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Adrian writes

Playing Down Rita

Things are a mess here in Texas and Lousiana. Yes, Houston was generaly spared, but the little towns all around Port Arthur and Lake Charles were hit very, very hard. Things are bad and almost a repeat of what went down in New Orleans.


Poor folks that did not evacuate are left to fend for themselves unless they mobilize for up to ten miles on their own to be taken out of the region without any information as to where they are going or for how long. Folks choosing not to evacuate are not being brought supplies by FEMA or state and local authorities.

"United Nations Speech," Sept. 15, 2005

Hugo Chavez

Your Excellencies, friends, good afternoon:


The original purpose of this meeting has been completely distorted. The imposed center of debate has been a so-called reform process that overshadows the most urgent issues, what the peoples of the world claim with urgency: the adoption of measures that deal with the real problems that block and sabotage the efforts made by our countries for real development and life.

Five years after the Millennium Summit, the harsh reality is that the great majority of estimated goals — which were very modest indeed — will not be met.


We pretended reducing by half the 842 million hungry people by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be achieved by the year 2215. Who in this audience will be there to celebrate it? That is only if the human race is able to survive the destruction that threats our natural environment.


We had claimed the aspiration of achieving universal primary education by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be reached after the year 2100. Let us prepare, then, to celebrate it.


Friends of the world, this takes us to a sad conclusion: The United Nations has exhausted its model, and it is not all about reform. The XXI century claims deep changes that will only be possible if a new organization is founded. This UN does not work. We have to say it. It is the truth.

Bill Templer writes:

"The Uses of an Earthquake:

Rereading Harry Cleaver"

Bill Templer


Harry Cleaver's extraordinary piece "The Uses of an Earthquake" (Midnight Notes 1988) on the response by Tepito (a barrio in Mexico City) to the 1985 earthquake and its aftermath — and the building of grassroots autonomous self-organization and militancy by the Tepitenos — is especially relevant in the wake of Katrina.


As Cleaver reminds us:

"In dozens of the poorer barrios of Mexico City, the movement of the earth sparked movements of people using the devastation in property and the cracks opened in the structures of political power to break through oppressive social relations and to improve their lives. […] For those of us outside of Mexico, the people of Tepito have an important lesson to teach, not only about the uses of an earthquake, but about the use of crisis more generally. […] We should always be ready to take advantage of any crack or rupture in the structures of power which confine us."

Have a look:

http://www.eco.utexas.edu/facstaff/Cleaver/earthqu ake.html


Rarely has the chasm between people and Power in America opened so wide. We need fresh left-green and libertarian argument about the whys and hows of people’s autonomy, far beyond what Naomi Klein sketches in "Needed: A People’s Reconstruction." Many eyes and ears have been opened, however momentarily.

nolympics writes:

"Back Inside New Orleans"
Jordan Flaherty

What actually happened in New Orleans these past two weeks? We need to sort through the rumors and distortions. Perhaps we need our version of South Africa’s Truth And Reconciliation Commission. Some way to sort through the many narratives and find a truth, and to find justice.

nolympics writes:

"Hurricane Katrina: Our Experiences"
Larry Bradshaw & Lorrie Beth Slonsky

[ An eyewitness report by two paramedics trapped in New Orleans while
attending a conference. ]

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's
store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked.
The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It
was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The
milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree
heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water,
pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen's
windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized
and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an
alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and
distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an organized
and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours
playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.

nolympics writes:

"Hurricane Katrina: Our Experiences"
Larry Bradshaw & Lorrie Beth Slonsky


[ An eyewitness report by two paramedics trapped in New Orleans while
attending a conference. ]

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's
store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked.
The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It
was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The
milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree
heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water,
pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen's
windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized
and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an
alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and
distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an organized
and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours
playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.

Notes From Inside New Orleans
Jordan Flaherty

Friday, September 2, 2005

I just left New Orleans a couple hours ago. I traveled from the apartment I was staying in by boat to a helicopter to a refugee camp. If anyone wants to examine the attitude of federal and state officials towards the victims of hurricane Katrina, I advise you to visit one of the refugee camps.

In the refugee camp I just left, on the I-10 freeway near Causeway, thousands of people (at least 90% black and poor) stood and squatted in mud and trash behind metal barricades, under an unforgiving sun, with heavily armed soldiers standing guard over them. When a bus would come through, it would stop at a random spot, state police would open a gap in one of the barricades, and people would rush for the bus, with no information given about where the bus was going. Once inside (we were told) evacuees would be told where the bus was taking them - Baton Rouge, Houston, Arkansas, Dallas, or other locations. I was told that if you boarded a bus bound for Arkansas (for example), even people with family and a place to stay in Baton Rouge would not be allowed to get out of the bus as it passed through Baton Rouge. You had no choice but to go to the shelter in Arkansas. If you had people willing to come to New Orleans to pick you up, they could not come within 17 miles of the camp.

How the Free Market Killed New Orleans


Michael Parenti, ZMag


The free market played a crucial role in the
destruction of New Orleans and the death of thousands
of its residents. Armed with advanced warning that a
momentous (force 5) hurricane was going to hit that
city and surrounding areas, what did officials do?
They played the free market.

They announced that everyone should evacuate. Everyone
was expected to devise their own way out of the
disaster area by private means, just as the free
market dictates, just like people do when disaster
hits free-market Third World countries.


It is a beautiful thing this free market in which
every individual pursues his or her own personal
interests and thereby effects an optimal outcome for
the entire society. This is the way the invisible hand
works its wonders.

phollings writes:

"Iran Next, By Way of Charleston?"
Peter Hollings

In the summer of 2002 . . . I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He . . . told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend — but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency. The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'' — Ron Suskind

Last January an article appeared in the New Yorker by noted investigative journalist Seymour Hirsch. In his article, "The Coming Wars" Hirsch quotes a intelligence official as saying:

"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone," the former high-level intelligence official told me. "Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah — we've got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism."

The Sunshine Grabber

Paul Cantor

Every year, around September 11, I feel the need to write something about Charlie. There are two reasons why.


First it is therapeutic. I find writing about him eases the pain. Second, I think it can help others better understand the significance of 9/11 to people in other countries.


Charlie, as you by now suspect, died in the aftermath of the September 11th attack. Actually, it would be more accurate to say he was one of the thousands who were killed. So what do I want to write about him this year?


Well, first of all he was my friend. Second, he was a New Yorker born and bred. Third, he was an only child. Fourth he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. Fifth he was a sensitive, caring, highly intelligent human being. Sixth he was a gifted writer who wrote a screenplay for an animated cartoon called the Sunshine Grabber.


The Sunshine Grabber destroys people for so much as thinking that they can make the world a warmer place in which to live. “He has fangs as long as Yak horns and yellow eyes. And if he hears anyone, anywhere in the world, talking about WARM PLACES, his ears wiggle and his nose twitches and he comes slinking and sliming around and GRABS them and so much for that person.”


Seventh, September 11th didn’t surprise Charlie. Rather, he saw it coming. Still, he didn’t think he might be one of its victims. Nor did I until I got the news that he was missing.


Then I had a nightmare. In the nightmare Charlie was being beaten and interrogated in a room with bare walls, a chair, and a metal bed frame. The questioning went on for a short time. After it was over Charlie was taken outside and shot. Later I learned that is the way things probably happened and that the person doing the questioning may well have been a US government operative.

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