New Orleans Veterans for Peace
New Orleans Native, Veteran, and Founder of what evolved into the Arabi Wrecking Krewe talks about the grass roots rebuilding of New Orleans, the mistreatment of US war veterans, and the collapsed levees.
Click for more about the Arabi Wrecking Krewe
Video produced by New Orleans Voices for Peace
and help us spread the word about New Orleans
January 13th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
What a wonderful representative of the City of New Orleans!
Like so many people from that area, his knowledge, dedication,
and spirit are what keeps that great city alive and made America
what it used to be.
Kill the corporate stronghold… and put this guy in charge.
thanks,
gill
January 25th, 2007 at 9:34 am
This man is a true voice for America.
February 3rd, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I write to you from Canada to thank you for this great interview. I especially liked his statement “WAR IS THE ULTIMATE PERVERSION” which sums it all up. Wonderful!
Here is a You Tube song you too might like:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=itXKPKaCWbw
February 3rd, 2007 at 11:29 pm
When I was a child my grandparents generation had two large beach houses at Carolina Beach near Wilmington, North Carolina. After hurricane Hazel in 1953 I saw that the storm had totally cleared away houses and piers for miles in both directions, though our cottages survived because we had piled a sand barrier in front of ours. One of my great uncles was a bit of a black sheep in the family. Mother said that she did not know exactly why he was looked down on by the others, something over money he had mishandled many years before, but she said that he was obviously irresponsible, because his home, was at the beach. Our family had been in North Carolina and Virginia since Jamestown, and everyone knew that it was stupid to put your home, all your possessions, that close to the coast, since sooner or later a hurricane woud surely take it all away. That was only a matter of time. Responsible, sane people did not live there year-round; only riff raff who didn’t have good sense would live right on the coast, or newcomers who had never seen what a hurricane could do. I do not think you should blame the rest of the country for being reluctant to invest billions to keep New Orleans, a below-sea-level city, in business when sooner or later a hurricane will wipe it out again. Now, at a time when we know the sea level is going to rise in coming decades, this is especially questionable. If party people and jazz musicians want to live on the edge in such an iffy place, that is their business, but the rest of us should not be asked to bail them out and guarantee their future safety with massive construction projects. Has no one ever read the fable of the grasshopper and the ant? We all should have known that this was coming sooner or later.
In late October 2001 I was in Islamabad Pakistan sitting at a table with several retired military officers who had all spent considerable time working for United Nations Demining Programs in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The men were from Canada, Australia, and Britain. I was the only American and the only one without a military background, though I had considerable experience in Afghanistan and I had been in Iraq. The leader of our group came in that evening and announced that he had been talking with someone official in Washington, and the USA was definitely going to invade and occupy both Iraq and Afghanistan. After the hoots of derision and profanity died down, we settled into serious discussion. The unanamous concensus was that civil war would be the immediate and unavoidable consequence of destroying the Sunni, minority control over Iraq, and everyone knew enough history to know that the Afghans had driven out major western armies three times during the last two centuries, once recently.
The small majority of investors who own the weapons industry, construction industry, and the media are not concerned to prevent fiascos like Iraq or New Orleans, for they make billions from such messes. As long as the same corporations who get rich from war and disaster also control the news, books, films, and congressmen we see, we are not likely to make wiser choices. No experts in Middle Eastern and Central Asian history would have advocated the course Amerians have taken there, and no climatologist would recommend building a city on the site of New Orleans. This anti-intellectual climate Americans cultivate comes at a price.
February 4th, 2007 at 4:08 am
Thanks.
Here’s one for you…
The second one from the top:
http://foodmusicjustice.com/2007/01/17/esther-sparks-live-in-new-orleans/
February 4th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
The video link was in response to Costa.
(By the way, I’m Ken McCarthy, the publisher of FoodMusicJustice.com, not “wordpress.”)
To Luke: I can one-up your Islamabad story. I knew there were US special forces operations already taking place in Afghanistan in the spring of 2001 - six months before 9/11. None of us could figure out why at the time.
About the “brotherhood” of weapons/construction company owners (like the bin Ladens and the Bush family), quite right.
They LOVE war and disaster and when there isn’t one handy, they’ll take active steps to create it. Watch their long term project (which George Bush Sr helped kicked off) of turning China into a well funded, well armed shooting adversary. Just like Bush Sr’s father did for the Nazis.
Now, about your comments about New Orleans “riff raff”, party people and jazz musicians. You left out loose women. Can’t forget them.
Seriously, if New Orleans is in the wrong place so is Tokyo, Los Angeles, Miami, the south shore of Long Island, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa (heck all of Florida)…and on and on it goes.
In it’s prime, New Orleans gave New York harbor a run for its money as the busiest port in the US. It’s still of overwhelming strategic importance - unless you decide the heartland doesn’t need access to the Gulf any more. The city exists where it does for a reason, not just as an outpost for the profligate and foolish.
Restoring the oil company-devestated wetlands of Southern Louisiana and building levees that befit a modern city in a developed country would spare New Orleans 90% of the risk it faces.
(But I agree that those sushi-eating idiots in Tokyo and latte swigging morons in Seattle are going to get what they deserve if THEY ever have a bigger-than-life catastrophe. Note the the literal minded: I am being sarcastic.)
As for levees, if you like eating fruits and vegetables, we all better hope that California addresses its failing levee program before there is castrophe in the Central Valley that makes New Orleans look like a tea dance.
We put roofs over our heads so when it rains we don’t get wet. We don’t move to places where it never rains to insure we stay dry all our lives.
Like it or not, if you live on this planet, there’s a target on your back so you might as well live, within reason, the way you want to. And if there are large supplies of jazz musicians and loose women handy, all the better.
February 4th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
The Video was produced by New Orleans Voices For Peace, not Veterans For Peace. Founders of New Orleans Voices For Peace are same members of Veterans For Peace that started the relief camps in Covington, LA and Land O Oines Campground.
We supported Food Not Bombs, and other peace activists efforts in New Orleans, LA, Mobile Ala, and Waveland Miss by providing camping space, rental housing, food, and fuel for volunteer vehicles. Later on in the relief effort, Veterans For Peace got out of direct relief efforts and started funding other organizations like, Common Ground relief, SOS after Katrina, Plenty International, United Peace Relief, and Food Not Bombs.
New Orleans Voices For Peace was started to document the efforts of these partnerships. After 17 months much has changed and much has remained the same. But wht will never change is history. Documenting the stories of the people whoo suffered and those that showed up to provide relief is a honor and a privilage. If you have more stories about the people who were here from the start, go to http://www.neworleansvfp.org and sign up for an account. Its is free, and has limited restrictions on what you can post.
February 9th, 2007 at 7:07 am
There will be more New Orleans disasters if America doesn’t wake up and stop this nonsense of letting leaders lead us the wrong way. The people should not follow their leaders, they should make their leaders follow them; the media and defense contractors (some of which are owned by the same parent companies) are motivated by greed not love of mankind. Unless you’re getting a piece of the pie, you have no excuses. Ignorance isn’t a valid excuse. And if you are getting a piece of the pie, is it really worth it?