Katrina: Two Weeks in September
Fourteen years on from Hurricane Katrina, I dug around in the old Peace Earth and Justice website for some of my posts and writing on the storm as it unfolded. - ape
Katrina: A Two-Week Timeline
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Today, ominous developments in the aftermath of the disaster wreaked on the Mississipi delta region continue. Press lockdowns, military occupation, and disturbing stories about the fate of those evacuated the city are being widely reported, on the net. Below, a timeline of Katrina from first landfall in Florida to the present produced by PEJ News.
www.pej.org
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Today, ominous developments in the aftermath of the disaster wreaked on the Mississipi delta region continue. Press lockdowns, military occupation, and disturbing stories about the fate of those evacuated the city are being widely reported, on the net. Below, a timeline of Katrina from first landfall in Florida to the present produced by PEJ News.
www.pej.org
Katrina: A Two-Week Timeline
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
September 11, 2005
Florida Smote by 'Stealth' Storm
August 26, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - In a record year of tropical storm warnings, many in southern Florida took the approaching tropical storm Katrina casually. But, what came ashore, killing several people and wreaking havoc with the state's power grid, was no mild blow.
New Orleans Sinking? Mammoth Katrina Spurs Evacuations
August 28, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - The storm Floridians discounted as minor last week has spent the weekend gathering strength over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Katrina has now ballooned to an unprecedentedly large and powerful Catagory 5, with sustained wind speeds nearing 280 kph, and gusts topping 300kph.
SuperDome Lockdown: Katrina's Prisoners
August 30, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - New Orleans' least fortunate, those too poor or infirm to flee Monday's killer hurricane, taking refuge in the city's Superdome football stadium today find themselves prisoners in a fast deteriorating situation.
[breaking 2:06pm pdt- Louisiana Governor announces an evacuation of one of New Orleans' emergency shelters due to rising water caused by the failure of a second levee protecting the city. Water too is accumulating in the biggest area of refuge, the SuperDome: Says situation "untenable" and the entire city must be evacuated as levee waters rise. And the rains have begun again.]
New Orleans Funeral March a Funeral for America?
August 30, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - It is a total disaster. The slow death of New Orleans, though defying worst case scenarios that have furrowed the brows of experts for years, is nevertheless a fait accompli. The failure of two vital levee guardians of the sub-sea level city means one of America's cultural icons, and arguably most important commerce ports is, as Louisiana Governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco says, "untenable." As analogue, the demise of the Big Easy mirrors the disaster that is George W. Bush's America.
Orleans Down the Drain, But Who's to Blame?
August 31, 2005
Media Channel - Danny Schechter - "You didn't hafta have been there in the past two days to be stung by what happened. Anyone who walked the streets or partied in NO, or watched Angel Heart (the movie), or walked the dusty roads along the Gulf saw an America that won't ever be again..." - Da'ud X Mohammad, New Orleans refugee
www.mediachannel.org
From Baghdad to Biloxi: Bringing Home the Guard
August 31, 2005
WarMadeEasy - Norman Solomon - The catastrophic hurricane was an act of God. But the U.S. war effort in Iraq is a continuing act of the president. And now, that effort is hampering the capacity of the National Guard to save lives at home.
www.warmadeeasy.com
Pointing Fingers in the Wake of the Flood
August 31, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - While the waters still rise in New Orleans and the monumental task of evacuating the entire city and environs begins, already accusing fingers are pointing directly to the White House and George W. Bush.
The "Disaster" President
August 31, 2005
thiscantbehappening - Dave Lindorff - The destruction of New Orleans--a catastrophe far worse than anything Osama Bin Laden could hope to wreak, considering the number of deaths, the closing down of a major U.S. port city for months, the destruction of an urban environment that will take years to repair, and the devastating disruption of one-fourth of the nation's oil production, which is likely to initiate a national recession--gives final proof of the stupidity and criminality of the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq and of the bankruptcy of the Democratic so-called opposition.
www.thiscantbehappening.net
Fallujah, Louisiana
September 1, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Night is falling again in New Orleans, and reports aired by CNN paint a desperate picture. Without water, power, and hope for immediate rescue, the people stranded in the city face another night of thirst, hunger, deprivation, and now, reportedly, marauding armed gangs, and at least one insane sniper.
The Battle of New Orleans
September 1, 2005
Media Channel - Danny Schechter - Goaded perhaps by looped television footage of "looting" amongst the ruins of New Orleans, overwhelmingly displaying non-white participation, police and military spokespersons say "law and order" will take precedence to rescue missions as evacuation efforts continue in the stricken city. {lex}
www.mediachannel.org
"The Name of This Hurricane is Global Warming"
September 1, 2005
Democracy Now! - Shortly after he took office, the President reneged on his campaign promise to cut emissions from power plants. He then ordered the EPA to remove all references to the damages of global warming from its website. Vice President Cheney came out with his energy plan calling for 1,900 new power plants, most of them coal. This is the fast track to climate hell. And, of course, the President withdrew us from the Kyoto Protocol, so he is really going in the opposite direction from the rest of the world, and he really is following the dictates of the fossil fuel lobby. There's no question about it.
www.democracynow.org
The Big "O": Abandoning New Orleans
September 2, 2005
Media Channel - Danny Schechter - DAY 5: No more water; the fire this time. Explosions rock and illuminate the darkness of New Orleans -- some from exploding gas lines and some from gunfire. Another night in a wet and dangerous town that is quickly coming to resemble a war zone in the Third World. It is a place filled with angry and hungry people, people who have felt abandoned and been abandoned for a long time-- even as help is said to be finally on the way.
www.mediachannel.org
The Hurricane and Bush's Criminal Negligence
Sepetember 2, 2005
IAC - September 1, 2005--With every hour that passes, we see and hear new stories of the horror and devastation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. What makes these images more shocking is the realization that much of the death and destruction could have been prevented. Almost all of the death and destruction arising from the hurricane is the direct result of criminal neglect by the Bush Administration. This crisis was predicted in numerous reports and news articles and little, if anything, was done.
International Action Center
The Golden 72 Hours
September 2, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - It seems now to many, the "Plan" worked out by the myriad minions working at the Department of Homeland Security for disaster relief in America can most charitably be described as benign neglect. Much as the Bush administration has starved the very agencies that could and would have averted the current disaster in New Orleans, the reaction of the multi-billion dollar entities created in the wake of 9/11 instructs all citizens: "In case of disaster: You are on your own!"
www.pej.org
"Take Your Rightful Share!"
September 2, 2005
Greg Palast - As the waters rose, one politician finally said, roughly, "Screw this! They're lying! The President's lying! The rich fat cats that are drowning you will do it again and again and again. They lead you into imperialist wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they push your kids under. I say, Kick'm in the ass and take your rightful share!" - [roughly] Huey Long, 1927
www.GregPalast.com
"They're Washing Us Away"
September 3, 2005The Moscow Times - Chris Floyd - The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many of the most pernicious trends in American politics and culture: poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse, public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level. Much of this is embodied in the odd phrasing that even the most circumspect mainstream media sources have been using to describe the hardest-hit victims of the storm and its devastating aftermath: "those who chose to stay behind."
www.themoscowtimes.com
"Them" Coming Home: Third World Redux in America
September 3, 2005
The Jazzman Chronicles - Jack Random - It is happening and my heart, like every ordinary American, has broken a thousand times. It does not look like America, no less the soul of America, but it is. Ultimately, it occurred to me that the sorrow of New Orleans bore a striking resemblance to an entry in recent history, one that should still be fresh in every mind and heart: It looked like Port au Prince, Haiti.
http://jazzmanchronicles.blogspot.com
No News is Bad News: CNN's Evacuation of New Orleans
September 3, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook The message has trickled from the Atlanta corporate head office of CNN: In the Age of Rage, the flagship of American television journalism is to desert its post; as have hundreds of police and fire-fighters in New Orleans. If you have, as have I, been monitoring the coverage of the unprecedented disaster unfolding in the American south these last days, you may have noticed: CNN?s coverage consists today of almost entirely re-cycled footage and heart-tearing stories, while ignoring the real situation on the ground in that God-damned city.
Halliburton to Orleans' Rescue
September 4, 2005
ADE - Kurt Nimmo - It is mighty suspicious the New Orleans "refugees" (as the corporate media call the Americans removed from the disease-ridden swamp left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina) are being relocated far and wide. Most of them will probably never return and will end up in ghettoes in Baton Rouge, Houston, and elsewhere (it appears Baton Rouge is being groomed as an expansive slum, since the rebuilt New Orleans will be a casino and tourist destination with time-share condos and luxury housing).
www.kurtnimmo.com
Whose Desire Would Burn the World
Sept. 4, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Speechless. The television remains off, I can't take it today. In print, the rolling misery of America, its veneer scraped as effectively as the Superdome's roof, revealing all many have known all along; but, seeing it is something else again. And behind this ghastly production, George W. Bush and his now infamous coterie stand in the wings, authors of this through their insatiable cravenous appetite, poised to profit the calamity.
www.pej.org
Dear PEJ News: Full of Bewildered Anger
September 4, 2005
From: Cameron McLaughlin - To: "lex at pej" info@pej.ca - Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2005 21:20:41 -0500 - I can't watch or hear news of New Orleans without breaking down right now. The best I can hope for is that the extremist right-wing radio stations here on the Gulf Coast are full of bewildered anger. So are many of the journalists who have seen the carnage and devastation for themselves.The sleeping giant may be waking, and the helpless ones may be beginning to realize that they and their cities may be the next to be sacrificed. Big Daddy not only can't and won't protect them, he will mock them by pretending to be their savior while privately affirming his indifference to them. Big Daddy is a reptilian psychopath who will let New Orleans drown while he strums the guitar and plays golf and his cabinet members attend Broadway shows and shop for shoes. He will reward gross incompetence and literally give the despairing victims of New Orleans the finger.
Black Nightmare
September 4, 2005
PEJ - The Red Cross spends 40% on administration according to their website. The number two organization that FEMA supports is "Operation Blessing" founded by Pat Robertson who 2 weeks ago said "Lets go and assassinate Hugo Chavez".
"Thanks, But No Thanks!" U.S. Rejects International Aid Offers
September 5, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - The gross incompetence displayed by the Bush administration and it's budget-heavy Homeland Security, in these days, a week past the disastrous landfall of Hurricane Katrina, a week of inexplicable inaction on the part of the federal government, is now compounded as Bush thumbs his nose at international offers of aid.
www.pej.org
Reverse Triage: An Inhumane Policy
Sepetember 5, 2005
PEJ News - F.H. Knelman, Ph.D. - The Katrina disaster is a classical case of reverse triage of class and colour. Triage is a French word referring to the priority with which a mixed group of wounded are divided into three groups and which group is the first to receive medical services. These three groups are (1) the severely wounded or ill; (2) those less seriously wounded and (3) those who have not been wounded or hurt. According to the principle of triage it is the first group that is initially evacuated for medical treatment. Reverse triage simply reverses this order. Under certain fairly unique conditions, reverse triage is practiced in war conditions, i.e. the non-wounded soldiers are evacuated first and the severely wounded are abandoned. In summary triage is a natural humane order of emergency needs, whereby the most vulnerable are treated first. In the case of New Orleans, we faced the need for mass triage. Instead it was a case of reverse triage as well as an exercise in bureaucracy.
US Troops in New Orleans Are Treating Hurricane Victims as Members of Al QaedaUrgent International Appeal
September 5, 2005
Wayne Madsen - U.S. troops in New Orleans are treating hurricane victims as members of "Al Qaeda." Reports coming to WMR report that the greater New Orleans area has been turned into a virtual military zone where troops threaten bewildered and hungry survivors who approach them for help. One resident of the unflooded Algiers section of New Orleans on the west bank of the Mississippi River reports that the 65,000 population of the neighborhood has been reduced by forced evacuations to 2000 even though there are relatively undamaged schools, parks, and churches available to house the homeless. The remaining population of Algiers is in urgent need of medical supplies. The same situation exists in Jefferson Parish and other areas in the greater New Orleans area. U.S. troops are treating the remaining people in New Orleans nd its suburbs as "suicide bombers," according to the Algiers resident.
www.waynemadsenreport.com
"We're Angry, Mr. President"
An Open Letter to George W. Bush from New Orleans
Sept. 5, 2005
Times-Picayune - We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame.
[Note: The Times-Picayune also authored an award-winning series of articles over the last two years questioning, and criticizing, the federal governments budget cuts and failures in providing New Orleans with the much needed funds for levee reconstruction, citing precisely the disaster New Orleans now face. - lex]
"Have You No Blame, Sir?"
September 7, 2005
The Nation - Katrina vanden Heuvel - As Republicans desperately cry out of one corner of their mouths to stop the blame game, they have been blaming everyone but themselves since this catastrophe.
www.thenation.com
No Cameras Please: Journalism Under Attack in New Orleans
September 7, 2005
Reporters Without Borders - In the days following the devastation of New Orleans, running battles between police and what they described as "looters" were strictly off-camera; a situation today extended to a ban on images of the bodies being recovered there. That there have been conflicting reports about who these "looters" were, most based on fleshtones, the real issue not yet at issue here is, "When is it O.K. to shoot a starving citizen in search of food?" - {lex}
www.rsf.org
Surviving the Flood
September 7, 2005
CounterPunch - This is a transcription of an interview Charmaine Neville, of New Orleans's legendary Neville family, gave to local media outlets on Monday, September 5.
www.counterpunch.org
Trapped in New Orleans: First By Floods, Then Martial Law
September 7, 2005
Counterpunch - LARRY BRADSHAW and LORRIE BETH SLONSKY - The owners and managers of Walgreen's in New Orleans had locked up the food, water, pampers and prescriptions, and fled the city. Outside Walgreens' windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry. The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized, and the windows at Walgreens gave way to the looters.
www.counterpunch.org
Destroying the City to Save It: Hurricane Cassandra
September 7, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - News descending at this hour, fuelled by the relentless wind of CNN, and the rest of the elements comprising the agit-prop pretending to journalism (and serving the public weal) in that Untied State of America, currently relating the grim realities of the "graveyard that is New Orleans," exemplified best by five-star reporter and favoured hand-maiden to orchestrated calamity everywhere, Christiane Amanpour, would have the world believe, there is little option left for the beleagured government forces massed ready to pounce on the funereal remains inconveniently still assembled in New Orleans, but to massacre the remnants, witnesses of the Great Flood and its aftermath. The long awaited saviours must now 'Destroy the City in Order to Save It.'
Katrina Evacuees: FEMA Internees
September 8, 2005
ADE- Kurt Nimmo - Asked by Senator Nancy Pelosi if he'd call for FEMA head, Michael Brown's resignation, George Bush asked, "Why would I do that?" When prompted, it may be appropriate in light of the agency's disastrous performance during the crisis in New Orleans and all that went wrong, all that didn't go right, the President asked, "What didn't go right?" - {lex}
www.kurtnimmo.com
Katrina's Patsy: Who Are You, Mr. Brown?
September 8, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - The guillotine blade is risen and heads will roll. Though the melons most suited to fill those baskets will be spared, it may provide solice that those that do, vile co-conspirators of the authors of Katrina, the crime that dwarfed 9/11, and eclipsing for now the toxic legacy of that other criminal quagmire, Iraq. Michael Brown, current head of FEMA and odds on favourite for first tete in the bucket, is tonight revealed by TIME On-line as having "discrepancies" in his resume.
[update: Sept. 10, 12:00 p.m. - Mr. Brown is now in the eye of the sh*t storm. He's been relieved of responsibilities overseeing the next phase of the Bush administration's management of the disaster.- lex]
Guns Not Butter for Louisiana
September 9, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Befitting the conduct of this emergency promising disaster, the Bush administration has only now, nearly a fortnight following the unleashing of chaos, decided to accept foreign aid for the victims of Katrina and the consequent New Orleans Flood. But, it's not the doctors and medicines promised by Castro, or the subsidized fuel offered by Chavez, or even the Urban Search and Rescue team unceremoniously sent packing back to Canada from the epicentre of the catastrophe they want; the intrepids at Camp Bush have put out a mayday to NATO, in the form of a deployment of its freshly minted military strike force.
"Go F**K Yourself, Mr. Cheney!"
September 9, 2005
Jackson Thoreau - Dr. Ben Marble, a young emergency room physician who plays in alternative rock bands and does art on the side, needs our help. Since he was the one who told Dick Cheney to "go fuck yourself" on Thursday, that's the least we can do.
The Nauseating Mrs. Bush
September 10, 2005
WMR - Wayne Madsen - Famous already for the nauseating response to a reporter's question concerning Iraqi civilian casualties that would result her little boy George's campaign there at the start of the carnage that is America's gift to the world, Barbara Bush, doyen of the Bush dynasty replied, "Why would I want to waste my beautiful mind thinking about that?" Responding to the plight of the displaced casualties of the great New Orleans flood "Babs" said, as she stood amongst the human chattel filling Houston's Astro Dome: ""What I?m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality . . .And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this --this is working very well for them." Compassionate Conservatism in full Texas Rose bloom. {lex}
www.waynemadsenreport.com
Martial Law America
September 10, 2005
ADE - Kurt Nimmo - New Orleans is no longer part of America. It is a brave new world devised by FEMA and the Ministry of Homeland Security. In the new New Orleans, there are no constitutional rights. Not only are soldiers allowed to break down doors (as they do in Iraq) in violation of the Fourth Amendment and even ?shoot to kill? if they believe they are threatened (as soldiers in Iraq ?shoot to kill? grandmothers and kids at Israeli-styled checkpoints), now the Second Amendment no longer exists.
www.kurtnimmo.com
Of Alligators and Crocodile Tears: Bush Katrina Aid Plan
September 10, 2005
thiscantbehappening.net - Dave Lindorff - The Republican Congress (and their conservative Democratic quislings) have decided to show a little compassion for the victims of Bush Administration incompetence and nature's revenge by including a waiver in the bankruptcy bill to exempt them from losing their shirts along with their houses. They've also decided to postpone cuts in Medicaid, so as not to gut what little public healthcare remains in Louisiana during this crisis.
www.thiscantbehappening.net
Katrina: Next Phase September 10, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Michael Brown, lately chief of FEMA's hurricane response efforts, has been 'redeployed." Perhaps in like-manner to tend the animals, as was the Navy pilot punished for the temerity of defying orders and actually rescuing people. Sadly, Michael Brown is no hero. But, neither is he the true goat. - {lex}
New Orleans Unmasks "Apartheid, American Style"
September 11, 2005
PEJ News - Jason Miller - 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.
Orleans Doctors "Put Down" Terminal Patients at Height of Flood September 11, 2005
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - George W. Bush arrives in Louisiana today as revelations of further horrors during the flood that followed hurricane Katrina's August 30 landfall. Doctors, caught between the rising waters and drug seeking hospital looters, were forced to make "unbearable" decisions during the evacuation.
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