Wow, I saw all those buses when I was looking at the updated overlays for google earth in NO. Couldn’t believe that many buses were sitting uselessly like that, figured they were something else (there were barely an inch fully zoomed up).
Guess I was wrong…

That photo of Jabbar Gibson at the wheel is my pick for most indelible and heartening image of the Katrina disaster.

This man is a hero.

Amazingly enough lawlessness has some goodness in it after all. What an amazing young man!

Don’t worry, the Repubs will blame the local and state government for all those buses laying fallow…W tried to save ’em, he did! Heh, heh, heh [shoulder shrug, shoulder shrug].

teh,

Please explain how is it in fact W’s fault that the mayor (who presumably controls city buses) went crying on TV, demanding buses, when all those yellow things could have been used to evacuate people before or after the hurricane (of course, once they were flooded, they weren’t much use). I think the Dept. of HS was a disgrace, but please explain why those buses or Bush’s fault?

It’s Bush’s fault because he called on the law enforcement agencies in NO to show ‘zero tolerance’ towards Jabbar, who after all has just twocked a bus. Go, Jabbar, you dude – it’s people like you who make me wish sometimes that I was American.

The mayor of New Orleans gets everybody on a bus. Where do they go, and what do they do when they get there?

Who drives the buses? Does the mayor simply hope a bunch of Jabbars will materialize? And as Jim points out, where do they go? (not to mention the lawsuit potential inherent in something like this)This is why federal coordination is necessary. It’s one of the main reasons we have a federal government. It would be nice to get what we’re paying for with our taxes, wouldn’t it?

Can anyone elucidate what this aimless apology for an op-ed piece is saying, maybe it relies on some classic yiddishist periphrastic insinuating sentence construction I don’t know about: Hurricane Katrina / Refugees in America, by Shmuel Rosner Example: “It’s a disaster that cannot be fully taken in with the eye. Every little piece is not sufficiently shocking in itself to convey the scale of the destruction. Committee after committee will meet to discuss whether more could have been done, and what will be done in the future. The bottom line is somewhat banal: Yes, if those buried under the destruction hadn’t been poor and black, perhaps less of them would have been affected. What’s new in that? It wasn’t racism that worked against the large black communities of Louisiana and Mississippi; and if it was racism, it was the racism that placed them in the situation they were in prior to the storm, and not racism in the actions belatedly taken thereafter. They are already beginning to ask if they really did act too late. Were the levees not strong enough? Why? There are those who are attacking the president and his administration. Some will certainly pay the price and be sent packing. This is the way with disasters that claim people’s lives. In the end, it was probably issued (sic) of cost and benefit that tilted the balance. There were those who say that a disaster of this kind comes only once in 200 years. Who is going to find money for something that isn’t going to happen again in his lifetime?”

Ahh, but there you have it, Realist: the Fantastic Circular Rationale of the Norquistian Martyr Brigades. The estate tax=The Holocaust, and should be opposed with might and main; and your taxes are obviously not getting you what they should, so the government should get less taxes!

Levee Problem? Simple. Bad dirt! Whomever was quality control super for God didn’t do his job and Helliburton used inferior grade dirt on the Almighty’s project hoping to save money for future Godly projects like the redeployment of the indigenous brown people in Iraq. Heh! Heh! heh!

Yeah, I see it now I look at it totally out of context, it’s irony. Wow, that is some subtle irony that Shmuel Rosner is using. So low key as to be almost undetectable.

Her name is Martha Johnson and she is alone – well, she’s a single adult with two children, aged 10 and 8, in a car.

She is alone, yet she is not alone.

It wasn’t racism that worked against the large black communities of Louisiana and Mississippi; and if it was racism, it was the racism that placed them in the situation they were in prior to the storm, and not racism in the actions belatedly taken thereafter.

It wasn’t racism. Well, it was sort of racism. No, on second thought, it wasn’t racism.

This couldn’t be more clear. Or it could.

It’s probable at this moment the Bush Justice Department is writing a warrant for the arrest of Jabber Gibson for interstate transportation of stolen goods. The FBI will arrest him shortly. Jabber will probably spend years in prison for this. Compassionate conservative politicians will publicly congratulate each other for nailing him.

Have a nice day.
Antti

BELOW IS AN E-mail received from an obvious Bush Basher. I have endeavored to provide an appropriate response below….

BUSH BASHER #1: I received this from a friend after sending her an e-mail

Below is the first communication we’ve had from a family friend who lives in New Orleans. When the threat of Katrina was realized, he sent his wife and two young girls to Jackson, MS where his parents live.. but he stayed behind. He is a pathologist and had checked into the Ritz for a medical convention — which presumably would be safe. That’s where he remains.

Her reply was shattering.
She was a senior claims examiner with a well known renowned insurance carrier.
Please read it……… Al

==================================

BUSH BASHER #2:

Having been involved in numerous Catastrophe losses in my claims life, I have been shocked and appalled at the woeful inadequacy of the handling of this major emergency. It appears that no one is in charge and there is no communication among those that are. My heart aches for those who have lost everything and have nowhere to go and no way to get there. I can’t imagine the carnage. And George Bush refused help from such friends as Israel who wanted to send us doctors and nurses. He said that he didn’t expect much from foreigners and we are a big country who can handle this matter. I think he is mentally ill and is surrounded by others as ineffectual as himself.
=====================================

REPLY TO ABOVE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TALKING POINTS!

TIME TO STOP THE BUSH BASHING YOU DEMOCRATS AND START BEING AMERICANS FIRST FOR A CHANGE.
YOU LOST THE ELECTION BECAUSE YOU HAVE INCOMPETANT LEADERS WHO CAN’T BE TRUSTED IN POSITIONS OF LEADERSHIP. THE MAJORITY HAS SPOKEN.
You could blame the foul mouth inept DEMOCRATIC Mayor of New Orleans for incompetence and the DEMOCRATIC Governor of LA. who is in charge of the LA National Guard not the President who is not in charge of the local, State police or LA. National Guard.

Rev. Jessie Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton aren’t leaders they are losers. Both ran for President and lost in primaries. They are not winners but are masquerading as urban snipers who are trying to shoot down and out shout the President because they covet his job and power which the Democratic party had taken from them after their immoral role model, Bill Clinton was superceded by a truly honorable God fearing moral leader. They just can’t take the fact they are not in charge anymore.

WHO’S TO BLAME FOR THE NEW ORLEANS DISASTER? THE TRUE CAUSE IS CLEAR!!!
An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

by Robert Tracinski
Sep 02, 2005

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can’t blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city’s infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists–myself included–did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency–indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.

When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).

So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?

To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:

“Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.

“The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire….

“Last night, Democrat Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.

” ‘These troops are…under my orders to restore order in the streets,’ she said. ‘They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.’ ”

The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.

What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?

Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?

My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. “The projects,” as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)

What Sherri was getting from last night’s television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of “the projects.” Then the “crawl”–the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels–gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city’s public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city’s jails–so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations–that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit–but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals–and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep–on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters–not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.

No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American “individualism.” But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider “normal” behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don’t sit around and complain that the government hasn’t taken care of them. They don’t use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don’t, because they don’t own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.

The welfare state–and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages–is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.

_________________________________________
A few truths, for those who have ears and eyes and care to know the truth:

1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was an
astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of mind of the
residents of those areas is acutely horrifying.

2.) George Bush did not cause the hurricane. Hurricanes have been happening
for eons. George Bush did not create them or unleash this one.

3.) George Bush did not make this one worse than others. There have been far
worse hurricanes than this before George Bush was born.

4.) There is no overwhelming evidence that global warming exists as a
man-made phenomenon. There is no clear-cut evidence that global warming even
exists. There is no clear evidence that if it does exist it makes hurricanes
more powerful or makes them aim at cities with large numbers of poor people.
If global warming is a real phenomenon, which it may well be, it started
long before George Bush was inaugurated, and would not have been affected at
all by the Kyoto treaty, considering that Kyoto does not cover the world’s
worst polluters — China, India, and Brazil. In a word, George Bush had zero
to do with causing this hurricane. To speculate otherwise is belief in
sorcery.

6.) George Bush had nothing to do with the hurricane contingency plans for
New Orleans. Those are drawn up by New Orleans and Louisiana. In any event,
the plans were perfectly good: mandatory evacuation. It is in no way at all
George Bush’s fault that about 20 percent of New Orleans neglected to follow
the plan. It is not his fault that many persons in New Orleans were too
confused to realize how dangerous the hurricane would be. They were
certainly warned. It’s not George Bush’s fault that there were sick people
and old people and people without cars in New Orleans. His job description
does not include making sure every adult in America has a car, is in good
health, has good sense, and is mobile.

7.) George Bush did not cause gangsters to shoot at rescue helicopters
taking people from rooftops, did not make gang-bangers rape young girls in
the Superdome, did not make looters steal hundreds of weapons, in short make
New Orleans into a living hell.

8.) George Bush is the least racist President in mind and soul there has
ever been and this is shown in his appointments over and over. To say
otherwise is scandalously untrue.

9.) George Bush is rushing every bit of help he can to New Orleans and
Mississippi and Alabama as soon as he can. He is not a magician. It takes
time to organize huge convoys of food and now they are starting to arrive.
That they get in at all considering the lawlessness of the city is a miracle
of bravery and organization.

10.) There is not the slightest evidence at all that the war in Iraq has
diminished the response of the government to the emergency. To say otherwise
is pure slander.

11.) If the energy the news media puts into blaming Bush for an Act of God
worsened by stupendous incompetence by the New Orleans city authorities and
the malevolence of the criminals of the city were directed to helping the
morale of the nation, we would all be a lot better off.

12.) New Orleans is a great city with many great people. It will recover and
be greater than ever. Sticking pins into an effigy of George Bush that does
not resemble him in the slightest will not speed the process by one day.

13.) The entire episode is a dramatic lesson in the breathtaking callousness
of government officials at the ground level. Imagine if Hillary Clinton had
gotten her way and they were in charge of your health care.

God bless all of those dear people who are suffering so much, and God bless
those helping them, starting with George Bush.

Sent to me. SHARE TIME!
MJ

Marie, I’m sorry for what I said last night, about the its/it’s thing. I was just angry and bewildered and lashing out. Much as I’m sure you are.
After all, it can’t be easy to know that your heroic president once arranged himself buck naked in a coffin and recited every detail of his sexual history to a roomful of men. That’s gotta hurt.
So I understand that you’re just coping as best you can, by defending him even in cases where his behavior seems quite indefensible.
If that’s how you empower yourself, then I shall support you. You go, girl!

Marie, your comment was tl;dr (as they say on the Internets) but I still want to know WHAT JESUS WOULD DO.

And that list you’re so proud of is by the pathetic Ben Stein, and it was chewed up and spit out by Steve Gilliard. But I’m sure you’re too cowardly to click on that link, or answer WHAT JESUS WOULD DO.

God bless all of those dear people who are suffering so much, and God bless
those helping them, starting with George Bush.Yes, I completely agree – God bless those suffering AND those helping them to suffer, starting with George Bush.

I was just wondering if someone in future could start deleting Marie Jon”s cut-‘n’-pastes, or at least issue a warning that one is imminent. I know that you are dedicated to the principle of free speech here but there’s a limit to the number of times I can clean vomit out of my keyboard. Thanks.

What jade said.

Caption

“Let’s Roll”

Marie,

Whatever helps you cope. But no one said Bush created the hurricane, so scratch off issues 2 & 3. However, he did have a hand in making FEMA less efficient. In addition, he sat on his ass for four days before even addressing the problem.

marie’s talking points above included this “George Bush did not cause gangsters to shoot at rescue helicopters taking people from rooftops, did not make gang-bangers rape young girls in the Superdome, did not make looters steal hundreds of weapons, in short make
New Orleans into a living hell.” which is good racial nightmare stuff, but now appears to be untrue. No bodies have been found in the Superdome, and no sniper stories have been properly confirmed yet, these seem to have been instant urban legends – the snipers aiming at rescue aircraft story came from a certain Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan, who has not been heard from since.

Aw,, those crazy kids. This young man reminds me of the chinese guy who stood in front of the tanks. This kid is what movies are made of. Hero.

It makes me sick to hear everyone full of blame to make this a political issue:

“Posted by: Joe at September 4, 2005 09:46 AM

It’s Bush’s fault because he called on the law enforcement agencies in NO to show ‘zero tolerance’ towards Jabbar, who after all has just twocked a bus. Go, Jabbar, you dude – it’s people like you who make me wish sometimes that I was American.”

As far as sending the National Guard in: Thank God for the National Guard! I am glad they are in there because, hello, they brought in medical attention and much needed supplies! If you were the President and there were reports of shooting, rape, and looting in a city with practically no outside communication with anyone what would you do?

Please don’t tell me in an emergency situation you would have to send someone else in to verify the media’s reports? After all…that could take another week or so and then you would be blamed for, dare I say, a lack of response??? Or better yet – the initial reports could have all turned out to be true and the rape, looting, and shooting could have continued to happen. Yeah, that’s just what New Orleans needs on top of a Category 5 hurricane! The National Guard helps to ensure order during chaotic events such as this but they also bring aid. I think it was the best decision to make!

Also in response to the comment regarding the levy:

“Posted by: Treehacker at September 4, 2005 03:14 PM

Levee Problem? Simple. Bad dirt! Whomever was quality control super for God didn’t do his job and Helliburton used inferior grade dirt on the Almighty’s project hoping to save money for future Godly projects like the redeployment of the indigenous brown people in Iraq. Heh! Heh! heh!”

The state and city got exactly what they CHOSE to pay for when it came to construction of the levy’s. It was widely reported on several stations that the levy’s were constructed to withstand a Category 3 hurricane! So it was inferior to begin with. They knew exactly what material the levies were made of but that is what they CHOSE to go with due to the price tag of constructing it.

I just want to say thank you to all the disaster workers, volunteers and wonderful people who are donating their hard earned money. Now that is what makes us true Americans!

Jabbor Gibson
Amidst the chaos in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, eighteen-year-old Jabbor Gibson stole a bus in New Orleans. He didn’t take his buds for a joy ride. He didn’t raid the local Walmart and pack it with merchandise. He loaded it with a hundred stranded, homeless, desperate people and drove them to a shelter in Houston Texas, a seven-hour trip.

“I just took the bus and drove all the way here…seven hours straight. I hadn’t ever drove a bus.”

Now, he faces criminal charges for his selfless deed unto humanity. Someone buy this kid a lawyer.

“I dont care if I get blamed for it , as long as I saved my people.”

Someone give this kid a medal.

Full article here: KRGVTV, Houston
http://www.newschannel5.tv/2005/9/1/4255/Taking-refuge-in-the-Astrodome

Don’t the finger-pointing blame mongers here have something better to do? Like actually help someone?

Jabbar Gibson should be the next mayor of New Orleans!

(In response to the previously posted Robert Tracinski piece, which is one of the most despicable essays I have ever seen.)
Oh please! Crime is not a product of the welfare state. Crime is a calculated risk (benefit vs. cost) that some people from any population are willing to take.
Roughly 100 to 200 years ago, certain white “pioneers” in this country saw land sitting between the Appalachians and the Pacific Ocean and thought, “The Indians aren’t using this land for anything, so we should take it.” Roughly one week ago, certain white and black “looters” in Louisiana saw untended stores and thought, “The owners left these goods in their stores, so we should take them.” (Of course the Indians didn’t have insurance on their land the way that Walmart does on its properties.) Debates about morals and ethics are for philosophers. It’s a plain fact that some people are always going to act in certain ways, and the welfare state has nothing to do with it. And what about 9/11? For one thing, there were certainly “shoot to kill” orders on that day. As far as crime, I will agree that there may not have been much “looting” — although somebody might have taken something from the office fridge before evacuating the World Trade Center — but that is because the affected areas were on the order of several blocks. If all of Manhattan had been unlivable for seven days, what do you think would have happened? But the more important issue is that there was (and still is) a great amount of stealing following 9/11. As one example, I’ll mention U.S. Public Law 108-11, passed by Congress in April 2003. In Title IV of this law, $2.4 billion was made available to commercial airlines. Out of this sum, $0.1 billion was designated for strengthening doors and locks, while $2.3 billion could be used “by an air carrier for such purposes as the carrier deems appropriate.” How many televisions or cases of soda does a “looter” have to take before the criminality approaches that of American Airlines or other so-called free-market companies that are subsidized by our tax dollars? While some white-collar criminals are finally being charged and imprisoned for their offenses, the television news industry still loves to show black men behaving badly when it comes to crime coverage. Since television news is clearly a contributing factor for Mr. Tracinski’s deplorable opinions, I suggest that he leave his living room to volunteer for a community organization if he wishes to display his “enterprising spirit”. In other words, stop whining about what’s wrong with this country and get to work to make things better!

I really want to know if Jabbar Wilson is alright, someone said he went to jail for taking that bus and getting those people safely to Huston. Can anyone tell me what happend to him and if he is alright.
Darlene

Petition to honor Jabbar Gibson

http://www.petitiononline.com/JG0007Q/petition.html

“We have been extraordinarily moved by the story of Jabbar Gibson, and the initiative he displayed in commandeering a bus to drive Hurricane Katrina victims out of New Orleans. We were very alarmed to hear that he was at one time in danger of prosecution. Mr. Gibson declared to the news media, “I don?t care if I get blamed for it, as long as I saved my people.” But WE care if he gets blamed for it.”

[snip]

” We request that this young man be awarded appropriately with a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a full four-year scholarship to the college of his choice. For we truly believe that Jabbar Gibson as an individual, exemplified the courage and the spirit that is the best part of America and in so doing became emblematic of the actions many others who responded bravely and selflessly in the face of this disaster. He is someone we should support, encourage, and see prosper in this great nation. Jabbar Gibson and those like him are the future of America!”

i wish you the best you are truelly a hero!!

Hello http://www.sadlyno.com

I’m a picture researcher at the BBC in London, and we are interested in using the image titled Katrina_renegadebus.jpg posted by Gary M. Can you
help us with this request?.

Regards
Laurence

Check out a site dedicated to the absurdity and satire nature of saying “It’s All George Bush’s Fault!”

http://www.itsallgeorgebushsfault.com

Regards,
Notta Libb

Since Hurricane Katrina, Gibson has had several runins with the law. On April 13, 2006, Gibson was indicted on federal charges after being found in possession of cocaine, heroin, and a revolver by New Orleans narcotics detectives and federal agents.