and i don't think it makes you crazy to look at a picture of thousands of black americans dropped off on a highway ramp and left there without any food or water for days, and compare it to the hull of a slave ship. that is what it looks like to someone who's family may include a great-grandparent who had actually been a legal slave in this country.

universal suffrage was not enforced until 1965! black americans are allowed to take this shit personally! if you are a black american you get to be angry and easily humiliated for a few more generations.

heather wrote:of course this is a class issue. i really believed that went without saying.

there are lots of white people in new orleans, but you see few in that crowd at the superdome or the convention center or fucking on-ramps! the poverty rate for non-hispanic whites is 8.2 percent, the poverty rate for blacks is 24.4 percent. class is always some sort of factor.

1. poor people/families are less likely to leave their homes during a possible tornado/hurricane even if they had a way out. when you have very little you are more likely to believe it is better to stay and protect what you have. when you do not have a savings account or know anyone who does, it is unfathomable to leave everything you own and leave it open to looters in case the storm does not hit- thus the situation in and of itself exists because of class.

2. i can't believe anyone thinks that if mackinaw island, the hamptons or winnetka were in the same position that the response time would not have been different(more immediate.) the truth is that proportionately "the poor" do not vote in numbers that compare to "the rich." they have given up on being represented. if there are no consequences for the government, they have no incentive to, let's say, get off their ranch the minute the situation arrises. where is the vice president? where is the god-damn NATIONAL SECURITY advisor?

3. the media did show a white man with a shit load of stuff as a "finder," not a "looter." c'mon!

kanye west is not a fool. i imagine he was a bit nervous when he went off the literal script and accused the government of mistreating black americans, not a popular topic for the rest of the country to even hear, let alone discuss. to bring it up apparently makes you "crazy."

and i don't think it makes you crazy to look at a picture of thousands of black americans dropped off on a highway ramp and left there without any food or water for days, and compare it to the hull of a slave ship. that is what it looks like to someone who's family may include a great-grandparent who had actually been a legal slave in this country. universal suffrage was not enforced until 1965! black americans are allowed to take this shit personally! if you are a black american you get to be angry and easily humiliated for a few more generations.


the federal government knew this would happen to new orleans some day. the same way we say "california will fall into the ocean." the same way we know that illinois is on a major fault. i am not being facetious when i say that i realize now that i am surely naive, but i really did believe that the federal government had a decisive plan of action for a natural disaster or attack of this proportion on a major city. maybe a secret stash of apache helicopters... what i am certain of is that different classes of people receive different treatment during an emergency. saudi's are flown out of the country after september 11 and several soldiers were dispatched to find a spanish dignitary who'd been stranded in the convention center on the second day.

mm wrote:Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore

the kid wrote:
Why aren't you in New Orleans right now, then?

The reason I'm not is because I am not competent to engage in air and water based search and rescue operations in flooded, devastated cities filled with desperate and dying people.
But that's just me.

heather wrote:and i don't think it makes you crazy to look at a picture of thousands of black americans dropped off on a highway ramp and left there without any food or water for days, and compare it to the hull of a slave ship. that is what it looks like to someone who's family may include a great-grandparent who had actually been a legal slave in this country. universal suffrage was not enforced until 1965! black americans are allowed to take this shit personally! if you are a black american you get to be angry and easily humiliated for a few more generations.