Well not really, but it sure as hell seems like that’s what’s happening in this Orwellian world…
Are you embarrassed yet George?
If you’re not, you really should be.
I just saw Sean freakin’ Penn, yes, the actor, on the ground in New Orleans with a historian and they had been going house to house doing search & rescue with other civilians; and they were saving people from drowning a WEEK after the storm and 3 DAYS after you supposedly sent in the Cavalry.
Yup. Sean Penn.
And they are saving people still trapped in their houses.
Sean Penn, the actor, a civilian, is saving lives a week after the storm with the very few National Guard or medical personnel you deemed to allow into the city, there with him.
It’s him and other civilians caring enough about people to risk contaminating themselves in the water. The historian Sean was with (sorry, didn’t catch his name) said Sean even dove under the water to save a woman from drowning… Sean was humble and didn’t talk about himself. He talked about the other civilians risking their lives saving people not having access to medical personnel to help them decontaminate the toxins… and he pleaded for doctors and nurses from around the country to just come to NO to help.
Embarrassed shouldn’t even cut it as an emotion for you to feel.
Shame is a better one.
People are still trapped and dying and it takes an actor and news reporters on the ground to tell us about it.
Think about how that plays in the national psyche.
Sean Penn, lefty activist who has visited the “Axis of Evil” cares more about the American people’s tragedy than the president does… and he is putting his body and soul where his mouth is.
Shameful. Really really shameful George.
{Update ~ video}
apologies for the lack of anything other than a rant here, but this is both heartening (ie. good for Sean) and sickening ~ how on earth is this the world’s superpower’s answer to emergency response?? An actor and a historian…
Seriously, if it weren’t so tragic it would be funny.
journalist with the San Francisco Chronicle. He has sent reports from Iraq and recently from Iran during the election.
Thanks for keeping me up to date on him.
Do you have a link for this article? Thanks for posting this.
He was just interviewed on CNN by Soledad on the streets of NO.
I’ll see if I can find a write up on it and post the link.
How did he get there? I would think he would need an official pass to be let in. By the govt.
Has anyone seen Shep Smith since his meltdown on the O’Lielly factor the other nite?
no clue… I assume he just drove in and then started moving… my guess is that there are only a few major arteries that are check-pointed (i.e. where all the people who were hearded into the superdome etc. were).
They said they were in a boat, so he must have gotten it from somewhere.
and no… haven’t seen Shep in a while… glad to see Anderson Cooper is still on the ground reporting tho’.
Because of the geography there are only a few roads from which you can enter NO. I-10 and Highway 61 are basically it. I would assume they are both checkpointed. He must have received some type of clearance to be allowed in. His elite status making all the difference.
Wow. Calm down.
Elite Status?
Someone goes to try and help and you’re making this an elite thing??
I don’t think that the National Guard, Coast Guard and FEMA have to worry about check points right? You know, the people who are obligated by law to be in their helping?? The Red Cross shouldn’t have had to go through a check point either…
And if Duranta is planning on heading in I’m sure he/ she isn’t too worried about check points either.
So an actor decides he’s seen enough and wants to be on the scene saving lives and you make this an elite vs. poor thing? Other residents/ people stayed to help in the rescue op as well… other people are heading in to help too, and Sean was calling for more people to come and help.
Don’t make this a Sean Penn thing. Make this a George Bush, Chertoff and Brown thing… what it needs to be.
cheers,
spider
I am quite calm. Since you cannot answer my questions in California I’ll wait to see if Duranta gets in.
Thanks.
you may be “calm” in a very literal meaning, but you are purposefully being a jerk with “elitist” comments about someone who is just trying to help… and is frankly doing more to help, on the ground, than 99% of the population. Show some freakin’ compassion & gratitude man.
perhaps you could do some digging on your own to find the answers vs. demanding others find them for you… I wasn’t the one who brought the issue up & neither was duranta… you question how Sean got in? Great. Go try and find out.
when you do I would be pleased if you would come back and share your findings.
cheers,
spider.
I have asked Duranta in another thread if people are being let back in, under official clearance, or how?
As for the rest of your post…whatever, dude.
typical behaviour from you actually.
be completely dogmatic in your stances and then refuse to actually engage in debate about points others raise in response.
in a time when people are dying and someone is trying to help, no matter his celebrity, you choose to focus on the “elite” aspect of his being allowed in.
Hey, I’ve got news for you… Bush is no fan of Sean Penn… if there really was elite clearance I doubt Sean would have been high on their list… yeah, for sure let Sean “I’ve been to Iran and Iraq” Penn in with his historian documentary film maker… sounds like a good plan when you’re trying to control the flow of information.
your refusal to acknowledge how innane your argument is in the face of the fact that someone is actually trying to save people’s lives, regardless of how he got there, is really pretty sad.
Hope you get the answers you are looking for.
Isnt actually you who focused on an elite to begin with?
You have already stated you really dont know much about what is going on there other than what you see on TV. Clearly, you dont know the lay of the land or water there.
You already convinced me engaging you in debate is pointless.
I am trying to determine if people are being let back in and I thanked you for pointing out Duranta, who is in a better position to answer my questions.
everyone on the site, could you tell me why you thin duranta should take the time to specifically respond to your questions?
Don’t you have things to get busy with there in Tyler with the 5000 people who are there? Is there something else you could be doing? Isn’t that what you were complaining about yesterday? People sitting at their keyboards doing nothing useful?
yes. I am heading out at 1pm. Its 11:45 now.
Not slamming everyone on the site, altho I did question your viewpoint, mine on pd, Booman, and all those diaries from people blasting the govts poor response ad nauseum.
Now I am reading here that what is happening to the poor people of NO is ethnic cleansing????Are you shitting me?
Really,now, how much help are overthetop statements like that? How much more damage will we cause with our mouths? Will we manage to turn a valid point: the Reagan revolution has degraded govt to the point of ineffectuality, into another lost opportunity in 2006 and 2008 by issuing such outlandish statements publicly?
Should we be giving counterproductive hyperbole a free pass just because it comes from our “community?”
Serious questions, ma’am.
but for MANY of us here, it is REAL. If you want to be a part of it, best to make your points without condescending, scolding or sacrastic little “poems” calling people out by name — that is bullshit.
If you are concerned about conterproductive hyperbole, give a well reasoned and NON-JUDGEMENTAL argument about it and you will get a different response entirely — I have no idea what you are actually about, but if you are advocating we sit on our hands while they pull a 9/11 commission side show out of their asses, I vehemently disagree. It is not making “political hay” to demand accountability RIGHT NOW. The assholes in Washington (both parties) aren’t going to be doing any work on the groud for the victims — we have to keep a very close eye on the lot of them NOW, not next month — their damage will aready be done.
Just get over yourself and get on with it. You’re nauseated?? Well, welcome to the fucking club.
Do you consider what is happening ethnic cleansing?
Do you really fear that a civil war is starting or we are on the verge of lawlessness on a major scale? (you did yesterday, altho you deny today)
Do you truly believe that the federal government is responsible for all the death and destruction?
I think you know that the honest answer to all of the above is “no.”
I think you truly know that the situation is far more complex and that whatever the failure of the govt (and there is a lot no doubt), it is systemic, just like it was on 9/11/01. Its the bureaucracy stupid.
Perhaps for this thred you should register under the name counterproductive hyperbole
Yes. I’m certainly proving counterproductive to the all the paranoid ramblers out there.
Hey! thats another one…Paranoid Rambler.
Jesse Jackson has said that this is a kind of ethnic cleansing. Of course it is.
They don’t have but a few boats in there right now saving people. The reason is they don’t care about black people. It’s not a plot. They just don’t care. So they are moving THEM to places all over the country because they don’t care about THEM. And that’ is a form of ethnic cleansing. It’s a passive form rather than an active form.
Even now they are doing shit out there. Sean Penn can be helpful. If I knew I could get in there and it would make sense, I would serioiusly consider going. And if Duranta can confirm it’s possible to get in, thats good.
This is still unbelievable that they are not doing shit for these people in the neighborhoods, story after story of preferential treatment to white people in hotels and in the convention center. Everybody should be recieving preferential treatment. I don’t blame anybody and no white person should feel guilty about the luck of being white and receiveing preferential treatment.
But no white person should accept this government any longer. A military coup is preferable. And that’s what it took-the military who are ORGANIZED domestically to do this kind of work. That is the only reason to have a goddamn military in the first place
Of course. Jesse Jackson said so. How perfectly stupiddy of me.
Well, Jesse is flat out wrong. And so are you if you prefer a strong military presence on our shores.
One of the safeguards in the constitution is the relative weakness of the federal govt. Historically, the federal bureaucracy has been slow to respond to both national and international crises, in large part because separation of powers btwn state and federal. No one knows how to take charge. In this hurricane both local, state and federal played bumblyfuck with peoples lives. No surprise there.
But to say its ethnic cleansing and we are setting up concentration camps, we need a military coup (are you serious?)etc.
Dude, those words have meaning and power.
In this case, mainly the power to make us all look like paranoid idiots.
I don’t like Jesse Jackson. But he’s the only voice that is allowed to speak and he’s telling the truth in this case.
I am not for a military coup. But Iv’e got to say I understand why people in South America want them. To get rid of the corrupt politicians.
Now it is ethnic cleanising. That’s clear. It just passive kind due to a Hurricane. This is a nation where only a little over a humdred years ago there were slaves. What are you thinking?
I am telling you. That many of the facilities in which people are being kept are going to become more and more restrictive. There are going to be problems.
‘
I don’t know why everybody thinks a concentration camp is a place of forced labor and for jewish people.
Concentration camps are simply places where people are concentrated, usually becasue of something they have in common as seen by the concentrating force who put them there and their freedom to come and go is restricted.
I like the use of the term because it raises eyebrows.
What do you think is going on my friend? How can you allow all that has happened, the war in Iraq, the obvious neglect of New Orleans and not see that this is just a reflection of our history as a SLAVE NATION.]]]
Psranoid. I didn’t start a war in Iraq. I don’t think anyone is out to get us. I think we are destroying ourselves.
I don’t think we are under a serious terrorist threat. It’s been 4 years under an incompetent government. If any terrorist really had the will, the desire they would have attacked. And in other countries it’s back packs exploding and car bombs.
There is no terrorist threat. It comes from a provincial government. with small minds.
I know as much about what is going on down there as you do and I know from what I’ve read of duranta’s pieces, from eyewitness accounts, that people are coming and going. I said I didn’t know how Sean Penn specifically got in.
My focus was on the absurdity of the situation that someone not affiliated with law enforcement was there with other civilians saving lives. It had nothing to do with him being an elite, but rather that someone not trained in disaster relief was doing more than FEMA. You chose to bring that up & I called you on it. That’s what people do on blogs when they disagree.
I apologize if I read your “thanks” as insincere after your previous sentence.
cheers,
spider.
I don’t understand how that would or could matter, unless they want to arrest him on National Television for “breaking their rules”. I dare them! If I was financially set and had a nanny for my kids I would be there too and I wouldn’t ask anybody if I could go exercise my God Fucking Given Rights as another Human Being by aiding my fellow suffering countrymen. I’m just fucking mean like that though…..Challenge Authority!……they need it!, they deserve it!, it keeps us all in line in the real world!
Sigh.
Mr. Penn’s companion, and guide, is Douglas Brinkley, the well-known historian (known to me, anyway, as he and I are in the same field). Brinkley is a New Orleans native and he and Mr. Penn entered the city via a water route, which is quite easy to do.
Rather than focusing on Mr. Penn’s celebrity status or the means used to gain entrance to New Orleans, we should be focusing on the facts they’ve gathered, which are these:
The only conclusion I can draw from these two facts is that while there is need, and the people who need help can easily be found, not enough is being done to help.
The question is, why not?
Bush supporters are going to give their man a pass on this. It’s all the fault of the locals. Or nobody could anticipate this. Etc, etc.
Such people need to be told that they are full of shit, in exactly those words. This is not a time for polite rhetoric nor diplomatic phrasing, nor to “reaching out” to the “other side”.
Ordinarily, I would agree that LATER would be the time for assigning blame and recriminations, but it seems that unless we do so NOW, we won’t shake action loose out of the federal government.
“President” Bush is mentally incapable of organising a trip to the corner grocery, let alone a disaster relief effort. The head of DHS (Chertoff) and the head of FEMA (Brown) are flaming incompetents.
The only person in Washington who is capable of actuall organising anything–perhaps capable–is the real President, Mr. Cheney. And there is a great dessicated lump of black cinders where his human heart is supposed to be. I’m surprised Cheney hasn’t flown to New Orleans or Houston to tell the refugees to go fuck themselves.
In other words–we have to keep the pressure on the Bush/Cheney administration to do something, and hope that competent people will be found and put in de facto charge (shoving aside Chertoff and Brown, although they remain officially “in charge”). That, however, would require Bush to admit he’s made a mistake, and then make a decision–and it would require Cheney to actually give a goddamn about somebody other than himself and his cholesterol level.
The tribulations of the people of the Gulf Coast is far from over. Help is not on the way. You will see unfold over the coming weeks and months a ghastly spectacle of indifference and incompetence that will make the past week look like a Swiss watch factory.
What can we do? Booman has encouraged everyone who can to attend the September 24th march on Washington. Hell, it’s a start, and at least it’s something. Other than giving money and volunteering your time to organisations that may actually do something (the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, et al), the march is the only thing that CAN be done.
Certainly the higher-ups at the Democratic Party, who are so invested in the “success” of Bush and the neocon agenda, aren’t going to help.
On a personal note: I don’t think I’m the only one repulsed by “IllusionofMagicians” and his/her tone on this site. Contrariness merely for its own sake is not a virtue.