Anderson Cooper was reporting on CNN tonight about horror stories from the Superdome.
He revisted the dome with a national guardsman and was told to wear a mask and not to stay long.
He reported of people doing drugs, raping, assualt and engaging in sex right on the open floor of the Superdome.
Imagine what those poor children had to go through and witness!
Here is my question: Should not the Mayor and other local officials done a better job planning a better evacuation for the poor of New Orleans?
Also: Should the Superdome be torn down.
My vote is YES!! For this reason:
The place has become a horror story and it's symbolism for people who survived their stay there will never be overcome as long as that monument to terror remains standing. Besides that the place is probably not structurally sound.
What is your opinion?
Oh yeah and one more thing: NBC Nightly News is showing how that New Orleans Levee Board spent tons of money on pork projects not related to public safety or the fixing of the levees.
Bastards.
So much blame to go around and so many people in govt positions who let the poor of New Orleans down.
---End of Transmission---
13 comments:
tear the bastard down.
yes, they should have had more than 36 hours of food in the superdome.
there shouldn't have been 30,000 people there to begin with. they should have been evacuated sunday before the storm hit. if they hadn't been starving and cramped together like rats in a goddamned sinking ship maybe things wouldn't have been as bad for them.
they should have bolstered the levees and floodwalls to begin with. the national guard should have been mobilized and waiting for the storm to pass so they could start getting people out. if the press could get to the superdome, they could have sent boats to start off-loading those stranded there. if they had some hope of getting out, maybe they wouldn't have felt so fucking abandoned by their society.
aherm. sorry for the rant. but thanks for giving me an outlet.
they're already talking about bringing people back in slowly. i hope folks don't forget (as they so easily do given the ADD endemic in the MSM) what happened and think everything's all hunky dory.
You're probably right.
Odd though... my enduring memory of the Superdome is the 1980 Super Bowl when Oakland and Philadelphia played. The hostages had been held in Iran for a few months already. So for the big event, they dressed it up with a HUGE yellow ribbon. This was long before such things become commonplace and overly cloying or cliche. The game was utterly forgettable (I think Oakland won 24-10), but up until last month, if you were to say "New Orleans Superdome" to me, that was the mental image that come to me.
But yes, tearing it down after the horrors of a couple of weeks ago is probably the thing to do.
I would tear it down...but then think of all the money that you would spend rebuilding it that could be better spent making people's lives normal, and better again.
I was watching Orange County Choppers last night (boyfriend watches it) and they had a bike convention in NO (obviously before the storm) and Paul Sr was saying, "You know, this wasn't the biggest convention, but it was my favorite." The people of NO made us feel at home, and made us feel at home, when we are thousands of miles from it. They are giving and grateful people. It was all so eerie. I think maybe the Superdome just needs a massive overhaul.
There is plenty of blame to go around. My focus remains on the Federal and Executive response, only because they retained more resources than the state and local levels, and failed miserably and avoided greatly the responsibility they were given to protect us.
Don't tear the Superdome down.
I greatly doubt the place has been structurally compromised. I am sure the hundreds of millions that it would cost to replace the structure can be better spent on something else.
At some point, America is going to be confronted with the enormous deficit it is accumulating. The chickens are going to come home to roost. China is going to grow tired of accumulating trillions of dollars of US Bonds. The world is going to wake up and see that America is not a great place, but a lousy place to send your wealth and the illusion of America will come tumbling down.
America needs to behave responsibly. The time to begin is now.
Tom:
I see your point but it is still going to take SOME money to clean up the Superdome so we might they might as well rebuild it from the ground up.
Especially with all the negative memories built up in it from the violence and sexual assault that occured within. How many people are going to want to return to watch the Saints play in a place that has become symbolic of a living HELL for them?
Besides, we just received a $25 million dollar check from Kuwait. That should go along way in paying for a lot of this rebuilding. Not to mention all of the other millions pouring in.
What does Congress do instead of using this money? They raid (again) social security. Also, we wouldn't have this big of problem paying for this aftermath if we were not bogged down in Iraq as well.
Sorry for the scattered thoughts but that's what psychotropic drugs will do for ya.
Besides, N.O. did not ask for this hurricane/flood and certainly did not ask for all levels of govt to cut the funding to the various levee projects.
The debt that we have is due in a large part to President Bush. Under Clinton we had a balanced budget. Why doesn't Bush repeal his tax cuts to help pay for all of this??
On third thought, maybe we should just gut in the inside and rebuild that part. Leave the outside structure and rebuild just the inside.
Then maybe we could have various religious groups (including the resident voodoo priests/priestesses) come in and bless the place.
James,
I think we need to be efficient with gov't money everywhere. That numbnuts president of ours is going to bribe away any blame he deserves for the horror of N.O. by rebuilding the place with bricks of solid gold.
We are destroying the FUTURE with irresponsible money management in the NOW.
Yes, Iraq is a huge expenditure of government treasure. We should have not gone there without paying for it as we went along. [And, yes, I know, you believe we should not have gone there, period.]
I emailed Thom Hartmann (brilliant writer and talk radio personality) and Bernie Sanders (only Independent member of the house) and they think that we will endure a MAJOR recession, because the spending/deficit is SO huge.
The problem of a recession brought on by profligate waste is ... how do you get out of it?
We cannot buy our way out of it. [Bush's method for the 2001 dip] Plus, with problems worldwide, we can drag the rest of the planet down with us. Plus, worldwide recessions tend to breed more radical revolutionaries.
Bad days ahead?
Jessica:
Thom Hartmann and Bernie Sanders are two of my heros. They are some of the smartest people in our country.
Tom:
I think that repealing the tax cuts could go a long way in helping. Although I do agree with you that we are headed for some bad days.
Yes. Definately repeal the tax cuts. Or, most of them, including those that affect the upper 20% income folks. [*I* favor repealing the whole thing, but that won't happen, Bush being Bush and Republicans being Republicans.]
Plus, cut the pork out of that recent spending bill that takes effect on Oct 1. [Rep & Dem Budget Hawks are advancing this.]
And delay the personal bankruptcy change effective date for a year, nationwide. [A suggestion of Howard Dean's. This will cost more money, but while congress is at it ...]
Tom:
I totally agree with all of your points. I too would repeall all of the tax cuts as well and chop out the pork barrell. I am worried, however, when the President says that he is going to cut programs. I wonder what programs he will cut into. I aslo agree with delaying the bankruptcy laws.
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