(no subject)

[novapsyche]

The Last Time America Lost a City

Barbara Bush: Things Working Out 'Very Well' for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans -- No, really. Read this. This explains everything.

Bush's Hurricane Response a Disaster

Third World Scenes

Comments

[hopeevey.livejournal.com]

**reads second article then rushes to the bathroom to vomit**

[pgdudda.livejournal.com]

Very telling about the gulf between the rich and the poor, no? I've always found that attitude in the rich difficult to comprehend; they seem to fail to understand that wealth can be yanked away at any time and that "but for the grace of God, there go I."

Then again, the realities of the lives of the super-wealthy are that if they lost a dollar in change getting up from the sofa, they'd leave it for the maid to clean up...

[blackwinterbyrd.livejournal.com]

reading #3 i want to puke. and i hope everybody and God reads it.
reading # 4 I would like to say.... absolutely. for the year and half I have been a new orleans resident, i have heard the whispers. "the poor black neighborhoods have the weakenst levees." this is america, how can that suprise anyone? some people think "leftist victim-y bullshit" and some people think "maybe so."
but realistically, the army corps of engineers builds badly, i'd be suprised if they had the skills to engineer a discriminatory flood protection system. it probably "just happens" that way, like bad schools and corrupt or exhausted police are found in poor neighborhoods. I'm liberal, so I believe "just happens" means "left to rot without the benefits of social programs and govt money." new orleans' poor have been left to rot since before the civil war. you know how rural west virginains are scary? like that, but black.
they always said new orleans was a piece of the third world. tar paper shantys on one end, estates and gardens on the other.
if oh say....Rio had a disaster. do you think the very very very poor would be rescued last? do you think if they were relocated to miami (my geography's bad) rich politicians wives would be nervous about it? yes and yes.
urban decay and renewal has put some poor neighborhoods between magazine and tchoupitoulas which is the absolute highest part of town. (on the riverbend) Those jeff parish burbs that were the first to go under were the homes of mostly white (asian, hispanic and black also) middle and upper middle professional families. all of my financially established (homeowners, planned pregnancies, retirement invesements) coworkers and bosses lived there. it was considered shrewd to avoid midtown prices, and the lake levee was seen as a huge sunny park.
gah. who else am i gonna tell this to. I want to go home. sorry for the stream of conciousness comment.