[UPDATE, Aug. 22, 7:28 PM: More thoughts on the movie in a new post here.]
First of all, new readers may want to check out this post, which provides some background information for those unfamiliar with my blog and why the heck I was in Spike Lee’s movie.
The quote from “New Orleans in peril” is exactly what I expected. (Speaking of which: As I wrote earlier, yes, I was off by two orders of magnitude in my mention of a possible six-figure death toll — but only because we got very lucky at the last minute. Katrina could have been much worse. Tens of thousands, at least, could have died, with only a slight change in the track and/or intensity of the storm. More here.)
What came next was a little strange: I swear I said a lot more interesting, dramatic things during our hourlong interview that would have gotten across the same point that he was trying to make there. But, oh well. Although I might have picked a different quote, I had no problem with how I was portrayed, contrary to my initial fears that my words might be twisted. And it’s certainly very cool that Spike used me to “lead off” Act I of his movie. My only real complaint is that he cut off the “USC” from my sweatshirt! :)
Anyway… one of my favorite moments in the documentary is how Mayor Nagin rhetorically hung himself (though he didn’t seem to realize it) with a truly amazing, absolutely damning statement that conclusively demonstrates his utter incompetence in the run-up to Katrina. He admitted (he seemed to think it was a defense, rather than an admission of guilt) that he didn’t ask his city attorney to “figure out” a way to order a mandatory evacuation until Saturday night, less than a day and a half before landfall. He’d never thought of this before?!? He’d never, during the first three-plus years of his mayorlty, assigned his lawyers to come up with set guidelines for mandatory hurricane evacuations? Did he not realize that he’s the mayor of New Orleans?!? If you read this article from 2002, or this blog post from 2004, it’s completely obvious that New Orleans needed to be prepared to order a mandatory evacuation — ideally 72 hours before landfall, not 24 hours before! — in the inevitable event that a major hurricane would someday bear down on the city. So, how on earth does anyone give Nagin a free pass on this? It’s completely inexcusable that his administration didn’t have a specific, lawyer-approved plan already in place for this very scenario, which had been anticipated and feared for years!
With regard to the notion that the levees were “blown up” intentionally… I don’t mind the inclusion of the conspiracy theories, in the sense that it’s good to know how many people believe that, but Spike definitely didn’t emphasize the debunking of those theories. His treatment was hardly evenhanded, clearly leaving the impression that these theories are plausible, if not likely. A bit more actual scientific commentary on the plausbility of the theories, and alternative explanations for the “explosions,” would have been appreciated.
One thing I did appreciate was the interview with the guy who emphasized that Katrina was Category 1 or “Category 2, tops” when it hit New Orleans. That’s absolutely true, and it’s important for people to realize. (More about that here.) I wish Spike had taken it to the next level and pointed out how much worse Katrina could have been, which is crucial to understanding what could potentially happen in the future, and also crucial to understanding how badly Nagin screwed up, as I wrote here:
As horrible as the catastrophe has been, please realize that it actually could have been far worse. What occurred was not the long-feared “worst-case scenario,” which involved not a levee breach equalizing the water level in Lake Ponchartrain and “Lake New Orleans,” but rather a storm surge over-topping the levees and causing the water level in “Lake New Orleans,” hemmed in by the still-intact levees, to rise substantially higher than the water level in the lake. If the storm had wobbled a meteorologically insignificant 20 or 30 miles to the west, and/or had not weakened from a Category 5 to a Category 4 at the last minute, that scenario would have occurred, and instead of a slowly developing 10-20 foot flood, New Orleans would have suffered a rapidly developing 30-40 foot flood. (Jackson Square would have been underwater, whereas in the real-world scenario it remained high and dry.) The whole thing would have happened Monday morning, and at the same time as the city was rapidly and massively flooding, the devastating winds that demolished the Mississippi coastline would have been tearing New Orleans apart instead. All of those attics where people took shelter would have been either submerged or shattered to bits. The French Quarter would have been swamped, instead of mostly surviving the flood. Second-floor generators in hospitals might well have drowned. Bottom line, there would be a lot fewer refugees and a lot more corpses.
Fewer refugees and more corpses means less opportunity for Nagin to blame the feds for their slow response (blame which is justified, but which Nagin unjustifiably uses to deflect even more richly deserved blame off himself), and attention would instead have focused, quite rightly, on the utter inadequacy of the evacuation. As I wrote here, “It is frankly mind-boggling to me that people defend the lateness and inadequacy of the evacuation. If Katrina has been as bad as she almost was, tens of thousands people would have died.”
P.S. What about the school buses? Why hasn’t Spike shown us the school buses?
P.P.S. The criticisms of Bush and the federal government are largely justified… but the notion that Bush should have set foot on the ground in New Orleans is completely ridiculous. That would have totally disrupted the rescue operations! The Secret Service would have had to swarm all over New Orleans and the police department would have been completely diverted from its mission of saving lives and preserving law and order! And the Condi Rice stuff is just stupid. She’s the Secretary of State; she has no role whatsoever in domestic disaster relief. The only reason Spike Lee is focusing on her is because she’s black. Honestly, it’s racist.
Also: Harry Belafonte is an idiot. But if you’re going to include his inane ranting about how Bush doesn’t care about poor people and black people, where was the alternative viewpoint saying that it was incompetence, not malice? I know Spike had footage available of someone saying that, because I said it. He just chose not to use it. So Belafonte’s crap goes unrebutted, the ridiculous criticisms of Rice go unrebutted, Nagin’s comment about “where are the buses” goes unrebutted (the obvious rebuttal being, you let them drown, Mr. Mayor)… yet when people criticize Nagin, it’s rebutted by Nagin and others. Very interesting editorial choices, Spike.
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Categories: Hurricane Katrina
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August 21st, 2006 at 10:34:36 pm
Ahh..you see, because showing all of the school buses would focus the point of failure on local government, not the Feds.
I made it 20 minutes in on the DVR before I gave it up. I think this will be one that I can only watch in small doses, my friend.
August 21st, 2006 at 10:43:57 pm
OMFG!
Nagin just said that after he did the radio interview when he said he was pissed he thought the CIA would show up and give him some kind of a drug that would kill him in a few months OMG
He also called Airforce 1 a “Pimp Mobile” OMG HE IS AN IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
August 21st, 2006 at 10:47:16 pm
I was also pissed that he referred to our school as “Notre Dame University” in your caption — a big pet peeve with me.
August 21st, 2006 at 10:48:05 pm
Watched all of 15 minutes. This movie is just another “Nagin isn’t really that bad of a guy, but those Feds are eeevvill” rants.
Oh well, it had potential.
Besides, the geniuses down there re-elected this guy.
August 21st, 2006 at 10:52:28 pm
1989: “Tawana told the truth.”
2006: “Nagin is blameless.”
Godard once wrote that the best way to criticize a film is to make another film. In that spirit, Lee’s documentary deserves a documentary of its own.
August 21st, 2006 at 11:10:40 pm
I was doing a heckuva job!
August 21st, 2006 at 11:17:57 pm
Wow…
It seems to me that Nagin came off as needing to take some of the blame.
August 21st, 2006 at 11:20:59 pm
WOW… Spike you SUCK
August 21st, 2006 at 11:24:28 pm
Loysius,
You expected something different? Spike Lee is many things, but objective and evenhanded are not two of them.
Spike has an agenda, and while that agenda may be rooted in a noble desire to reverse the various injustices suffered by blacks in this country, it is an agenda nonetheless. It shapes his entire worldview, and it was foolish of you to think that it would not color his treatment of Katrina.
If you had known he was going to use you, would you have agreed to be interviewed?
Of course you would have. It’s 2006 and this is America.
How about a game of chess?
August 21st, 2006 at 11:24:36 pm
I considered the fact he used Harry Belafonte to make the comments self-refuting, but maybe that’s too subtle.
There were some school buses in the film: helping evacuate the Convention Center were buses from West Baton Rouge Parish schools. Guess they work after all, and some Orleans Parish buses might have even worked better. Of course the City plan called for using RTA city buses, but they don’t count because the plan wasn’t used.
August 21st, 2006 at 11:24:59 pm
I loved it!! Bout time the truth came
out!!!
August 21st, 2006 at 11:27:03 pm
I think the thing that really gets lost in the debate over whether it was the feds/state/local government that screwed the whole situation up in NOLA is the whole concept of personal responsibility.
Ok, so you live in a city below flood level. There are levees that have held up for a great number of years, but like all instrumentalities of man, are far from perfect.
When you hear that a great big, possibly cataclysmic storm is headed your way, where does individual accountability go?
I know there were a ton of poor folks in NOLA who either didn’t have cars, or otherwise couldn’t get out by their own means. I know there was a place for those school buses to act as a hand of the people to usher people out of town.
Everything is not a government/military industrial complex/evil rich white folks conspiracy.
Arrgh. People are people, and we tend to screw things up from time to time. When that something involves human lives, I suppose we sit up and pay attention. However, placing all the blame for Katrina actions/inactions on any one group is just stupid.
I’ve had enough. I’m going to bed.
August 21st, 2006 at 11:41:32 pm
The best part about the one year anniversary of Katrina is the chance to peruse some of my finer work from last September.
It’s truly inspiring to see what a good natural disaster can do for the creative juices.
August 21st, 2006 at 11:49:49 pm
That was gutwrenching to watch. I came close to weeping at some points. Before the politics and the blame of Katrina, it really is first just a terrible tragedy.
After the tragedy, fuck Bush. Playing air guitar while New Orleans drowned. Let’s make a national pact — never elect an incompetent douchebag again. Republicans, Democrats, fine, whatever. Just no incompetent douchebags who appoint horsie-show types to positions crucial to national security.
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:02:35 am
Amen
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:15:18 am
Casey, I agree. Although my comments in this post are primarily focused on criticizing Spike for not being harder on Nagin or for being too hard on Bush/Rice in certain particulars, I definitely felt that Bush came off very poorly, and justifably so. It really and truly was a massive fuck-up and, while this idea that Bush doesn’t care about black people is ridiculous, and the focus should be on incompetence rather than specious allegations of malice…. it really is quite remarkable how damn incompetent they were.
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:21:24 am
You expected something different? Spike Lee is many things, but objective and evenhanded are not two of them.
No, I didn’t expect anything different. Just because I’m criticizing him doesn’t mean I’m surprised.
Spike has an agenda, and while that agenda may be rooted in a noble desire to reverse the various injustices suffered by blacks in this country, it is an agenda nonetheless. It shapes his entire worldview, and it was foolish of you to think that it would not color his treatment of Katrina.
I didn’t think what you claim I thought.
If you had known he was going to use you, would you have agreed to be interviewed?
“Use” me? How did he “use” me? Just because he advanced an agenda that I don’t agree with in other parts of the movie, doesn’t mean he “used” me. I felt that the (brief) portion of the movie involving me was perfectly evenhanded and reasonable.
How about a game of chess?
Huh?
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:23:36 am
Spike didn’t disappoint. He’s about as even-handed in his film making as he is on the floor of MSG.
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:26:46 am
Did Spike attend the Michael Moore School of Documentary Film Making?
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:41:48 am
Brendan, Lee’s use of you at the front could not have been more fitting.
August 22nd, 2006 at 7:47:45 am
Here’s something I learned last night:
So many people had been stranded on I-10, some for 5 days or more, some after having been rescued from the flood, many dying.
Raises a question: why not walk to the nearest town? In five days one could arguably cover at least 100 miles. Surely if the people fanned out 100 miles in all directions, everyone would eventually encounter goodwill and find something to eat?
Then that white couple informed us that there were armed guards at the borders of the neighboring cities, ready with automatic weapons, turning folks back.
Which regiment of armed guards was Nagin supposed to drive his 150,000 poorest, most crime-ridden citizens past?
It was certainly underreported by the media, but it appears that one of the biggest clusters was the lack of willingness of nearby communities to act as staging areas.
Which falls squarely on the shoulders of Blanco and/or Chertoff.
And raises, for the millionth time, the question:
You trust this administration to keep you safe in a terrorist attack - why?
Can you imagine, dear reader, your city is hit by a chemical weapon, and you are wandering around, potentially dying of some slow-acting toxin, and your life is in Michael Chertoff’s hands, its up to Michael Chertoff to ensure that you meet a sympathetic staging area and not menacing guns?
Lord help us!
August 22nd, 2006 at 9:03:12 am
Brilliant analysis Brendan.
I was struck last night by the execrable Sean Penn (who ruins every film he is in, a minor point) grinning about the “fib” he was fed regarding 40 kids needing rescue. The implication being - as far as I understood - that they didn’t exist? But that a small fib was okay to galvinise reaction, according to Sean “aw shucks, just call me a Hollywood superhero ma’am” Penn?
I still found Lee’s film wrenching - despite the considerable flaws.
August 22nd, 2006 at 9:40:57 am
Why give the useful idiots money, fame and status when you know all they will produce is foolish crap. So long as the audience continues buying into it the idiots will continue making it.
I don’t know which group is more profound, the useful idiot who makes the crap or the audience who continually shows up to eat the crap.
August 22nd, 2006 at 10:45:36 am
An oldie but goodie..
SSHHH!! THE MAN’S A GENIUS!
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:54:30 am
To all the people complaining about Spike Lee’s “agenda:”
Pardon me but is there some law preventing Right Wing filmakers from doing documentaries? Maybe we could trust the guys from the Swift Boat Veterans on this one. I also understand Mel Gibson has no conflicts…
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:54:53 am
Agreed - coverage and perspective in Spike Lee’s Katrina doc disappointed (–too bad considering his work for “4 Little Girls” proved a compelling documentary).
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:09:18 pm
Michael, certainly there is no such law, but personally I would prefer intellectual honesty and thoroughness from both right-wing and left-wing documentarians, commentators and so forth. That’s not to say they can’t have an “agenda” — but manipulating facts and/or picking-and-choosing interviews while maintaining a respectable veneer of quasi-objectivity is highly problematic.
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:35:35 pm
I think my favorite segment was when people were claiming that the levees had been bombed- seriously now, the former mayor of New Orleans seemed to even agree with that- bizarre.
I know there are people out there that truly believe in things which make absolutely no sense to me- and I must say it was fascinating to hear their “opinions” of what happened.
August 22nd, 2006 at 5:24:10 pm
Not to sound stupid or to antagonize, but how should Bush/Nagin should have acted?
Everyone is so willing to cry “incompetent” so what is competent? What should W. have done to have you say, “wow, this time he knows what he is doing.”
August 22nd, 2006 at 5:54:35 pm
I think a LOT of people are drawing conclusions (a) before seeing the whole movie, and (b) without clearly recalling what happened in Acts I and II. Regarding bombing the levees being “ridiculous”, one historian explained that, in the past, levees WERE dynamited during a flood. If it happened before, and people heard a huge BOOM before the levee broke, is it so preposterous to think that an explosion might have occurred? Now personally, I have heard the sound of concrete breaking under stress, and it sound like an explosion.
On the busses that Nagin didn’t use to evacuate: since we have not seen the second part of the movie, we can’t really judge about Spike not showing them, can we? They may be in Act III or IV, but not Act II or I.
Lastly, I don’t think Nagin comes off well in this at all. I have not heard a single resident say he did a good job, and one of the state reps said she did not think he had ever read the city’s evacuation plan. But Blanco and Bush, both of whom had much more at hand in the way of resources, obviously could have done much better.
August 22nd, 2006 at 7:58:48 pm
Critics of Spike Lee’s Katrina Documentary
Other webloggers with stronger stomachs watch all two hours of the first part of Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke….
August 22nd, 2006 at 8:58:46 pm
Nagin was / Is ( God save them ) the Mayor of NO.His main job is to look out for the people of his city and he did not.
Blanco is supposed to protect the people of her state and she did not.
The Presidents job is to protect the people of America and last time I looked it was a pretty big place so he deligates the job of disaster relief to FEMA not to Condi Rice.
Nagin, Blanco and FEMA all di a terrible Job but the number one person who shopuld have had his ear to the ground on NO was Negan and he was not only not listening to the news he was more interested in making the news.
August 22nd, 2006 at 9:46:46 pm
Manual Trackback.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:47:59 pm
I AM a New Orleans resident.I am white I did vote for Nagin BOTH times.
NAGIN did nothing wrong. you stupid people that dont live here are trying to judge what happened sitting in your homes miles and miles away, listening to assholes on the TV telling you made up stories. You want to know what the fuck really happened, email ME,
jgapril@yahoo.com
ask your questions to someone that lives and works here. And for you, mr USC take off that jacket, or sweat, you are a disgrace to USC, just a 25 year old idiot.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:51:44 pm
“And the Condi Rice stuff is just stupid. She’s the Secretary of State; she has no role whatsoever in domestic disaster relief. The only reason Spike Lee is focusing on her is because she’s black. Honestly, it’s racist.”
Well, it’s not stupid, when she decided that she wanted to make an appearance/photo op during a disaster press conference, she placed herself in the circle of responsibility (though admittedly, very small, however she still has the president’s ear, and I do not believe you are naive to that fact). She could have spoken up.
Also, it’s funny that now all of a sudden she wants to acknowledge that she’s “from Alabama.” She spent most of her life distancing herself as being a native Alabamian. She’s an opportunist.
August 23rd, 2006 at 2:46:02 am
First of all, I would like to say that I watched the program and
I found it to be highly informative on more levels than what the
media gave. It was excellent.
Secondly, the comment about Harry Belafonte being an “idiot,” could
only come from someone who could stand to do a little research on
all of who he is, what he represents, and what his plight has been for ALL of
humanity.
Lastly, after seeing and hearing the film and hearing the points
of views from men and women from all social, economical, racial, and
religious backgrounds that lived the tragedy,…for ANYONE to continue to reside in ignorance and doubt that the Bushes aren’t less than concerned with African Americans……well, know that you are only a contributor to the fact that ignorance only fuels the great machine of inequality, injustice, and prejudice in this “the greatest country in the world,” we call America.
August 23rd, 2006 at 3:12:34 pm
Mardi Gras John…
You are an Ass
That being said I have a few soggy school busses to sell you.
August 23rd, 2006 at 3:24:49 pm
[…] ll’s Kitchen or, perhaps, the airing of Spike Lee’s brilliant Katrina agitprop documentary — […]
August 23rd, 2006 at 4:39:59 pm
In all of the talk of a slow and bungled federal response, I wish to state - once again - that the US Coast Guard was there and didn’t bungle. In fact, the entire Coast Guard won a Presidential Unit Citation for its Katrina relief efforts.
August 23rd, 2006 at 8:42:02 pm
Hey stupid ass Toni,
Are you sure you know the complete story about the buses?? Well I do!!
Now who is the ass.
Email me if you got the balls.
August 23rd, 2006 at 11:24:48 pm
CTV: She spent most of her life distancing herself as being a native Alabamian.
Really? Any evidence?
MGJ: you stupid people that dont live here are trying to judge what happened sitting in your homes miles and miles away, listening to assholes on the TV telling you made up stories.
TV meaning HBO?
MGJ: You want to know what the fuck really happened, email ME…
Start a blog and tell the world: Click here. It’s free. Only takes a few minutes to get started.
August 23rd, 2006 at 11:37:46 pm
Ken: the comment about Harry Belafonte being an “idiot,â€? could only come from someone who could stand to do a little research on all of who he is…
I appreciate Belafonte’s great music and his involvement with the civil rights movement. But that doesn’t give him a free pass to say incredibly wacky things and cozy up to dictators.
Ken: Lastly, after seeing and hearing the film and hearing the points
of views from men and women from all social, economical, racial, and
religious backgrounds that lived the tragedy…
…that Spike chose to show.
August 26th, 2006 at 1:06:04 pm
Scrutinator or Agitator whatever your names is. You and the rest of our beloved ignorant
nation, fail to realize the movie was made to point out the how the government dropped the
ball. We can go into other nations and help with rescue efforts when tsunamis occure or
catastrophic earthquakes take place but when a disaster hits home the government is all of the sudden stuck on stupid? Please wake up and stop the denial. Most whites in this country do not want to hear how
apathetic they are, they choose to shut out that inner part of themselves that say man
how messed up is that, by thinking like momma Bush and saying well they’re better of than they were before.
I pity most of our white behtren because they are missing out on a wonderful and diverse
world. Wake up!
August 26th, 2006 at 6:03:30 pm
Spike Lee is a typical piece of shit and should be shot or hung from a tree as strange fruit. Imagaine, saying, the Bush administration conspired to kill poor blacks in Lousyanna!
August 26th, 2006 at 9:08:50 pm
Obviously, there are too many idiots needing refuting, too little time here.
To take just one: “it’s funny that now all of a sudden [Condi Rice] wants to acknowledge that she’s “from Alabama.â€? She spent most of her life distancing herself as being a native Alabamian.”
BASED ON FUCKING WHAT??? I’ve followed this woman’s career, since part of it has been spent in Denver, Colorado - where I now live - attending the University of Denver - and since I have lived in Alabama, let me state that this remark is completely false. If you had said that Secretary Rice had used her past presence in the heartland of the civil rights movement for political oppportunism, you would have been at least half-right!
We have the corona of BDS (cf, Charles Krauthammer) at work above in “Chris.” Abject stupidity.
August 30th, 2006 at 12:35:30 am
I just finished watching parts of Spike Lee’s film and decided to check out this guy’s blog. I live in one of those cities that you think the people should have walked to Jazz (post 21). Do you know that they did let some of those poor stranded New Orleans people cross and they looted and burned down the mall and caused other havoc? The chief of police here told his police men to go onto the bridge and protect our city. THANK GOD! My house was spared during the hurricane but it would not have been had we let the people cross. Granted they probably had people who truly wanted to cross and get out of the mess they were in, but they were few. I’m sorry those people had to go through what they did, but my family didn’t work hard to get what we have to have someone think that during a time of crisis they need my tvs, computers, stereos, and any other non-related item pertaining to maintaining life in a crisis.
September 12th, 2006 at 12:53:59 pm
Brendan Loy,
After watching the Spike Lee documentary I wanted to come to your site and read more of what you had to say. I was disappointed to discover that you are a vacuous amoral conservative. I knew something was wrong when you described Lee as intelligent. That’s racist! Who in the fuck are you to comment on his intelligent. The tone of your statement is as though you are a peer or an equal. You are a fucking student. Your audacity is appalling. Spike Lee is a grown-ass man with far more education than you. You are a pale fat-faced boy. WTF. Your sense of white-privilege stinks to high heaven. If you don’t see the racism in Barbara Bush and the whole Bush Administration you are blind. This country has become the new Soviet Union. We have Gulags and people like you try to justify them by saying we are fighting terrorist. Bullshit! The sad thing is, in you, we are going to have one more fucking conservative lawyer poisoning our society. To paraphrase Wendell Pierce, there is a special place in the lowest, hottest area of hell for neo-conservatives, insurance companies, and of course, amoral lawyers. So get your ass ready.
September 12th, 2006 at 3:45:39 pm
Hi, John Berry. You are an arrogant prick. I hate to break it to you, but this is America, and I have every right to criticize and comment on Spike Lee, just as you (and I) have every right to criticize and comment on George Bush — I don’t need some kind of special credential to “earn” that right. I am “a peer or an equal” in the marketplace of ideas; we all are peers and equals. There is no nobility that is above criticism from the masses. I can voice my criticisms and comments, and you can judge them on their merits. Thus, your little tirade about “how in the fuck are you to comment on his intelligen[ce]” is entirely out of place and irrelevant. As for the rest of your opinion, well, you missed the boat on Barbara Bush, because I agree with Spike on that one, and I explicitly said so. The rest of it, I’m not going to bother with; if you think I’m “racist” because I called Spike Lee “intelligent,” you are clearly not worth talking to. In fact, I’m not sure why I even bothered to write this much. What’s stinking to high heaven isn’t my white privilege, it’s your arrogance and your knee-jerk assumption that everyone who disagrees with you is a racist amoral evil person.
September 12th, 2006 at 3:48:00 pm
By the way: I doubt you are a racist per se, because I don’t accuse people of being racist until I see solid evidence of that, as I recognize that calling someone a racist is a very serious charge, and throwing it around lightly diminishes its seriousness. However, your invocation of my race to justify your low opinion of me (in particular the slur “pale fat-faced boy”) is disturbing, and indicates that if anyone here has some racist tendencies they might need to work on, it’s you, not me. Judge me by the quality of my opinions and the content of my character, please, not the color of my skin.
September 12th, 2006 at 3:50:23 pm
P.S. And when I say “my opinions,” I mean my actual opinions, not my made-up opinions as defined by you. So for example, agreeing with Barbara Bush, supporting “gulags” because we’re at war, and being “conservative”… those would be your false characterization of my opinions, rather than being my actual opinions.
September 13th, 2006 at 12:20:47 pm
Brendan -
Thank you for your honesty and your opinions - also thanks for not edting comments.
Spike Lee’s movie could have given many more viewpoints, and still would not have
gotten the entire story. Government failed at every level.
It is truly mind boggling the state of the city as of today. We who are here are persevering, and it is a daily survival.
It is a different world if we drive 2 miles outside the city.
To Post #46 who worte - “My house was spared during the hurricane but it would not have been had we let the people cross.”
Referring to “the people” WE ARE THE PEOPLE! Does that have a sound of familiarity? Anyway you look at it, “the people”
on the other side of that river are real people, I should know I am one.
October 1st, 2006 at 10:28:12 am
Wow! I’m an african american women….and if I were on the other side of the fence and my people were in trouble……and I knowing that they have been looting and killing…..fuck what color ur skin is I’m gonna protect my family first and always! The whole katrina situation till this day still breaks my heart……but fuck that new orleans was number one murder cap. 4 how many years….and to my brothers and sisters on this blog stop tryin to call these white folks here racist and in the same sentence turn around and make racist slurs u sound just as ignorant.
December 19th, 2006 at 3:57:07 am
I liked the Documentary but I can tell you because I was there. I was living in Houma, La
only 35 Miles from N.O. My Grandmother who lives in N.O. at the base of the levee and she
can tell you first hand there was no Bombs! In case Spike Lee never played in the mud as
a child Ill let him know now. DIRT AND WATER MAKES MUD! MUD DOES NOT HOLD BACK WATER WELL!
so how do you expect mud to hold back water creating millions of pounds of force? It doesnt
it just fails. To sum up my Katrina experience: Bad goverment (State, local and Federal but mostly
Local)and poor levees. To tell you the thruth it worked out opposite Black and whites left
but only blacks moved back. Sorry Spike your black helocopter theory doesnt hold water just
like my levee.
December 19th, 2006 at 3:59:04 am
Madblackwoman I cant agree more with youkeep speaking the truth.