Police, Protesters Clash in New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Police used chemical spray and stun guns Thursday as dozens of protesters seeking to halt the demolition of 4,500 public housing units tried to force their way through an iron gate at City Hall…. Inside, a scuffle also occurred in the City Council chambers as the meeting opened. Several protesters were forced out, including a woman who was carried, and a recess was called. The room was calm once the meeting resumed. Protesters had planned to disrupt the City Council meeting, where members were expected to approve demolishing dozens of buildings‚Äö√Ñ√Æa move that would open racial and class divisions. The council chambers seat less than 300. Once capacity was reached, people who were not permitted into chambers marched and chanted. Eventually violence broke out.
I find it sad beyond measure that we can continue to pour untold billions into the rat hole that is Iraq, all while we plead poverty when it comes to taking care of our own. Using the calculus of the Bush Administration the safety and well-being of poor African-Americans in New Orleans matters far less than continuing to prop up the clusterf—k in Iraq. What does it say about our priorities when so many see the war in Iraq as our patriotic duty, yet restoring and rebuilding New Orleans is viewed as just so much senseless welfare spending designed to subsidize the shiftless lifestyle of those unwilling to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps?
What sort of message is being sent by the White power structure in New Orleans and the Bush Administration when poor African-Americans and others who continue to suffer more than two years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast get little and are expected to make do on even less? How about “(&^% you, we’re busy getting our war on”? Say what you will about what many perceive as the shiftlessness, the lack of work ethic, or the sense of entitlement displayed by so many poor African-Americans, the reality is that these are AMERICAN CITIZENS. Perception and/or prejudice have no place; these are our fellow Americans who legitimately need a hand. While we’ve been busy genuflecting as Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © has sold us a bill of goods with his Excellent Adventure in Iraq, our own citizens are suffering from a lack of resources, resolve, and compassion. We can’t find the resources or the resolve to assist those in need of affordable housing in a city still reeling more than two years later…but we’ve got plenty of money to prosecute a senseless war in Iraq. For the money we’re spent in Iraq, the federal government could probably pave the Ninth Ward in gold filigree.
Perhaps if New Orleans was a suburb of Baghdad, the Bush Administration would have rebuilt it by now. (And didn’t The Worst President EVER © stand under a flood light in Jackson Square and solemnly promise to rebuild New Orleans? That was then, this is now….) Then again, it certainly IS easier to blow things up, eh? It would be nice to think that an American government could find the resolve and resources to help out fellow Americans who clearly need that help. Then again, these folks don’t vote Republican anyway….
