The April NOLA/Gulf Blogathon took place approximately two weeks ago, and in spite of the crush of campaign diaries, it was, thanks to all who wrote diaries and otherwise participated, a success. The diaries were all very thought-provoking and deserved more attention than they got from the DKos community because all raised questions regarding what BushCo was, and is, really up to regarding the federal flood.
This is to announce that the next NOLA/Gulf Blogathon has now been scheduled for Thurs., May 15th and Fri., May 16th. Hopefully by then the campaign stuff will have started winding down--and hope to see you there!
Here's why we need to continue bringing what BushCo did, or didn't do, and how New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Region are today close to 3 years after Katrina, to the DKos community:
There are many in the MSM who put down BushCo's inaction to mere incompetence. To me, incompetence is a lame excuse drummed up by pro-Administration, corporate-owned newspeople that doesn't cover what happened in New Orleans during the federal flood or why much of that city including the Lower 9th hasn't even started being rebuilt. For to me, incompetence implies:
1.) Honest mistakes made out of not knowing what one should do, and
2.) That, once the mistakes have been recognized, there is a pro-active effort to set things right.
Firstly, Bush did not make any honest mistakes. He himself knew better than to respond to New Orleans' rapidly-unfolding disaster by first celebrating John McCain's birthday and then flying out to California to strum some show-biz buddy's guitar. Per azureblue,
But look what Georgie does for FL:
Right after Hurricane Charley first made landfall on Aug. 13, 2004, Bush declared the state a federal disaster area to release federal relief funds. Less than two days after Charley ripped through southwestern Florida, he was on the ground touring hard-hit neighborhoods.
by azureblue on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 08:28:35 AM PDT
I'm not sure if this was after Charley or some other Florida hurricane in 2004, but Bush also personally handed out water to the storm survivors. Hurricane Charley happened only a little over a year before Katrina hit and sent the massive surge that caused the failure of New Orleans' poorly-maintained levees. But then again maybe Bush decided Louisiana doesn't matter--after all, 2005 wasn't an election year, and Louisiana is a poor state with a small amount of electoral votes. And hadn't been governed by one of Bush's siblings at the time, unlike Florida.
Or, it could have been because as, as I said in Louisiana's Relationship From Hell
Actually, when New Orleans flooded, although her population had been before Katrina 70% black, the impact cut across racial, ethnic, and income/class lines. In fact, many of the people who'd lived in hard-hit Lakeview had been white. But Americans who watched news coverage of the unfolding disaster saw mainly blacks. They saw mostly blacks in the Dome and at the Convention Center, and they saw film of blacks described by Rita Cosby and others as "looting" while whites doing the same were said to be taking what they needed.
And this is what the Bush Administration saw, too, and it was this perception that it was mainly poor blacks--who, they believed, were Democratic voters--who were being driven from their homes by the flooding. And the Final Solution for Louisiana started being put into place as a racist Bush Administration saw a golden opportunity in New Orleans' being made unhabitable. So according to Michael Eric Dyson in his book Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster:
There were poor blacks, mostly from Louisiana, drowning in twenty-five foot floods stranded in their homes or crammed into makeshift shelters, awaiting rescue from a Texas-bred president and an Oklahoma-born head of FEMA. At its core, this was a Southern racial narrative being performed before a national and global audience...
It is safe to say that race played a major role in the failure of the federal government--especially for Bush and Michael Brown--to respond in a timely manner to the poor black folk of Louisiana because black grief and pain have been ignored throughout the nation's history. Bush and Brown simply updated the practice...
Dyson adds that
The black poor simply didn't...count as much, as they might have had they been white. If they had been white...that might have boosted considerably their chances of survival because the federal government, including Bush and Brown, would have seen their kind, perhaps their kin, and hence themselves, floating in a flood of death...
The undeniable incompetence of the federal disaster relief infrastructure still might have hampered the chances of even white folk surviving Katrina. but their...higher social and racial standing might have prompted a quicker attempt to respond, and thus to work out the problems. It also might have made Bush and Brown more adventurous, more daring, more willing to suspend rules and more determined to accept help from whatever quarter it came...and more open to deferring procedural correctness in the interest of saving lives...
And close to three years after Katrina and the federal flood, nothing has been done to seriously and substantively fix the Lower 9th, Gentilly, and several other areas of New Orleans. Or address the "right of return" of those who want to move back home, but are unable to. Not to mention the many homeless, who returned but cannot find affordable housing as public housing that is perfectly good or can be fixed up is slated for demolition. And a month before the start of hurricane season, how much has been done towards upgrading New Orleans' levees?
Now for more about FEMA trailers. Known for their formaldehyde contamination which has been sickening their residents, they also turn out to have problems with propane leaks and gas explosions and fires that have caused injuries and deaths.
If one expands the definition of "genocide" to include knowing and willfully letting members of a particular race or ethnic group to suffer and die, the Bush Administration has been committing genocide, not mere incompetence, in Louisiana.
Now for some hopeful news. According to the Times-Picayune, there may yet be a New Orleans debate after all. Except that the
Candidates may be wary. After the debate commission announced in November its three presidential debate sites -- Oxford, Miss.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Hempstead, N.Y., -- Clinton and Obama joined Louisiana officials in criticizing the exclusion of New Orleans.
Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said he loves the idea of an extra New Orleans debate and "hopes it happens but doubts both major-party presidential campaigns will want to set preparation time for what would, in effect, be a fourth debate in the two months between the conventions and the Nov. 4 election.
"The risks are high -- much higher than in a party primary free-for-all when anything goes," Sabato said. "Party presidential campaigns try to carefully control everything in the general election, save for the formal debates. They dread the formal ones enough. Why would they add another one? It freezes the campaign for a week."
Those of us who are in contact with the Obama or Clinton campaigns and the two or three who are on McCain's side need to let our candidates know that they need to hold up their commitment to a New Orleans debate. I find the excuse
"It freezes the campaign for a week."
more than a little lame--after all, it's not as if they haven't already campaigned seemingly forever. And if this new debate idea ends up being scuttled by the candidates, one can assume that the corrupt hand of people such as the esteemed Paul Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf has interfered in the process.
Back to the Blogathon--as with the other blogathons, your diary can be on anything having to do with New Orleans or Katrina. if you'd like to participate, please let me know with the day and time in the comments below. Thanks!
NOLA/GULF BLOGATHON--ALL TIMES PACIFIC
Thurs., May 22, 2008
7AM chigh
9AM Mike Stagg
11AM Louisiana 1976
1PM blueintheface
3PM YatPundit
5PM Patriot Daily
Fri., May 23, 2008
7AM
9AM Mike Stagg
11AM Louisiana 1976
1PM mlharges
3PM Avila
5PM