Katrina Evacuees Lose Ruling

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/03/AR2007040301938.html

Katrina Evacuees Lose Ruling

Associated Press
Wednesday, April 4, 2007; Page A07

NEW ORLEANS, April 3 -- Authorities did not violate a couple's constitutional right to travel by stopping them from crossing the Mississippi River Bridge to escape the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a federal judge has ruled.

Hundreds of people who tried to flee New Orleans for safety after the Aug. 29, 2005, storm were not allowed to cross the bridge. They said police from suburban Gretna forced them to turn around. Police later said they blocked the evacuees because there were no supplies or services for them on the other side of the river.

Tracy and Dorothy Dickerson filed a lawsuit against Jefferson Parish, but U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon ruled in a decision made public Tuesday that "although the right to interstate travel is clearly established by our jurisprudence, the United States Supreme Court has not decided the question of whether the Constitution protects a right to intrastate travel."

A trial on the remaining issues in the case -- including whether police used excessive force and whether the Dickersons' freedom-of-assembly and equal-protection rights were violated -- is set for early next year.

Attorneys for the Dickersons did not return phone calls Tuesday.

[ClayZ]

1. K and R

[Mojorabbit]

2. This is fucked up. n/t

[Hobarticus]

3. So, I can't flee a natural disaster?

My neighbors have the right to keep me in harm's way?

I understand there's no guarantee of intrastate travel, but still, this ain't no shopping trip. Wouldn't this be considered extenuating circumstances.....like not wanting to die?

[pitohui]

7. the ruling was correct, and you have no right to flee INTO a disaster area

jefferson parish was hit by katrina and under mandatory evacuation just like orleans

you have no right of free movement during a state of emergency, and you certainly have no right to enter an area where the residents have been already been forcibly evacuated so that you can seize their property -- in a state of emergency you have to comply with the authorities in order to make sure that help gets to everyone in the most efficient manner

the folks trapped in downtown new orleans had a right and a civic duty to evacuate BEFORE the disaster, orleans was under mandatory evacuation per order by ray nagin, the folks who remained in new orleans for whatever reason (inability to drive due to age, handicap, or poverty seems to be the number one reason), those folks' best chance of survival was then to stay at a central location so that help could be supplied to them

having them spread out into another dangerous area, where fires were burning and there were no services, water, electric, or people, was madness, esp. for the old

the case should have never gone to court in the first place, the gretna police acted properly, people had no business on a bridge in a heat index of 108 degrees

now *co should have kept his part of the social contract by sending aid PROMPTLY to the central area of superdome and new orleans convention center -- put the blame where it belongs, on *co, not on police officers just doing their job

people who weren't there and aren't from here seem to have no idea of what really happened -- even to this day

gretna was on fire, you don't allow people mad from heat and lack of water to go wandering in the hot sun into a fire

common sense, please


the person or entity who should have been sued was dubya, brownie, fema, and the various federal authorities who refused to provide food, aid, and rescue helicopters in a timely fashion

but by all means let's blame the LEO on the ground just trying to do his damn job to protect life and property

it gets old hearing all the backseat driving from people who have not a clue what they're talking about

if you didn't take an evacuee into your OWN home, you have no right to talk about gretna, by the way, i did take in an evacuee at such time as i was LEGALLY allowed to return to my home -- you?

[Leopolds Ghost]

12. You have no right to American freedoms if you don't understand what's at stake here.

You apparently want impoverished and afflicted evacuees to live in a sort of police state, entirely at the mercy of the government. Sort of like the stereotypes behind Welfare Reform. THAT AIN'T WHAT AMERICA IS ABOUT.

Life supersedes property, and NO, most liberals reject your assertion
that the federal government has the right to quarantine inner cities
from adjacent suburbs to "protect" the property from the inner city
residents -- or for any other reason short of a deadly epidemic.

[pitohui]

14. "most" liberals? sorry, most LOUISIANA liberals don't share your view

and i really don't care what anybody else thinks

i'm pretty sure we fought a revolution over the right not to have people housed in our homes against our will, but that is not even the issue here, the issue is that people were fleeing from an area where they had at least some expectation of being located and being helped to another, less central disaster area

how many people do you want to sacrifice because it's unpopular to admit that some people panic during a disaster and make stupid moves?

[pitohui]

15. by the way, aren't you from covington?

so there was no chance that while YOU were under mandatory evacuation that somebody unknown to you would enter your house and help themselves

mmm, thought so

[Leopolds Ghost]

20. No, my family is from Northern Louisiana

And believe me I know ALL about the attitudes there and in the New Orleans communities.

Most Louisianans from outside the city have been waiting for Katrina with resigned anticipation for decades in hopes of "taking back New Orleans from the n***rs or at least seal them in and let them kill each other off"

That's what they told my folks, both growing up and when they'd come to visit us (and inevitably be run out of the house.) that's what they told the National Geographic in their centennial issue.

By the way, you live in Lakeview, don't you?

[uppityperson]

106. If I were evacuated, someone broke into my house and it saved their life, fine with me.

I guess you are different in that way. And I don't give a flying leap that I am not from New Orleans. I live in an area that will have a disaster, a major one, and have lived in other disaster prone areas. If I were evacuated and what I left behind saved a life, I'd be happy to lose my property. You sure are different though.

[Occulus]

128. Welcome BACK on my ignore list

Permenantly, this time.

[WinkyDink]

88. One complaint was that George III was quartering SOLDIERS, not that refugees were seeking SAFETY.

[uppityperson]

105. The issue is people were fleeing flooded areas for areas that had no flood and

more people, perhaps more water, shelter, food. Sounds like you are blaming a lot of people for getting stuck in New Orleans during Katrina.

[Hestia]

129. yeah, to the buses that were waiting for them a couple of miles

on the other side of Gretna. That was all they were expecting. And when the buses did show up in NOLA, Gretna STILL tried to keep them from DRIVING through their town. I do hope this ruling is appealed.

[raccoon]

31. Thank you.

"people who weren't there and aren't from here seem to have no idea of what really happened -- even to this day"

[Leopolds Ghost]

35. "You aren't from around here, are you BOY?"

No, but every single one of my relatives are.

[NorthernSpy]

43. I know what happened. The government left thousands of people behind to drown...

And then afterwards prevented the survivors from rescuing themselves.

At gunpoint.

[barbtries]

83. in my world

that's called genocide...

i am in CA and only saw it on TV; what i saw i call genocide.

[Leopolds Ghost]

135. Well you have no right to think you know what happened, then.

After all, you don't live there, you don't know what "those" people are like.

[rman]

48. Many people think hardly anything happened there,

especially FOX viewers.
But other networks and reporters got the word out: it's very very bad and the government is screwing up big time.

[Hobarticus]

Lighten up, Francis...

You have provided much information that was unknown. I did not realize that they were fleeing INTO a stricken area, as well. That wouldn't make sense.

You can be informative and give us some perspective on this case, which you have, but the tone is uncalled for.

I have every right to talk about whatever I damn well please. Whether you choose to listen or go jump in a lake is your call.

Maybe I should just not give a damn, would that be better?

[rman]

46. The people on that bridge did not come from an unaffected area

They were "entering an evacuation zone" while trying to evacuate from another evacuation zone. Some of these people died because the government did not help them, but instead threated them as a threat.

[Firespirit]

51. They had no CHOICE

The sheer scale of the disaster was such that they COULD NOT seek a safe area without passing through another evacuation zone.

Yet the drivers of those vehicles were granted the right to do just that.

It is starting to sound like the real source of the problem was the local cops trying to stake out "their turf." If that is in fact what happened -- the divisions within the evacuation/disaster zone creating areas of "turf" -- then there should be a precedent established that people fleeing such zones are NOT subject to the same restrictions on "entering an evacuation zone" that people from OUTSIDE the evacuation area are.

[Hobarticus]

52. I'm not disputing anything you say...

Who's right and who's wrong is another kettle of fish, but I'll be damned if someone is going to tell me that I don't have a "right" to comment on this.

[rman]

56. It is exactly THAT kettle of fish, NOT another one.

The dispute was about whether you're right or wrong, not about your right to comment. The latter is a complete fabrication on your part. Typical.

[Hobarticus]

71. When did I say that they were fleeing from an unaffected area?

Can you show me that? You can't because I never said that. You're barking up the wrong tree.

I simply asked why they weren't allowed to flee. Matter of fact, I agree with your post in reply to mine. It certainly sounds more plausible.

And I sure as hell didn't fabricate this:

"if you didn't take an evacuee into your OWN home, you have no right to talk about gretna".

You must've ignored that part. Typical.

[Leopolds Ghost]

57. Didn't you get the memo? If you're not from New Orleans your comments are irrelevant

On Edit: :sarcasm:

Which is awful convenient for those fortunate enough to return, because I live in a very liberal area and I'm constantly hearing about how homeowners know what it's all about, low-income renters displaced from the city -- whoops! no longer have a say, we wish them luck but us remaining folks who can afford to come back DO have a stake, and if there are poor homeowners in the equation (like in New Orleans) folks go further and either encourage them to sell out or harrass their properties as "poorly maintained" or "not properly up to code/insured" or "out of keeping with the neighborhood".

In short, if this is happening in my very liberal community, I'm well aware that, as William, Julius Wilson suggested in a recent Chicago study, it's happening everywhere else, in which case "if you're not from here you can't speak up to defend people who no longer live here" takes on a universal resonance as the voice of a self-segregated, "we're all good people, our job is to banish the hardcases from city limits and set a watch on the perimiter" mentality.

And they twist the code requirements (multi-unit multi-meter service, condemnation laws, legislated post-facto insurance requirements for companies that never paid up to begin with, etc.) to set income barriers, as Andres Duany (the urban planner in charge of Mississippi redesign efforts) explicitly advocated.

"Poor people should be moved north of the tracks" he said. It's regrettable, he added, but only the rich will be able to benefit from the glorious new coastal towns he's designing, due to the environmental sensitivity and hence high insurance premiums mandated by law, due to the extreme environmental footprint of their new mansions which must be mitigated, "only the rich" will live in the coastal communities of Tomorrow (tm). All by law, of course, using zoning, subdivision code, building code.

[rman]

58. I did.

But i'm obnoxious like that.

:hi:

[Hobarticus]

72. Jeezus, I guess not...eom

[Leopolds Ghost]

74. I was being sarcastic, I disagree with the notion

The notion that only New Orleanians
(and only the remaining ones, it seems) have the right to comment.

[Hobarticus]

77. I know, I caught it...

Man, that was brutal.

:shrug:

[alarimer]

45. Most of those people didn't own a fucking car

How the fuck are they supposed to leave? No car, no money. And nobody gave a shit. Heartless pieces of shits are blaming them for not getting out in time WHEN THEY DID NOT HAVE THE MEANS TO DO SO. But the fucking asshole cops made sure they got themselves our. The behavior of many of the cops in the NO area was absolutely despicable. Including the assholes on the bridge.

[nashville_brook]

50. Greta's property damage doesn't equal the threat to LIFE

Greta COULD HAVE let the people out and moved them outside of their precious area -- just let them hell OUT.

[nashville_brook]

54. "Gretna was on fire" -- can you provide any proof?

i don't remember and "fire" except the shoots that were fired at the erstwhile evacuees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretna%2C_Louisiana#Hurricane_Katrina_controversy

you say:
"no right to enter an area where the residents have been already been forcibly evacuated so that you can seize their property."

there you have it.

[Leopolds Ghost]

130. Yeah, who's doing the siezing?

The government has a 100-year history of "slum clearance" removing anyone who lived in a "blighted" property or just "in a place where they shouldn't be living", whether they could prove title or not. They're still doing it thanks to Kelo (and I think it was Justices O'Connor and Thomas, of all people, who pointed out the disturbing implications.) Heck, entire counties in certain Southern states consist of land that was deeded to freed slaves and then repatriated by the former slave-owners using every trick in the book, including hired "contractors" with guns, and revenue agents. And working-class white people who never owned lots of land stand up and cheer for the profiteers because sticking it to "those people" makes them feel like they are part of that upper income group, even though they won't admit that they couldn't either afford to live in the "nice parts" of the city they so hate.

[NorthernSpy]

59. you're trying to have it both ways...

you have no right of free movement during a state of emergency, and you certainly have no right to enter an area where the residents have been already been forcibly evacuated so that you can seize their property -- in a state of emergency you have to comply with the authorities in order to make sure that help gets to everyone in the most efficient manner

the folks trapped in downtown new orleans had a right and a civic duty to evacuate BEFORE the disaster, orleans was under mandatory evacuation per order by ray nagin, the folks who remained in new orleans for whatever reason (inability to drive due to age, handicap, or poverty seems to be the number one reason), those folks' best chance of survival was then to stay at a central location so that help could be supplied to them

Sorry, no sale. If the people in the projected disaster zone were to have no right to escape the aftermath of the storm under their own power, then they had a RIGHT to BE evacuatED from out of harm's way beforehand. When the government arrogated unto itself the authority to prevent people from exercising their ancient, common-law rights to walk on a public way and to save their own lives, the government took on a serious duty of care. In its failure to perform this willingly-assumed duty when it announced the mandatory evacuation, the government forfeited the authority to prevent the survivors from leaving the disaster zone after the storm.


Besides, I don't for a minute believe that the sort of people who would agree with this ruling would have tolerated any effort by the poor of New Orleans to evacuate on foot before Katrina hit in the first place. So your bit about "civic duty to evacuate BEFORE, blah blah blahh" is irrelevant.

[nashville_brook]

76. wow -- great post

[Richard Steele]

81. Yes, indeed. It's a bunch of contradictory nonsense.

Thanks for that calm, well-reasoned post. I had
similar sentiments when I first saw this subthread,
but was not "calm", and I chose not to respond with
what I was thinking just then.

[Feron]

90. I agree

Gretna was just as trashed as the rest of the area after the storm. And there was no shelter for the people fleeing to go to. It would be absolute idiocy to allow survivors of one disaster to scatter in another disaster area.

[yankeeinlouisiana]

97. Gretna was fine after Katrina!

Just because Metairie and Gretna are both in Jefferson Parish, that doesn't mean they near each other. New Orleans is in between the two towns. Metairie and New Orleans are on the East Bank, Gretna is on the West Bank. I bet they had a dry park or high school gym where services could have been brought to them sooner if * et al wouldn't of gotten off their asses!!

This ruling doesn't make sense. Don't I have to travel within my state to get to another state?

:mad:

[Name removed]

100. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[uppityperson]

102. One complaint is there were stopped from moving from flooded area to dry area.

Do you allow people mad from heat and lack of potable water the chance to get OUT of a flooded area into an unflooded one? Seems like common sense to me.

[uppityperson]

119. You do realize that the part they were fleeing from was hit by a second disaster?

The flood, the drowning, the mucky water? Just checking to make sure you understand that bit. Fleeing from no services and floods to an unflooded area where perhaps services could get to them. Since Brownie/etc didn't get help to them, they went looking in an unflooded area.

[Hestia]

127. Gretna was NOT burning at the time, they were on higher ground

the problem is MSM who were reporting looting and shootings, which were found to be false. Okay, there were lootings, but who really gives a shit when you are flooded? It was the fact that the evacuees were black and they didn't want them walking through Gretna to get to the freeway where a bus was waiting for them. Christian charity is wonderful thing...

[Divernan]

16. Pennsylvania had plans for "bio-quarantine" in place, w/ armed enforcement

I attended a closed briefing of the state legislature some years back when Pennsylvania was very concerned about an epidemic of Mad Cow Disease. Plans were in place to quickly quarantine any areas in which infected animals were discovered, and to stop all traffic, human or animal from entering or exiting such area. Road blocks were to be set up, with armed local police, state troopers and/or national guards - with orders to stop anyone from crossing the quarantine lines, by any means necessary, i.e., shoot them. To be effective, the quarantine would have to be total and absolute - no exceptions made for VIPs (vehicles' tires could carry the infection). The state was deadly serious about this - and they were alerting the legislators because they expected PA's well-armed rural folk would try to break through the quarantine, with deadly results. I expect that similar plans will be implemented in PA if we are ever hit with a deadly infectious disease, and I further expect that all states have such plans in place.

Here's some rational for this particular quarantine (from Penn State):
"These (diseases) are profit killers. Most people have heard or read about foot and mouth or mad cow disease. Foot and mouth disease is one of the most contagious animal diseases known. Fortunately, it hasn’t been seen in the United States since 1929. Mad cow disease has been found primarily in Europe, but it has also been identified in cattle in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. Both of these diseases have the potential to devastate Pennsylvania’s $1 billion livestock industry. The key to protection is education, quarantine and improved farm biosecurity. Working in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Penn State scientists and extension educators have played a key role in developing and disseminating information to keep our state free from these diseases."

That said, I don't agree with quarantining Katrina victims, and blocking them from leaving the area. There was no health-related justification for such a quarantine.

On edit: I just read more of the comments, and there may have been a health/safety concern re Katrina. We elect our local officials and they have to make the call. If it was the wrong call, the courts can so rule, and/or we can elect new officials.

[Leopolds Ghost]

22. Yep, black people carry diseases.

Oops, that's not what you meant, and yet you didn't direct the pre-sorm AUTO traffic to any one specific place, you let them disperse all over the map.

Pedestrians have the right of way. Their right to travel is more fundamental than that of drivers in SUVs. End of story.

[Divernan]

26. Hey, calm down; your reply to my post has nothing to do with what I wrote.

Try for some reading comprehension here. I was talking about rural Pennsylvania - overwhelmingly white, and that vehicles were not allowed across quarantine lines.

As to your last sentence, re "pedestrians have the right of way" - no, they don't, in many, many situations - go look up some traffic law. As one small example, no foot traffic/hitchhikers on toll roads, walled off parkways, etc.

[Leopolds Ghost]

30. I'm sorry, but pedestrians have right of way on public roads.

Federal highways are not classified as "rights of way" they are considered limited access motorways. All other roads are rights of way. If a right of way, property of the PEOPLE, has no sidewalk I am legally allowed, regardless of jurisdiction, to walk out of my house and down the shoulder.
This is true for any road that has houses facing it. There are usually traffic laws for me to do so (walk facing oncoming traffic, etc.) If not, I can take them to federal court. This has been done with respect to handicapped and other pedestrians demanding airport access. ISTEA and TEA-21 codify into law that it applies to bridges and other intermodal or inter-jurisdictional facilities, whether they are highways or not. All new or refurbishged highway bridges are basically required to include ped/bike access. Right of way (common law) is one reason bikes are considered vehicles in every jurisdiction in the country. The "right to bike" is a judicial fight that has indirectly clarified pedestrian rights at a common-law (or post-1790 judicial precedent equivalent) level throughout the country.

[rman]

38. They certainly have the right to save their asses

Who cares about traffic regulations in a mass emergency situation?

[Leopolds Ghost]

49. The Gretna police, that's who.

They have yet to explain if they were maintaining a thin blue line between us and total breakdown of Federal Highway traffic rules (punishable by no more than a $500 fine, not death, last I checked) or between their constituents' property and the lives of inner city residents (I think a number of Gospel quotes apply here, many of which, or their Judeo-Hellenic equivalents, such as the right to travel unmolested on the public roads, the right to pick fruit when you are starving, the right to trespass when your life is in danger, the obligation of strangers to provide material assistance -- made their way into Anglo-Saxon common law, Roman law, Talmud law, etc.) Remember, Gretnans were already getting "passes" to come back and look, to send contractors in to restore the power grid, etc.

One contractor who was already repairing the electrical grid in Gretna was even blogging in real time on right-wing websites about "Homey" (a la "Charlie" or "Hajji") trying to get across the river and how he hoped they wouldn't let them.

This is the attitude in parts of (suburban/rural) Louisiana. They had anticipated, year after year that the levees would break, and actually hoped it would happen "the city is doomed anyhow and total population displacement is the only way to increase real estate values." Remember, Gingrich, Perry, said these things out loud. The peopler my dad grew up with said it in private all the time.

Compare that to Houma, a Cajun town which (surprisingly) set up an informal network to try and assist everyone who made out of the city with or without permission.

I'm surprised they weren't arrested and charged under the Las Vegas "food not bombs" statute (feeding people without permission).

[dysfunctional press]

112. if a road is closed, even pedestrians don't have the right of way.

right of way and right of access are two completely different things.

[dysfunctional press]

111. just because pedestrians have the right of way, it doesn't give them right of access.

the right to travel may be fundamental- but not through/into areas that are closed off due to mandatory evacuations.

[Leopolds Ghost]

123. OK, but that creates a physical problem similar to the Jewish ghetto, or Israeli roads, or Apartheid

The mostly-white people living on the outskirts have paths cleared for them by the government, utilizing auto-ways and free movement by rural relatives coming in to pick up carless families.

The inner city residents are surrounded by cellular "evacuation exclusion zones", are themselves in an evacuation exclusion zone which remained under martial law well after Katrina hit (interesting, eh?) and they are expected to leave by some principle of quantum mechanics, because having been sealed off, the government formally declared that not only could they hop into an adjacent exclusion zone, they could not even LEAPFROG the adjacent zones to other parts of Louisiana.

Having been sealed off, the State and Federal government, under strong pressure from local jurisdictions, decided that this was the PERFECT excuse to evacuate these people out-of-state ENTIRELY, since they had placed them under a "standard of care" that required their FORCIBLE removal, because voluntary removal on foot, or randomly into an adjacent non-flooded area, was prohibited by deputied men with guns.

And since they had to be removed forcibly anyway, the state AND federal government ordered them not to stop or leave the vehicle (much less on foot) until they had reached the Texas state line.

ANd once in Houston, both the government AND the newspapers declared that anyone not fortunate enough to have voluntarily displaced themselves internally (having used their middle-class funds to fill up all the hotels in Baton Rouge) would not be permitted to return to the disaster zone unless they could PROVE they did not live in the 9th Ward or a similar "sealed off" area.

"Military" Checkpoints were set up on the outskirts of the state for this purpose and everyone had to tell cops where they lived.

If they lived in Lakeview, Metairie or a similar area, just as low-lying as the 9th ward but 99% white, they were allowed on thru.

If they lived in a "flood-prone area, will never be rebuilt, because it wouldn't be worth it" (according to planners, politicians, and opinion writers) i.e. a black area, they were told in the strongest possible terms that they were only allowed to "look, don't touch" and would be arrested if they tried to resettle.

But the white lawyers who moved back into semi-gentrified (and flooded-out) Mid-City before those neighborhoods were re-opened,

and began mucking out their homes without asking for the government's permission, officers of the court mind you, were smiled at and waved at by the local cops who were busy beating and robbing "looters".

[dysfunctional press]

125. it's ALL going to be under water before too long...

black areas and white areas. my personal opinion is that we're throwing good money after bad in trying to resuscitate new orleans.

[Leopolds Ghost]

126. A Lovely sentiment.

I know a whole bunch of white environmentalists and white music lovers
(including the author of "Bayou Farewell") who would agree with such sentiments. I haven't seen them complain when poor people are kicked out of their neighborhoods, however, and forced to live in low-lying, poor suburbs, (banlieux) far from public transit (while they and their friends take posession of newly-built "eco-friendly" condos in the inner city and pride themselves on how they are reclaiming "formerly uninhabitable" structures in the environmentally friendly, pedestrian oriented cities, that the former occupants therefore should not have inhabited (because they couldn't afford the investment needed to make it "habitable", you know?). And developers say flat out (in conferences and text-books) that the poor must be thoroughly displaced from these "hard to reclaim" areas BEFORE anyone ELSE be allowed to make that investment (an assessment usually made by the banks, whether it's gov't or private money) because studies have shown well-meaning affluent citizens in fact won't live in an economically integrated area. They will complain until the last "problem house" is removed, even in a thoroughly leftist hippie village that is home to former Weathermen. Investment changes everything... the houses must be "comparable", the retail "package and themed". They want "thoroughly cleaned up" urban areas that have been "reclaimed" from the supposedly unsolvable issues of pollution, soil subsidence, gangland crime, etc. Then they buy "environmentally friendly" SUVs and go tooling around their (non-car-oriented) neighborhoods, frustrated about how people in the suburbs -- most of them poor -- drive too much...

[Miss Chybil]

17. That's just the way it is in a free country.

/sarcasm

[NorthernSpy]

37. and people used to bash the Soviet Union for pulling this shit...

"Whereas we in Amurrrika enjoy an unrestricted right to travel within our borders, cause this is a freee countreee..."

:eyes:

[Miss Chybil]

79. All that "freedom" stuff is so... 20th Century.

That was Old America. This is new America.

:cry:

[Solly Mack]

4. Damn...

[katsy]

5. I'm confused.

It's unclear whether the Constitution protects a right to intrastate travel even though the rights to interstate travel is clearly established? So we have rights under the Constitution but they aren't protected by the Constitution?

So... effectively one state can set up roadblocks and prvent interstate trucks/tourists/employees from other states?

This is my :wtf: moment.

Welcome to dumfuckistan (formerly known as the USA).

[DotGone]

6. Only if from the same state

The judge is saying that the Constitution protects travel between states (your example would be unconstitutional) but travel within a state has not been declared a constitutional right yet. Ergo, a rich town can put up a blockade to keep out the people from a poor town in the same state.

[pitohui]

9. there was no rich town in this court case

we are talking about gretna, not mandeville -- there are several bridges and roads leading out of orleans parish but for some reason the focus has been on this one, apparently the folks of gretna are not entitled to any protection of their property while this right is unquestioned in, say, mandeville where most home-owners are high income

[Leopolds Ghost]

10. The wealth is irrelevant. Right to travel and right to life supersedes property

Read the New Testamenmt for chrissakes.

[pitohui]

13. there is NO right to travel, even to your own home, during a natural disaster

do you not understand the consequences of what you are advocating?

you are advocating the "right" of people to panic, in direct sunlight, over a bridge in a heat index of 108 degrees, and enter an area where there were no supplies, where they would be even farther from a centralized location where they could get help, and which in many places was on fire

how many people do you want to kill? this was not a pleasure cruise, this was the most terrible natural disaster to ever hit the gulf coast

allowing panicked people to keep panicking would have killed many, many, many more

the case should have never gone to court and in normal circumstances i don't think it would have, but i think the judge out of sympathy for these people at least wanted them to feel they got a hearing

but "right to travel" is nonsense during natural disaster, act of terror, war

you have to get people in a secure area and do your best

[Leopolds Ghost]

24. "panic, in a heat index, over a bridge" PEDESTRIANS HAVE RIGHT OF WAY

Basic common law, foundation for all Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, a right Oliver Cromwell killed for when the King's Men tried to sieze the commons.

Whether they were "panicky" from being shot at or not.

What you are saying is that I, as a person who does not drive, have no right to cross the Mississippi River on foot, that vagrancy and emergency health and welfare laws can be used to restrict pedestrian movement while allowing the rich to flee in their SUVs.

[rman]

32. do you not understand the consequences of what you are advocating?

By not allowing people to flee from disaster while the government fails to help them but instead treats them as a threat? That's definitely one of the things that changed after 9/11. It's a Bush-gang policy.

[Neecy]

89. I'm confused by your logic...

You didn't want people to 'flee' in the heat, without water - so what did you want them to do? Die on the overpass in the heat, without water? Didn't this incident take place a couple of days before help came to that glorious 'centralized location'?

I'll tell you what, if I'm gonna die anyway I'm going to be on my feet. There is such a thing as survival instinct.

You're so concerned about property rights, even though there was no indication that these were anything but people desperately trying to get out of a death trap. This sounds like typical suburban 'black=looters' racist pants-pissing.

[uppityperson]

104. Right to try to escape a disaster, in extreme heat, with flood waters under them.

How many people do you want to kill? How many would you want to drown rather than risk someone's property? Right to life supersedes property.

[nashville_brook]

47. there is no evidence that people fleeing for their LIVES would have hurt property

and to put property before people is revolting -- i don't care WHAT the "law" says.

[jbnow]

101. Here are three

of many references that say that this bridge was the onlu usable route out of the area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_90
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/U.S.-Highway-90
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2005/09/09/ktr_aft.html

And of course you are just assuming their property was in danger.

[uppityperson]

103. Apparently these people's lives meant less than Gretna's property values.

Couldn't have much to do with color, could it?

[Leopolds Ghost]

8. This is the Tipping Point. If this thread does not garner hundreds of outraged replies, it is over.

These are the people who were shot at. The judge is saying it's possible to set up internal checkpoints in America, within and between cities, and restrict movement on foot (while allowing drivers to pass -- so long as they don't stop.)

This ruling re-legitimizes "sundown towns" just like a judges ruling in the 1990's re-legitimized chain gangs (legalized slavery). It allows the government to quarantine and shoot to kill inner city populations during federal emergencies.

It allows towns to seal themselves off and claim that the presence or absence of government services (not mentioned as either a responsibility of the government NOR as a requirement for citizens to purchase) can be factored in to override freedom of assembly and the common-law right to travel on foot -- the most basic and ancient human right.

KICK, KICK, KICK and reply.

And if you're reading this and don't see the big deal,
I suggest you find a different site -- preferably a different country.

[pitohui]

11. during katrina i was not allowed to go to my OWN home

you have no right of free movement during a natural disaster, you are not allowed to enter a mandatory evacuation area, jesus, grow up

do you not understand that something really, really bad happened?

at some point authorities have a duty to coerce people to evacuate and to prevent them from entering dangerous areas

if katrina isn't a big enough disaster for you, what is?

the judge made the right call

[Leopolds Ghost]

18. "Authorities" will do whatever benefits the passive middle/upper middle class

Even if it screws the poor. You cannot say "drive, do not walk, out of the city, and do not stop until you reach an authorized evac zone." That is a violation of Equal Protection (initial refugees versus later refugees) and basic common law (right to pedestrian movement, believe me, as a student of urban design I know a thing or two about this right, UNOBSERVED in most pathetic sunbelt "cities") and numerous other rights and laws. Your notion of what FEMA can and cannot do during a national emergency may be shared by FEMA, it is unconstitutional and violates the most basic tenets of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence nevertheless. And that's saying something since it's being used against non-Anglo-Saxons who you (and the contractors who busily blogged about their repair work in Gretna while the city was still sealed off and in flames, laughing about "HOMEY better not come across that bridge") have precious little sympathy for -- regardless of your willingness to take in boarders.

[annabanana]

21. I wish I could nominate this post.

[Hobarticus]

44. Me too.

[jsamuel]

19. they were fleeing an evacuation area

[Leopolds Ghost]

27. Kafkaesque isn't it

[katsy]

28. Okay, but your examples establishes restrictions on someone's right

to place themselves in danger by trying to enter a mandatory evacuation zone.

These people were trying to evacuate from a mandatory evacuation zone.

During hurricane evacuations I've been directly involved in (about 4), I was allowed to evacuate without meeting firing squads trying to keep me out in surrounding/safe cities.

The judge made a very dangerous call here. Will they allow some evacuees to leave an evacuation zone and legislate that others, perhaps economically disadvantage, brown, or black people stay behind?

This ruling is an abomination on it's face.

[rman]

33. These people were trying to evacuate because they were dying

Because the government failed to help them. They met police force when they should have gotten water and medical care.

[katsy]

36. Exactly. n/t

That judge's ruling is criminal IMO.

[Leopolds Ghost]

34. They did allow.

People in SUVs with drivers licenses who could prove they "had a place to go that night" were allowed across the bridge. Pedestrians were shot at for violating the "right" of the Federal government to prohibit pedestriand from limited-access motorways, despite the lack of pedestrian access being an ISTEA violation. I have crossed freeways on foot (don't ask). Hell, I've walked down the freeway breakdown lane of the 14th Street Freeway in DC when out riding and my bike broke down. People in breakdown situations (an emergency) are allowed to do this without being shot at by passing motorists "deputized" for the purpose.

[katsy]

41. In, short... what the feds were really asserting their "right" to discriminate".

No matter how they try to disguise it, that's the bottom line.

[Firespirit]

42. It is.

This ruling says, in a nutshell, "In a disaster, the feds can do whatever the hell they like."

If they let drivers through but stopped and threatened pedestrians, the judge's very rationale (freedom of movement) falls flat on its face.

[Firespirit]

39. It really is

I can think of a couple of examples wherein people did NOT have the right to do what they did. This is profoundly different.

1. In the 1999 Moore, OK F-5 tornado, panicked and misinformed people stopped on a highway and abandoned their cars to hide under an overpass. Not only was it a horribly dangerous thing to do which resulted in deaths and grisly injuries when the tornado passed over, it blocked the highway to those people who were acting responsibly and attempting to use it to get away from the tornado. They were FORCED to take shelter in their cars because they couldn't get around the blockage or even get out of their vehicles. I don't think anyone was prosecuted, but the behavior of the overpass bunch was not protected because it recklessly endangered the lives of others.

2. After a disaster, the disaster area is usually blocked off and people from outside are barred from entering. The blocked off areas are designated as such by the government.


These people were LEAVING a disaster zone (which was under a mandatory evacuation order) in the hope of getting to a safer place. They were not endangering anyone's life and were not preventing the flow of traffic.

Still, the most dangerous aspect of this ruling is the reasoning that the judge used to justify it. No right to move about protected by the Constitution. Wow.

[rman]

40. They already were in an evacuation area,

they could not evacuate to begin with because they had no cars or not enough money to get petrol to go any significant distance. And the government did not help them.

[countryjake]

70. NOLA "authorities" directed (coerced?) these people to cross that bridge...

they were directed to that evacuation route by both the New Orleans police and mayor Ray Nagin, in the aftermath of the hurricane, to evacuate them from "dangerous areas".

People were told that buses would be meeting them over there, across the bridge, and even after some doubted that help could be found in Gretna and they double-checked before beginning the trek down the highway, authorities continued to urge them to head for the bridge "to evacuate the dangerous areas" which were the inner city and Superdome areas.

The armed vigilantes who met, stopped, and fired their weapons at these evacuees, who were folks on foot with no other options of survival...these bastards with their shotguns and badges and pick-ups were clearly violating the civil rights of the evacuees, who were, indeed, following directions given to them by authorities to cross that bridge to be saved.

Something really bad happened, for sure...race, class, and flat-out inhumane discrimination went down after Katrina hit. It was a man-made disaster, to be sure!

[nashville_brook]

55. big fucking amen.

[Firespirit]

23. This doesn't even make logical sense

"(A)lthough the right to interstate travel is clearly established by our jurisprudence, the United States Supreme Court has not decided the question of whether the Constitution protects a right to intrastate travel."

So how are you supposed to get to a different state and exercise this Constitutional right if you cannot even move within your own state? Nice loophole there.

And, excuse me, is the implication here that there is no Constitutional right to move? That's what it looks like the judge is saying. This is right up there with "there is no inherent right to privacy" or "the Constitution doesn't protect the individual right to vote." These types of judges see the Constitution as a tool to restrict what people can do, while its writers intended it to restrict what the government can do.

I cannot fathom this. I really can't. If they were fleeing what they KNEW was a bad situation (New Orleans) to get to one that might be better, isn't it violating their rights to safety and endangering their right to life by sending them back?

[nashville_brook]

61. great points!

[NorthernSpy]

25. next up: no right to leave a burning building -- just like in Saudi Arabia!

So in America, you have the responsibility to save your life, but no corresponding right to save your life -- even if saving yourself means merely walking away from the scene of a natural disaster by way of a public road.

This because some moron of a judge isn't sure whether the Constitution really means for us to have the liberty to travel, except for crossing state lines.

Wow.


Not a lot of actual freedom in this here "Land of the Free", is there?


Reminds me of that incident in Saudi Arabia when the vice squad (the Mutawaeen) refused to let a bunch of girls leave their burning school because their hair was uncovered and they weren't wearing enough clothes. Apparently, protection of virtue and order must take precedence over letting mere human beings escape a disaster with their lives. At least, that's how it is in certain human-rights abusing countries...

[rman]

29. The bigger crime is that the victims were treated as a security threat

rather than being treated as victims. People died unnecessarily as a result.

[gollygee]

53. We don't have a right to walk around?

That's what the Supreme Court decided? I guess that makes it easier to have a police state.

[Leopolds Ghost]

63. Not the Supreme Court -- yet -- I hope this isn't a repeat of the Kelo case.

Sadly, many "Northeastern liberal" urban planners I've met, believe strongly in Kelo, in the "responsibility" of the government to remove blighted areas, blighted buildings (even landmarks) so long as someone benefits financially, and remove people living in them to "better lives" in the suburbs regardless of who benefits financially and demand-wise from the land they left behind.

It's all connected, like in that (infamous, IMHO) Wash Post article about how much "better off" a man was who had lost his entire family in the flood, because now... (drumroll) he was able, for the first time in his life, to raise his one remaining son in a drug-free, majority white, rural Fayetteville Ark. and get a job at Wal Mart. Not in horrible old 9th Ward where he'd be endangering his children (oops, child) by staying there, because you just can't trust those levees, y'know? They actually said he was "better off". In reportorial voice. On the front page.

[gollygee]

67. Oh god

as a parent that made me get teary. :(

[Leopolds Ghost]

82. I found it. WaPo "For Some, Forced Relocation Isn't All Bad"

For Some, Forced Relocation Isn't All Bad

-- Some Victims Relish Chance to Start Anew

As Donald Henry clung to the side of his New Orleans house and
watched as his brother and niece were plucked from his side and
drowned by Hurricane Katrina, he had no way of knowing that his
own life was about to change dramatically -- for the better.

...the unimaginable disaster has led to an unimaginable gift...
these young African American men find themselves in parts of the
country they had never been before, and each believes there is no
going back.

(snip section describing how the remaining members of the family
are living in a white neighborhood for the first time, and working
a "steady job" at Wal-Mart, and how much better the schools are
in "tree-lined" Fayetteville AR)

Meanwhile, on the same day (9/15/05, possibly 9/14)

in which they declared there can be "no going back"
for residents of inner city New Orleans, that indeed
death (or Walmart) would be preferable,

the Post published the following two headlines:

"Floods' Pollutants Within the Norm"

"As City Dries, Residents Plan Return"


Guess which residents?

Guess what consequences the white lawyers interviewed suffered?

when they returned to their houses early to begin mucking
them out, before pitohui's precious all-clear was given,

and the cops came around, not to find out if they were
looters, not to shoot at them, but to wish them well?

[Leopolds Ghost]

85. Here's a scholarly planning article "Forced Migration May Ultimately Help The Poor"

Keep in mind this is the urbanist, pro-city,
"Blue state" DLC architects and planners crowd.

The same people who issued an NCPC report calling it a "travesty" that
very poor people lived within sight of the Capitol Dome and offering to
remedy the situation by building office towers and HOPE VI developments
so that:

"the presence of office workers will set an example and have an uplifting
effect on poor people suffering from the cultural pathologies of the inner city"

In other words, the Clinton crowd.

Forced Migration May Ultimately Help The Poor

Posted by: Chris Steins
Thanks to: Margy Waller (Brookings Institution)
13 September, 2005 - 9:00am

(Planetizen.com - The internet resource for
professional architects and urban planners)

Mark Alan Hughes predicts some of NOLA's poor
will be better off in a couple years
as a result of forced relocation to more prosperous places.

Hughes points out that Katrina exposed many things:
the bleak prospects for poor residents in New Orleans,

"our appalling unpreparedness for catastrophic consequences
four years after 9/11, George W. Bush's callous disregard
for the government he heads and the breadth of support in
this country for government that matters."

Yet, Katrina may prove to be a promising new beginning for some of poor
residents forced to evacuate. At least for those people fortunate enough
to be sheltered in a place that is growing, not declining.

"Older American cities...have become warehouses
for people whose prospects would be brighter in other places.
But immediate obligations, lack of resources and information,
and plain old inertia anchor people in places that are declining.

"Katrina relocated people in the harshest possible way,
possibly killing thousands and driving
hundreds of thousands away with little or nothing.

"If I had the budget, I'd track...poor and near-poor
people who've found refuge in economically healthier places....
I bet that two or three years from now, most of those folks
will be earning more money in better jobs with their kids
attending better schools in safer neighborhoods....

"The lesson of the Mayflower, the frontier, the Dust Bowl
and probably Katrina is that the eventual happy ending
for poor people comes from relocation more than rebuilding."

Source: Philadelphia Daily News, Sep 13, 2005

Full Story: EVEN A KATRINA CAN BLOW SOME GOOD

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/opinion/12630505.htm

Lucky Ducks!!!!


----------

Should The New New Orleans Be Downsized?

15 September, 2005 - 1:00pm
Wall Street Journal

Economists debate whether the future New Orleans
be downsized? 'Colonial Williamsburg' and other
controversial models are pondered.

--------------

Katrina's Silver Lining

Posted by: Abhijeet Chavan
9 September, 2005 - 8:00am

David Brooks argues that Hurricane Katrina has
created an opportunity to address urban poverty.

"Hurricane Katrina has given us an amazing chance to do something
serious about urban poverty.

given us a chance to rebuild a city that wasn't working...

"For New Orleans, the key will be luring middle-class
families into the rebuilt city, making it so attractive
to them that they will move in, even knowing that their
blocks will include a certain number of poor people."

Source: New York Times, Sep 08, 2005

-----------------------

"Many experts also warned against moving too
quickly, arguing that being away from the city
could help residents clarify what was most valued
and should be reclaimed. "

[Leopolds Ghost]

86. I mean can anyone believe that our professional elites are talking like this?

[gollygee]

87. No

it's as if they think this guy was glad his brother and niece died because he was so lucky to get torn away from his home. :( How could they think like that? Ivory tower syndrome?

[eridani]

99. It's really very simple

Affluent people are Real Human Beings(TM), and the rest of us are disposable human garbage. Where we are heading is straight back to the Dark Ages when that state of affairs was a direct mandate from God.

[katsy]

64. Oh no.

Walking/running for your life, away from a dangerous site or evacuation zone while poor, brown or black now makes you 3/5 of a human. You life while poor, brown or black is less valuable and you have no constitutional rights. The feds have the right to discriminate.

Evacuating a danger zone while white is still okay (as long as you look like you got the bucks). Your suv and your whiteness gets you a pass.

Geesh I hate the chimp's amerikka.

[gollygee]

68. I don't see how anyone could turn anyone away in a situation like that

tell them to go back to the lower land that's flooding. :(

Yes, unfortunately, only if you're white enough and have enough money will you be protected from disasters in this country. It really shows where we are as a society.

[Sapere aude]

60. It seems so easy in this day and age to not give a shit about other people.

Whether it is poor Mexicans coming here for a better life or poor victims of Katrina, we don't have to give a shit what happened or what happens to them.

IMHO, we could care a lot more and give a lot more if that caring and giving is spread around and shared by all of us and none of us would have our lives impacted that much but the sense of doing good to and for others might make us feel better. It is better to light just one little candle then to curse the darkness.

I wish that those here who can be so heartless have some major catastrophe happen to them and they must face it alone.

[Lars39]

62. The Supreme Court has not ruled on protected intrastate travel?!?!

Everybody happy where they're at? Got your papers/ID card ready and in order to travel from one state to another?

[NorthernSpy]

65. funny how growing a single cannabis plant is a federal issue by virtue of the commerce clause...

... but having cops shove guns in your face when you walk down a federally-funded road while trying to escape a federally-declared natural disaster? Ho hum, no federal issue there...

:argh:

[Leopolds Ghost]

66. Don't forget, they might've been carrying drugs out of the city.

Republican leaders kept claiming (in front of favorable audiences) it was mostly drug dealers and criminals left behind, why not use the opportunity to process them in an orderly and deliberate fashion, like prisons in NY and Philly do when they recieve an influx of political protestors? Yeah, yeah, innocent until proven guilty, oops, officials were saying they were criminals by definition: they disobeyed the evacuation order.

Plus, We kennat have de Rasta man spliffing up de whole plece in him precious exclusion zone. :evilfrown:

[Doremus]

110. Just like the infamous AP photos that called blacks looters and whites victims of Katrina n/t

[lies and propaganda]

69. Impeachment. Jail. Hell. I dont know who deserves what

but I would love to give it out.

They INTENTIONALLY DROWNED Nola.

[Leopolds Ghost]

80. A Day's headlines

In the Washington Post (all on the same day in late 2005):

1. "For Some, Forced Relocation Isn't All Bad"

Black people who never lived in a rural white area
SEEM willing, according to this reporter, to trade
the lives lost in the article subject's family
for a chance to work at Wal-Mart and send remaining
kid to a "drug free" high school. They accept that
"no matter what, there is no going back".

2. "As City Dries, Residents Plan Return"

White lawyers "illegally" return to their posh homes
on Canal and St. Charles and begin mucking them out
and are praised by both reporter and officials for
doing so. Of course, for residents of low-lying
neighborhoods, they'd be endangering their children
living in such polluted conditions instead of moving
to a "better place" as instructed by the officers of
the law (who asked them where they lived when they
crossed the checkpoint.) But for white folks living
west of Canal St, and enterprising homeowners like
the folks pitohui knows, it's OK.

I say it should be OK -- for everyone. Selective
enforcement of a Draconian law (exclusion zones).

3. "Floods' Pollutants Within the Norm"

Oops! I spoke too soon! Looks like there was no more
pollution and deadly disease than was already present
in poor parts of the city, according to the Post.

[Leopolds Ghost]

73. In New Orleans, HOMEY RULES THE STREET.

"We have most of the power on here in Gretna... It is amazing
watching these people trying desperately to get out of the city.
Don't they know there is nothing here for them? In New Orleans,
HOMEY RULES THE STREET. National Guard needs to reverse that
before we can get in there and repair the damage."

As one electrical contractor said, watching the fires across
the river and watching the people trying to get across the bridge
into Gretna WHILE he was working on repairing the electrical grid
in Gretna.

(from alt.hvac)

[nashville_brook]

75. damn that's sickening

[Leopolds Ghost]

96. ..

[Leopolds Ghost]

132. bump

I know Oprah's more important, but some folks have mysteriously disappeared back into the woodwork, having confidently assured us (and they're probably right, sadly) that most New Orleanians don't see it that way. Most urban Democrats, they say, are fine upstanding upwardly mobile folk who don't have a problem sticking it to the "lawless."

[EFerrari]

78. WTF?

. ."U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon ruled in a decision made public Tuesday that "although the right to interstate travel is clearly established by our jurisprudence, the United States Supreme Court has not decided the question of whether the Constitution protects a right to intrastate travel."

:wtf: Our right to travel in our own state isn't guanteed by the Constitution?

Am I reading that right

Who IS Mary Ann Vial Lemmon? Can anyone get the goods?

:wow:

[recoveringdittohed]

108. Link to Biographical info

Nominated 1995. Confirmed 1996

[Leopolds Ghost]

114. Anyone got a picture of Ms. Vial Lemmon? All I was able to find on Google...

Lemon Head by Maximillian Desoutter



"My goodness, this poor lady has lemon curd in place of a head!
Does anyone have an idea who it might be?"

[EFerrari]

122. Thanks.

[lonestarnot]

84. WTF!

:wtf:

[pigpickle]

91. kick

[Swamp Rat]

92. The SCOTUS does NOT have to rule on this issue.

The presumed right to travel is firmly established in U.S. law and precedent. In U.S. v Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966), the Court noted, "It is a right that has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized." In fact, in Shapiro v Thompson, 394 U.S. 618 (1969), Justice Stewart noted in a concurring opinion that "it is a right broadly assertable against private interference as well as governmental action. Like the right of association, ... it is a virtually unconditional personal right, guaranteed by the Constitution to us all."

http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/constitution/amendment14/33.html

My mom drove through the barricade on two flat tires a little while before JPs and Gretna police opened fire on the people walking across the bridge. New Orleanians were attempting to flee from a second, post-Katrina disaster, the drowning of the city, but were prevented by a group of law enforcers already well-known for their racism and bigotry.

There are people pretending to know what happened in New Orleans, but they were not here. You'll find they are more concerned about property than human life, and have little understanding of the law and what really happened in New Orleans. Many of the people I know (locally) who talk like this are from the Northshore, the Westbank (Gretna), Kenner, et al. They and their families moved out of Orleans Parish long ago to get away from the n______. This attitude is still very common in those areas. For instance, I personally know a man who joined the Jefferson Parish Police so that he could "kill niggers legally." As far as I know he is still works in law enforcement (and perhaps was on the bridge shooting above the heads of Katrina victims).

[Leopolds Ghost]

93. So I hear -- not to sound like a dilettante because I'm going there soon

Hopefully very soon to work on electrical wiring and such.

In fact I need to get back in touch with usedtobesick about this.

My dad passed away but he had to kick out more than our share of
his old school buddies after they made racially explicit remarks
about both NOLA and DC, often equating the two. This was northern La.

I assumed it was marginally better among the Cajun population,
seeing as howe Houma tried to help people. Maybe not. Of course
the most conservative areas are always white flight suburbs on the
edge of big cities, the whole Reagan phenomenon.

And always with talk of the "Big One" there was paranoia in the
Mississippi about the "coming race war" as if blacks would have
to be confined if the Big One hit.

I was so livid when I saw Bush and Rove carry out that very agenda
that dad's neighbors had dreamed about.

[uppityperson]

118. Have you been involved with Houma or been there?

I know of people working down there and was just wondering since that area hasn't gotten much coverage (media and assistance that is, not wind/water coverage as they sure got plenty of that)

[Leopolds Ghost]

120. My folks aren't from that side, although they went to LSU with some Cajuns from that area.

So no, I don't, but intheflow and usedtobesick (and of course Swamp Rat)
might, they live on the Gulf Coast and are active in the reconstruction.

In fact, I need to contact them when I go down there in order to hook up
with the volunteer effort.

[uppityperson]

121. Lots to do there, thanks.

http://www.emergencycommunities.org/cafe.htm
http://www.animalrescueneworleans.com/

I met them, actually got to meet them in person, very nice people and can hook you up with a number of places.

[Leopolds Ghost]

124. I would be there already, except have been stuck managing an arts project

That everyone insists can't survive without me (never mind that any income
I could make doing wiring, is waiting for me in New Orleans, not up here.)
Sigh, it is frustrating. Usedto... & Inthe... are probably wondering
what's happened to me.

I'm certainly not older or smarter than any of the folks I've been working
with on the arts project, I'll be going down to New Orleans as soon as I
can get them to take responsibility. We just had a bunch of people quit
on us because "Don't ask us to be responsible, it's not like we're being paid."

:eyes:

With sentiments like that I begin to understand the true scope of what the "American way of life" means to these people who are my neighbors (and they are liberals to boot.) It is a purely selfish, "me" generation (most of whom were born in the 80s! :scared:)

Throw in a little bit of racism/classism and you have the Reagan mentality, the garrison mentality that has infested suburbs like Gretna. It's like living in the "International Zone" of Shanghai, safe from the skells and they feel like they deserve all the benefits of democracy, not those other people. That seems to be where we're headed structurally with all these gated communities and pod-style developments where pedestrian movement and "out of area" drivers are prohibited.

[uppityperson]

116. Thank you for this post. Second disaster of flooding, drowning was what they were fleeing.

And thank you for your info in last paragraph. I wasn't there and don't know everything, but have friends who were and have talked with many. There are people do pretend and I spit at them, pitoooi.

[GeorgeGist]

94. Wanker Judge

[Leopolds Ghost]

95. Vial Lemmon

Anyone got a photo of her?

(Before anyone can say "Swamp Rat"...)

[autorank]

98. Justice has no meaning! K&R

This is one of the most outrageous events of the entire sorry episode of governmental malfeasance
and criminal misconduct surrounding Katrina. I can't believe this, it's such an easy case.

Where's the DOJ? They should be pushing this suit. Pathetic!

[Leopolds Ghost]

115. "Where's the DOJ?" Ummm...

[NuttyFluffers]

107. despicable and horrifying

i wonder where's the line in the sand for americans. i thought katrina would wake them up from the horrors that are coming through the bureaucracy and law. in my darker moments i think it would take a gaggle of teenage Ashlee's and Britni's, with their platinum blond hair, boob and nose jobs, and bedecked in 12k gold cross jewelry, to literally be *on fire,* chased by "them ferriners," and in the ensuing chaos tipping over a whole mountainous display of light beer, before the 'Murikan' public finally gets outraged enough to stop all this bullshit.

[Leopolds Ghost]

117. Save The Cheerleader! n/t

[in_cog_ni_to]

109. Let me guess...the evacuees are black and the judge is white?

That's just a guess. :eyes: I have relatives in Houma...I KNOW how people in that area think. I've visited often.:( It's one of the most BLATANTLY racist areas I've ever been to.

[Oilwellian]

113. 'Get Off The Fucking Freeway': The Sinking State Loots its Own Survivors

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there
was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freeway and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot. Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.

Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so down the freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts. Now secure with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation, community, and creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).

This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look out for each other, working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would not have set in.

Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people.

From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct.

Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered
once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2005/09/4683.php

The Gretna police took the fucking food and water of people camping out on the bridge. They weren't trying to cross the bridge, they were just trying to survive on higher ground. Is that protecting the property of Gretna residents too??? :sarcasm:

[Leopolds Ghost]

131. I notice someone's pet died -- that received more attention

And most of the posts on this thread were a healthy debate on the merits of keeping people off bridges, which now seems to have ended. I'm not even sure who won.

I am reminded of Stephen Colbert coolly debating the merits of killing puppies (oops, with Giuliani, the media's even conditioned us to do THAT.) Where's the beef? Where's the court appeal? At least some of us still care about New Orleans.

And to think huge numbers of people get disgusted over Israel-Palestine issues, but not this. It will just continue and get worse. Like the people defending universal ID, curfews, and surveillance cameras.

[Leopolds Ghost]

133. Sad that more people don't care about this.

But Oprah, drunk drivers etc. are tremendously important.

[Leopolds Ghost]

134. One more bump as this slowly falls off most DUer's radar screen

And is replaced by some shiny object in some more affluent city.

Anyone who doesn't see this as one of the biggest issues affecting
America at this moment, given the PROVABLE circumstances involved,
has no business bitching about the evils of the Bush administration,
much less Oprah, Geraldo, and anti-semitism!!!

[juno jones]

136. I can't believe

this shit is going on. I'm not from NO, have never been there, but the assumption of some that property rights somehow trunp human life is sicksicksick. This judge sounds like a piece of work too.