Après moi, le déluge. Much of this you'll have already seen elsewhere. It doesn't matter at this point—not only do I need to put this stuff together, purely for my own mental health, but we need to disseminate it as widely and as relentlessly as possible. This blog is just a drop in the ocean—but enough drops create a storm, and a storm needs to break over Bush's head, over his entire maladministration. It's not even a question of anger, though of course if it doesn't make you angry I have to wonder about your moral wiring: it's a question of the safety of every American. It's been four years since 9/11, and this unbelievable fuckup of disaster relief in New Orleans is what we have to show for it? Where has the goddamn Homeland Security money been going?

Outside the [New Orleans convention] center, people complained that they were evacuated, taken to the convention hall by bus, dropped off and given nothing.

At least seven bodies were scattered outside, and hungry people broke through the steel doors to a food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice and whatever else they could find.

MSNBC, "Cries for help spread across New Orleans"

Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo’s Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!” Never one to have her fashion choices questioned, Rice had security PHYSICALLY REMOVE the woman.

Gawker item

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered with a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.

“I don’t treat my dog like that,” Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. “I buried my dog.”

On Wednesday reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics.

Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!

When asked why these young men were not being used to help in the recovery effort, our reporters were told that it would be pointless to send military personnel down to the beach to pick up debris.

Biloxi Sun-Herald editorial (via E&P)

The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage.

“We are out here like pure animals. We don’t have help,” said the Rev. Isaac Clark, 68.

People there, some holding crying babies or elderly barely able to stand up, shouted for help as TV news crews passed by.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff—who devoted time to delivering a planned photo op promoting September as "National Preparedness Month"—said in an interview on NBC's Today, "It's not a question of not having enough assistance. The critical thing was to get people out of there before the disaster. Some people chose not to obey that order. That was a mistake on their part."

People are literally dying. Right in front of us as we were watching this a man went into a seizure on the ground. It looked like he was dying. People tried to prop his head up. No one has medical training. No ambulance can come. It is just heartbreaking that people are just sitting there without food or water waiting for the buses to come take them away. People keep asking us - when are the buses coming. And I just have to say, I don't know.

Chris Lawrence, CNN (via Atrios)

Well, I fully understand people wanting things to have happened yesterday. I mean, I understand the anxiety of people on the ground. I can imagine—I just can't imagine what it is like to be waving a sign saying 'come and get me now'. So there is frustration. But I want people to know there is a lot of help coming.

I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.

George W. Bush, interviewed on Good Morning, America

posted by michael  4:30:39 PM  
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One of the many reaons I can't be a right-winger is that my immediate response to suffering of the sort going on in New Orleans is to identify emotionally with the people undergoing it—rather than, say, with the image of gun-toting authority given a rare chance at open season on poor black folks. Ron Brynaert links to one of the loopier of the latter type, but there's no need to go very far afield, not when you've got a blogosphere that hosts the honored likes of Michelle "You Loot, I Shoot" Malkin and Glenn Reynolds. I imagine the netherworld of Freepers and Little Green Nutballs are full of the most edifying sentiments, but I can't bring myself to go there.

I've been spending the last couple of days helplessly imagining myself dehydrating on rooftops, building despair hour after sweltering hour in the Superdome, or worse. That, and mapping my images of the city I knew—only partially and haphazardly, to my sadness—against the flooded, toxic hell that's replaced it. I don't really have sufficient strength of mind to write the thing out—except to mention the feeling I can't shake, half rational, half superstitious, that this disaster, more than 9/11, is the knell of the Era of Inescapable Bad Things that may be upon us.

I will offer a bit of a link dump, though, of discussions I've found useful in thinking about the larger outlines of the NOLA story:

Salon has reprinted an excerpt from the "Atchafalaya" chapter of John McPhee's The Control of Nature, and Billmon works the same territory, with a wider scope. Hard not to think that the effort of nearly two centuries, to shape the Mississippi Delta (against every possible natural process) into a highway for commerce, has reached a dead end. And greenboy tacks on to Billmon's post a reminder that the exploitation of the Gulf for oil and natural gas has had its own consequences for the stability of the delta.

Nadezhda, at Liberals against Terrorism, rounds up some early discussion of the economic consequences of Katrina. BenP at MyDD excerpts a Stratfor discussion along the same lines, and adds some further thoughts.

You've probably seen as much questioning as I have about the appalling lack of leadership and preparedness at the federal level, but if you haven't, this post from Steve Soto at the Left Coaster is as good a place as any to start. (Plus it has the vanity guitar image which by any right should become as much an icon of the Bush presidency as the My Pet Goat deer-in-headlights shot.) Nadezhda has another good starting point on FEMA and Homeland Security and policy tradeoffs.

Speaking of mapping, it seems that Google Earth hackers are doing valuable work with overlays that leaves the unimaginative, out-of-the-box coverage in most print and broadcast media far behind. It's impossible to understand the story of the flood without being able to see the relationships between places. I can't manage Google Earth with my video card; fortunately Kathryn Cramer is digesting some of the best stuff and posting images.

posted by michael  12:40:52 PM  
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