Utterly shocked, again

[louiselux]

Checking americablog this morning and this stopped my heart: Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith are reporting that the authorities have locked everyone in the convention center with no escape, and a checkpoint is stopping people from leaving New Orleans.

Oh my god. The video of their Fox news report from inside the Superdome is hosted on crooks and liars - it's harrowing. From what I understand it's also shocking that it's *Geraldo* and on Fox news, too. After the crying and the ranting, the anchor had the gall to say to one of them 'but let's get a perspective on this', to the reply 'this *is* the perspective'.

eta: Guardsmen halt evacuation at Superdome - also leave me pretty much speechless. A funny/terrible quote from someone still in there: "I don't want to go to no Astrodome. I've been domed almost to death."

Comments

[karose.livejournal.com]

"Well greed is a bottomless pit
And our freedom's a joke, we're just taking the piss
And the whole world must watch the sad comic display
If you're still free start running away."

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

.. except there's nowhere to go. I can't imagine what it's like being American right now. It's hard enough watching it all from over here.

[whimsy-chan.livejournal.com]

It's even worse when some self-righteous asshole starts going on about the people who "chose" not to leave NOLA when the call to evacuate went out. Excuse me, but New Orleans has a lot of very poor people living there--I'm sure they wanted to get out, but they simply did not have the means to. And even if they had the money and the mobility to just up and leave, where would they go?

[karose.livejournal.com]

I'd assumed I was embarassed to be an American for going on four years now, but I hadn't had any idea how much further it could go.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

I didn't meant to slam your country in any way. It's just Bush and his slimy cohort-- well, surely he's finished now, even if it might not feel like that. The rest of the world has seen him spring to *no action* and is judging him right now on television and in print, justifiably, as a failure. America is a great place and it has the potential and the drive to pull itself back together, and I'm sure it will.

[karose.livejournal.com]

I disagree. I think amnesia will settle in again and Bush will carry on as he has, and our anger will fall on deaf ears just as before. This is a pit we're getting sucked into and I've no idea what to do for it but just get the hell out while I can. Someone please fucking nuke us. It'll be a mercy killing.

...I'm being too harsh, though. No, I hold my fellow countryman in high esteem, since the average civilian is doing more than our great fearless leaders are. But we're still trapped, and the apathy is just waiting to sink back in.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

God, hang in there. I don't know what to say and it's not much, but you have *all* my sympathies. I'm thinking of you, if that helps or not. Lx