Hot button items
Sep. 8th, 2005 07:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI happen to be a big fan of the Bill of Rights.
The Tenth, as used, is problematic. The Ninth, as ignored, is also problematic.
The Second has some contentious issues (What defines militia? What is meant by well organised? I hold it's an individual right, there are interesting; but to me, non-compelling, arguments to be made it's a collective one).
The First, on the other hand, is pretty damned clear (well, the whole debate about what constitutes political speech, and Holmes' sad use of, "fire in a crowded theater," notwithstanding) and the freedom of the press ought to be cut and dried.
Used to be it was.
Yesterday I linked to Reporters Without Borders talking about a couple of cases of photographers being abused. One had not only his images stolen but his equipment smashed and his press pass destroyed. Given that he was from a local paper, this may not have been the best tactical move those cops made, but that's not the point.
Now I find this from Rueters, which says FEMA is barring reporters from moving freely, to prevent them from taking pictures of the dead.
Brian Wilson, of MSNBC said he saw, what I can only describe as intimidation, a cop pointing a weapon at reporters, as well as being told to cross the street when an Oklahoma Guard sergeant got annoyed.
An interesting dynamic is taking shape in this city, not altogether positive: after days of rampant lawlessness (making for what I think most would agree was an impossible job for the New Orleans Police Department during those first few crucial days of rising water, pitch-black nights and looting of stores) the city has now reached a near-saturation level of military and law enforcement. In the areas we visited, the red berets of the 82nd Airborne are visible on just about every block. National Guard soldiers are ubiquitous. At one fire scene, I counted law enforcement personnel (who I presume were on hand to guarantee the safety of the firefighters) from four separate jurisdictions, as far away as Connecticut and Illinois. And tempers are getting hot. While we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won't be any pictures of this particular group of Guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States.
At that same fire scene, a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media... obvious members of the media... armed only with notepads. Her actions (apparently because she thought reporters were encroaching on the scene) were over the top and she was told. There are automatic weapons and shotguns everywhere you look. It's a stance that perhaps would have been appropriate during the open lawlessness that has long since ended on most of these streets. Someone else points out on television as I post this: the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history.
These are not good signs.
Yes, I can hear the counterclaims... respect for the dead, and all. Well we didn't show that sort of tender feeling for the tsunami victims. Right now, painful as it is, the dead are the news. The people who were trapped in nursing homes, who couldn't break out of their homes, who were swept away. The ones who are sitting by the side of the road, waiting to be picked up. The how and the why of their demise, as well as what is being done about it, and how to prevent its like again. Those are the stories we need to hear, and read, and; yes, see.
The people who are going to get dysentery, or cholera, or God knows what from contact with the water sloshing around New Orleans (and no one can say what's going to happen to Lake Pontchartrain when the city is emptied into it, but there's no other place to put the water, and leaving it there to fester is a worse option) are the story.
Those are the stories we need to hear, and read, and; yes, see.
The people who refuse to leave, what happens to them? And who will tell the tale? The Administration isn't happy with the press right now, in part because the press has started to do it's job (the press always needs to play the role of gadfly to the occupant of the White House, by definition the president is one of the Comfortable; since he is also the employee of every single person who lives in the US, has his salary, his rent, and his [not-inconsiderable] household expenses paid for by them; while doing things which directly affect them all, he needs some oversight, and probably some afflicting).
For those who want to see what an active press corps might, and should, have been doing for the past few years, this press gaggle shows something which has been rare, of late, penetrating questions, and an unwillingness to accept pablum as caviar.
My favorite piece of it is,
Q I just want to follow up on David's questions on accountability. First, just to get you on the record, where does the buck stop in this administration?
MR. McCLELLAN: The President.
Q All right. So he will be held accountable as the head of the government for the federal response that he's already acknowledged was inadequate and unacceptable?
It isn't just the pleasure of seeing a pair of politicians skewered (because McClellan was run through on the way to the President) but because the people in office keep talking about accountabilty, but none of them ever seem to be held accountable for the failures they admit to happening, on their watch, by their underlings, or even by themselves.
Blacking the press out of New Orleans, intimidating them into not taking pictures; or notes, is the sort of thing which is meant to reduce accountability, because what is not seen, just isn't. If people don't know, they can't be offended. If they aren't offended, nothing will change.
And looking at the mess which was one of the prettiest, most interesting cities in America... it makes me think something has to change.
The Tenth, as used, is problematic. The Ninth, as ignored, is also problematic.
The Second has some contentious issues (What defines militia? What is meant by well organised? I hold it's an individual right, there are interesting; but to me, non-compelling, arguments to be made it's a collective one).
The First, on the other hand, is pretty damned clear (well, the whole debate about what constitutes political speech, and Holmes' sad use of, "fire in a crowded theater," notwithstanding) and the freedom of the press ought to be cut and dried.
Used to be it was.
Yesterday I linked to Reporters Without Borders talking about a couple of cases of photographers being abused. One had not only his images stolen but his equipment smashed and his press pass destroyed. Given that he was from a local paper, this may not have been the best tactical move those cops made, but that's not the point.
Now I find this from Rueters, which says FEMA is barring reporters from moving freely, to prevent them from taking pictures of the dead.
Brian Wilson, of MSNBC said he saw, what I can only describe as intimidation, a cop pointing a weapon at reporters, as well as being told to cross the street when an Oklahoma Guard sergeant got annoyed.
An interesting dynamic is taking shape in this city, not altogether positive: after days of rampant lawlessness (making for what I think most would agree was an impossible job for the New Orleans Police Department during those first few crucial days of rising water, pitch-black nights and looting of stores) the city has now reached a near-saturation level of military and law enforcement. In the areas we visited, the red berets of the 82nd Airborne are visible on just about every block. National Guard soldiers are ubiquitous. At one fire scene, I counted law enforcement personnel (who I presume were on hand to guarantee the safety of the firefighters) from four separate jurisdictions, as far away as Connecticut and Illinois. And tempers are getting hot. While we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won't be any pictures of this particular group of Guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States.
At that same fire scene, a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media... obvious members of the media... armed only with notepads. Her actions (apparently because she thought reporters were encroaching on the scene) were over the top and she was told. There are automatic weapons and shotguns everywhere you look. It's a stance that perhaps would have been appropriate during the open lawlessness that has long since ended on most of these streets. Someone else points out on television as I post this: the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history.
These are not good signs.
Yes, I can hear the counterclaims... respect for the dead, and all. Well we didn't show that sort of tender feeling for the tsunami victims. Right now, painful as it is, the dead are the news. The people who were trapped in nursing homes, who couldn't break out of their homes, who were swept away. The ones who are sitting by the side of the road, waiting to be picked up. The how and the why of their demise, as well as what is being done about it, and how to prevent its like again. Those are the stories we need to hear, and read, and; yes, see.
The people who are going to get dysentery, or cholera, or God knows what from contact with the water sloshing around New Orleans (and no one can say what's going to happen to Lake Pontchartrain when the city is emptied into it, but there's no other place to put the water, and leaving it there to fester is a worse option) are the story.
Those are the stories we need to hear, and read, and; yes, see.
The people who refuse to leave, what happens to them? And who will tell the tale? The Administration isn't happy with the press right now, in part because the press has started to do it's job (the press always needs to play the role of gadfly to the occupant of the White House, by definition the president is one of the Comfortable; since he is also the employee of every single person who lives in the US, has his salary, his rent, and his [not-inconsiderable] household expenses paid for by them; while doing things which directly affect them all, he needs some oversight, and probably some afflicting).
For those who want to see what an active press corps might, and should, have been doing for the past few years, this press gaggle shows something which has been rare, of late, penetrating questions, and an unwillingness to accept pablum as caviar.
My favorite piece of it is,
Q I just want to follow up on David's questions on accountability. First, just to get you on the record, where does the buck stop in this administration?
MR. McCLELLAN: The President.
Q All right. So he will be held accountable as the head of the government for the federal response that he's already acknowledged was inadequate and unacceptable?
It isn't just the pleasure of seeing a pair of politicians skewered (because McClellan was run through on the way to the President) but because the people in office keep talking about accountabilty, but none of them ever seem to be held accountable for the failures they admit to happening, on their watch, by their underlings, or even by themselves.
Blacking the press out of New Orleans, intimidating them into not taking pictures; or notes, is the sort of thing which is meant to reduce accountability, because what is not seen, just isn't. If people don't know, they can't be offended. If they aren't offended, nothing will change.
And looking at the mess which was one of the prettiest, most interesting cities in America... it makes me think something has to change.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 03:53 pm (UTC)And, at least in those times I've been in places of Martial Law, including the King Riots, reporters were free to do what they wanted.
Same was true for the guy covering the bomb scare at my campus. He wanted to walk into the blast zone and take pictures, he was fine, so long as the cops didn't feel he was likely to set it off.
And I've wandered, at complete liberty, inside fire lines, when a lumber yard was flaming on a major street. A press pass is a powerful thing, and (though we are preaching across the choir) unless it's classified, it ought to be that omnipotent, esp. in times like these.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 03:45 pm (UTC)The National Guard are very proud of themselves, because once they actually got around to assaulting the Convention Center, they didn't kill anybody.
http://www.dod.mil/transcripts/2005/tr20050903-3850.html
No suggestion that maybe they might have wanted to provide food and water in the interim.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 03:54 pm (UTC)I think the spin on it is understandable, and the language stupid, becuase it makes the Guard look bad, callous and a stupid.
Better to just not address the issue, than to try and make it look like it was all done to perfection.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 04:13 pm (UTC)AHA HA HA AHA HA HA AHA
It would be side splitting if it weren't so pathetic.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 04:27 pm (UTC)Not one bit.
Nu-uh!
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 06:33 pm (UTC)Anytime someone says to me that it's not about politics, I look them in the eye and let them know exactly what I think of that opinion. So far I've managed to keep from spitting.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 10:06 pm (UTC)Blowjobs don't (which is why Kennedy got away with his peccadilloes), this does.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-10 02:08 pm (UTC)Idiots.
From email list
Date: 2005-09-08 04:33 pm (UTC)Our main article today documents how Bush withheld aid from
New Orleans until Gov. Blanco agreed to sign over New Orleans
- and its reconstruction contracts - to the Feds.
But first here are several links to the Bush-Nazi connection.
Several of you noticed that the link I supplied earlier to the
video was not valid. You can find that video by going to this
link, and then hitting the link near the bottom of the page,
entitled "VIDEO on Bush family Nazi links..":
http://www.fathers.ca/bush_family_nazi's.htm
Translation from the Polish of the Newsweek article on
Prescott Bush and the Nazis:
"The Bush family reaped rewards from the forced labour
prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp. "
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0306/S00055.htm
CIA Confirms Nazis Worked for US
UPI
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=44&contentid=72
How Bush's Grandfather Helped Hitler Rise to Power
by BEN ARIS & DUNCAN CAMPBELL (THE GUARDIAN - U.K.)
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?ChannelID=44
Nazis in the attic, part 6
By Randy Davis
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/randy/swas5.htm
And here we see Bush grabbing more funding, based on the sympathy of the moment,
not to be used to help the people who suffered:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4224210.stm
BBC news
7 Sep 2005
Bush seeks $50bn hurricane relief
Most of the new aid package will go to the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (Fema), with $1.4bn for the military and
$400m for army engineers repairing floodwalls in New Orleans.
rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2005 17:14:22 -0400
From: Carol <radred@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Dispatch from the Trenches (New Orleans)
------
From: mitchelcohen@mindspring.com
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2005 16:47:57 -0400
Subject: [studioc] Dispatch from the Trenches (New Orleans)
I agree almost totally with this analysis (except for the part
about letting Gov. Blanco off the hook near the end. She did
many, many things that were wrong although her refusal to cave
in to Bush was very important).
Thanks to Dan Kinch for finding this.
Mitchel
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2005/09/new-orleans-hostage-crisis.html
more...next post
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 04:37 pm (UTC)The New Orleans hostage crisis
>From an important posting in Dispatch from the Trenches:
"OK, let's get this straight: Michael Brown is most likely an
incompetent stooge but the fact of the matter is that when he
refused to release supplies, National Guard troops, and
construction equipment, and then ordered the Superdome locked
and checkpoints set up along the roads leading out of New
Orleans to turn back anyone trying to escape the destruction,
he was following orders. None of it was accidental, none of it
was a matter of poor decision-making or the wrong priorities.
It was a deliberate attempt by the Bush Administration to
blackmail the state of Louisiana into handing the city over to
the Federal government.
On Friday, four days after Katrina hit, National Guard troops
finally arrived, supposedly bringing food and water to those
trapped in the Superdome. It's true that there was an initial
delivery of emergency supplies, but it was hardly adequate.
Everyone assumed more would be coming. But the NG came armed,
supposedly to defend itself against bands of looters with
handguns and rifles. Soon after, it became clear that the NG's
real orders were to lock down the Superdome and prevent anyone
from leaving.
Between Wednesday morning and Friday night, ships loaded with
food, water, and medical supplies arrived. FEMA refused to
allow them to be off-loaded. Michael Brown then ordered the
communications lines cut that tied emergency workers together.
Shortly before midnight, the Bush Administration essentially
delivered an ultimatum to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco:
before they released the emergency supplies, they wanted her
to sign the city of New Orleans over to the Federal
government."
Note that the link is to the infamous article in the
Washington Post, the one in which the Post reprinted the lie
told to them by a 'senior administration official' (presumably
Karl Rove or someone working for him), that Blanco had not
declared a state of emergency as of Saturday, September 3,
when in fact, as the correction at the top of the article
says, Blanco had declared the state of emergency on August 26
(many feel the Post has an ethical obligation to reveal the
name of the 'senior administration official', as any promise
of confidentiality was rendered inoperative by the lie, and
the fact of the lie is now part of the news). The spinning
that is going on is part of the blame-shifting exercise by the
White House, but, as Dispatch from the Trenches points out,
has a darker purpose as well. Based on Bush's supposed
authority to use the National Guard to quell civil
disturbances under the Insurrection Act, Bush wanted to
declare martial law and take over the city of New Orleans.
Why? Dispatch from the Trenches gives four reasons, the most
important ones being the third and fourth (emphasis in the
original):
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 04:38 pm (UTC)"Declaring martial law would give the Federal government total
control of the city: the Army would be brought in to police it
and - perhaps most important to this corporate president - the
Federal government would have charge of all the rebuilding
contracts, giving it $$$billions$$$ to hand out to its
corporate sponsors.
There's also the little matter of taking decisions about how
and what to rebuild out of the hands of the people of New
Orleans and putting them into the hands of people who see New
Orleans as 'Sin City', effectively ensuring that New Orleans
would never again be the Big Easy."
Bush used the starving people of New Orleans as hostages to
blackmail the Governor into turning the city over to his
troops so he could:
1.. hand out all the reconstruction contracts to friends of
the Bush Crime Family such as Halliburton; and
2.. use his soldiers to control the exit and return of the
inhabitants of New Orleans, to ensure that 'undesirables' -
blacks and poor white race traitors who like living in a
predominantly black culture - never come back so he can
rebuild the city as an amusement park for white tourists. The
lie told to the Washington Post was just part of the pressure
put on the Governor. Bush's plan explains why available troops
were left out of the city when they could have been useful and
were only installed as the city was being evacuated (they now
serve as overarmed security guards), and why FEMA took active
steps to prevent aid and aid workers from getting to the city.
It also explains why the mainstream press spent so much time
reporting on looting, rapes and murders, all in an attempt to
force Blanco to agree to Bush's demands. The looting stories
were almost entirely cases of people foraging for the food
which Bush had ensured they couldn't have, and the rape and
murder stores were largely fictional. The entire scenario was
an attempt by the Bush Administration to make money off the
tragedy caused by Katrina, an attempt that was partially
foiled by Blanco's refusal to be blackmailed into handing the
city over to Bush.
The struggle continues, and we must not allow them to get away
with their evil plans. It would be a social, architectural,
and cultural crime to let Bush destroy New Orleans. New
Orleans needs to be brought back to life in its existing
buildings, most of which can be saved, and with its former
inhabitants. Did the Italian government contemplate rebuilding
Florence someplace else after the 1966 floods? Does anyone
ever seriously contemplate moving Venice, a very similar
ecological disaster of a city that is also slowly sinking? The
idea is laughable. Let's face it. There are only five
culturally important places in the whole country: New York,
Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and . . . New Orleans. You just
can't give New Orleans up so that some rich Republicans can
make money. If the American political system were working
properly, Bush's attempt to use the lives of the starving and
dying citizens of New Orleans as hostages should lead to his
impeachment and removal from office. This wasn't just total
incompetence and negligence; it was a criminal act.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 05:17 pm (UTC)The act of making New Orleans a disaster area gives the Feds lots of power to assign contracts for the rebuilding, no need to engage in extortion.
More to the point, there isn't any way to make such a demmand and not have it get out, so I am more willing (absent that getting out, and from a source I find reliable, and traceable) to grant to stupidity, what is otherwise attributed to malice.
As for the source issue, so long as the reporter believes the source acted in good faith, I don't see any confidentiality problems. I think the reporter, given that this isn't a job-threatening leak (unless he is on Blanco's staff, and that seems far-fetched; given the way this isn't true, and the untruth of it is easily checked, which is where the reporter really failed) ought not have let the speaker go into background.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-09 07:27 pm (UTC)Anton (http://www.ogre.nu/)
no subject
Date: 2005-09-10 12:39 am (UTC)I even, here and there, argue it can stand on its own with a standing army.
Since you make free to use my name, I do wonder who you are (as I have taken advantage of this being my place to bend the rules a bit, and unscreen this, despite not really knowing who you are, apart from Whois telling me where this came from, which seems to be proxied).
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-10 02:58 am (UTC)Anton (http://www.ogre.nu/)
no subject
Date: 2005-09-10 03:20 am (UTC)TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-10 02:26 pm (UTC)