCRP report found that nationwide, America's schools spend an average of $1500.00 less per black student than they do on white students. Poor black students attending under-funded schools face decrepit buildings, archaic classroom materials, under-qualified teachers, over-crowding, and simplistic curriculum which emphasizes rote memory over the development of critical thinking skills. The end result statistically? While 91.8% of white students graduate from high school, blacks graduate at a rate of 83.7%. Of those black males who do drop out of high school, over half do prison time. Perhaps even more damning is the fact that only 17% of blacks have college degrees versus 30% of whites.

Challenge us and see what happens to you

The Civil Rights Movement represented a serious threat to the dominance of the wealthy, white patriarchy dominating the federal government. Naturally, they responded by imprisoning those challenging their stranglehold on power. In doing so, they employed the typical guile of the US government. In 1971, the US prison population was 200,000. Today it is 2.1 million. Half of the US prison population is black. While having only 5% of the world's overall population, the United States now harbors 25% of the incarcerated population of the world. 13% of prisoners worldwide are black Americans. 30% of black American men experience incarceration during their lifetime. The most rapid growth in prison populations began during the Reagan era, with blacks leading the way. Federal sentencing laws passed in the 1980's virtually guaranteed that black Americans would swell the ranks of the incarcerated. These laws enacted federal sentencing guidelines for the distribution of crack cocaine (used predominately in poor black neighborhoods) 100 times more harsh than those for distributing white cocaine powder (often the "drug of choice" for more affluent whites). Contrary to the hysteria often created by the mainstream media (i.e. the over-blown reports of rampant looting, raping and shooting in New Orleans), a majority of the nation's prison population is serving time for non-violent crimes.

Legacies were meant to be continued, weren't they?

Building upon the Reagan legacy, Bush II has continued to chip away at the federal disbursements to the poor, elderly and disabled, shrinking a safety net which the world's wealthiest nation has a moral obligation to provide for its less fortunate citizens. While bankrupting the United States to fund a grossly bloated military budget (the US accounts for 50% of world military spending to "protect" 5% of the world's population), Bush continues to chop domestic spending (i.e. funds to strengthen the levees in New Orleans). If you doubt that Bush's axe-swinging is disproportionately affecting the black population, consider that the poverty rate for blacks is 25% while the black population of New Orleans used to be 68%.

One way the merciless decision-makers in the United States justify their push to significantly diminish the social welfare system, including Medicaid, AFDC, and Social Security, in favor of private charity is to utilize the mainstream media, their instrument of propaganda, to re-enforce common myths about welfare. Contrary to the lies, poor women on AFDC (federal financial aid to single mothers) generally do not bear more children to garner more benefits. The average family receiving AFDC has 2 children. Many media "pundits" claim that the US has spent $5 trillion on welfare since the 1960's and it has "not worked". To put this into perspective, consider that spending on AFDC from 1964 to 1994 was $500 billion, less than 5% of defense spending during the same period. Most of the $5 trillion of which the media puppets speak went to the disabled, the elderly, and the uninsured (via Medicaid). Another common misconception perpetuated by the mainstream media is that of the "black welfare queen". The truth is that a majority of those receiving benefits from federal entitlement programs are white, and many are elderly or are children.

"Velvet" revolution unfolding

If perverse individuals like George Bush, who is devoid of empathy and compassion, continue to impose their sick will upon America by diminishing domestic spending and increasing defense spending to seek global dominance, black Americans will continue to suffer. They will see significant declines in federal programs which aid them in their quest to reach a level playing field. The quality of their education will further deteriorate. Aid available to the 25% of black Americans living in poverty will continue to vanish. More will find themselves in prisons. Many black mothers will find themselves grieving for the loss of sons lured by slick recruiters (and a dearth of opportunities) to fight in America's latest imperial conquest. Urban cores will further decay, encouraging more "white flight". Despite the promises of Reagan and his successors, the money is not "trickling down" to black America. How many more travesties have to occur, and how many more cities must America lose before spiritually evolved Americans demand an end to "Apartheid, American Style"?

The illegal occupation in Iraq and the American Apartheid revealed by events in New Orleans provide ample evidence that it is time that "We the People" oust the scoundrels who are "leading" our nation. It is incumbent upon the poor and the working class, the true majority in the United States, to exercise our social consciences and wrest the power from the unworthy hands of the wealthy minority who now hold that power. They have proven their moral bankruptcy and ineptitude as leaders. A non-violent, "velvet" revolution is evolving and gaining momentum. If you have not done so already, I hope you join.

Jason Miller is a 38 year old activist writer with a degree in liberal arts. He works in the transportation industry, and is a husband and a father to three boys. His affiliations include Amnesty International, the ACLU and the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com or comments on his blog at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/ .

From www.Rense.com

From www.Rense.com

From www.Rense.com