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Aurora
Newbie Poster
Username: Aurora
Post Number: 7
Registered: 04-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 02, 2006 - 11:42 am: | 
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Mayor tells New Orleans get off rears and rebuild
Thu Jun 1, 2006 8:15 PM ET
By Peter Henderson
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin told citizens of "The Big Easy" city to stand up and take destiny in their own hands as hurricane season opened on Thursday and he started his second term in office.
Nagin began the day in the high spirits typical of the jazz city, sweeping through the historic narrow streets of the French Quarter in a white horse-drawn carriage surrounded by brass bands and costumed Mardi Gras dancers on his way to be inaugurated for a second term.
The timing of the swearing-in was symbolic for many -- June 1 is the beginning of the hurricane season. One forecaster said New Orleans, still full of wastelands of houses twisted and destroyed by Hurricane Katrina last year, is the most likely major U.S. city to suffer a direct hit by a storm.
But in his inaugural speech, Nagin cast the battle for the city's future as a challenge for individuals rather than a question of government support or a waiting game with nature and exhorted the city of 'survivors' to rebuild.
"This is The Big Easy, and sometimes we lay back a little too much," he said.
"Get off your duffs," he said to shocked but welcoming laughter from a crowd that frequently broke into applause. "Control your own destiny ... We can do this," he added as members of the audience shouted back, "Yes!"
He urged the press to find the good things after Katrina.
Nagin also listed a litany of complaints, from damaged schools and lack of housing to a post-storm increase in crime, but he challenged residents to do for themselves rather than rely on federal, state or city leaders.
HURRICANE SEASON STARTS
Tens of thousands of people who were New Orleans residents before Katrina have not yet returned, and some of those left in the city voiced a mix of hope and fear about what loomed ahead in coming months.
"God is not going to be mean enough to give us another one," said fortuneteller Bruce Wilson, 58, sitting in a white straw hat outside St. Louis Cathedral before the early morning parade.
Inside the cathedral, religious leaders asked for divine support for Nagin's second term and called the disasters behind and possibly ahead a test of leadership and faith.
"We are a great city and a great people," boomed Rev. Michael Jacques. "We are not God's forgotten people."
Repairs have made the levees which broke and flooded the city nine months ago as good or better than before Katrina hit, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says.
The Corps built the defenses and was heavily criticized after the storm, which killed more that 1,500 in Louisiana, but city leaders have been more complimentary of late of the engineers' dash to complete repairs.
"This will probably be the safest place on the Gulf Coast at the end of the day," Nagin said.
Antique salesman John Hmurcik, 55, said he was not so confident about repairs. "It all boils down to the levees," he said. "We're all kind of tense, of course."
But he said the parade showed the Mississippi River city's nature. "It is not unusual for New Orleans to celebrate, even in hard times," he said.
Although jobs appear plentiful in some sectors, the massive destruction of housing limits who can return. Many are still repairing houses.
One is Chef Nathedra White, 35, who lives in a trailer while rebuilding. She might not come back to her native New Orleans if it takes another direct hit. "I don't know if I'm going to stay here or leave forever," she said.
(Additional reporting by Laura L. Myers in Florida)
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© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2230
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 02, 2006 - 11:53 am: |
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He better hope they don't get off their duffs and assasinate him.
He would not be the first Louisiana politician to die violently in office. |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 560
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 02, 2006 - 12:03 pm: |
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Nagin is a joke. If this is how he's starting his new mayoral term, it doesn't look very promising.
Anyway, I don't know what to think about this situation. In a way I want the people to return and rebuild, but when you hear the news that the city is sinking and you realize that the levee failures and the floods could happen again - it seems like a bad idea to want to live there. |
Moonsigns
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Moonsigns
Post Number: 1163
Registered: 07-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 02, 2006 - 12:44 pm: |
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"he challenged residents to do for themselves rather than rely on federal, state, or city leaders."
Moonsigns:
Once again, politician Nagin is quick to exonerate himself.
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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2233
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 02, 2006 - 03:19 pm: |
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Just like President Bush, the Governor, Brownie, and everybody else involved with the mess including those good white folks down there who shot at the black people who tried to make their way across the bridge on foot, driving them back into that hell hole.
Nagin reminds you of somebody you hate, don't he Greencheese? |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 2600
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 03, 2006 - 11:48 am: |
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***"New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin told citizens of 'The Big Easy' city to stand up and take destiny in their own hands..."***
"Get off your duffs... Control your own destiny ... We can do this"
---Mayor Ray Nagin.
. . . . . .
Beautiful. A black man letting his people know that they can and should take responsibility for their own lives - a breath of fresh air! Plus he realizes that New Orleanians rebuilding its city means some of that money will go where it should: his people. God bless his heart. I wish all black republicans were like him. He IS a republican, isn't he? Oh well, if he is, he’s gotten me to think that maybe I'm a republican too. Taking control of one's own destiny, along with fighting inequality, is seriously talking my language. The former doesn't get expressed as often as I'd like though, so maybe I need to check out what these black republicans are all about... see if they can do away with some of that hillbilly bullshit. Maybe build on some of what they seem to have right. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2237
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 03, 2006 - 11:52 am: |
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Tonya:
The Republicans don't want you. They don't want you to vote for them and they don't want it known that you are one (they probably will take your money, but unless it is at least $50,000 you won't get nothing for it)
Sorry. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 2603
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 03, 2006 - 11:59 am: |
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I ain't say Republicans; I said BLACK Republicans.... Nagin got me thinking maybe they are different.... He's cool AND responsible--I like that. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 2604
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 03, 2006 - 12:06 pm: |
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Oh, I did say Republicans. My bad, I meant Black Republicans. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 4637
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 05, 2006 - 05:42 pm: |
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Am I the only one who must fight the urge to refer to dude as Ray Nigga? |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2241
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 06, 2006 - 04:10 pm: |
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There was a time when you had some descent Republicans--what they referred to as the Rockefeller wing. Ed Brooke. Everett Dirksen. Charles Percy. John Lindsay.
That was before all the Dixiecrats fled to the Republican Party in the sixties.
Now they are the National White People's Party--you cannot be a Black Republican unless you hate black people. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 2609
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 06, 2006 - 05:25 pm: |
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It's "The White People's Party" ONLY because white people vote Republican. They do not own the party nor its ideology. That party, like any party, pays homage to its biggest voting blocks; e.g., the Hispanics are part owner now.
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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1028
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 07, 2006 - 09:23 am: |
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Good point, Tonya. Wouldn't it be wild if the best thing for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party was a strong and vocal African American Republican voting block? Not saying I would sign up, mind you--my activist ancestors would not only roll over in their graves but get up outta them to come kick my behind.
But it would be interesting. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2248
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 07, 2006 - 03:36 pm: |
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If you go over there and the Republicans start doing stuff for black folks, the racists will go back to the Democrats and become the leading voting bloc over there.
We once voted Republican before 1932. The Black Republicans say we went Democrat because Marse Roosevelt was giving us relief (which he wasn't--blacks had to force him to do that) but it was because Republicans had taken us for granted for so long.
You cannot win because they don't want you to. The only thing blacks could do is become at least 20% of the electorate. 33% would be better. Then we could become a power bloc and rule---
At 12% or less--you can only do it locally-- |
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