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3.6.2007
 Do you remember when you were a child, some used to play the game of musical chairs. Unfortunately we are not going to be discussing musical chairs today, but what I will call musical homes - and it is not a game, not by a long shot. You know, it never ceases to amaze me that we have hundreds of billions of dollars for a war of aggression that brings nothing but death and destruction, yet we cannot even house victims of the worst disaster of this nature to befall a wonderful city.
This government can't stop failing people, and that is the issue - it deals with people. However, not just people, but individuals who are poverty struck and have no way of surviving outside of help from a government, which quite frankly, does not give a damn! Isn't this what this administration is about - helping the rich get richer, and stealing as much as possible from people (Iraq) that have been decimated?
Let's hear what Allsee Tobias about this mess, being stuck in the middle of it - "They know how to put me out, but they don't know how to help me out - that's how I look at it." What did they tell them to do in this abrupt move? Let's let Allsee tell you - "Pack and pray, that's what they told us," he said. Why? Because of sewage problems and on and off blackouts. My sources say this had been going on for about a year (which makes people wonder why the "sudden" concern), part of the problem was FEMA paying the bill on time! People have been complaining for a long time, and some have had health problems.
 So FEMA gives a 48 hour warning for 58 families. This brought on worries about extended families being split up. Could FEMA even accomplish this task? NO, they only found housing for 48 families - the other 10 families were put up in "temporary" housing by the Catholic Charities! Oh, FEMA did fit the bill for storage for some that are moving to "tighter quarters."
So the concerns rise - "where are we going, what are we going to do?" The children were just getting used to a routine and are in school, how will this effect their education? Eighty percent of the 5100 New Orleans area public housing remains closed after 18 months! Deborah Jones drives 120 miles into New Orleans every day to cook meals for 300 people, and her group has supplied 18,000 a month with groceries. People are living in gutted out houses with NO electricity and need food, still!!
People still cannot exercise their rights to return, over 250,000 people in the New Orleans metro area alone. Louisiana received 10 billion dollars to fix housing, 109,000 applied for assistance - 1000 have received assistance. If your a rent you are shit out of luck, nothing for you! You know why? Because the "good" people of New Orleans do not want the poor to return. St. Bernard Perish, Jefferson Perish, and Tammany has passed ordinances and do not want, in the words of Sheriff Jack Strain - "thugs and trash - people from New Orleans public housing - people with chee wee hair styles - and if you arrive expect to get a visit from the sheriff's department!"
The clock is being turned back to the 18th century, and property owners alone are able to enact polity which excludes the have-nots. Top this off with a federal administration which listens to "their own," and you have the new, leaner meaner New Orleans. NAGIN!! WHERE IS MY CHOCOLATE NEW ORLEANS!!??
KATRINAI NEVER GOT TO SEE NEW ORLEANSA SECOND LINEMISSING NEW ORLEANSDO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS?GEORGE BUSH DON'T LIKE BLACK PEOPLETHE SAINTS ARE COMING , WHEN? PEOPLE ARE STILL WAITING....YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED, IT IS PROPHETIC, FAREWELL TO STORYVILLEI am going to repost a something I wrote in 10/02/05 on this blog, because I think it applies to the current situation. It is a short post that can be seen as a musicians requiem regarding New Orleans, it is called "YOU'VE LOST YOUR HEART AND SOUL." If you look throughout the period of Hurricane Katrina in my archives I believe you can recapture the impact, to a degree, of what took place during this time. My only question for you is this - do you think it has stopped?:
So now you've done it, you have lost your heart and soul New Orleans. You have oppressed and isolated the Black population in abject poverty bereft of any chance to taste a good life - but in so doing, you have condemned yourself. Don't you know? You have allowed your life's blood to escape your collective body....I am astounded. For all your pain you have induced, and multiple misery has been turned into music. Music watered by a mothers tears, melody born of melancholy, a strain of sound birthed by agony, a testimony of endurance. Fear of survival atune to a string, breath given to a horn which we fear may be our last. But you have dismissed this, you have evacuated your life. Oh, you say we can come back and visit, how kind of you. However, you must be entertained - a little bit of song, a tap dance, and a great big smile. Now go away, you can't live here....you can clean my tavern, and serve my tables, but come and leave by my back door, and become so few and so silent that you are virtually invisible. Yet, for all the pain born by music, there is joy by vocal and instrument which is unmatched. How? Even a people, who have moved from private to public slavery, have a joyous moment - it is the contrast, that makes little a sumptuous feast! We have never had the cruelty of heart not to share that with you. What if no one came to entertain you? If that which distinguished New Orleans disappeared like those you have so hastily shipped off? She would become a corpse without life, almost totally forgotten, a fleeting memory of days gone by. All you can claim now is legacy, but you have done away with your future. Can you undo this grave injustice that has spanned centuries and now has culminated in a forced diaspora? "FOR WHAT PROFIT IS IT IF A MAN GAIN THE WHOLE WORLD AND LOSE HIS OWN SOUL?" Posted at 02:54 pm by deadringer BURGUNDY STREET BLUESWALKING TO NEW ORLEANS
Posted at 09:04 pm by deadringer
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