When The Levees Broke (1 Viewer)

[jane]

BBC4 just re-ran the whole thing.

Fucking hell. I still can't get my fucking head around it.

 

[Scientician 0.8]

I saw this in Canada last Sep. I got so angry watching it, I didn't really want to return to the US for my flight home. But economics prevailed. It's a great film. I hope you posted about it in the ongoing docs thread.

 

[magicbastarder]

http://www.gregpalast.com/hurricane-georgehow-the-white-house-drowned-new-orleans/

 

[Gambra]

I'm definately going ordering this one from Play.. I didn't know that BBC were showing it tonight..

 

[flashback]

I was actually in the US when it happened.
Very odd. Everyone was walking around (work like) and going, holy fuck, everyone is just dieing down there. And no one really knew what to do about it. It seemed everyone was thinking about it, going hmmm, that really sucks, carry on.

I am not getting my point over very well. It was very odd. For me it was like a good look into the future. When it comes down to it, if you is po', you is fucked. Being in the US doesn't matter a damn.

 

[Gambra]

I like Greg Palast and have a few of his books here and they're excellent but this is a bit sickening:


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 on our Youtube page.

And read the full story of our investigation in the added chapter on New Orleans in the new 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.

 

[Ferox13]

 

[jane]

I was actually in the US when it happened.
Very odd. Everyone was walking around (work like) and going, holy fuck, everyone is just dieing down there. And no one really knew what to do about it. It seemed everyone was thinking about it, going hmmm, that really sucks, carry on.

I am not getting my point over very well. It was very odd. For me it was like a good look into the future. When it comes down to it, if you is po', you is fucked. Being in the US doesn't matter a damn.

No, you get your point across just fine, like.

Not to rank tragedies, but in terms of trauma, Katrina for me was so much more traumatic than 9/11 in terms of what it actually signified (even though, to a large extent, they signified the very same things -- a government more interested in helping greedy corporations than in protecting the vulnerable, or even the not-so-vulnerable). Sort of in the way that Wynton Marsalis describes it in the documentary. It's like the time when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and notice some horrible flaw. Only here, you can't look away and you can't close your eyes. It's not like 9/11, where you can point fingers at anyone from outside the country, it's just too fucking real, and too fucking upsetting.

I spent so much time on the phone to my mammy, just crying with rage that I come from a country where we pour money into an unjustified war and let our own citizens fucking die. And you could see the land grab coming, too.

It actually physically hurts to think about it, and what really hurts is that whenever we think that poverty is someone else's problem, we contribute to the conditions in which people can be drowned in their own homes during a flood that should have been prevented. And then, when you try to think of something to do to make things better, you feel even more powerless.

 

[mamul]

how coincidental...just started watching this last night. watched act 1 and 2. really really fucked up situation. kanye was right..
i expect in act 3 and 4 we get to see how everything was sorted eventually and its all fine now and all...
no?

 

[jane]

how coincidental...just started watching this last night. watched act 1 and 2. really really fucked up situation. kanye was right..
i expect in act 3 and 4 we get to see how everything was sorted eventually and its all fine now and all...
no?

Not at all. That's the point of it, that there's no happy ending, really.

Kanye was right, but he didn't go far enough. George Bush hates black people except ones who happily sell out to the rich, white status quo. And he hates poor white people and Latinos just as much.

And he hates poor people so much that it's not even like he really wants them to die, he's indifferent to their deaths. That's worse. You can respond to hate, but indifference is completely disempowering.

I'm so fucking ashamed of my government. Poor people get sent to die in a rich man's war, or they stay home to be drowned in toxic sludge in their own attics.

Fucking hell.

 

[mamul]

Not at all. That's the point of it, that there's no happy ending, really.

Kanye was right, but he didn't go far enough. George Bush hates black people except ones who happily sell out to the rich, white status quo. And he hates poor white people and Latinos just as much.

And he hates poor people so much that it's not even like he really wants them to die, he's indifferent to their deaths. That's worse. You can respond to hate, but indifference is completely disempowering.

I'm so fucking ashamed of my government. Poor people get sent to die in a rich man's war, or they stay home to be drowned in toxic sludge in their own attics.

Fucking hell.

i was joking jane, i didn't expect it to get better. sure lil wayne told me so
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6qJ7AAq_Jlg

 

[jane]

i was joking jane, i didn't expect it to get better. sure lil wayne told me so
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6qJ7AAq_Jlg

Oh, sorry.

And yer the one with the new babba and the lost sleep and all.

So, er, yeah, it's all happily ever after and everyone got rich and laid.

 

[mamul]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-IERzx5Spic

 

[flashback]

I'm so fucking ashamed of my government. Poor people get sent to die in a rich man's war, or they stay home to be drowned in toxic sludge in their own attics.

Fair enough. The US govt is a disgrace. But, I have to say that even though Irish people generally seem nice enough chilled out charitable types when they are in Ireland, a huge number of them transmogrify into racist fascist utter cunts as soon as they leave the place.
I dont know what the deal is. Look at the US or Australia, the two major gaffs where paddies ended up. The Irish within these are usually the worst of the lot. The Irish within South Africa were worse than the Dutch, there were just few of them. Over here in the US when people find out that I am Irish they think its safe to start going on some anti semitic race war rant. Even when I tell them to fuck off. It's so ingrained in them, they start over again when they see me again.
These people think Paddy == racist cunt. This must come from somewhere.


But, yeah, the US is in a fucking ton of trouble. And, Americans should be aware and ashamed of their governments behavior in a lot of things.

Jesus. I mean look at todays headline:
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/08/wiretap

The FBI has quietly built a sophisticated, point-and-click surveillance system that performs instant wiretaps on almost any communications device

Honestly... Stalin probably couldn't conceive of this in his sticky tummy dreams.



My real point though in the post was that I think Katrina was a glimpse of the future. "Katrinas" will happen again, only throughout the US.

 

[jane]

Fair enough. The US govt is a disgrace. But, I have to say that even though Irish people generally seem nice enough chilled out charitable types when they are in Ireland, a huge number of them transmogrify into racist fascist utter cunts as soon as they leave the place.
I dont know what the deal is. Look at the US or Australia, the two major gaffs where paddies ended up. The Irish within these are usually the worst of the lot. The Irish within South Africa were worse than the Dutch, there were just few of them. Over here in the US when people find out that I am Irish they think its safe to start going on some anti semitic race war rant. Even when I tell them to fuck off. It's so ingrained in them, they start over again when they see me again.
These people think Paddy == racist cunt. This must come from somewhere.

Oh, absolutely. And to be honest, I know I'm being very bolshy here, but I think a lot of behaviours and attitudes that are seen as relatively tolerant in IReland woudl be considered racist anywhere else. Ireland is an incredibly racist country. It seems like after 800 years of English oppression, all a lot of people learned was how to oppress.

And the Irish Americans are far, far worse! My ma's side of the family is Irish-American (Irish roots going so far back that they are part of that distinct ethnicity that is Irish-American, not Irish at all at all), and one of my favourite stories is that the only reason they came to see my brother when he was born was to make sure he wasn't 'too dark' (given the Sicilian da). When I was born, they came to check my skin colour AND to get my millionaire uncle into rehab....double-whammy cliche, like.

Boston is ridiculously racist, and it really fucking upsets me. I mean, I grew up quite sheltered from it, not sheltered from racism, but from the notion that one should ever tolerate racism of any kind, believing that people were racist because they refused to see sense, and that sensible people weren't racist. It's true, and I still believe it 100%, but it breaks my fucking heart to see what happens in a country that I really do consider to be home. Not to mention a city. And I never learned how to compromise when it comes to inequalities, but it's one thing I never want to learn.

But, yeah, the US is in a fucking ton of trouble. And, Americans should be aware and ashamed of their governments behavior in a lot of things.

I think Americans are actually becoming more aware, but you're there, and I'm not, and you might be a wee bit more able to gague it than I can. I think that, in a weird way, the Clinton presidency made us very complacent, and paved the way for the Bush administration. Not that it's his fault, but complacency and bureaucracy have killed more people than hatred or greed ever could.

Katrina was a real turning point, but for what? The left has given up its voice. Not lost it, given it up. Everyone is a fucking wuss now, selling out to the first fucking compromise that comes along. So you've got all these people, angry and hungry for change, and no clue what to do, and no figure of leadership. And a load of liberal bloggers who have mroe interest in namecalling and forming their own lefty version of Skull and Bones than in changing the world. It's pretty disgusting.

I interviewed this author the other day, who'd written a book that deals -- interestingly -- with race and class and poverty in Boston, and while she was writing it, she listened to a lot of Jesse JAckson speeches and Dr King speeches. And she said that what was most shocking is that if those dudes said all of those things now, people would throw rocks at them. Well, King got more than a rock, but you get my point. PRoper fucking radicals are turning in their goddamn graves.


That said, do you think the Irish government would give a toss about people if the same thing happened here? doubt it. Not that it was anywhere near the scale, but the floods in Ringsend 5 years ago barely made the news, even though there are still people who haven't really recovered from them. People lost fucking everything, and mostly because the flood defences were inadequate, and it was well known that they'd be breached if the Dodder broke its banks. I think people who were flooded out of their homes got something like a thousand quid each. You should have seen the state of fucking IRishtown, afterward -- shocking. And it was all down to people helping each other out, not any kind ofgovernment help. If it happened again, they'd let just as many people die.

Jesus. I mean look at todays headline:
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/08/wiretap
Honestly... Stalin probably couldn't conceive of this in his sticky tummy dreams.

More worrying than the thing itself is that my first reaction was, "That's no surprise." That should really upset us to no end. And we've allowed so much truly insane shit to become normalised that we've forgotten where the line between normal and crazy ever was.

My real point though in the post was that I think Katrina was a glimpse of the future. "Katrinas" will happen again, only throughout the US.

Yup. And all throughout the western world, in ways that haven't been seen for ages. It's always happened in the developing world, but the only country any of these fuckers will be fighting for is their own little Richistan.

The worst part is, because so much is in private hands, many future Katrinas will be related to private companies. There was a huge flood in the town where my brother used to live, killed most of the people in the town and wiped it away. They changed teh name of the town after and everything http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=145
But that was a greedy, dodgy mill owner who couldn't be arsed building a proper dam.

These things are going to get worse. And don't forget the slow slaughter of innocent people, the kind that doesn't make such riveting 24-hour newscasts, but ruins at least as many lives, like Love Canal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal

We are all fucked. And like I said, in a sense, we have achieved racial and gender equality: our governments hate us all, regardless of race, class, creed or colour.

 

[killy kill]

But, I have to say that
These people think Paddy == racist cunt. This must come from somewhere.

Have you never gone for a few scoops in Woodside?

 

[flashback]

Have you never gone for a few scoops in Woodside?

I have avoided all the Irish infested places like the plague.
I have been in NYC for a few years and have never been there. A black mate of mine lives near there, and tells me the odd story of the sort of shit they give him. That's pretty much more than enough for me. It's funny, even though he looks huge and scary he actually can't fight at all since he got jumped in Spain (for being black...) and badly beaten so that his back is damaged now. He will stand up to these Irish pricks, and they will back down when they see him, but he knew it was a matter of time. So he moved to a black area of uptown Manhattan.

I was in Boston there a couple of times, and I hardly left Harvard. There were all these Irish towns up in northern NY where I was last week, and I didn't visit any of them. I dont even want to see them for novelty value. It's a bit sad, I just have no more interest in Irish Americans than Italian Americans.

I am not messing, when Jane said she was ashamed of her government, I am embarrassed to be associated with of a lot of (non Irish) "Irish" people over here. Not that I am any great person myself, but I am myself. I dont drink a lot, I dont do lots of things that I am "meant" to do... and it seems hard for some people to get this.

 

[killy kill]

When i was there, there was 2 massive, black ex-pro boxers working the door of one of the bigger pubs. It was always gas when the mullahs from south armagh and cavan would try and start on 'em and then get the head pucked off.
Then they'd go across to the mobile curry van and swallow a few mouthfuls of vindaloo before puking it all back up.
I don't think you're missing anything, Flashback

 

[jane]

I am not messing, when Jane said she was ashamed of her government, I am embarrassed to be associated with of a lot of (non Irish) "Irish" people over here. Not that I am any great person myself, but I am myself. I dont drink a lot, I dont do lots of things that I am "meant" to do... and it seems hard for some people to get this.

The diaspora populations are frequently extreme. Italian Americans are as bad, and as racist, too. The thing that pissed people off about the Sopranos was how fucking utterly accurate a portrayal it was of a huge proportion of Italian-americans. Even though most of them are not actually involved in organised crime, there's a sort of mafiaffectation, a word I just now made up, that's kind of...well, worse.

The Irish-American population largely hasn't a clue about Ireland, and it's a combination of how they want to see themselves, how they want to see Ireland, and how Ireland sells itself to its American brethren. And none of that adds up to a pretty picture. There's a lot of what Ireland admits is a problem and that is actually found in a lot of societies (drinking, bigotry, misogyny, denial, Catholicism, colonial hangovers, bellicose nationalism, etc) that a certain sector of Irish-Americans uses as the basis for identity and is really proud of it as if these traits are the essence of Irishness itself.

And it's these same faux nationalist sympathies that are funding violence. they think they're freeing their oppressed kin from the British yoke, when they're probably just buying guns for drug dealers. It's fucked up.