Chocolate city

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Seeker


Life vs "Escape from New York"?

You have to be careful about lying around me. I tend to have a good memory for things people say which I find suspicious.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


You have to be careful about lying around me. I tend to have a good memory for things people say which I find suspicious.

me too

KH, go get 'em

Just 'cause someone says its soft serve chocolate..

DONT mean its Ice Cream

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Sava

Nagin is the mayor of a city and you expect him to save everyone with 100 buses?

no one expects him to save everyone with 100 buses.

[Barinthus]

I just had to say this - that picture Sava posted in the first page of this thread

Just precious!

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Barinthus
I just had to say this - that picture Sava posted in the first page of this thread

Just precious!

Yeah and I had my picture removed of a belly button depicting a butthole on Homer Simpson

Thats why I couldnt figure out why this was allowed, in addition to negative racial slurs by someone in this post, I just knew a Moderator would say due to racial slurs being thrown around that Mr T eating a white man's Bunghole out would be considered somewhat offensive but then again, Grandpa Trolls Humor is not that great and in addition I dont have Special Moderator Insight into what is and is not appropriate

[mrmitchell]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Weren't you the one who claimed that you had fought a pitched battle with "gang bangers" in post-Katrina NO and that your unit had "killed over 30 of them"?

Didn't we, after a week had passed, find out that all such news was completely fabricated? Doesn't that mean that you were either:

a) Lying your ass off about your experiences there or
b) Lying about being there with the National Guard at all

In what thread did "we...find out that all such news was completely fabricated"? I missed that part

[KrazyHorse]

Uhhh...you needed a thread?

There were a couple of shootings by police and NG units which had come under fire. Total of maybe 3 or 4 dead suspects.

Certainly no running gun battles, and not 40 dead (in all of NO, never mind by a single unit), though such rumours were being widely circulated at the time.

But you're free to go look up how many shootings actually occurred if you want to.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Weren't you the one who claimed that you had fought a pitched battle with "gang bangers" in post-Katrina NO and that your unit had "killed over 30 of them"?

Didn't we, after a week had passed, find out that all such news was completely fabricated? Doesn't that mean that you were either:

a) Lying your ass off about your experiences there or
b) Lying about being there with the National Guard at all

Hmm, even rereading the quote I don't see where I ever claimed to be in a pitched battle with gang bangers, although I did state members from my unit had been.

And yes all that info is true, I don't have any idea what your basing your concept that any of that info was fabricated on (okay, obviously your source of knowledge is television).

I have no idea what the actually number of dead were on the Gangbanger side was for the whole time period as my squad rotated out of that area and was reassigned to a real cushy job riding with Jefferson Parish sheriff's deputies after that in Metarie.

Feel free to base your entire concept of reality on television as I find it interesting to discover that's where your knowledge comes from.

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
There were a couple of shootings by police and NG units which had come under fire. Total of maybe 3 or 4 dead suspects.

You really do have your head in the sand!
3 or 4? I'm not going to argue with your TV facts since its obviously useless to compare hard date to your TV facts.

Let's try logic (and I'll just hope you're not a liberal or socialist so that logic may work). Initially a lot of the people who stayed behind did so because they expected to be able to loot some stuff once the power went out. That happens in almost every natural disaster that hits a major city. In the early stages the gangmembers attacked and burned down one of the police stations in Crescent City. A large contingent of the New Orleans police force quit stating that the situation was to dangerous for them.

In all of that, you honestly believe only 3-4 people died? I don't know what the normal stats for New Orleans are pre-Katrina, but I suspect more than 3-4 people died in police vs criminal attentions weekly if not on a daily basis. And yet you firmly believe only 3-4 people died in the weeks after Katrina took out the municipality?

Certainly no running gun battles, and not 40 dead (in all of NO, never mind by a single unit), though such rumours were being widely circulated at the time.

Once again your completely twisting what I did say and trying to make in to something different. I said the forces on our side killed over 40 gangbangers. Not my unit. The most I can imagine my unit being responsible for is maybe 3-4 and all of those would have been after many precautions we would take had failed and would have happened in the course of our going house to house looking for loot stashes, dead bodies, and injured "displaced citizens". I guess its hard for someone like you to understand but I don't want to be anywhere near a place where I might have to get fired upon. The night the Airborne, SWAT teams, and Marine Battalions went up against the gangbangers we (my unit) were on the extreme perimeter as part of the containment if any of the opposing force were to break out and try to get away. No moron would have sent a bunch of National Guard soldiers into a combat situation like that with no body armor and only the equipment issued by their state military department.

[Impaler[WrG]]

My understanding of the situation is as follows...

The wealthier/older/whiter parts of New Orleans are built on the High Ground. The Poorer/new/blacker portions are built on low lying ground sometimes below sealevel.

Hence the flooding/damage/deaths were worst in black neiborhoods. The rebuilding is going very very slowly if at all in these areas (in all honesty the land should never have been developed in the first place).

Most of the cities white residents have returned to and repaired their relativly undamaged homes. Huge numbers of blacks are still outside the city in shelters across the country. Thouse that have come back dont realy have any money to rebuild with and city services haven't reached their neiborhoods.

The result is that a city that used to be predominently Black pre-Katrina is now a white majority city. Blacks ofcorse are convinced this is a conspiracy to exclude them from rebuilding so they wont return and hence "white wash" the city.

Nagan was speaking a rally of said angry black residents and was reasuring them that New Orleans would retain its "chocolate" demographic. In otherwords everyone would be assisted in returning to the city, which he has repeatedly urged as since the wind speed droped below 40 mph. Its in Nagans interest to see any many black residents return to the City because he needs their votes to remain in office.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
My understanding of the situation is as follows...

The wealthier/older/whiter parts of New Orleans are built on the High Ground. The Poorer/new/blacker portions are built on low lying ground sometimes below sealevel.

The old area of the original settlement is on high ground and it was virtually untouched. This would be the French Quarter, and the new area Nagin was transforming such as the Convention Center and what not. That's also the area FEMA and the relief forces initially operated from.

As for poorer/wealthier, New Orleans is really a hodge podge in that regards. There were areas with really nice homes and less than a block later really poor homes. Sorta checkboarded all over the place. The area around the Superdome was pretty much what looked to be a large are of lower income. It was a high rise housing project in that area that the gangbangers made their last stand in.

The rebuilding is going very very slowly if at all in these areas (in all honesty the land should never have been developed in the first place).

Totally agree. The sheer magnitude of the damage and widespread area affected lead me to doubt that it will be done anytime soon. To rebuild the levees to the level they were pre-Katrina is a process that will take over a year and maybe more. So what happens next hurricane season?

Most of the cities white residents have returned to and repaired their relativly undamaged homes. Huge numbers of blacks are still outside the city in shelters across the country. Thouse that have come back dont realy have any money to rebuild with and city services haven't reached their neiborhoods.

The result is that a city that used to be predominently Black pre-Katrina is now a white majority city. Blacks ofcorse are convinced this is a conspiracy to exclude them from rebuilding so they wont return and hence "white wash" the city.

If their houses were not in Orleans parish or St Bernard parish then yes, they were in fairly decent shape compared to those two parishes. Keep in mind that most of those houses look fine (although extremely dirty) on the outside but the water was over 20 feet deep for a considerable amount of time in Orleans and St Bernard. The water sat there with all the trash and sewage in it and for that time period there wasn't any "flow of water" it was all sitting there like a big bowl (although it did sorta ebb towards the pumps that were pumping it into Ponchatrain). One of the more interesting things I noticed was that there was a "water line" on the trees and hedges. The leaves above the line were green and alive but everything below the line was dead.

Nagan was speaking a rally of said angry black residents and was reasuring them that New Orleans would retain its "chocolate" demographic. In otherwords everyone would be assisted in returning to the city, which he has repeatedly urged as since the wind speed droped below 40 mph. Its in Nagans interest to see any many black residents return to the City because he needs their votes to remain in office.

They were doing this BEFORE I left, and even the local police officers we patrolled with were talking about how Nagan needed to get the black residents back to get himself reelected. Their view was that Nagan seemed to be an intelligent candidate but changed his persona to match the "poor welfare trash" that had the most votes when the election came around. Those are their views and words not mine, I wasn't there before Katrina so I have no idea what happened before the hurricane.

There were lots and lots of buses unused. There were entire parking lots full of school buses. When they say they had 100 buses, their talking about the transit buses. FEMA was all over them about why they didn't think to use the school buses. The Governor and Mayor just didn't seem to grasp that they could have used school buses.

But once again, it wouldn't have made a difference. The citizens didn't want to leave. The first two weeks we were trying to talk them into leaving but their mentality was that they would just ride it out until the utilites were back on. We would try to talk them into leaving but they just didn't want to go. By the time Rita came in, everyone had left though. I think reality finally hit them by that point and they realized another hurricane wasn't going to help matters for them.


As far as the racial make up, I think New Orleans will be heavily hispanic after this. The lower income African Americans were shipped out but when the business owners came back they didn't have any employees anymore. The construction crews mass imported workers from Latin America (Guatamala, Venezuala, etc) and they seemed ecstatic to work for virtually nothing. I doubt the people who brought them there are going to foot the bill to send them back though and I suspect many of them are in New Orleans to stay whether they realize it or not. The last few weeks I was there was patroling the clubs and newly reopened areas and easily 80% of the disturbances were related to these imported latino workers.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Sava
And the President isn't responsible for the Federal Government.

Has he ever been?

[mrmitchell]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Uhhh...you needed a thread?

There were a couple of shootings by police and NG units which had come under fire. Total of maybe 3 or 4 dead suspects.

Certainly no running gun battles, and not 40 dead (in all of NO, never mind by a single unit), though such rumours were being widely circulated at the time.

But you're free to go look up how many shootings actually occurred if you want to.

This is why I asked for proof...it's obvious that Ghengis overestimated the shootings at that time, which is a forgivable mistake given the atmosphere of the whole thing, and you underestimate the total, which is almost a forgivable mistake if you weren't trying to fry someone over it.

[StarLightDeath]

Has he ever been?

Aren't you supposed to be busy fighting for a cause that nobody cares about?

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by mrmitchell


This is why I asked for proof...it's obvious that Ghengis overestimated the shootings at that time, which is a forgivable mistake given the atmosphere of the whole thing, and you underestimate the total, which is almost a forgivable mistake if you weren't trying to fry someone over it.

There were more than 40 for that one instance. I never saw it posted on the news (mind you I had no access to news at this point as we were constantly on the move and our base camps consisted of a roving guard perimeter and us sleeping in our trucks and on the ground) and I'm not all that sure that it ever will at this point considering how MUCH stuff was covered up and whitewashed.

Did they really have the authority to use full Battalions of Marine assault forces to assault local gangs once they had corraled them into a specific area? At the time the mood of the soldiers (Marines, Airborne, National Guard) was of the "let's kill em all, let God sort em out" mentality and I can assure you they had no shortage of volunteers eager to get into this operation. Most of the people in my squad wanted to be on the main force (not me mind you, I was perfectly content to stay on the perimeter and out of the gunfire).

The situation was, they had pretty much unlimited resources including a very large number of Marines, National Guardsmen, and the 82 Airborne. They had Assault vehicles (which the Marines had traveled there in), assault helicopters, thermal and infared survelance equipment, and the ability to lock the media completely out of the area in which the conflict would take place.

My dead count of 40+ is based on the S1 reports that were called over the radio during the night while we were on the perimeter. That's about the only thing I consider remotely reliable as any other info would have come from personnel/soldiers they may/or may not have been there. And I think the info from the S1 reports swould have been fairly reliable.

Why was it not in the public media? I don't know. I had assumed it would have been. I had heard from local police officers that they had sent lists/descriptions of local gang members to all the areas the refugees were sent off to when the evacuated the city and that many of them were either taken into custody or observed to see if they might lead them to other gang members. But that was just heresay from my standpoint. It's possible they wanted the members who had left to come back, its possible they didn't want any fallout from civilian authorities for their actions.

Its also possible there was collateral damage from the operation and they didn't want to take fall out for that. I can only speculate and comment on the info I came in contact with and the events I was a part of.

There was a lot that happened in New Orleans that has been covered up afterwards. There were a lot more dead than the media reported. I have no idea what the final number is but I saw more dead bodies recovered from the water than their final official toll. And I seriously doubt I saw all of them so there would be substantial more than that, I'm sure.

And any rational person would realize that. I mean a city of this size, buried in 20 feet of water in a matter of hours, and there's a very low death toll? I'm really amazed at how much people really trust their television programs to give them 100% accurate information.

Before this I took all the television news with a grain of salt realizing that they all had some element of the reporter's bias in them. But towards the end of our deployment in New Orleans when we had access to the news channels, I was really shocked at how inaccurate the news was. Some of it was far too downplayed, some was far too sensationalized, and some of it was just flat out made up or not reported. Thinking back, that Wall Street Journal reporter was the only one I ever saw outside the one street media strip in the French Quarter. We came across a lot of PETA types trying to rescue or feed deserted pets (quite a few of these volunteers from Sweden too) but no media personnel.

[Caligastia]

Mmm...chocolate.