EXCLUSIVE BRAD BLOG VIDEO: New Orleans 20 Months After Katrina

[BradBlog]

EXCLUSIVE BRAD BLOG VIDEO: New Orleans 20 Months After Katrina
Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

BRAD BLOG's video maven, Alan Breslauer, has posted a short compilation of video footage he took while visiting New Orleans earlier this month. "While some parts of the city have made significant progress," he reports, "the poorer and lower situated areas like the Lower 9th Ward remain devastated."

"The most difficult part for me was not viewing the destruction but witnessing the lack of activity, building, people, hope. All were conspicuously absent," Breslauer writes in his brief report accompanying the video.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4614

[Suich]

1. This is shameful.

:cry:

[Change has come]

2. K&R

:kick:

[Kurovski]

3. K&R. (nt)

[pitohui]

4. no one should be building anything in the lower 9th ward during the current storm cycle

the strong cycle of the atlantic hurricane season could go on for another 40 years, it is cruel and stupid to rebuild in the lowest part of the city just so that more poor people can be warehoused there and then trapped and killed again

you and i would not be willing to live in the lowest part of this city, no, we rebuild on higher ground, so why not assume that most poor people are not fools and they don't need to go through the same crap another time?

you cannot guarantee that another storm like katrina will not strike new orleans, in fact, katrina was not even the worst-case projection

no one who has any choices in life could or would live in the lower 9th ward this time of century, and people who do lack choice should be provided with funds/assistance to move elsewhere, to higher ground

i honestly don't understand how any progressive can encourage rebuilding the lower 9th ward, my suggestion to such people is to buy some of the worthless property and rebuild yourself, maybe a nice location next to such beautiful neighborhood amenities as southern scrapyard or something


people can have a better life than a slum in a swamp, don't begrudge them for trying to go after it

houston may be a shitty place but it's got to be better than the lower 9th ward

[frustrated_lefty]

12. Good intent, poor understanding

What sort of welcome did Babs Bush offer? You've lost your employment, your home, your belongings, too often your loved ones, you've been raped by FEMA, the Red Cross takes the generosity of the country and pays for a bureaucracy and a small percentage of donations to those who need it, and the president's mother says these people have never had it so good?

Some of us walked out through chemical floods, some witnessed child rapes and murders, some died when they were forced away from Gretna. Some were catatonic with the loss of their children. All too many drowned in their attics. I got my kids safe because I found the biggest piece of metal I could find, the highest ground I could find, and beat a shatter proof window until it broke.

In all of that, I never heard anyone say they wanted to live in Houston. I heard some people say "I'll go wherever I can work." Most people, though, said "my family has lived there as long as I remember. It's MY home and I want to raise my family there."

You may not understand the choice, but don't dare have the audacity to snear at people for wanting to live in "a slum in a swamp."

[BradBlog]

5. Kicking myself...

...for the good folks of Naw'leans...

[intheflow]

6. kick

[NewYorkerfromMass]

7. Miserable Failure

[DemReadingDU]

8. Our government could rebuild N.O. a lot less than war in Iraq

The Bush administration said that the cost of rebuilding New Orleans's levees to federal standards is about $10 billion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/30/AR2006033001912.html

But no,
The government would rather spend $2 Billion a week in Iraq! That's $8 Billion per Month! That's $100 Billion per YEAR!!!
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/09/28/cost_of_iraq_war_nearly_2b_a_week/

[Suich]

9. ...

:kick:

[DemReadingDU]

10. morning kick

[malaise]

11. So here we are at the start of another hurricane season

What an absolute disgrace. Katrina is one of the seminal moments of the Bush legacy.