That it took so long for the national news companies and Washington D.C. to realize what was happening indicates none of them thought to monitor local news broadcasts during a natural disaster that was striking a major city. When I got access to a computer, 2 weeks after the storm, I was stunned to see what the national coverage had looked like. I wish more people could have seen our news crews working in muddy, days old clothes, running without sleep, cooperating with anchors and reporters from rival networks, literally camping in the studios and working off generators, trying to get information out to the people who needed it most. It was really inspiring for me. I couldn’t believe none of the parent news companies had picked up their local station feeds!

This is all just my view and you nor anyone else doesn’t have to be qualified to survive on your own in my eyes, but in my eyes you don’t survive on your own unless you can actually do it on your own. Without that money supporting you. After all, it’s such a thin line of support to rely on. I write this because you on the one hand say to them it’s their fault not surviving on their own, but on the other hand you don’t really survive on your own in my eyes either. You won’t if you can’t do it the traditional way in the environment given, even if it’s a city environment with a lot of people around you.

It all boils down to priorisation. Where your priorities lie. No one else can change them for you no matter how hard they try to convert you, only you have that power no matter who you are and where you coming from. Thus we single people can grasp that power and work, peacefully, towards a world where you don’t have to stand of this kind of a tragedy. I urge people to act, peacefully. Because violence and hatebreed is bad for no matter what good cause you believe you do it for. To act, because when people do nothing to change the course, these kind of things keep happening. Facing the issues is the only way to deal with them, and one person cannot deal with everybody’s issue alone when things are at this state. So act, and if you’re unsure of how to act, re-educate yourselves. Plenty of good material on this site, just have a healthy suspicion on everything and don’t stray from the path. We have a mind of our own, use it.

Its a little hard to walk out of town when the bridge out of there was manned with police tactical units, armed to the teeth. Watch when the Levees Broke, I know…it’s Spike Lee, and you may not like him, but he isnt in it, just all sorts of people from Plaquemines to Chantilly. It shows the news reports about the bridge being blockaded. Another thing…the big bowl thing is pure Glen Beck. Go look at a USGS topographical map of New Orleans, and you find that the majority of it is above Sea Level. It is the destruction of the barrier islands and marshes by any number of industries that have left our most vital deep water port less protected….well that an ACOE incompetency in levee construction.

Mankind Controls Nature efficiently in the Netherlands. A great deal of the Netherlands’ port cities are partially at or below sea level. They were very impressed with the amazing pumping system in NOLA and duplicated it, but they have built Dikes and Levees that are not going to allow flooding like this to happen to Amsterdam, Rotterdam or the Hague. One big plus, the levees are highly engineered, mechanically operated diversion systems that aren’t limited as a wall of dirt is. They can adjust the angles and output from their levees. Now, if for nothing but selfish interests alone, it would make sense to protect arguably our most important deep water port

Far from digging ditches and filling them in again, EMPLOYED Americans worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority on projects for the Missouri, Columbia, and Colorado rivers; EMPLOYED Americans worked on multibasin projects, such as that of California’s Central Valley. Hoover Dam was built. The Public Works Program surveyed, comprehensively, and for the first time, the Appalachians, yielding a complete and accurate map of that part of our country.

If we still had a Public Works Program, when veterans returning from war find themselves unemployed, or when there are lay-offs, Americans would always have access to gainful employment through public works jobs: building and maintaining bridges and highways; repairing and maintaining sewage systems; working as paramedics in underserved areas; and, in the process, expanding their work skills. When a recession then passes, Americans would return to the more lucrative, private sector jobs, with a solid work record and more skills to offer.

Unemployment checks would be a rarity. Every able-bodied America could always count on a meaningful, productive job with a decent wage and good benefits, a job which the private sector is uninterested in providing because there’s no profit to be had. A strong work ethic would thrive. Americans would feel, and BE, more secure and less likely to turn to drugs and alcohol. As a result, family life might become more stable. Instead, corporations and banking cartels have moved the industrial-base of OUR AMERICA off-shore.

@madasahatter, the situation you describe is REAL, heart-breaking, and unnecessary. The currency of this country has become NOT the almighty dollar, or even gold. The currency of this country is now blood and oil. Corporations will kill for government contracts to keep America’s war machine well oiled (no pun intended). We Americans have given to the banking corporations the largest welfare check in human history, $700,000,000,000, to pay them for having gambled away old people’s pensions. With this hand-out, corporations have bought BOTH political parties, lock stock and barrel. ‘One dollar, one vote’ is NOT democracy. At election time, you and I will be presented the same kind of choice the former Soviet Union presented to its people: they could vote for this communist, or for that; you and I will be presented by bankers and corporations with the same kind of choice: we will be able to vote for this corporate stooge, or for that corporate stooge. Some Choice!

I could go on and on. But what’s the point? I wish you the best, from the bottom of my heart.

Peace.