That was from a IM chat Xeni had with
Jacob Appelbaum. It is so far unconfirmed.
Xeni also reports that only certain media are being permitted in. Other are refused entry. Deaths and rapes are also happening and remember, this is the Houston astrodome we're talking about. Not the superdome
12:29 Evacuee Irvin Skinner: We have a curfew. We're being kept inside after 11pm. Forced to stay inside. They threw guns on everyone. Said 'come inside or your out of here'. Shoved guns, pointed them at adults. I'm a grown man, I have rights. This is an instituion to us, it's like a jail. I'm a middle class man with a home being trated like a criminal because I'm black. If we were white, we wouldn't have this problem."
It just never ends.
Update
Jacob Apllelbaum has filed his version on his blog. Here is an excerpt.
I have no way of substantiating the statements of those Jacob spoke to, but I present them here as a snapshot of first-person accounts. While some misinformation may be circulating as rumor among evacuees, let’s also remember that reports of deaths and violence inside the New Orleans Superdome and Convention Center were dismissed as “rumor” in early days by authorities before reporters proved them to be true.
I also note that Armando now has a post on the censorship of the media by Bush.
Jacob Apllelbaum writes:
Is it irresponsible for me to write about things without being able to confirm them? I do not think so. I simply presented what I was told and asked by those same people to tell the world...
What I find most amusing is that it was dismissed outright as being impossible that someone would blow up a levee to save a city. Now that history has shown that this has been done before, something done in New Orleans around 75 years ago, I think it’s worth at least trying to get to the bottom of.
Boingboing
also has an update to their story, this time from an
LA Weekly article:
I met a man named Robert. He invited me to take a seat beside him on a cot pushed against the wall...
"After the storm," he told me almost as soon as I sat down, "they blew the levees up so they could flood New Orleans."
"We survived the storm," Robert went on. "We survived the wind and the rain. After the storm passed, the water started rising, and all you heard was 'Boom!' " The explosions, he said, were the levees blowing. "Ask any of these people. The hurricane wasn't that bad, but the opportunity came up."
It was a real estate grab, Robert explained - gentrification with a genocidal edge. And if he was more than slightly paranoid - he didn't want to tell me his last name, and grew visibly nervous when a white stadium employee began sweeping the floor within earshot a few feet away - his theory made a certain kind of sense, far more than any of the official excuses for government inaction.
I have also taken a lot of heat for relaying the information on boingboing and Jacobs blog. Some of that was perhaps justified, I wasn't as careful as I ought to have been. Well, that's how you learn, by making mistakes, I sure seem to be learning alot lately!
I
do think this is a very important story and that it should not be marginalized. Us poor (I'm white and quite poor, BTW) and minorities are often simply dismissed due to political expedency. But when "events" happen in our neighborhood we know what went down, and we know why. We understand that we live in a racist and classist society and that we get screwed because we are poor or black or hispanic.
This accusation that the levees were blown for political reasons fits with an overall pattern consistantly persued by this administration. Indeed, it fits with the objectives outlined by many in the neo-con camp, with the past support of the Bush family of eugenics, and with the recent callous remarks
"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."
"God" had precious little to do with it. It was, in my opinion, deliberate and premeditated.
"Fuck Bush They Fucking Left Us Here Them Bitches Flooded Us . . . Them Bitches Killed Our People."
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