I came home from work last night and started watching Spike Lee's

[driver8]

"When the Levee's Break"...

I have never felt so ashamed of my country and government as I did last night.

I am watching these people who have lost everything but the clothes on their backs walking through water up to their chests; they are carrying babies and elderly people on their backs; they are packing their entire lives into plastic clothes hampers; they are trying to survive.

Perhaps the worst national disaster to ever hit our country and these people were left on their own -- criminally neglected by our "government." What I saw made me sick to my stomach and as sad as I have ever been. To watch these people begging for food, water, medicine, and shelter; to watch these people wait three or four days for someone to get water to them...mothers with babies and small children who don't know how they are going to feed their children or if they will survive. George Bush should be absolutely ashamed of himself -- he left these people there to die while he enjoyed a little guitar and birthday cake. He should be strapped into a chair like the guy in "A Clockwork Orange." They should force his eyes to stay open and make him watch all four hours of this movie. He is the sorriest excuse for a president, much less a human being, as I have ever seen.

In my wildest dreams I never, ever thought that I would see our government turn it's back on the citizens of this country. That is exactly what happened to the victims of Katrina. Our government could not be "bothered" with these people. After all, there were vacations to take, fundraisers to attend, guitars to be played and cake to be eaten. Too many things to take care of then to worry about a few of "those people".

I know this movie has been discussed before but I had to vent. I am angry, sad, sickened and disgusted. It seems obvious to me that our little boy king and his lackeys have developed their own little "caste system" for the citizens of our country. If you are black, poor, and don't contribute to their campaigns then guess what? You are an "untouchable".

Fuck you, George Bush...fuck you.

[Horse with no Name]

1. I think what really got me

Was the fact that Bushco did everything they could to demonize the blacks that were left in NOLA, yet the majority of the citizens that I saw in the documentary rescuing others were black.
We didn't hear about the 98% good...just the 2% bad.

[tnlefty]

2. Well said, thanks.

Another thing that sickens me is the numbers of people that I've heard call in to Washington Journal and who are still rabidly trying to defend the boy, monkeyking. Sadder than anything to me is when I heard some of my relatives in a rather heated discussion spouting the same rwing shit - racism and classism is alive and well and the mean-spiritedness of it all just makes me sick.

[Avalux]

3. I watched it too and feel the same way.

Imagine my anger when at lunch today, I mention the documentary and how it affected me. One of the women (pharma rep) I was dining with piped up and said "you can't feel too bad for those people. They've depended on the government for everything (welfare) all their lives and don't know how to take care of themselves. It was a lesson that they need to start pulling their own weight".

Yeah, I wanted to punch her but didn't cause I probably would have been fired. I did ask what happened to her as a child to make her so mean, and laughed. It's people like her that voted for Bush and support the assholes in our government.

[butterfly77]

8. what made me angry was when each morning I would turn on the

television and see that the people were still at the dome after 5 days and they expected us to believe that he didn't know. Even if the people were on welfare or had been in the past what the hell did that have to do with letting them die of thirst. Another problem is that the troops were in Iraq and the racist try to label all blacks as on welfare.

[bdamomma]

10. "those people" why do have to say it like that, god, I hate that

they are people like us, maybe too naive of me to say, but the mean-spiritedness in this country is sickening. Very powerful documentary,and this happened to Americans in our country.

[Skidmore]

4. I watched it up to the first 10 minutes of the third part, and I had

to quit because I was sobbing so hard and could not bear to see anymore.

I want justice for the people of NO and the Gulf coast. JUSTICE! We cannot allow this nation to just shrug and let excuse it as simple imcompetence. It was criminal negligence. It was murder.

[wryter2000]

5. My officemate's taping it for me

I'm not looking forward to watching it. Just watching the coverage on the teevee while it happened made me fucking crazy. I'm hoping she brings it tomorrow so I'll have the whole weekend. I don't want to come to work the next day after watching it because I'll end up talking about it and getting crazy all over again.

[Kashka-Kat]

6. what is government for if not to help hold together civilization

What a miserable failure - instead we have unprecedented corruption & empire building for personal profit and enrichment...

[Karenina]

7. Civilization??? What civilization???

:rofl: A Chinese curse says, "May you live in interesting times." We are in the throes of unbridled capitalistic cannibalism. It IS interesting to see how easily we turn on each other. Interesting and depressing... :hug:

[driver8]

9. The one thing I didn't know was that the Canadian Mounted Police

made it to New Orleans before our own government!!

Now if that doesn't say something about the incompetence of our government, I don't know what does!