Deep Thoughts and Observations by Ken
Published on September 5, 2005 By AKABrutus In Politics
What we are witnessing in New Orleans is something we would only expect in a third world country. Not a City in the United States. Hundreds and possibly even thousands have been killed either by the Hurricane or the resulting chaos that has engulfed the city. How could it happen here in the most powerful and wealthy nation in the world?



The truth is New Orleans is a city ran like a third world nation. It is rife with corruption, cronyism, and organized crime up to the highest levels. The looting in New Orleans did not begin after the Hurricane. New Orleans has been looted for years by city officials, crooked police, organized gangs, racketeers, corrupt business, all on the take at the expense of the people who were supposed to be served. Billions of dollars in Federal aid money to shore up levees, disaster planning and civil defense has ended up in the pockets of government and private hands instead of being used for its intended purpose.



The Levee was supposed to have been able to take a category 3 hurricane. Yes, when Katrina hit land fall it was a category 4, but New Orleans was not hit head on. The winds and storm serge that hit New Orleans should have only been the equivalent to a 2 or possibly a 3. The Levee’s should have held the force they were given. Why did they fail? The levees were supposed to be able to handle a level 3 hurricane and would have if they were built up and maintained like they were supposed to.



Over 200 police officers have resigned since the hurricane. They have refused their duties and in some cases joined the chaos. Law and order has not existed in New Orleans for years, possibly ever. Along with the city government the police department was also on the take. Certainly not all policemen of the city are corrupt, but enough that they were incapable of protecting the citizens of their city. A corrupt policeman who was only there to catch the gravy train is not going to risk his life for others.



The corruption went all the way up to Mayor C. Ray Nagin who Ironically ran for mayor on a platform to clean up the cities rampant curruption. His incompetent lack of leadership has made a terrible situation even worse. He has been too busy doing media interviews and blaming the federal government instead of doing the things necessary to help the people. Before the hurricane he called for a mandatory evacuation but did not provide a way for many citizens to do so, and sent people to shelters that were not adequately provisioned



A huge fleet of school busses could have been deployed to assist in the evacuation but the Mayor did not want to use them. In a radio interview he talked about the buses. His statement was very telling.



“ I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here.

I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their a#$es moving to New Orleans."



That's -- they're thinking small, man. And this is a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy.”



Well sir. Why didn’t you just hold out for limousines? I’m sure that people lying in their own excrement waiting to get out of New Orleans would have loved the sight of a school bus. When your people are dying you use whatever is available. You use what you have until something else comes along.



Nagin should have stayed in his city instead of hightailing it to Baton Rouge. He sat comfortably in a cushy air conditioned office while his people were suffering and dying. It was up to him to rise to the occasion and provide leadership, but instead he failed miserably. A mayor of a corrupt city like New Orleans is not going to put himself out for his people.



Thank goodness Adult supervision has arrived. Things are looking better now for the people, the outlaws are being rounded up and the city is being taken back from thugs and gangsters. Law and Order has finally come to New Orleans, probably for the first time. Perhaps the hurricane as terrible as it was has washed clean a corrupt city. We can only hope.

Comments (Page 1)
2 Pages1 2 
on Sep 05, 2005
hardly as if it were unexpected. Even Scientific American wrote about it in 2001 in a very prescient article as did national Geographic. What has happened to the civic structure of America? You seem to have a 1st world military but a third world civic infrastructure. American society used to sell itself as inclusive, New Orleans demonstrates what happens to cities/people that live on or beyond the margins. $3 an hour jobs gives people the dignity of labour but condemns them to this sort of permanent existence.
See http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00060286-CB58-1315-8B5883414B7F0000
and see http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/

Who cares? Much better to spend the money on avenging daddy's attempted assassination by invading Iraq.
on Sep 06, 2005
What we are witnessing in New Orleans is something we would only expect in a third world country.... How could it happen here in the most powerful and wealthy nation in the world?


believe it or don't, this is a question i've been asking anyone who'd listen since homeless people started showing up on the streets at the beginning of the 70s.

do you live in louisiana?
on Sep 06, 2005
hardly as if it were unexpected


"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." --george bush
on Sep 06, 2005
No I live in Utah. I have been to New Orleans however. I walked up the levee by the French Quarter. I could see how much higher the water level was to the ground level. I remember thinking it wouldn't take much to flood this entire city.
on Sep 06, 2005

believe it or don't, this is a question i've been asking anyone who'd listen since homeless people started showing up on the streets at the beginning of the 70s.

Started showing up in the 70s?  I think you are off by about 350 years.

on Sep 07, 2005
I think you are off by about 350 years


from the beginning of world war ii until 1970, there were no american cities in which you'd find groups of homeless people sleeping on the streets.

while there were transient encampments (a sorta last vestige of the depression-era hoovervilles), the residents were truly transients--voluntarily or not--and they moved from north to south and east to west with the weather.
on Sep 07, 2005
from the beginning of world war ii until 1970, there were no american cities in which you'd find groups of homeless people sleeping on the streets.

while there were transient encampments (a sorta last vestige of the depression-era hoovervilles), the residents were truly transients--voluntarily or not--and they moved from north to south and east to west with the weather.


That's strange, I remember "homeless people" (except they were called "Hobos" back then) around the train depots in Ogden and Salt Lake City back in the 60s. My mom and dad talk memories they have of them going back to the 40s. Maybe they all lived in Utah. ;~D

True, there weren't as many, but then again, once the ACLU sewed to release mentally ill people from Behavioral Health hospitals the homeless situation in this country skyrocketed.... that was also about the time we started calling them "homeless" instead of "hobos" "street people" or "bums".
on Sep 07, 2005
except they were called "Hobos" back then) around the train depots in Ogden and Salt Lake City back in the 60s


and that's significantly different from this in what way ted?

while there were transient encampments (a sorta last vestige of the depression-era hoovervilles), the residents were truly transients--voluntarily or not--and they moved from north to south and east to west with the weather


once the ACLU sewed to release mentally ill people from Behavioral Health hospitals the homeless situation in this country skyrocketed.... that was also about the time we started calling them "homeless"


it had nothing to do with the aclu...and everything to do with a new california governor--elected in 1968--who promised to balance the budget but couldn't even come close to doing that until someone suggested closing down most of the state's mental hospitals and tossing the patients out into the cold world where, he assured anyone listening, each community would rightfully and righteously care for its own.

unfortunately that didn't happen (altho he made a point of bragging about the savings in his 1970 state of the state speech). it became a model which other states began following but didn't fully kick into gear nationally til reagan went to the whitehouse.
on Sep 07, 2005

except they were called "Hobos" back then) around the train depots in Ogden and Salt Lake City back in the 60s


and that's significantly different from this in what way ted?


"You're" the one that used this line!

believe it or don't, this is a question i've been asking anyone who'd listen since homeless people started showing up on the streets at the beginning of the 70s.


So ted countered with....


except they were called "Hobos" back then) around the train depots in Ogden and Salt Lake City back in the 60s


Which shows your statement to be false. Since they were around loooong before you claimed they showed up.
on Sep 08, 2005
Since they were around loooong before you claimed they showed up.


i was hoping while you were gone (if you ever actually go anyplace), you might learn how to read. or at least remember.

go ahead and try to convince us that you remember seeing groups of tramps living on the streets of america's cities back when you were just an dispeptic lil boy. i mentioned the hobo-tramp transients before ted did.
on Sep 08, 2005
i mentioned the hobo-tramp transients before ted did.


Can you show me where you said that? Because try as I might, I can't seem to find it.

go ahead and try to convince us that you remember seeing groups of tramps living on the streets of america's cities back when you were just an dispeptic lil boy


And just FYI....I don't have to remember squat! Go read and learn.

Link
on Sep 10, 2005
Kingbee,

The significance is my memories of hobos around the train stations predates your claim... as Dr. Guy pointed out, but I'm up for 2nding. I guess all those songs "Hobo's Lullaby", "Big Rock Candy Mountain", "In the Jailhouse Now"... etc were merely prophetic songs written decades before the 80s, about the 80s... right?

You can cry about all your anti Reagan crap all you want. I remember the ACLU making it a huge deal that they "freed" the people from their incarcerations in mental hospitals in the 80s. It was the first I'd ever heard of the ACLU... I'm sure the ACLU would be pretty offended by you trying to credit Reagan with what they considered a great accomplishment at the time.

Even in the 40s, my mom tells us about how my grandpa (who worked for the railroad) would make sure she, her sisters and her brother saw the hobos' drunken fights and hear the things they would yell at women going to catch their trains. He used the hobos of a living example of the value of good clean living. She told me how he taught them that everyone of them were people, no better or worse than anyone else, so don't think for a second that they can't end up like that also.

The lesson stuck. They all turned out pretty well.
on Sep 11, 2005

from the beginning of world war ii until 1970, there were no american cities in which you'd find groups of homeless people sleeping on the streets.

Want to try that again?  I have documentation from 1850s SF that reports it.  I suppose with some work, I can find reports from 1650 as well.  This is one of your lamest attempts, really! 

on Sep 11, 2005

go ahead and try to convince us that you remember seeing groups of tramps living on the streets of america's cities back when you were just an dispeptic lil boy. i mentioned the hobo-tramp transients before ted did.

And I am talking homeless and bunches of them.  They were just not REPORTED about.  They were there, just not talked about.  Do not confuse not being talked about with not being existant.  You have made some lame arguements in the past, but this has to be the lamest.

on Sep 11, 2005
Ummmm.... yeah. Just one quick question... who cares what exact decade it was that hobo's showed up in anyway?

Just my two cents.
2 Pages1 2