It's almost as if they are trying to destroy the country

Or at least a certain portion of it.




...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Katrina 10-Year Retro

In a scene that would have given Donald Trump heart palpitations, 200 flag-waving Mexican troops breached the U.S. border outside Laredo, Tex., 10 years ago and advanced unopposed up Interstate 35 to San Antonio.

It was the first time a Mexican army had marched on San Antonio since 1836 when Gen. Santa Ana massacred besieged Texas independence fighters at the Alamo.

This time, however, the Mexican soldiers were on a relief mission to feed tens of thousands of homeless and hungry Americans displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Setting up camp at a former Air Force base outside San Antonio, they distributed potable water, medical supplies and 7,000 hot meals a day for the next three weeks.

[…]

The next 48 hours were a mad scramble to get Washington to say yes, to figure out how to admit more than 200 military personal without passports or visas, and to recognize that the Mexican army, traditionally one of the most nationalistic and anti-American elements in the Mexican gvernment, was making an extraordinary gesture.

It worked. The 45-vehicle convoy crossed the border at Laredo at dawn on Sept. 8 and arrived in San Antonio later that day. The only glitch was that the USDA would not allow the Mexicans to serve the beef they had brought because they couldn’t prove it had been produced in a mad-cow-free facility. Undeterred — and un-insulted — the Mexicans bought their beef locally.

By the time their mission in San Antonio ended Sept. 25, the Mexicans had served 170,000 meals, helped distribute more than 184,000 tons of supplies and conducted more than 500 medical consultations.

  WaPo

h/t E Beane via Jean

Global Disaster Capitalism - Slow Death

The brutality of [Hurricane Katrina] became a slow death by decay. More than 100,000 people left NOLA with nothing and were scattered to the wind. They became the internal refugees of disaster capitalism. Within a year, the nice parts of town were fixed, while areas like the Lower 9th Ward became no-man’s land urban jungles. The vegetation took over the abandoned structures, creating a surreal landscape of rot and decay.

New Orleans is not alone in this disaster capitalism scheme. In 2010, our esteemed colleague Dady Chery started to write about the tragedy of her island, Haiti, after the earthquake. Once upon a time, the business model of this empire was to rebuild after either a man-made or a natural disaster. The Marshall Plan rebuilt Germany after World War II, and a similar program, headed by General McArthur was tailored to Japan.

The empire of disaster capitalism came up with a new business plan for the world: after the destruction, nothing really gets rebuilt. Haitians are still waiting for Godot and wondering who stole the money given to them by the international community. Godot has not visited Detroit, Michigan either. Godot will certainly not pay a visit to the ruins of Iraq and Syria, courtesy of disaster capitalism empire of chaos. What will it take for the countless victims of the managers of disaster-for-profit to come out of their lethargy? What will it take for them to emerge from their semi-comatose state engineered by the mainstream media on the payroll of disaster capitalism? Will it be a hurricane bigger than Katrina sweeping through the Gulf of Mexico and destroying the bulk of the oil rigs? Will it take the destruction of another country following the model of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria? Godot or a providential man will not come. People worldwide must understand that we have already entered a stage of general systemic failure, and that it is time for action, not for change of window dressing.

  Counterpunch

It does seem surreal living in a world that is crumbling down around us.  But, to be fair, many of the victims of disaster-for-profit are dead.  They won't be coming out of their lethargy any time soon or ever.

Will Brian Williams Have to Quit, Like Dan Rather Did?

After all, Dan was reporting something given to him; Brian was making up shit all on his own.

New Orleans residents who lived through hurricane Katrina remain grateful for NBC News anchor Brian Williams’ reporting from the city during and after the storm.

They just have doubts about some of it.

[...]

They shake their heads at Williams’ having said that he saw a body floating face-down outside his hotel. They say it is highly unlikely that Williams’ hotel was “overrun with gangs”, as the anchor has said. They say there was no dysentery, a disease Williams has said that he caught while he was in the city reporting, and that bottled water was plentiful in the area – despite Williams’ claims to the contrary.

“I saw one of his tapes last night. He said he was told not to drink bottled water in front of people because people would kill you for it?” said Dr Brobson Lutz, a former director of the New Orleans city health department who is a longtime resident of the French Quarter and who ran an EMS station there after the storm. “That’s absolutely hogwash.”

[...]

“The water that came from Lake Ponchartrain and all that, it was mucky, it was nasty-looking and all, but people didn’t go around drinking it. He said he mistakenly drank some of it, or somehow drank some of it – you’d have to be a fool to drink that water.”

[...]

“I felt something get dislodged that changes the usual arms-length relationship between me and the stories I cover,” Williams said. “These are Americans. These are my brothers and sisters. And one of them was floating by.”

[...]

“There were – most of the Quarter, I would say 95% of the quarter didn’t even get any floodwater,” said Lutz. “While there are some pictures of bodies floating around in parts of the more flooded areas of the city, there weren’t any bodies floating around the Quarter.”

[...]

The Advocate later published a second report that documented flooding around the Ritz-Carlton, one hotel where Williams is believed to have stayed, and acknowledged that “a number of bodies were recovered in that general area”.

BC News did not respond to several messages left seeking comment on Friday. Network president Deborah Turness, a former ITV executive, said in a memo to staff that an internal investigation was under way. “This has been a difficult few days for all of us at NBC News,” Turness said.

  Guardian

Awwww. So sad.

 

He's sure READY for some body-floating deep water anyway.