Thanks for this new section!!!!!!!

[troutfarm]

I agree with you astrologydetective. No one deserves what happened to these people period or how they were treated! On Oprah today they said they were leaving people to die in the morgue (before they were dead) to let them die because they could not help them. Their income or lack of it or where they live does not mean they deserved what they got for not being able to leave town. This is such ugly thinking I can’t believe this man and his wife would even think these things let alone write them.

Maybe some of the silver lining from this whole situation is instead of hiding the poor they are now all over the front page news and perhaps the citizens of the USA will have enough compassion to help them have a better life. Hopefully some will be relocated to where there are more jobs. I do not think the poor of New Orleans have had the same opportunities as the man who sees them as “welfare parasites”.

I for one would rather see my tax dollars put to use helping the poor and building schools than wasted in Iraq.



trout

[troutfarm]

One problem I heard on the news is people were breaking into gun stores. Hopefully society will now know next time that if everyone is told to leave town all the city's guns for sale need to go into a safe.

trout

[steffy1usa]

I must say that I agree as well. I also have to look at my faith and my spirtuality in times like these.. as I belive in God foremost. I also belive we choose our life before we are born, and I belive we choose what lessons we learn in this life. So faith plays a big part of this.. as far as the war , its so time to bring our troops home , my ex sweetie , the one that could not enter la because of the disorder, thanks to the gov. of la who thought it would be a good idea to let out the prisoners instead of moving them .. his humvee was blown up he is deaf in one ear , thanks to that war, had he went to la and been shot at, how would that make you feel , he went to iraq fully beliving he is doing the greater good for his country, fighting for americans , and they turn on him and shoot at him for trying to bring in food and water and equipment to rescue them... those are the people that should have drowned in their attics... nothing against the poor that were left because they could not get out.. the state should have had an emergency system in place to evacuate their citizens , the ones that had no way out. That is just sad that it wasn't. That is not the federal governments responsibilty, but the state.. and they made plenty on the gambling to take care of it.

[cinderella]

i think you need to look at the second article objectively and in my opinion view it as a 'cry for help' in the sense that something went wrong..and he is voicing the concerns arisen from the social conditions and the gap in those social conditions which ultimately led to shooting the rescue people. I dont the the write is 'blaming' the 25% left behind..i think he is highlighting what possibilities there were to make this happen and by doing so he is saying " hey, this happened because of the unjust evacuation and low social econimic status, let's do something so that we never have to see it again" For every negative there is a positive. You have to show the negativity in all its glory before you can turn it around and work on building a positive world.
As a non- american, i can only say that the truth should come out, and if that poverty is on your doorstep causing these problems, then isn't it a good thing you see it now and can 'fix' it. or at least try to? Every country has their poor areas and their poor people with their poor mentalities..why? don't you think that it IS time wqe wiped out poverty in so called rich countries as well as our 3rd world countries. My i am sounding all political..time to stop.

[troutfarm]

Google this guy he seems to have a lot of really scary articles out there in the Universe. In my opinion he is a bit of a right winged bigot to put it lightly. I feel strongly about this. Of course that is just my opinion. Every one is allowed to have one and that is mine.

Besides Bush was on vacation when this happened (one of far too many) as another politician said today if Bush wants to investigate just what created this night mare he needs to take a long hard look in the mirror.

Mr. Right Winged author is calling people "welfare parasites" while pointing his nasty Klu Klux Klan finger at the left. I find his article shockingly unexceptable. steffy had to move to gain employment, not everyone has that option.

As Oprah said someone needs to apologize to the people who were flooded out.

The fact the levees needed fixing for years yet the government did not want to spend the money to do so is not okay.

trout

[justcajun]

Well this letter made me sick. I was born and raised in Louisiana and know some very wonderful people there that were on welfare and it dosen't mean they are thugs or worthless. I do have to say that when you are faced with not having what you need and then not having any work to make yourself better you tend to be mad, depressed. I know we lived that way for a long time. Never make ends meet. So we moved away and made a better life for ourselves. I didn't harm anyone in the process though. Unless you have walked in them shoes it is hard to understand it. As far as the hurricane it was a natural disaster. The leves not being fixed is the fault of the goverment. I don't care how much money or fame or whatever it is you have. Take it away sit on a hot roof for 4-5 days with no water or food or even a bathroom to take a piss in and see just how much strenghth you truly have. I have lived through it had flood in my neighborhood and we rode a john boat down the road. It took us atleast 6 mths for anything to be somewhat normal. That is not even losing everything. People can sit on their high horses and put people down but until they go through this or something like it they need to keep their mouth shut. This is America and when one man is down you suppose to help him up not kick him harder.

[troutfarm]

I think the poor in this country are a symptom that something is wrong in our society and that we collectively have a lot more work to do.

I have been poor before and my god it does makes you feel depressed. The constant struggle eats away at you.

I would love to see poverty disappear on this planet.

trout

[justcajun]

Agree totally Trout. If we would stop spending it on War and then having to rebuild the county after we destroy it we would have plenty for poor and needy.

Love and Hugs
Marla

[troutfarm]

As one guy said last night on a news program funny how we can spend billions on xraying grandmother's shoes before a flight but don't have money to fix a levee....

trout

[steffy1usa]

Just for the record the opinions in that artical do not reflect that of the poster (moi) I do agree with something needs to be done to help them vs leaving them in "the hood"
I did have to move away , i ended up in the streets living there.. im 5'7 i weighed 92 lbs when i left, passed out alot from not eating for over a week at a time. when i left that state , all i had was half a garbage bag of clothes and that is it !!!! I or we (my first husband) stayed here with a relative of his ended up moving around, virginia , houston , other places, untill he left me with a baby, a friend of his took me in, yet again homeless this time with a baby. I was with him to have a place and had a son with him. 6 years after many death threats against me and my family and tons of mental abuse, I got the nerve to leave , this time my mom and step dad let me stay with them for 2 months, and I had to be out. In that 2 months I had a job and a small one bedroom apt. I went to school for a week to get the licence I hold and got a lucky break as an insurance adjuster and have never looked back. I had no advantages, I know what it is like to be poor and not know if or when you were going to eat, where you might sleep that night if you did. Ive slept in abandoned houses and under bridges. And I did it all , to survive. It takes will to survive , you can succomb to poverty, not saying in any way that makes someone a bad person. Ive never had a hurricane wipe everything I had away..but ive lost everything I had several times, not just once but several. I know the hearbreak of it, but out of all that I learned and I learned good. Material things can be replaced and mean nothing. Your life is what you make it, you can rise and overcome or you can cave and do nothing. I can only hope and pray the victims of this tragedy can see the oppertunity in all that has happened. getting too teary eyed to carry on ...

[justcajun]

Steffy that is excatly one of my points. When someone has not walked in the shoes they shouldn't be writing the know it all letters as if he has all the answers. I agree with you that the material things can be replaced but you can not replace the lives of the people that lost them in this and I feel the goverment could have saved some in reacting in the right time period. Just maybe this will bring more awareness that we need to prepare ourselves not with just an evacuation plan but a survioral plan if or when we do need them in the future. I checked and Missouri just like many other states has a evacuation plan but what if you can't leave. So I plan to write a letter to our govenor and create awareness that more is needed not just to get out but to survive.

[steffy1usa]

wow that is an awesome idea !! hopefully they will listen, and if they don't start a petition.. that is one of the best idea's Ive heard come out of this.

[justcajun]

Petition is a great Idea!!!! I work at a Mini Storage and have lots of people that come into my office daily!! ;D ;D ;D Thanks for that

Love and Hugs
Marla

[steffy1usa]

your welcome !! ;D
Im sure there would be no shortage of signatures , we should all do that..looking at joining the state guard just to learn the skills I would need, plus go to college to boot...

[aquarose]

Ok, I've read the article and I think he brought a real problem to the spotlight, however, unpopular. It is a tough topic. After all no one wants to believe this is true and it is anything but politically correct. Are there areas in your city that you do not venture into at night? Are there areas that you wouldn't want to live? Are there people that you might be afraid of? Well I live in a major city and I work with low income housing so I can answer yes to those questions. Of course it is politically incorrect but maybe it is time to take the "PC glasses" off and help people.

Cabrini Green and the Robert Taylor Homes were and still are horrible places that breed crime, drugs, and people that were basically incapable of caring for themselves. These projects were built all over the US in the 60's and 70's. We basically took the notion of giving fish instead of teaching people to fish and basically robbed them of self esteem. We (the US) essentially caged a class of people and created welfare generations instead of making it a safety net. Of course, this does not apply to everyone so please do make grand generalizations. Now generations later we make statements like "welfare parasites" and blame them for the state of affairs (crime, drugs, lack of education and I can go on). Wow, we create the problem and then blame all the symptoms of that problem instead of taking responsiblity for the problem.

Now in New Orleans I think the point he was making is that the small group of thugs that have nothing to loose took over. When someone feels they have nothing to lose they do the unthinkable. If you need proof check out our prisons. I know it is unimaginalble but some people never learned to have respect for property, things or much less themselves. An example that still haunts me is when I worked to relocate residents of Cabrini to HUD housing. I was assigned to check back in 1 month. Well it didn't take a month because the neighbors called in a panic. For the record everyone in this story is the same race. Well the relocated residents had torn up the yard and I mean dug it up with holes in the front and backyard. the neighbors called because they started to dig up their yard. It looked like a garbage dump in a matter of 2 weeks. I couldn't understand how if you were given a nice new home at a fraction of the cost that they could easily afford how it was possible to tear it up and destroy it so quickly. Wouldn't you be happy and proud to have this chance?

The neighbor told me I couldn't understand because I was raised to respect things and to have things. I was raised with a set of values and sadly, they didn't know any better. I was appalled and argued that wasn't true but after it happened again and again I had to face a hard fact that although it was always the case, it usually was the case. Neighborhoods fought us instead of welcoming the new people. We had to have classes in taking care of a home and respect for property at the most basic level. It was heart breaking because it seemed so basic to me.

I don't think people want to be on welfare but they don't believe they can do any better. No one as in their parents taught them and the cycle continues. They want to do better but they don't have the proper tools. Parasites, absolutely not! They are just forgotton and the depth of the psycological problems are glossed over. We have to teach people to fish and to take pride in their work and belongings instead of calling them names and generalizing the class.

I'm talking about a small percentage of people but the ramifications run rampant and spread like a disease in low income areas. Good people trying to make it and raise their families are plagued with violence as seen in New Orleans and cities across this nation. A majority I think are trying to break the cycle but we as a whole do not make it easy.

No one deserved what happened and 99% of those people were victims of the thugs and a government that didn't step in quick enough to stop the thugs, which is very telling.

A majority of the people there were hard working people trying to help their neighbor and survive but that small percentage made it into caos for them. They were fearful and scared just like I or anyone else would be. Remeber not everyone stranded was low income so it frustrates me when people generalize because most were black.

New Orleans has a poverty rate of 26% and we are saying the government forgot them in the hurricane. Well we are a government of the people and I think our government (people) forgot them a long time ago. I hope this tragedy brings to light what we need to do to break the cycles of poverty in this country. Some people immigrate here illegally and live better lives than some of our citizens. Often they don't speak the language and have every obstacle against them but they believe they can make it and succeed. Key word they BELIEVE! How do we restore that belief and hope throughout this country??

My two cents and no rotten vegtables please. I love New Orleans (I'm from that region) and my heart sank for all the people who were victimized in so many ways but if you were surprised by the violence then hopefully this was a wake up call in more ways than one. It is easy to blame the government for not stopping it but the bigger and much harder question is why did it exist in the first place? I'm not sure we can handle the truth.