BIG EASY TO BIG EMPTY: The Untold Story of the Drowning on New Orleans

As Reported by Greg Palast

On August 22, 2006, reporter Greg Palast and producer Matt Pascarella were charged with criminal violations of the anti-terror laws by the Department of Homeland Security while making BIG EASY TO BIG EMPTY. And there is no doubt, this film is dangerous  to the regime of Washington.

Here is the real story of Hurricane Katrina you won't get on CNN. You'll follow investigative reporter Palast ("a cross between Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes"  Jim Hightower) as he travels to New Orleans to investigate what has happened since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. On his visit, Palast discovers the population of New Orleans is minuscule, the reconstruction sparse, suicide rates climbing, and that many citizens have not, nor do they even know how to return to the city that care forgot. Palast exposes how:

The White House would not tell the state police that the levees of the city were about to burst and drown the disabled residents left behind.
How poor residents of the city were marched out of their houses at gunpoint-and now kept out by barbed wire in a scheme to turn New Orleans into a whiter, more Republican tourist town, "Six Flags Over Louisiana."

Palast takes you inside the offices of the political cronies of the Bush Administration who planned the evacuation  until he's thrown out by perps. You'll get a look inside FEMA's "Guantanamo on wheels" for Katrina survivors.

Buy the DVD from Disinfo.com








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Is this all because New Orelans was part of the JFK story? Did that help seal its fate along with its Democrat credentials?

Hegelianism wheels within wheels.

Awesome video.

The fact bush, fema, and the corps knew the levies burst and didn't tell anyone should put them all in front of a firing squad.

I lived there for six years, everyone in the city knew the system was screwed,that the levies would not hold, well I guess everyone I knew was aware of this. On May 20th 1995, I stepped out of my apartment on Magazine street and watched cars and refrigerators floating by. That was just a rain storm, and I was on the highest ground in the city.

For my last year there I was making great money, living in a shack of an apartment on low rent, saving every dollar to get out, because I knew investing there was a terrible idea, I didn't have a car, so yeah..how was I going to leave?

What Craig said about getting people out of the projects is true. They had plans to demolish all the projects for the entire time I was there and years after.

After I left, rents in New Orleans went from $300 for a one bedroom to $1200!
Now through supply and demand those same hovels are even more expensive.

Insanely my friend sold her home on Magazine street for $500,000 in CASH, AFTER Katrina, she bought the place only fourteen years earlier for $60,000.

She survived the storm, lost 1/3 of her roof, was told by the NOPD to go ahead into Wal mart and take whatever she needed they weren't stopping anyone, they were just there to get water.

A person I knew, John Rambo (yeah really), his whole family got wiped out, eight people I think, because the grandmother was too old to travel. He looked more like Jesus than anyone I've ever met that looked like Jesus.

So know exactly what were the charges against Craig Palast by homeland security?
What critical infrastructure did he film? The trailer park?

Speaking of which I guess there is some truth to the "Fema concentration camps" after all.

Well, yes terrible to see what happened in New Orleans.

I am v spiritual and am an avid blues music lover and for about a month I couldn't listen to my favorite blues music cos I would start getting too angry. The spirits weren't happy about what happened. Well, that is my view on it, even though it is paranormal.

Heh, for months after I was reading everything I could on New Orleans.

It was like a piece of myself was stabbed and I wanted to find the wound and the fingerprints on the blade, and then put it in the eye of whoever stuck it in my buttocks.

reply to post by Legalizer

Where the hell are the politically astute and well healed backers for such efforts?
It seems to me we should not have to pay for counter propaganda any more than we pay for the crap the media spews....
Its pretty damn obvious that a lot of innocent black and white POOR FOLKS paid the Katrina price with their lives....
It is also obvious that the western world is slipping into a series of vassal states ALL including America, are slaves to the Corporate Agenda......
This agenda does not include the values and compassion which theoretically, at least, has dominated the moral fiber of those nations populaces........up to now.....
The clever insideous use of television and advertising (as well as possible electronic and chemical mind controls of nationwide scales[ie. flouridated water, legal perscription proliferation]has dumbed us down enough for the next level of control.
This round of enslavement is well under way....the patriot acts and other laws have efectively stripped the human and God given rights deemed inalienable bylaw,up to now.....
The medias are in total coprporate control, and the censorship of our news is complete....through less obvious but no less effective means.
The marriage between the Corporate-Goverments-and their militaries is solid and near complete.
The stage is set and the curtain is about to lift, as we hear the strains of the overtures to war and even stricter controls of our lives and freedom sounding loud and clear from every side.....
I am sure that very shocking information, and even more maddening revelations of information(of which i can well envision by now,)await me when i finally get to see this vital piece if counter propaganda.
It may well stir me to a few weeks of thoughts of revolution and justice,
even more urgent than the ones i have suffered since learning the difference between right and wrong.....but ........
I am not going to pay for it!
This advert(which is what the post really is,a blatant invasion of my attention and time)actually POs me as much as the neo con stuff.
The true facts are that this is an industry just like the Gov. propaganda industry, and the info should be available Gratis, and shouted from the rooftops....by every citzen who still gives a damn about the morality and the principals on which our supposed Democracies are founded.
No thanks,
I think ill save the price of being told what i probably have surmised from the available free information ive already gleaned from the internet(the only voice that free thinking peopels have left)-and invest the savings in another box of shells....
The time for a complete overhaul of our systems of government and commerce, is about ready to dawn.
Let those with the spare cash buy these things and comment to each other on them, or spread them around....call me when you actually want to organise to DO something beside make money off our misery....................Youll Freedom loving brothers and sisters in my country too.....ready and anxious to get to work on it.
bergle

Originally posted by DogHead
Is this all because New Orleans was part of the JFK story?

In my opinion, the last 30 to 40 years of the corporate-rightwing-proto-fascist political swing in this country is a result of the JFK story. If he was offed by the hardcore rightwing of his day, it's kinda creepy to see that a lot of those folks, and/or their direct political heirs, are the ones in power now, and except for the blip of a populist but failed Carter, and a populist but infuriatingly successful (to them) Clinton, they've been pretty much in control of the rudder of this ship of state, ever since...

My theory is, they have to keep political control at all costs, because to lose it would risk being marginalized and then scrutinized with impunity, and then the truth of JFK et. al. might then be unearthed, and at the very least, their political heritage would be destroyed for decades, and at the most, folks would be imprisoned...

In other words, they went through the rabbit hole, and they're committed to their strategy of lie to cover up lie to cover up lie, etc., ad infinitum...

I'm shocked.

This video has blown my mind away and words cannot express the deep anger I now feel.

my god........i am ATS as long as god allows me money to access.

this is pure evil.......pure evil...

i have always loved amy goodman.....she's class!!!!

Has anyone else read Greg Palast's book Armed Madhouse? It's the book that the University of Florida man was holding when he was tasered for asking John Kerry a few questions at his college. It's a good book. And here's the link of the kid getting tasered (lol): Student Tasered

[edit on 3-10-2008 by Shocka]

[The true facts are that this is an industry just like the Gov. propaganda industry, and the info should be available Gratis, and shouted from the rooftops....by every citzen who still gives a damn about the morality and the principals on which our supposed Democracies are founded.
No thanks,
I think ill save the price of being told what i probably have surmised from the available free information ive already gleaned from the internet(the only voice that free thinking peopels have left)-and invest the savings in another box of shells....
The time for a complete overhaul of our systems of government and commerce, is about ready to dawn. ]

I totally agree with you ....VERY WELL SAID >..
Star for ya ...

reply to post by AboveTopSecret.com
Execellent video and it proves what I have been ranting about the past couple years I've been posting on ATS.

Again our 43rd President turned his back on the people of New Orleans and handed the "clean up" over to one of his many corporate contributors.

If we are going to have a honest government let the officials WORK FOR THE PEOPLE NOT THE CORPORATIONS. This means NO - NONE - NADA - ZERO campaign monies should come from corporations or people that head corporations.

The reason America is finding herself in such a mess is because we are now run by the large corporations and the American people are just now starting to wake up and figure this out.

What kind of evacuation plan would leave 127,000 to sink or swim? It turns out that the Bush administration had contracted out evacuation planning to a corporation, IEM, Innovative Emergency Management. I couldn’t locate their qualifications, but I did locate their list of donations to the Republican Party. We went to Baton Rouge to talk to them.

These are the offices of Innovative Emergency Management. They were the ones that were paid a half-million bucks to come up with an emergency evacuation plan for the city of New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina. One problem is, I can’t find the plan. So I’m coming here to ask them about it.

So when I showed up at their office, they would only talk to me from behind a glass wall. By phone.

Did you in fact come up with a plan, because it says it’s urgent to come up with a plan? Did you come up—can you just tell me if you came up with a plan or not? I’m just happy to talk to you one-on-one. You’re probably about 12 feet away from me. Or somewhere. I don’t know, are you hiding in this office somewhere? I’m happy to speak to you face-to-face

We can’t find your plan—neither can FEMA—that you were paid a half-million dollars for, that at least claimed to here. We can’t find this plan. And it’s kind of a problem. I guess it’s kind of hard to evacuate a city, if you can’t find the plan itself.

IEM EMPLOYEE: Can we—she’s got a lot of experience in evacuation.

GREG PALAST: Is it more true that maybe it was helpful that she gave a lot of donations to the Republican Party? Maybe that’s the experience?

IEM EMPLOYEE: Terry?

TERRY AT IEM: Yes.

GREG PALAST: So that’s when they called in the guards.

IEM SECURITY GUARD: Security has been called. We ask that you please leave the building now.

GREG PALAST: So, quickly, before security gets here, I just want to tell you that this is Innovative Emergency Management, and it’s very innovative not to have a plan to manage an emergency.

BROD BAGERT: Ongoing protection that should have been occurring was done—it was done negligently. Not only wrong, negligently. And not only negligently, but reckless negligence, the kind of negligence for which an individual would be indicted, prosecuted, tried, convicted, and spend their life in jail. Negligence that killed people, lots of people. Reckless negligence that killed human beings. Old ladies watched the water come up to their nose, over their eyes, and they drowned in houses just like this in this neighborhood, because of reckless negligence that’s unanswered for.

www.democracynow.org...

IEM Contributed to George Bush Jr.'s Republican Campaign. When you're one of the "good old boy's you're above the law.

In order to make our government officials work for us the American People they should not be allowed to accept any monies or gifts from corporations. What happened in Katrina proves my point and it's only one incident out of many where it shows clearly who is running America.

[edit on 19-11-2008 by ofhumandescent]

reply to post by AboveTopSecret.com


America needs to wake up and realize that BUSH and his administration was the worst leadership this country has ever had. They have no concept
what this country needs and what They succeeded in was bringing it to its
knees for the past 8 years. This Country will take a lifetime to heal, given
the right path and leadership, there will always be HOPE. I hope that
when George Bush looks back and even thinks He was a good President,
He acually sees the truth and realizes He was'ent.