On Fri, 09 Sep 2005 11:27:12 -0500, George Cleveland
wrote:

On Fri, 9 Sep 2005 12:08:03 -0400, "Tim J."
wrote:

Ken Fortenberry typed:
George Cleveland wrote:
What the hell...

An old friend sent me this link:

http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-...alHeroes.shtml

Obviously a biased source but on the other hand only a fraction of
their allegations have to be true to be pretty damaging.

That first-hand report rings true, unlike the stories
of Dickie "On The Scene" Dean.

Sorry, can't read that one until they change the title. Any article that
starts with "The real heroes and *sheroes* of New Orleans" has just got to
be full of crap. ;-)
That *was* pretty lame.

On the other hand the writers of the piece weren't the same ones who
came up with the headline.

As a person who had dealings long ago with Socialist Workers I would
take anything they say with a large grain of salt. (Hell, I take
anything anyone says with a grain of salt. Its a wonder my blood
pressure isn't higher.) But... there are certain claims they made that
could be verified.

Were people prevented from fleeing the city by sheriff employees?
Was the operation these people set up distributing water etc. also
shutdown?

One of the posters here expressed the sentiment that he would have
evacuated even if he had to walk. These folks are claiming they tried
to do just that and they were prevented from doing so by the local
authorities. Seems to be a serious enough charge to be investigated.

Reasonable questions and here's my answer, FWIW:

From Monday to about Wednesday/Thursday, it was chaos or nearly so in
about 100,000 square miles. That chaos was nobody's "fault" - it was
the result of a storm that trashed the entire area. It took chainsaws
and/or heavy equipment to get down streets, and all major highways had
some damage, including bridges _gone_ (not potentially unsafe or cracked
- _gone_, as in not there anymore) and/or hundreds of tons - yes, tons -
of sand and debris covering them. No airport in the area was really
serviceable, and most, if not all, of the harbors and transit waterways
were equally wrecked. Now, combine that infrastructure damage with
almost no communications beyond radio to radio, pockets of people
_EVERYWHERE_, some in need of immediate rescue, looting beginning from
the get-go, including firearms and ammo, and in the case of New Orleans,
with people shooting at helicopters and rescue workers. Frankly, the
fact that these whiny little snots got water and food and evac'd in
3-4-5 days is more a testament to a whole bunch of folks of all
political parties than a reason to investigate them, but, hey, as
always, YMMV...

As to the confrontation on the bridge, I heard about stuff like that,
and it is probably true as to people being prevented from going into
other areas/parishes. But it had nothing to do with race - it had to do
with the breakdown of law and order in New Orleans proper. And that, to
me, is a telling and important point: only in New Orleans proper was
there the extreme level of looting, gunplay, and criminal activity, and
not allowing it to spread seemed and seems only sensible. Now, is it
possible that some innocents were prevented from crossing a bridge into
another parish? Almost certainly. But as they would have been no
better off across the bridge, they weren't harmed by that prevention.

HTH,
R