voices

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"Right now the days seem awfully dark for those affected, I understand that. But I'm confident, that, with time, you get your life back in order, new communities'll flourish. The great city of New Orleans will be back on it's feet, and American'll be a stronger place for it. The country stands with you. We'll do all in our power to help. May God bless you. Thank you."


President George Bush, Washington D.C. Wednesday August 31st (MSNBC via Crooks and Liars)

"President Bush don't need to be the President no more. President Bush ain't doin' his job. We got the whole coast line destroyed. I'm out here starvin', hungry, I finally got me a bottle a water and able to call my momma...."


Robert Wack, auto mechanic, Biloxi MS (MSNBC same as above)

"I have a handicapped daughter. She's over there with her wheelchair. She's hot. We don't have any water. I'm afraid she's going to have a seizure."


Danielle Shelby, after tugging on a reporter's sleeve outside the Superdome, New Orleans. (NYT)

"I've been in the food line twice, and every time I get to the front they tell me they don't have any left,"


Juanita McFerrin, 80, outside the Super Dome (same NYT piece)

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did appreciate a serious storm but these levees got breeched and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will."


President George Bush, September 1st, GMA

Comments

kid oakland said…
Words are important. I pay attention to what Bush says, the words he chooses....

"you get your life back in order"
you get "back on your feet."
"I don't think anybody anticipated"
"these levees got breeched...and now we're having to deal with it."

Folks are thirsty and starving in the heat.

They are in need at the Superdome, on the Gulf Coast...in attics, on rooftops and on the highway out of town.

We need real leadership. Now.
11:41 AM
&y said…
"Aha! That's it! Hold it right there. Pronoun trouble."
-- Daffy Duck, "Rabbit Seasoning" (1952)
11:55 AM
RHerman said…
I'm ashamed of our national effort here. Is no one else infuriated about Bush's insulting, even racist, press conference this afternoon which he mostly devoted to reassuring SUV owners in outlying states that they'll be getting their gasoline? Meanwhile thousands outside the Super Dome and Convention Center are begging for water. WATER. This is our Homeland Security?
2:45 PM
kid oakland said…
I'm ashamed too. And if anyone knows of a protest in San Francisco or Oakland....

let me know....

now's a time put the pressure on. We need to make sure those folks on the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans know that we are fighting for them...

they are being doubly victimized in my view.
2:48 PM
NYBri said…
Today, George Bush taught me a lesson. I always thought I had experienced hate in my life. That I felt real gut loathing in small random doses when I was vulnerable to excess and my mood was low. I always felt ashamed for those moments, brief and short as they were. But today, GWB taught me that I really hadn't felt hate in those times. And I am grateful for this lesson.

He taught me in those moments of weakness that what I felt was momentary distaste and frustration. I know that now, because today, for the first time, I experienced what hate really is, in its all-encompassing rage and despair. Because today I truely hated for the first time in my life. Today I truely hated George W. Bush.
7:51 PM
awol said…
"We're just a bunch of rats," said Earle Young, 31, a cook who stood waiting in a throng of perhaps 10,000 outside the Superdome, waiting in the blazing sun for buses to take them away from the city. "That's how they've been treating us."
-- NY TIMES, tonight

Never forget.
8:32 PM
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