It would be a crime if Katrina got lost in the national conversation this year. The failure in the Gulf was not solely attributable to President Bush, it was a conservative failure, a full blooming of their beliefs in laissez-faire, “you’re on your own” government that can be drowned in the bathtub, as well as shock doctrine politics in the aftermath, which approve of housing projects to be bulldozed to make way for developers, which foreground the whims of the rich and connected to take precedence over the needs of the struggling and the suffering.

In fact, there’s a new documentary being released right before the anniversary of the storm that could catalyze this conversation, and I had the privilege of seeing a preview yesterday. Trouble The Water, a Sundance Grand Jury prize-winner directed and produced by the producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, follows two residents of the 9th Ward, Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott, as they survive the hurricane and the flood and struggle to survive what comes after. Kimberly picked up a video camera just a week before the storm and documented the events of August 29th from her attic, eliciting stunning footage and an entirely new perspective. First of all, the conservative myth that black Katrina victims were a bunch of whiners and moaners while white flood victims in Iowa “worked together” and showed their true American-ness is revealed as utter bull**it. Kimberly and Scott, along with their fellow residents left behind in the 9th Ward, were nothing short of heroic, saving their neighbors, pulling them from their houses and eventually bringing them to safety. One man, who used an old punching bag as a life raft to save dozens of people, remarks in the film “I never thought God had a purpose for me until that day.” This is the story of a community brought together by the violence of the flood and the neglect of the government, forced to become their own first responders.

At one point, in an episode that I certainly never heard before, Kimberly and Scott walk about a mile through the water to a near-abandoned Navy base that was marked for closure and had hundreds of beds. With several dozen 9th Ward residents at the gates, the Navy personnel pulled out ammunition, cocked their rifles and turned their guns on the crowd, saying “Get off our property or we’re going to start shooting.” Months later the base received a COMMENDATION from Bush for “protecting the integrity of the base.”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/its-time-to-talk-about-katrina-by-dday.html

http://www.noahinc.org/about.html

The aftermath of Katrina can hardly be called a failure of conservatism or lassez fair politics. There probably never has been so many people the benefactors of socialism in the US impacted by a disaster of this magnitude.

If a political ideology is to blame it is certainly the liberalism that with it’s welfare, free housing, free health care, free food, and subsidized flood insurance has robbed generations of ambition and taken away their sense of responsibility. It is the mindset of politicians who keep their voters “down on the farm’ with a free way of life that creates a comfort level of subsistence far below those who choose to forgo their overtures. It is a mindset that personal responsibility is not important. We see it everyday in crime statistics, single parent children statistics, lousy government services ect.

After Katrina instead of a city pulling itself up we saw a city waiting to be rescued and saw hundreds looking to loot instead of looking to help. Yes there were hundreds of heroes but there were thousands who became burdens. Our politicians failed to lead.

What is even worse is that after the storm we ignored the reality that the ninth ward and New Orleans East and most of Saint Bernard should not be the place of subsidized housing or of homes eligible for things like flood insurance. We put people back into the same dangerous places they were before the storm.

It is a shame.

I. B. Freeman - 12 August 2008 10:02 AM

The aftermath of Katrina can hardly be called a failure of conservatism or lassez fair politics. There probably never has been so many people the benefactors of socialism in the US impacted by a disaster of this magnitude.

If a political ideology is to blame it is certainly the liberalism that with it’s welfare, free housing, free health care, free food, and subsidized flood insurance has robbed generations of ambition and taken away their sense of responsibility. It is the mindset of politicians who keep their voters “down on the farm’ with a free way of life that creates a comfort level of subsistence far below those who choose to forgo their overtures. It is a mindset that personal responsibility is not important. We see it everyday in crime statistics, single parent children statistics, lousy government services ect.

After Katrina instead of a city pulling itself up we saw a city waiting to be rescued and saw hundreds looking to loot instead of looking to help. Yes there were hundreds of heroes but there were thousands who became burdens. Our politicians failed to lead.

What is even worse is that after the storm we ignored the reality that the ninth ward and New Orleans East and most of Saint Bernard should not be the place of subsidized housing or of homes eligible for things like flood insurance. We put people back into the same dangerous places they were before the storm.

It is a shame.

Agree in part