I watched this last night and could hardly see by the time the movie was half over because of the tears in my eyes. For those who are tired of drinking the Matrix kool-aide and want to live in REAL truth, then watch this film.
However if you too busy living it up and poppin ya collar, cuz you "rollin like B.A.R.T." as my Uncle Kev used to say, then this ain't the movie for you. If you flicking thru the 250 premium cable channels saying to yourself "ohh THOSE poor people in __________ (insert name of "3rd world country") I'm glad I'm here," then this ain't the movie for you. And if you ever believe with everything in your being that this can't happen to you, cuz you so sharp and cuz you got yo sh*t together and cuz yo job LOVE you so much that you think yo azz is irreplaceable . . . . . well then I feel sorry for you.
Keep ya head in the sand, I bet it's real nice and cozy down there. And in the famous last words of Marie Antoinette "Let them eat cake," cuz that's all you'll be eating if you keep drinking that kool-aide.
Okay I've been tagged for the new year by Mama Ghetto Quilter and since my azz ain't got sh*t else to do but tell my thoughts, I figured why not. LOL. Okay the rules are as follows: There are no rules just answer ONE question, 5 times. LOL
List 5 of the most significant memories of 2007.
1. Being able to naturally deliver Asaria in the comfort of my home and having the hubby catch her, as my mother sat and witnessed.
2. Having faith enough in The One to move out of my comfort zone and venture into unknown lands.
Dayum after the first 2 events, frankly the rest of the year is just a blur. . . . and after thinking that thought out loud, my hubby "cheerfully" reminds me of other events he feels are significant to me. *looking into camera*
3. Celebrating my babiesbirthday's with family, friends and in-laws who came from near and far.
And still thinking . . . I turn to the hubby and ask him what else he feels is significant for ME this past year (dayum how I can I type this sh*t with a straight face? *chuckle)
4. He says, finding a new stylists to do my hair. *looking into camera with a neck twist* Altho, the 2 sistahs at the shop are my kinda people, one of whom has been to my home for quite a length of time.
5. Honestly I feel every year that I've been living on this earth, past lives and future ones, are significant. I'm truly blessed to be the person I am and to have the loving family - immediate and extended - that I do have. All my years are significant, why? Because I AM.
How The White House Drowned New Orleans By Greg Palast 8-26-7
It's been two years. And America's media is about to have another tear-gasm over New Orleans. Maybe Anderson Cooper will weep again. The big networks will float into the moldering corpse of the city and give you uplifting stories about rebuilding and hope.
Now, let's cut through the cry-baby crap. Here's what happened two years ago - and what's happening now.
This is what an inside source me. And it makes me sick:
"By midnight on Monday, the White House knew. Monday night I was at the state Emergency Operations Center and nobody was aware that the levees had breeched. Nobody."
The charge is devastating: That, on August 29, 2005, the White House withheld from the state police the information that New Orleans was about to flood. From almost any other source, I would not have believed it. But this was not just any source. The whistle-blower is Dr. Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, the chief technician advising the state on saving lives during Katrina.
I'd come to van Heerden about another matter, but in our talks, it was clear he had something he wanted to say, and it was a big one. He charged that the White House, FEMA and the Army Corp hid, for critical hours, their discovery that the levees surrounding New Orleans were cracking, about to burst and drown the city.
Understand that Katrina never hit New Orleans. The hurricane swung east of the city, so the state evacuation directors assumed New Orleans was now safe - and evacuation could slow while emergency efforts moved east with the storm.
But unknown to the state, in those crucial hours on Monday, the federal government's helicopters had filmed the cracks that would become walls of death by Tuesday.
Van Heerden revealed:
"FEMA knew at 11 o'clock on Monday that the levees had breeched. At 2p.m. they flew over he 17th Street Canal and took video of the breech."
Question: "So the White House wouldn't tell you the levees had breeched?"
Dr. Van Heerden: "They didn't tell anybody."
Question: "And you're at the Emergency Center.'
Dr. Van Heerden: "I mean nobody knew. The Corps of Engineers knew. FEMA knew. None of us knew."
I could not get the White House gang to respond to the charges.
That leaves the big, big question: WHY? Why on earth would the White House not tell the state to get the remaining folks out of there?
The answer: cost. Political and financial cost. A hurricane is an act of God - but a catastrophic failure of the levees is a act of Bush. That is, under law dating back to 1935, a breech of the federal levee system makes the damage - and the deaths - a federal responsibility. That means, as van Heeden points out, that "these people must be compensated."
The federal government, by law, must build and maintain the Mississippi levees to withstand known dangers - or pay the price when they fail.
Indeed, that was the rule applied in the storms that hit Westhampton Dunes, New York, in 1992. There, when federal sea barriers failed, the flood waters wiped away 190 homes. The feds rebuilt them from the public treasury. But these were not just any homes. They are worth an average of $3 million apiece - the summer homes of movie stars and celebrity speculators.
There were no movie stars floating face down in the Lower Ninth Ward nor in Lakeview nor in St. Bernard Parish. For the 'luvvies' of Westhampton Dunes, the federal government even trucked in sand to replace the beaches. But for New Orleans' survivors, there's the aluminum gulag of FEMA trailer parks. Today, two years later, 89,000 families still live in this mobile home Guantanamo - with no plan whatsoever for their return.
And what was the effect of the White House's self-serving delay?
I spoke with van Heerden in his university office. The computer model of the hurricane flashed quietly as I waited for him to answer. Then he said, "Fifteen hundred people drowned. That's the bottom line."
They could have survived Hurricane Katrina. But they got no mercy from Hurricane George.
********** For the rest of the story, get the DVD, " BIG EASY TO BIG EMPTY: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans ," as reported by Greg Palast from Louisiana for Democracy Now - with Amy Goodman and the music of "the city that care forgot." Watch a clip at http://www.youtube.com/GregPalastOffice
And read the full story of our investigation in the added chapter on New Orleans in the paperback edition of "Armed Madhouse: from Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild." Click here to donate to our Investigative Fund and receive a book signed by Greg Palast as a gift from us.
And check out http://www.blackperspective.net on Jena
last night and could hardly see by the time the movie was half over because of the tears in my eyes. For those who are tired of drinking the Matrix kool-aide and want to live in REAL truth, then watch this film.
Smiles for M.A.T
My Loves
M.A.T. in black and Aly
