| Judge: Feds liable in Federal Flooding of Greater New Orleans |
[Nov. 19th, 2009|12:28 am] |
"It has been proven in a court of law that the drowning of New Orleans
was not a natural disaster, but a preventable man-made travesty," the
attorneys said in a statement. "The government has always had a moral
obligation to rebuild New Orleans. This decision makes that obligation a matter of legal responsibility." -- CNN story
Here in Greater New Orleans, where people routinely talk about "the Federal Flood" and refer to the MRGO Canal as "the Hurricane Highway", the news isn't the facts of the case, but rather the judge finding legal liability.
If I understand the ruling correctly, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has legal immunity from being sued for damages from the failure of their mis-designed and mis-built levees, but not for the fact that the MRGO Canal channeled deep sea storm surge right into the heart of the city. This point alone is enough to make them culpable for the majority of the flooding of the Greater New Orleans area in 2005.
Times-Picayume story
On Bloomberg
On UPI
For those interested in details of what happened and why concerning the great flood, I reccomend the book Catastrophe in the Making: The Engineering of Katrina and the Disasters of Tomorrow. It also makes the point that rather than Greater New Orleans being unique in vulnerability, bad decisions by political and business interests have created no shortage of other engineering disasters waiting to happen.
YouTube video of one of the co-authors and members of levees.org at a reading/discussion at Octavia Books. |
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| Communism and Capitalism |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|02:56 pm] |
Excerpt by Slavoj Zizek in the New York Times:
Where does this resurrection of anti-Communism draw its strength from? Why were the old ghosts resuscitated in nations where many young people don’t even remember the Communist times? The new anti-Communism provides a simple answer to the question: “If capitalism is really so much better than Socialism, why are our lives still miserable?”
It is because, many believe, we are not really in capitalism: we do not yet have true democracy but only its deceiving mask, the same dark forces still pull the threads of power, a narrow sect of former Communists disguised as new owners and managers — nothing’s really changed, so we need another purge, the revolution has to be repeated ...
What these belated anti-Communists fail to realize is that the image they provide of their society comes uncannily close to the most abused traditional leftist image of capitalism: a society in which formal democracy merely conceals the reign of a wealthy minority. In other words, the newly born anti-Communists don’t get that what they are denouncing as perverted pseudo-capitalism simply is capitalism.
One can also argue that, when the Communist regimes collapsed, the disillusioned former Communists were effectively better suited to run the new capitalist economy than the populist dissidents. While the heroes of the anti-Communist protests continued to dwell in their dreams of a new society of justice, honesty and solidarity, the former Communists were able to ruthlessly accommodate themselves to the new capitalist rules and the new cruel world of market efficiency, inclusive of all the new and old dirty tricks and corruption.
source |
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| ...from small acorns grow... |
[Sep. 24th, 2009|10:17 am] |
You may have heard from some on the American "right wing" about the huge threat to the nation posed by the scary scary ACORNs.
Fortunately, bold legislative steps are being taken to combat the ACORN menace.
Louisiana Governor Eddie Haskell has cut off all state funding of ACORN. Before the ban, the amount of Louisiana state funding of ACORN was zero. It has now been reduced to zero. Way to go, PBJ!
I'm much more impressed, however, with Rep. Alan Grayson's "Defund ACORN Act" (H.R.3571) This is a truly remarkable and important bill. Rather than focusing narrowly on ACORN, it prohibits the Federal Government from funding, contracting with, or entering into any form of agreement with:
"Any organization that has been indicted for a violation under any Federal or State law governing the financing of a campaign for election for public office or any law governing the administration of an election for public office, including a law relating to voter registration."
*OR*
"Any organization that has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency."
Okay. THIS. IS AWESOME.
Ryan Grim: "Whoops: Anti-ACORN Bill Ropes In Defense Contractors, Others Charged With Fraud"
The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.
In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex.
Blackwater, Lockheed Martin, Hewlett-Packard, yeah sure, obvious targets of the bill.
But don't think so small. It doesn't just say contractors, it says "any organization".
Who else? The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers?
The Federal Reserve?
The C.I.A.?
The Democratic Party and the Republican Party?
This could get interesting. Hats off to you, Representative Alan Grayson of Disneyworld, American Patriot!
Help identify organizations that fit this criteria |
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| Walter Cronkite Memorial Truth Telling |
[Jul. 18th, 2009|02:45 pm] |
Telling the Truth About the War on Drugs, by Walter Cronkite, March 1, 2006
As anchorman of the CBS Evening News, I signed off my nightly broadcasts for nearly two decades with a simple statement: "And that's the way it is."
To me, that encapsulates the newsman's highest ideal: to report the facts as he sees them, without regard for the consequences or controversy that may ensue.
Sadly, that is not an ethic to which all politicians aspire - least of all in a time of war.
I remember. I covered the Vietnam War. I remember the lies that were told, the lives that were lost - and the shock when, twenty years after the war ended, former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara admitted he knew it was a mistake all along.
Today, our nation is fighting two wars: one abroad and one at home. While the war in Iraq is in the headlines, the other war is still being fought on our own streets. Its casualties are the wasted lives of our own citizens.
I am speaking of the war on drugs.
( Read more... ) |
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| "When I close my eyes, I still see things no one should ever experience" |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|10:47 pm] |
A FLASH OF MEMORY
By ISSEY MIYAKE
New York Times
13 July 2009
IN April, President Obama pledged to seek peace and security in a world without nuclear weapons. He called for not simply a reduction, but elimination. His words awakened something buried deeply within me, something about which I have until now been reluctant to discuss.
I realized that I have, perhaps now more than ever, a personal and moral responsibility to speak out as one who survived what Mr. Obama called the “flash of light.”
On Aug. 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on my hometown, Hiroshima. I was there, and only 7 years old. When I close my eyes, I still see things no one should ever experience: a bright red light, the black cloud soon after, people running in every direction trying desperately to escape — I remember it all. Within three years, my mother died from radiation exposure.
( Read more... ) |
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