ClassWarz
2005-09-05 10:54:39 UTC
The axiom 'women and children first' has been changed in racist classist
America: it's now poor minority women and children last. In academic
circles, it's called Applied Conservatism:
quote
New Orleans - awash in corpses
Sep 5 2005
icWales
NEW Orleans turned much of its attention to gathering and counting the dead
across a ghastly landscape awash in thousands of corpses. "It is going to be
about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine," the US homeland
security chief warned.
As authorities struggled to keep order yesterday, police shot eight people,
killing five or six, after gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors
travelling across a bridge on their way to make repairs, authorities said.
Air and boat crews searched flooded neighbourhoods for survivors, and
federal officials urged those still left in New Orleans to leave for their
own safety.
To expedite the rescues, the Coast Guard requested through the media that
anyone stranded hang out brightly coloured or white linens or something else
to draw attention. But with the electricity out though much of the city, it
was not known if the message was being received.
With large-scale evacuations completed at the Superdome and Convention
Centre shelters, the death toll was not known. But bodies were everywhere:
floating in canals, slumped in wheelchairs, abandoned on highways and
medians and hidden in attics.
"I think it's evident it's in the thousands," Health and Human Services
Secretary Michael Leavitt said yesterday, echoing predictions by city and
state officials last week. The US Public Health Service said one morgue
alone, at a St. Gabriel prison, expected 1,000 to 2,000 bodies.
In the first official count in the New Orleans area, Louisiana emergency
medical director Louis Cataldie said authorities had verified 59 deaths - 10
of them at the Superdome.
"We need to prepare the country for what's coming," Homeland Security
Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday. "We are going to uncover people
who died, maybe hiding in houses, got caught by the flood. ... It is going
to be about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine."
Chertoff said rescuers have encountered a number of people who said they did
not want to evacuate.
"That is not a reasonable alternative," he said. "We are not going to be
able to have people sitting in houses in the city of New Orleans for weeks
and months while we de-water and clean this city. ... The flooded places,
when they're de-watered, are not going to be sanitary."
Evacuations continued late yesterday as Coast Guard helicopters picked up
refugees from a dry stretch of Interstate 10 where they had been dropped off
by rescue boats.
One of the last groups taken out Sunday was a family of six that included
three-year-old twins. The Coast Guard planned to resume evacuation flights
this morning.
Late yesterday a civilian helicopter crashed near the Danziger Bridge, but
the two people on board escaped with only cuts and scrapes, according to
Mark Smith of the state office of emergency preparedness.
In yesterday's confrontation, 14 contractors on their way to help plug the
breech in the 17th Street Canal were travelling across the bridge under
police escort when they came under fire, said John Hall, a spokesman for the
Army Corps of Engineers.
Police shot at eight people carrying guns, killing five or six, Deputy
Police Chief W.J. Riley said. None of the contractors was injured,
authorities said.
In addition to the lawlessness, civilian deaths and uncertainty about their
families, New Orleans' police have had to deal with suicides in their ranks.
Two officers took their lives, including the department spokesman, Paul
Accardo, who died on Saturday, according to Riley. Both shot themselves in
the head, he said.
"I've got some firefighters and police officers that have been pretty much
traumatised," Mayor Ray Nagin said. "And we've already had a couple of
suicides, so I am cycling them out as we speak. ... They need physical and
psychological evaluations."
The strain was apparent in other ways. Aaron Broussard, president of
Jefferson Parish, dropped his head and cried on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's
responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing
home, and every day she called him and said, 'Are you coming, son? Is
somebody coming?' And he said, 'And yeah, Momma, somebody's coming to get
you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you
on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you Thursday. Somebody's coming to
get you on Friday' - and she drowned Friday night. She drowned on Friday
night," Broussard said.
"Nobody's coming to get her, nobody's coming to get her. The secretary's
promise, everybody's promise. They've had press conferences - I'm sick of
the press conferences. For God's sakes, shut up and send us somebody."
Hundreds of thousands of people already have been evacuated, seeking safety
in Texas, Tennessee and other states. The first group of refugees who will
take shelter in Arizona arrived yesterday in Phoenix. With more than 230,000
already in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry ordered emergency officials to begin
preparations to airlift some of them to other states that have offered help.
Amid the tragedy, about two dozen people gathered in the French Quarter for
the Decadence Parade, an annual Labour Day gay celebration. Matt Menold, 23,
a street musician wearing a sombrero and a guitar slung over his back,
said: "It's New Orleans, man. We're going to celebrate."
In New Orleans' Garden District, a woman's body lay at the corner of Jackson
Avenue and Magazine Street - a business area with antique shops on the edge
of blighted housing. The body had been there since at least Wednesday. As
days passed, people covered the corpse with blankets or plastic.
By Sunday, a short wall of bricks had been built around the body, holding
down a plastic tarpaulin. On it, someone had spray-painted a cross and the
words, "Here lies Vera. God help us."
end quote
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0700world/tm_objectid=15932791&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=new-orleans---awash-in-corpses-name_page.html
This will go down as one of the most shameful episodes in American history,
ranking right down there with Fort Pillow, My Lai, Abu Ghraib, Wounded Knee,
No Gun Ri, Guantanamo, and the Tuskegee study. Watch school boards all over
the country purge this episode from the history textbooks--standard
operating procedure.
ClassWarz
America: it's now poor minority women and children last. In academic
circles, it's called Applied Conservatism:
quote
New Orleans - awash in corpses
Sep 5 2005
icWales
NEW Orleans turned much of its attention to gathering and counting the dead
across a ghastly landscape awash in thousands of corpses. "It is going to be
about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine," the US homeland
security chief warned.
As authorities struggled to keep order yesterday, police shot eight people,
killing five or six, after gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors
travelling across a bridge on their way to make repairs, authorities said.
Air and boat crews searched flooded neighbourhoods for survivors, and
federal officials urged those still left in New Orleans to leave for their
own safety.
To expedite the rescues, the Coast Guard requested through the media that
anyone stranded hang out brightly coloured or white linens or something else
to draw attention. But with the electricity out though much of the city, it
was not known if the message was being received.
With large-scale evacuations completed at the Superdome and Convention
Centre shelters, the death toll was not known. But bodies were everywhere:
floating in canals, slumped in wheelchairs, abandoned on highways and
medians and hidden in attics.
"I think it's evident it's in the thousands," Health and Human Services
Secretary Michael Leavitt said yesterday, echoing predictions by city and
state officials last week. The US Public Health Service said one morgue
alone, at a St. Gabriel prison, expected 1,000 to 2,000 bodies.
In the first official count in the New Orleans area, Louisiana emergency
medical director Louis Cataldie said authorities had verified 59 deaths - 10
of them at the Superdome.
"We need to prepare the country for what's coming," Homeland Security
Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday. "We are going to uncover people
who died, maybe hiding in houses, got caught by the flood. ... It is going
to be about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine."
Chertoff said rescuers have encountered a number of people who said they did
not want to evacuate.
"That is not a reasonable alternative," he said. "We are not going to be
able to have people sitting in houses in the city of New Orleans for weeks
and months while we de-water and clean this city. ... The flooded places,
when they're de-watered, are not going to be sanitary."
Evacuations continued late yesterday as Coast Guard helicopters picked up
refugees from a dry stretch of Interstate 10 where they had been dropped off
by rescue boats.
One of the last groups taken out Sunday was a family of six that included
three-year-old twins. The Coast Guard planned to resume evacuation flights
this morning.
Late yesterday a civilian helicopter crashed near the Danziger Bridge, but
the two people on board escaped with only cuts and scrapes, according to
Mark Smith of the state office of emergency preparedness.
In yesterday's confrontation, 14 contractors on their way to help plug the
breech in the 17th Street Canal were travelling across the bridge under
police escort when they came under fire, said John Hall, a spokesman for the
Army Corps of Engineers.
Police shot at eight people carrying guns, killing five or six, Deputy
Police Chief W.J. Riley said. None of the contractors was injured,
authorities said.
In addition to the lawlessness, civilian deaths and uncertainty about their
families, New Orleans' police have had to deal with suicides in their ranks.
Two officers took their lives, including the department spokesman, Paul
Accardo, who died on Saturday, according to Riley. Both shot themselves in
the head, he said.
"I've got some firefighters and police officers that have been pretty much
traumatised," Mayor Ray Nagin said. "And we've already had a couple of
suicides, so I am cycling them out as we speak. ... They need physical and
psychological evaluations."
The strain was apparent in other ways. Aaron Broussard, president of
Jefferson Parish, dropped his head and cried on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's
responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing
home, and every day she called him and said, 'Are you coming, son? Is
somebody coming?' And he said, 'And yeah, Momma, somebody's coming to get
you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you
on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you Thursday. Somebody's coming to
get you on Friday' - and she drowned Friday night. She drowned on Friday
night," Broussard said.
"Nobody's coming to get her, nobody's coming to get her. The secretary's
promise, everybody's promise. They've had press conferences - I'm sick of
the press conferences. For God's sakes, shut up and send us somebody."
Hundreds of thousands of people already have been evacuated, seeking safety
in Texas, Tennessee and other states. The first group of refugees who will
take shelter in Arizona arrived yesterday in Phoenix. With more than 230,000
already in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry ordered emergency officials to begin
preparations to airlift some of them to other states that have offered help.
Amid the tragedy, about two dozen people gathered in the French Quarter for
the Decadence Parade, an annual Labour Day gay celebration. Matt Menold, 23,
a street musician wearing a sombrero and a guitar slung over his back,
said: "It's New Orleans, man. We're going to celebrate."
In New Orleans' Garden District, a woman's body lay at the corner of Jackson
Avenue and Magazine Street - a business area with antique shops on the edge
of blighted housing. The body had been there since at least Wednesday. As
days passed, people covered the corpse with blankets or plastic.
By Sunday, a short wall of bricks had been built around the body, holding
down a plastic tarpaulin. On it, someone had spray-painted a cross and the
words, "Here lies Vera. God help us."
end quote
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0700world/tm_objectid=15932791&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=new-orleans---awash-in-corpses-name_page.html
This will go down as one of the most shameful episodes in American history,
ranking right down there with Fort Pillow, My Lai, Abu Ghraib, Wounded Knee,
No Gun Ri, Guantanamo, and the Tuskegee study. Watch school boards all over
the country purge this episode from the history textbooks--standard
operating procedure.
ClassWarz
