Look into the eyes of the citizens of New Orleans. To be more specific, look into the eyes of the elderly African-Americans left stranded by their own government at the New Orleans convention center. There is a look of helplessness. These are the same eyes that lived through the civil rights movement and a generation of unprecedented change. These are the same people whose grandparents or even parents were slaves. Now those same eyes have seen everything they have washed away and now have been left to die in some of the most inhumane ways possible.
Southern African-Americans impartially have been treated as unfairly of any race in mankind. They have fought and fought and for every step they take, there are people who try to push them back two. Through generations, they have been enslaved, segregated, beaten and murdered, but never have they just been left to die so plainly.
FEMA director Michael Brown said he didn't know people were at the convention center until yesterday and news organizations didn't know either until a couple of homeless men told an MSNBC crew. The most disappointing fact is that all the people at the convention center were told to go there by officials and that they would be picked up and cared for. Four days later, no buses and not even a single doctor has shown up. Dead bodies are being piled up outside the doors.
People watch as police vehicles drive by but do not stop. The National Guard made their first "food drop" yesterday at the convention center with cases of water and meals ready to eat, but that was far from adequate for the thousands there. This is by far the biggest failure of the federal government in America's short history. That is saying a lot considering this is a government that allowed slavery for decades and put that blacks were 3/5 of a white man in writing. And this was even a few generations before they even considered women equal to men. But now this is a government that is leaving thousands out to die live on CNN and a government with a Congressional Speaker of the House who publicly questions if not only their city but homes are worth rebuilding.
Article comments
1 - Alan Wilensky
This is where the wheels fall off the train...where we dsicover that the current fefderal executive branch of government is not only unprepared, but probably crimimally negligent for its lack of planning for the Levee failure in New Orleans, LA.
We cant do anything now, afer the fact, except help where possible, but we can do anything possible to remove the incompetent, privelidged politcal class that has failed the poor people of the gulf coast.
I reccomend that criminal and civil actions be institured ummediately against the entire executive branch of the federal gov., and that the Gov. Of LA be held liable for directing people to the Superdome, without first pre-positioning aid.
A citizens revolt must be instituted, by a national tax boycott, where the funds are re-directed to direct relief of the effeted area.
This is only the latest of the many national failures, including the wholly preventable 9/11 tragedy, a lie-war in Iraq, and in general, all of the bad things that flow from a politcal class that has not had ordinary citizen representitives in decades - but rather places an average proce tag of a senate seat at over 70 million dollars to bid for the privelidge of serving.
2 - Griffin G. Crosby, Jr.
Who failed whom? You 'hand out' people failed. Doom and gloom is all you people see. You never see any good. You focus only on the bad. Thank God for all the volunteers that risked their lives for the poor, elderly, and
'hand everything to me because the guvment owes me' people. Look at the trash left by them in NO. No pride for being alive. No pioneer instincts. Nothing. What a shame.