Thanks to all of you who have been checking out our new series A Question of Impeachment, either in the theater or online.
On Monday we had a powerful evening focused on the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast. Many folks had questions about where to find more information and what to do, so here -- courtesy of panelist Tiffany Gardner of NESRI -- is some further information:
With respect to current organizing efforts, two websites are really useful:
www.peopleshurricane.org and www.justiceforneworleans.org
There are protests planned in New Orleans on December 10th (International Human Rights Day) and December 15th (the date of the first demolitions). Specifics of the protests will be provided on the websites above.
BRIEF EXPLANATION:
In a November 16, 2007 letter to Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, HUD provided its timeline for the demolition of over 4,000 units of public housing in New Orleans. Demolitions are scheduled as follows:
St. Bernard - December 15, 2007
BW Cooper I - December 15, 2007
Lafitte - December 17, 2007
CJ Peete III - December 15, 2007
Fisher - December 15, 2007
Just before the Christmas holiday ....
These demolitions are set to occur despite the fact that the Gulf Coast Recovery Act (S. 1668), which guarantees survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita the right to return, is still working its way through the Senate. Additionally, Senator Landrieu, as well as members of New Orleans City Council has expressed grave concern over the pending demolitions.
The demolition plans do not provide for replacement housing for former residents of the units. Prior to the storms there were approximately 5,200 families living in public housing. Now, there are just over 1,000 families. HUD has stated that the units to be demolished are inhabitable as the result of the storm. Yet, independent experts attest that the units were minimally damaged. Should these demolitions take place, thousands of New Orleans
families will be permanently displaced.
Republican Senator David Vitter has been a staunch opponent of S. 1668, although he won't publicly articulate his reasons for opposition. Join us in 1. putting pressure of HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson by attending the December 15th day of presence in New Orleans and by 2. pressuring Senator Vitter and the senators on the Senate Banking Committee to respect the human rights of hurricane survivors and bring S. 1668 to a full Senate vote.
Please visit the websites above and let the people of New Orleans, and the governments at the federal, state, and local levels, know that you stand with the people of New Orleans.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Videos from Article III Proceedings
Check out videos from Article III (Katrina):
Judith Browne-Dianis
Sam Jackson
Tiffany Gardner
Closing Arguments
Alec Baldwin
Closing Panel
Judith Browne-Dianis
Sam Jackson
Tiffany Gardner
Closing Arguments
Alec Baldwin
Closing Panel
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Huckchuckin It...
Have you seen the internet crying today? Its brightest meme and one of its ideologically darkest, melting together to form: An ad for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee starting Mr. Huckabee... and Mr. Chuck Norris.
For those of you knew to the Huckchuckzone, Mr. Huckabee is against gay rights, against the separation of church and state, against immigration in the most severe way, in favor of eliminating the Internal Revenue Service entirely, and pro-guns (pretty much all guns - used for hunting). Also not a big fan of science.
Chuck Norris is a conservative karate champion and the creator and star of Walker, Texas Ranger, a show about fighting drug-dealers in rural Texas. And whitewater-rafting. Also not a big fan of science, but he studied with Bruce Lee and so gets some kind of by from young people. (I am glad to be old enough to be mad at young people about this.) If you haven't heard all the "Chuck Norris facts," just Google em.
We return to impeachment...
For those of you knew to the Huckchuckzone, Mr. Huckabee is against gay rights, against the separation of church and state, against immigration in the most severe way, in favor of eliminating the Internal Revenue Service entirely, and pro-guns (pretty much all guns - used for hunting). Also not a big fan of science.
Chuck Norris is a conservative karate champion and the creator and star of Walker, Texas Ranger, a show about fighting drug-dealers in rural Texas. And whitewater-rafting. Also not a big fan of science, but he studied with Bruce Lee and so gets some kind of by from young people. (I am glad to be old enough to be mad at young people about this.) If you haven't heard all the "Chuck Norris facts," just Google em.
We return to impeachment...
Katrina in the News; Iran Sans Bomb; More...
In the news today:
Iran doesn't have the Bomb;
Imus is back;
Katrina victims are in the spotlight again, for their "mood problems;"
and Texas ain't so keen on Darwin.
(From Wikipedia: Iranian newspaper clip from 1968 reads: "A quarter of Iran's Nuclear Energy scientists are women." The photograph shows some female Iranian Ph.D.s posing in front of Tehran's research reactor.)
Well, can't say I'm surprised that Texas might join Kansas and medieval Byzantium, among other wonderful scholastic sovereignties, in their rejection of the principle of evolution.
More surprised that Bush & Co. have announced that Iran, in fact, isn't packing heat, atomically-speaking. I mean, they might enrich a bomb later, but right now, they're doing the whole carrot/stick diplomacy thing. (Could any of our Mid-East regional power experts take notes?)
Iran doesn't have the Bomb;
Imus is back;
Katrina victims are in the spotlight again, for their "mood problems;"
and Texas ain't so keen on Darwin.
(From Wikipedia: Iranian newspaper clip from 1968 reads: "A quarter of Iran's Nuclear Energy scientists are women." The photograph shows some female Iranian Ph.D.s posing in front of Tehran's research reactor.)
Well, can't say I'm surprised that Texas might join Kansas and medieval Byzantium, among other wonderful scholastic sovereignties, in their rejection of the principle of evolution.
More surprised that Bush & Co. have announced that Iran, in fact, isn't packing heat, atomically-speaking. I mean, they might enrich a bomb later, but right now, they're doing the whole carrot/stick diplomacy thing. (Could any of our Mid-East regional power experts take notes?)
Monday, December 3, 2007
Alec Baldwin moderates the Katrina Panel (long)
Alec Baldwin notes that, if you care, you think about "why" and "how it [everything Bush] got to this level" all the time. You have to train yourself to stop asking why, how...
At a dinner party, Alec Baldwin asked Bill Clinton about how spending by the government is prioritized. Clinton just gave him a look as if to say, "Don't go there." Baldwin discusses in general how we are all tied to the idea that government just gets to spend tons of money, gets to hire nepotistically... Very disturbing, discussed much by Lapham in books (why we are always at war).
Baldwin wonders what impeaching Bush with only one year left.
Baldwin to Cynthia Cooper: Can Bush be impeached for Katrina?
Cynthia Cooper and a prominent Watergate lawyer looked intensely at the question. Cooper says the president is supposed to uphold the law and take care. She says the Stafford Act very clearly is Bush's purview; he failed to uphold his duty to mobilize the government according to the Stafford Act. The president was specifically told that lives were on the line. He did nothing, prayed for a good outcome. He failed to live up to a presidential standard of upholding the law and Constitution.
Baldwin to Gardner: What do you think Bush should have done? What could have been done in two days?
Gardner: He could have stopped his vacation. He was on vacation. He could have show, on a basic level, compassion. Should have evacuated right away - helped those with no transportation get away from the [ginormous] hurricane. Judith Browne-Dianis says the administration just didn't care, figured the hurricane would literally blow over; people would forget that some citizens had been screwed over. The city's evacuation plan relied on buses, and the bus drivers left.
Erica Hunt points out that there was a yard full of buses only blocks from the Super Dome, unused...
Baldwin: Were there any heroes, of Katrina?
Cooper: National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield. He tried to personally motivate Bush.
Lapham: The government behaved exactly how it was supposed to, according to Republican ideologues - who want the smallest possible government. Two nations, divisible by magnitude. The more poor that can be eliminated, the better. The government has no purpose for the rich. They don't need the government. (More privatized cops now than public.)
Baldwin: The fraud and waste of the welfare system is minuscule compared to the fraud and waste of the defense system. Do you think Republicans hate the poor more because of what they cost the system, or more because they vote for Democrats?
Lapham: It's George Bernard Shaw. If you're poor, you deserve to be punished.
Baldwin: Do you think Bush should be literally impeached?
Browne-Dianis: I don't think it would happen now. We're going into an election year. I think he has done enough to show that he should be impeached.
Cooper: Absolutely. Even if on his last day in office. He has many more months to screw up this country.
Gardner: Totally. There was a growing movement to impeach him; the Dems won Congress; Pelosi took it off the table. Kucinich introduced it again.
Jackson: Yes. Bush has continued Reagan's campaign against the poor.
Hunt: Yes, impeachment may be in order, but she's concerned about the symbolism of impeachment and how it might obscure the root causes (of the crimes that led to impeachment). Off course Pelosi took it off the table - she doesn't believe in a common wealth, a common good, any more than most Republicans.
Lapham: Yes, on two grounds - Iraq, a criminal fraud. Second, it's the Constitutional task of the Congress to preserve the balance of power, to assert the legislative authority - unless it does that, it destroys the principle on which this country was set up. (I.e., not just Bush, but any president will be too powerful.)
Baldwin: What happened with Pelosi?
Lapham: Conyers made the grounds for impeachment clear; Pelosi didn't see it as politically useful and abandoned it.
Baldwin: Most people don't want to impeach a president at war, whether or not the war was just to start. Baldwin goes into a long story about Reagan - old-school, against taxes, in favor of letting people admit that they'd rather have a new swimming pool than social programs elsewhere - and how different Bush is. Bush sees Iraq as money to be made. The economy has to be in perpetual debt in order to cut useful social programs. He goes into the racket of war. (You can and should read the book War Is A Racket.)
Baldwin: Lewis, are these people [B&C] the same as we've seen before, and they've just been emboldened by Clinton-fatigue and 9/11? Or are they the worst you've ever seen?
Lapham: These guys are the worst I've ever seen. I see Bush the way I see Britney Spears. Spoiled rich kid adolescents. How do spoiled rich kids show their power? They break things. They spend money.
Baldwin: Goes off about how empty the Texas governorship was, even under Bush. He was a ribbon-cutter.
Baldwin: What can people do now? I don't want people to come into this room and have the "awareness orgasm" where they learn some facts, go home, and have completion. What should they do?
Browne-Dianis: I represent N.O. residents in class-action suits. People are getting kicked out of FEMA trailers. Rents are going up all over. Bulldozing public housing. The federal government runs the housing authority of New Orleans. They're demolishing brick public housing built to survive hurricanes (that did survive hurricanes - they just need new flooring and mold removal). But the plan is to keep the poor out. The right to return does not exist. We have tried ever legal way to stop the bulldozers. We have been denied. Local authorities don't want to be on the side of their constituents, the developers, in case the poor come back and vote somehow. But they don't want to be on the side of the poor. December 15th, let's do something to stop the bulldozers. (She leaves the stage to massive applause.)
Cooper: Let's get major media to look at impeachment. Call the public editor of the NYTimes.
Gardner: We have to stop the assault on the poor; public housing is being demolished all over. The Gulf Coast Recovery Act is being held up by a Republican senator from Louisiana, this jerk. We have to contact Sen. Charles Schumer and get him to pass the bill.
Jackson: December 10th, come to New Orleans. Get organized to stop the bulldozing on the 15th. Contact Jackson at jackson-action@hotmail.com. Help us get the GCRA bill passed. Fight that jerk Vitter; call Schumer.
Gardner: Go to http://www.peopleshurricane.org/.
Baldwin: Have a banner on the website to list everything. (Okay, note to self - I think I've just had my first freelance job request from Alec Baldwin.)
Hunt: Two great sites that can help you keep up with news and events are: Color of Change and Katrina Information Networkth.
Audience1: There's a rally in New York on the 10th. (Send CP info on this, please.)
Audience2: How/why can anyone respect the U.S. if it lets its president defraud us? We must impeach Bush.
Cooper: Bush won't turn over emails; his staff refuse to testify. Same as Watergate (but worse). The people have to stand up in larger and larger numbers and demand impeachment.
Audience3: During the 70s, we had more alternative news, a free press. How do we get the average Joe to know about the impeachment movement?
Cooper: Demanding it can only help; media activism is necessary.
Audience4: Barbara Jordan pointed out that unless we use impeachment, we might as well shred the Constitution. We have to make sacrifice to make change - stop shopping, go down to New Orleans. Buy a ticket, go down there, stand with the residents against bulldozers.
Audience5: I'm not really so sure whether Bush should be impeached. If we impeach Bush and the Dems win the next presidential election, the Reps will use impeachment against the Dems. (?) (Murmuring of dissatisfaction with question.)
Baldwin: Impeachment is a very difficult thing, on purpose. Long aside about Tom Delay. (More murmurs.)
Lapham: (Too quiet to hear, I think he said "it's necessary.")
Audience6: If you don't have time to go to New Orleans, I'm sure one of us displaced New Orleanians (sp?) would be willing to go in your place. (Applause.) If culture is demolished, what is the future of New Orleans?
Jackson: We had doctors, lawyers, musicians in public housing, not just drug-dealers. Really, public housing in New Orleans was not like they said (the media?).
Gardner: Now they're asking for expensive funeral permits. More about the destruction of culture in N.O.
Baldwin thanks everyone; we're out of time.
Cue zydeco. Cue applause.
At a dinner party, Alec Baldwin asked Bill Clinton about how spending by the government is prioritized. Clinton just gave him a look as if to say, "Don't go there." Baldwin discusses in general how we are all tied to the idea that government just gets to spend tons of money, gets to hire nepotistically... Very disturbing, discussed much by Lapham in books (why we are always at war).
Baldwin wonders what impeaching Bush with only one year left.
Baldwin to Cynthia Cooper: Can Bush be impeached for Katrina?
Cynthia Cooper and a prominent Watergate lawyer looked intensely at the question. Cooper says the president is supposed to uphold the law and take care. She says the Stafford Act very clearly is Bush's purview; he failed to uphold his duty to mobilize the government according to the Stafford Act. The president was specifically told that lives were on the line. He did nothing, prayed for a good outcome. He failed to live up to a presidential standard of upholding the law and Constitution.
Baldwin to Gardner: What do you think Bush should have done? What could have been done in two days?
Gardner: He could have stopped his vacation. He was on vacation. He could have show, on a basic level, compassion. Should have evacuated right away - helped those with no transportation get away from the [ginormous] hurricane. Judith Browne-Dianis says the administration just didn't care, figured the hurricane would literally blow over; people would forget that some citizens had been screwed over. The city's evacuation plan relied on buses, and the bus drivers left.
Erica Hunt points out that there was a yard full of buses only blocks from the Super Dome, unused...
Baldwin: Were there any heroes, of Katrina?
Cooper: National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield. He tried to personally motivate Bush.
Lapham: The government behaved exactly how it was supposed to, according to Republican ideologues - who want the smallest possible government. Two nations, divisible by magnitude. The more poor that can be eliminated, the better. The government has no purpose for the rich. They don't need the government. (More privatized cops now than public.)
Baldwin: The fraud and waste of the welfare system is minuscule compared to the fraud and waste of the defense system. Do you think Republicans hate the poor more because of what they cost the system, or more because they vote for Democrats?
Lapham: It's George Bernard Shaw. If you're poor, you deserve to be punished.
Baldwin: Do you think Bush should be literally impeached?
Browne-Dianis: I don't think it would happen now. We're going into an election year. I think he has done enough to show that he should be impeached.
Cooper: Absolutely. Even if on his last day in office. He has many more months to screw up this country.
Gardner: Totally. There was a growing movement to impeach him; the Dems won Congress; Pelosi took it off the table. Kucinich introduced it again.
Jackson: Yes. Bush has continued Reagan's campaign against the poor.
Hunt: Yes, impeachment may be in order, but she's concerned about the symbolism of impeachment and how it might obscure the root causes (of the crimes that led to impeachment). Off course Pelosi took it off the table - she doesn't believe in a common wealth, a common good, any more than most Republicans.
Lapham: Yes, on two grounds - Iraq, a criminal fraud. Second, it's the Constitutional task of the Congress to preserve the balance of power, to assert the legislative authority - unless it does that, it destroys the principle on which this country was set up. (I.e., not just Bush, but any president will be too powerful.)
Baldwin: What happened with Pelosi?
Lapham: Conyers made the grounds for impeachment clear; Pelosi didn't see it as politically useful and abandoned it.
Baldwin: Most people don't want to impeach a president at war, whether or not the war was just to start. Baldwin goes into a long story about Reagan - old-school, against taxes, in favor of letting people admit that they'd rather have a new swimming pool than social programs elsewhere - and how different Bush is. Bush sees Iraq as money to be made. The economy has to be in perpetual debt in order to cut useful social programs. He goes into the racket of war. (You can and should read the book War Is A Racket.)
Baldwin: Lewis, are these people [B&C] the same as we've seen before, and they've just been emboldened by Clinton-fatigue and 9/11? Or are they the worst you've ever seen?
Lapham: These guys are the worst I've ever seen. I see Bush the way I see Britney Spears. Spoiled rich kid adolescents. How do spoiled rich kids show their power? They break things. They spend money.
Baldwin: Goes off about how empty the Texas governorship was, even under Bush. He was a ribbon-cutter.
Baldwin: What can people do now? I don't want people to come into this room and have the "awareness orgasm" where they learn some facts, go home, and have completion. What should they do?
Browne-Dianis: I represent N.O. residents in class-action suits. People are getting kicked out of FEMA trailers. Rents are going up all over. Bulldozing public housing. The federal government runs the housing authority of New Orleans. They're demolishing brick public housing built to survive hurricanes (that did survive hurricanes - they just need new flooring and mold removal). But the plan is to keep the poor out. The right to return does not exist. We have tried ever legal way to stop the bulldozers. We have been denied. Local authorities don't want to be on the side of their constituents, the developers, in case the poor come back and vote somehow. But they don't want to be on the side of the poor. December 15th, let's do something to stop the bulldozers. (She leaves the stage to massive applause.)
Cooper: Let's get major media to look at impeachment. Call the public editor of the NYTimes.
Gardner: We have to stop the assault on the poor; public housing is being demolished all over. The Gulf Coast Recovery Act is being held up by a Republican senator from Louisiana, this jerk. We have to contact Sen. Charles Schumer and get him to pass the bill.
Jackson: December 10th, come to New Orleans. Get organized to stop the bulldozing on the 15th. Contact Jackson at jackson-action@hotmail.com. Help us get the GCRA bill passed. Fight that jerk Vitter; call Schumer.
Gardner: Go to http://www.peopleshurricane.org/.
Baldwin: Have a banner on the website to list everything. (Okay, note to self - I think I've just had my first freelance job request from Alec Baldwin.)
Hunt: Two great sites that can help you keep up with news and events are: Color of Change and Katrina Information Networkth.
Audience1: There's a rally in New York on the 10th. (Send CP info on this, please.)
Audience2: How/why can anyone respect the U.S. if it lets its president defraud us? We must impeach Bush.
Cooper: Bush won't turn over emails; his staff refuse to testify. Same as Watergate (but worse). The people have to stand up in larger and larger numbers and demand impeachment.
Audience3: During the 70s, we had more alternative news, a free press. How do we get the average Joe to know about the impeachment movement?
Cooper: Demanding it can only help; media activism is necessary.
Audience4: Barbara Jordan pointed out that unless we use impeachment, we might as well shred the Constitution. We have to make sacrifice to make change - stop shopping, go down to New Orleans. Buy a ticket, go down there, stand with the residents against bulldozers.
Audience5: I'm not really so sure whether Bush should be impeached. If we impeach Bush and the Dems win the next presidential election, the Reps will use impeachment against the Dems. (?) (Murmuring of dissatisfaction with question.)
Baldwin: Impeachment is a very difficult thing, on purpose. Long aside about Tom Delay. (More murmurs.)
Lapham: (Too quiet to hear, I think he said "it's necessary.")
Audience6: If you don't have time to go to New Orleans, I'm sure one of us displaced New Orleanians (sp?) would be willing to go in your place. (Applause.) If culture is demolished, what is the future of New Orleans?
Jackson: We had doctors, lawyers, musicians in public housing, not just drug-dealers. Really, public housing in New Orleans was not like they said (the media?).
Gardner: Now they're asking for expensive funeral permits. More about the destruction of culture in N.O.
Baldwin thanks everyone; we're out of time.
Cue zydeco. Cue applause.
Two Years Later...
Sam Jackson tells us that there is less care for mental patients; cops are shooting more and more of them, who are no longer institutionalized. Closed the only public hospital - there is no place to go if you don't have health care.
Homelessness is waaay up; the council wants to push the homeless out of the French Quarter (the traditional tourist spot - where you go to eat muffulattas [giant sandwiches] and hurricanes [red syrupy cocktails]).
Internally displaced citizens are supposed to be taken care of, under the U.N. guiding principles.
Gardner talks about how the U.N.'s principles - based on treaties the U.S. has signed - should make the government help people return to their homes following natural disaster. You have the right to return or voluntarily be resettled. You have the right to health care, an environmentally safe house.
Homes are being bulldozed, still. One man was trying to get his road-home money, got wrapped up in red tape. He finally got the money the day after his home had been demolished...
The public hospital will be reopened, but privatized. Disaster capitalism.
Gardner, in New Orleans, saw a sign for "Condominiums by Donald Trump." (More on infrastructural change in New Orleans.)
Gardner: "I think there is a plan to rebuild New Orleans." It just doesn't include the citizens of New Orleans.
Sam Jackson reports that his community still has no hope of returning "at this moment." Two years later.
Homelessness is waaay up; the council wants to push the homeless out of the French Quarter (the traditional tourist spot - where you go to eat muffulattas [giant sandwiches] and hurricanes [red syrupy cocktails]).
Internally displaced citizens are supposed to be taken care of, under the U.N. guiding principles.
Gardner talks about how the U.N.'s principles - based on treaties the U.S. has signed - should make the government help people return to their homes following natural disaster. You have the right to return or voluntarily be resettled. You have the right to health care, an environmentally safe house.
Homes are being bulldozed, still. One man was trying to get his road-home money, got wrapped up in red tape. He finally got the money the day after his home had been demolished...
The public hospital will be reopened, but privatized. Disaster capitalism.
Gardner, in New Orleans, saw a sign for "Condominiums by Donald Trump." (More on infrastructural change in New Orleans.)
Gardner: "I think there is a plan to rebuild New Orleans." It just doesn't include the citizens of New Orleans.
Sam Jackson reports that his community still has no hope of returning "at this moment." Two years later.
Stories from Survivors
Food was sent too late; people starved before they got any aid.
Police would not come out of their cars.
National Guard cars rolled by, empty except for soldiers with guns, pointed at us.
Load of water dropped by helicopter, exploded on impact.
Military police did not give a man water for his baby; she died before them.
Wal-Mart wanted to provide water for survivors but was told not to go into New Orleans. The army would handle it...
The LSU scientist mentioned earlier compared the situation to apartheid South Africa (he himself is South African, originally).
FEMA didn't accept offers of aid from Amtrak, medical companies, etc., and so on, and so on. Wow...
Former FEMA director Michael Brown said the Bush administration asked FEMA to lie about how well things were going. (His Wikipedia entry is very much worth reading.)
Police would not come out of their cars.
National Guard cars rolled by, empty except for soldiers with guns, pointed at us.
Load of water dropped by helicopter, exploded on impact.
Military police did not give a man water for his baby; she died before them.
Wal-Mart wanted to provide water for survivors but was told not to go into New Orleans. The army would handle it...
The LSU scientist mentioned earlier compared the situation to apartheid South Africa (he himself is South African, originally).
FEMA didn't accept offers of aid from Amtrak, medical companies, etc., and so on, and so on. Wow...
Former FEMA director Michael Brown said the Bush administration asked FEMA to lie about how well things were going. (His Wikipedia entry is very much worth reading.)
Tiffany Gardner
IEM - Innovative Emergency Management - a private "risk management" firm. A client of the Livingstone Group, a P.R. lobby based in D.C. founded by a Louisiana Republican. IEM was brought on to work on Katrina but did not confer with LSU scientists who'd long been saying the city and levies were not prepared for a category 4 or 5 hurricane.
"Science was ignored" said on LSU scientist.
The evacuation - woefully inadequate - was called a complete success at the time.
Gardner echoes Jackson's report that no plans were made to help poor people with no transportation. Keep in mind that Louisiana is one of the poorest states in America; Orleans one of its poorest parishes (counties). One Lower Ninth Ward resident did try to evacuate his family, but his car was too small to accommodate his whole family; he stayed behind.
Q: Does the blame go all the way to the top?
A: Definitely. The Stafford Act is Bush's to carry out. The statement that the levies were not supposed to fail was a lie. Bush knew they would fail; scientists had briefed him.
"Science was ignored" said on LSU scientist.
The evacuation - woefully inadequate - was called a complete success at the time.
Gardner echoes Jackson's report that no plans were made to help poor people with no transportation. Keep in mind that Louisiana is one of the poorest states in America; Orleans one of its poorest parishes (counties). One Lower Ninth Ward resident did try to evacuate his family, but his car was too small to accommodate his whole family; he stayed behind.
Q: Does the blame go all the way to the top?
A: Definitely. The Stafford Act is Bush's to carry out. The statement that the levies were not supposed to fail was a lie. Bush knew they would fail; scientists had briefed him.
Sam Jackson
...describes the storm. He's a working-class guy from N.O. He woke up, went to check on his dogs. The water had flooded their fence; they were dead. Coming back, he saw people leaving his housing complex; the water was rising; kids running away; dead bodies and dead animals, ignored. No help at all came to the housing developments.
Q: What was the process/preparation for the storm?
A: None at all. People had no transportation out of the city. People were evacuated, days later, to the Super Dome and Convention Center.
Q: What was the process/preparation for the storm?
A: None at all. People had no transportation out of the city. People were evacuated, days later, to the Super Dome and Convention Center.
Judith Browne-Dianis
...reads a detailed, specific article of impeachment against B&C.
Basically, the Stafford Act says that the government - FEMA - will help out after such giant disasters as Hurricane Katrina. Bush is ultimately responsible. (Here's an argument about whether or not the Act is outdated.)
Now a discussion of what we knew beforehand, what was done about it.
Bush was briefed that the levy system would be breached. Then he lied about it later, saying "no one expected" the levies to break at all. He had an opportunity pre-storm to make changes, didn't do it. Nuh-unh.
Budgets for hurricane protection were actually slashed before Katrina, ostensibly in order to fund the War on Terror, elsewhere...
The court calls Sam Jackon to the stage...
Basically, the Stafford Act says that the government - FEMA - will help out after such giant disasters as Hurricane Katrina. Bush is ultimately responsible. (Here's an argument about whether or not the Act is outdated.)
Now a discussion of what we knew beforehand, what was done about it.
Bush was briefed that the levy system would be breached. Then he lied about it later, saying "no one expected" the levies to break at all. He had an opportunity pre-storm to make changes, didn't do it. Nuh-unh.
Budgets for hurricane protection were actually slashed before Katrina, ostensibly in order to fund the War on Terror, elsewhere...
The court calls Sam Jackon to the stage...
Lewis Lapham and Chorus of Actors: What Happened After Katrina
Lewis Lapham reports: Cheney and Bush outlined the "order of priority" of power restoration to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Rats and dogs overrun the city.
News hadn't reached the director of Homeland Security; he waited 36 hours to declare the city a disaster. He denied that people were starving in the convention center, wet and ignored.
God finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. "I think we have a clean sheet to start again."
The Act of God trope is explored, also the appeal of the DIY-get-away-from-hurricane-ethos: Homeland Security (and other holds of prudent conservatives) didn't want to help people who didn't want to help themselves, who aren't "mature..."
The president compared the scene to a disaster movie. "Devastating. It's got to be doubly devastating... on the ground."
Big boats in trees. (I've also seen cars through second-story windows in the Lower Ninth Wards.)
Lapham points out that a slightly more adventurous president might have hit the ground then, not waited for the army to come in.
Government worker are excused from affirmative action. Minimum wage is abolished by the government to speed up the clean up.
FEMA Director tells Wolf Blitzter things are going "relatively well."
Barbara Bush notes that since many victims were poor and thus couldn't have been so upset by losing their houses...
Laura Bush encourages children to stay in school. (There are no schools.)
The education system is a point of major public debate. Public to private (charter). 123 public schools, down to 4. All union teachers fired.
"Disaster capitalism:" Glass half-full: How can we take this ruined city and make a buck?
(I'd love for my family in B.R. to respond to these posts; my uncle works in land conservation, my cousin in construction law. They have stories to tell.)
Judith Browne-Dianis takes the stage...
News hadn't reached the director of Homeland Security; he waited 36 hours to declare the city a disaster. He denied that people were starving in the convention center, wet and ignored.
God finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. "I think we have a clean sheet to start again."
The Act of God trope is explored, also the appeal of the DIY-get-away-from-hurricane-ethos: Homeland Security (and other holds of prudent conservatives) didn't want to help people who didn't want to help themselves, who aren't "mature..."
The president compared the scene to a disaster movie. "Devastating. It's got to be doubly devastating... on the ground."
Big boats in trees. (I've also seen cars through second-story windows in the Lower Ninth Wards.)
Lapham points out that a slightly more adventurous president might have hit the ground then, not waited for the army to come in.
Government worker are excused from affirmative action. Minimum wage is abolished by the government to speed up the clean up.
FEMA Director tells Wolf Blitzter things are going "relatively well."
Barbara Bush notes that since many victims were poor and thus couldn't have been so upset by losing their houses...
Laura Bush encourages children to stay in school. (There are no schools.)
The education system is a point of major public debate. Public to private (charter). 123 public schools, down to 4. All union teachers fired.
"Disaster capitalism:" Glass half-full: How can we take this ruined city and make a buck?
(I'd love for my family in B.R. to respond to these posts; my uncle works in land conservation, my cousin in construction law. They have stories to tell.)
Judith Browne-Dianis takes the stage...
Article III: Criminal Negligence and Hurricane Katrina
Monday, December 3, 7:00 p.m. "The Saints Come Marchin In" on the stereo.
Alec Baldwin's here tonight to lead a panel discussion after the impeachment proceedings. Also here tonight are journalist Lewis Lapham, New Orleans public housing organizer Sam Jackson, Judith Browne-Dianis, of The Advancement Project, Tiffany Gardner of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, author Cynthia L. Cooper, and Erica Hunt of the 21st Century Foundation.
Performers include Bobby Cannavale, Callie Thorne, Tracie Thoms, Denis O'Hare, Jodie Markell, Bradley White, Nana Mensah, and Chris McKinney.
***
Allan Buchman takes the stage to speak about the federal government's continued seeming inability to do anything about New Orleans post-Katrina. What would Bobby Kennedy do? What would Martin Luther King Jr. do? Buchman reports that the government is planning to bulldoze houses in New Orleans, and he's going to do what he can (stand in front of the bulldozers).
DISCLAIMERS: My family is from New Orleans and Baton Rouge, originally, though I grew up in Atlanta. My great-aunt Gail's house on State Street, a milk-carton-shaped two story building from eighty years ago, now leans thirty degrees to one side and is filled with pale green and black molds, like something out of a Miyazaki movie.
I am also a huge Alec Baldwin fan (well, a Baldwin fan in general). He sat next to me for a moment just now, taking notes, I think.
***
Right now, we're running through the origins and purpose of impeachment again, as we did the last three nights. Perhaps moving more swiftly? The quotes still hit home, very efficiently framing the ideas behind impeachment - and reiterating that it was created to use against just such men as Bush and Cheney, men who, whatever their crimes, have not been in all ways open and honorable before the United States citizenry they serve.
Alec Baldwin's here tonight to lead a panel discussion after the impeachment proceedings. Also here tonight are journalist Lewis Lapham, New Orleans public housing organizer Sam Jackson, Judith Browne-Dianis, of The Advancement Project, Tiffany Gardner of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, author Cynthia L. Cooper, and Erica Hunt of the 21st Century Foundation.
Performers include Bobby Cannavale, Callie Thorne, Tracie Thoms, Denis O'Hare, Jodie Markell, Bradley White, Nana Mensah, and Chris McKinney.
***
Allan Buchman takes the stage to speak about the federal government's continued seeming inability to do anything about New Orleans post-Katrina. What would Bobby Kennedy do? What would Martin Luther King Jr. do? Buchman reports that the government is planning to bulldoze houses in New Orleans, and he's going to do what he can (stand in front of the bulldozers).
DISCLAIMERS: My family is from New Orleans and Baton Rouge, originally, though I grew up in Atlanta. My great-aunt Gail's house on State Street, a milk-carton-shaped two story building from eighty years ago, now leans thirty degrees to one side and is filled with pale green and black molds, like something out of a Miyazaki movie.
I am also a huge Alec Baldwin fan (well, a Baldwin fan in general). He sat next to me for a moment just now, taking notes, I think.
***
Right now, we're running through the origins and purpose of impeachment again, as we did the last three nights. Perhaps moving more swiftly? The quotes still hit home, very efficiently framing the ideas behind impeachment - and reiterating that it was created to use against just such men as Bush and Cheney, men who, whatever their crimes, have not been in all ways open and honorable before the United States citizenry they serve.
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