crucial

crying' won't help ya, prayin' won't do ya no good

My friend sean tells me that he played When the Levee Breaks on an American Steel while sitting at the same spot by the river in New Orleans where Memphis Minnie wrought that Led Zeppelin classic.

Live journal blogs from people inside the city:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/katrinacane/friends

I spent a day (hung over actually) reading through all of these. Some girl phoning in to her blog after the storm cut the power "its getting crazy..." Some guy reporting that the looters had broken into somebody's house and left the dog cooking in the oven. The internet ex-army dude who went all military precision with his reports and schedules (boy did he had fun). NOLA old mystic hippy blogging every hour throughout--quoting crowley. Lots of people leaving their pets (update -- I read someone's account on boingboing about getting back to their house and finding the cat dead of starvation). Some guy who smacked some looters across the head with a lead pipe...and then blogged about it at the airport wifi.

The gangs are absolutely insane. The police are insane. The police stole SUVs and cracked safes (to prevent others from ?)

Bush was already fucked, but now he is beyond fucked. So Dems, once you are elected, what are YOU going to do about unrestrained US corporate hegemony ?

This is a pivotal moment for the US. New Orleans is dead, but that city specializes in ghosts. That ghost will haunt.

Describes the old New Orleans 9th ward poverty/crime/party energy really really nicely:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003398.html

I once saw the New Orleans episode of Cops--it stunned me even then. The cops were full on violence. The gangs right now are getting revenge.

The normal (black) people right now down there are described as wandering like zombies. Shell shocked. The assholes are going through their end of the world scenarios. The cops are treating every black person as an asshole. I read stories about black people trying to talk to police and they just pull their weapons. Or saying things to people like "Its every man for themselves".

What happens to all these people now ? What happens to race relations in the US now ?
There's something huge unresolved.