Gentilly Girl- a part of the 99%

September 12, 2007

Foster Campbell for Governor…

Filed under: Louisiana,Politicians — Tags: , — Morwen Madrigal @ 2:46 pm

Alright, I will admit to constantly backing dark horses when it comes to elections: maybe it’s because I celebrate the differences rather than the commonalities when it comes to governance. I love ideas as much as I crave liberty. But this time I’m really going out on a limb…

I’m voting and whoring for Foster Campbell to be Governor of the Gret Stet.

Here’s why I’m on his side:

As Governor, Foster Campbell will eliminate the state income tax, allowing Louisianans to pocket $3.1 billion each year instead of paying it to the state treasury. The increased economic activity from this tax reduction–the largest tax cut in Louisiana history–will usher in one of the greatest economic booms in the state’s history.

Eliminating both the personal and the corporate income taxes will make Louisiana a much more attractive location for business, providing a powerful incentive for new and existing employers to provide new jobs for our people.

The Campbell plan will replace the money given back to Louisianans by updating the 1921 severance tax on oil and gas produced in Louisiana. He’ll institute a 6 percent user fee on ALL oil and gas produced, processed, refined or distributed in Louisiana. Although Louisiana is now an oil and gas processing state instead of a major producing state, the system adopted 86 years ago collects a tax ONLY on minerals produced in Louisiana. But 95 percent of oil and gas produced and processed in Louisiana–most of it from foreign oil companies and companies owned by foreign nations–is untaxed. That’s unfair to producers in Louisiana and allows foreign companies to use our offshore waters and coastal wetlands without charge.

The processing fee will produce $5.5 billion each year. Even after eliminating the state income tax and the severance tax, Louisiana will gain an additional $1.7 billion in revenue every year. Foster will devote $1 billion a year to restoring coastal wetlands, damaged in part by mineral extraction and the thousands of miles of canals dug in our marshes to aid offshore exploration and production.

The remainder of the new funding obtained through the Campbell plan will be devoted to highway construction, improving our schools and other critical needs.” (From his site.)

This man brought telephone service to the last two communities in the state in 2004. He has served on the PSC trying to make the commission and the energy companies more accountable to our citizens. He has created special educational funds for schools and students.

I like this man’s vision, even though he’s from the northern part of the state.

This little swamp witch is firmly in the Campbell camp now. Check him out.

August 24, 2007

I HATE Materialistic Capitalists…

Some snippets from a current article in People For the American Way:

“As the nation reeled in shock at the destruction of lives and communities wrought by Hurricane Katrina, Americans from all political perspectives came together behind the mission of helping the victims and rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Sadly, however, it seems that a few influential right-wing think tanks, pundits, and legislators see the devastation as a “golden opportunity” (in the words of Jack Kemp) to push through long-sought components of an aggressive and regressive economic and political agenda. Controversial proposals and program cuts that have failed to pass muster in calmer times are now being prescribed as supposedly necessary measures during a period of national crisis.” 

“The Meese report called for the creation of a so-called “Emergency Board” to identify and remove industrial regulations, including environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, financial regulations (to avoid “paperwork”), and worker protections like the Davis-Bacon Act, which mandates that federal contracts pay prevailing wages. Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, a foe of both regulations and organized labor, commented that the immediate gutting of worker protections is necessary because “[u]nions have never hesitated to line their own pockets with extra taxpayer dollars, especially at the expense of lower-skilled workers.”

“The feverish daydreams of the right wing—to shirk the responsibilities of the government to all its citizens and to shrink it to “the size where we can drown it in the bathtub”—have never been a secret, but neither have they been fully adopted under conditions that lent themselves to calm reflection. As the nation has its mind and heart focused on the Gulf Coast, now is certainly not the time to sneak through an extreme ideologically driven economic agenda that would sacrifice the well being of many Americans. On the contrary— the government must concentrate on rebuilding the lives and communities torn apart by Katrina and Rita, on the path of consensus, not opportunism.”

You know, I have always valued the Social Contract. It, much like the goal of having manners, is to provide the grease that keeps us from killing each other. This is how we obtain Social Justice in a widely divergent polyglot Culture.

All of us are different: varying circumstances, family connections, education… but the Social Contract in this country was meant as a leveling of the playing field. We, each and everyone of us have the Right “to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.  This is our right and responsibility to each other to uphold. It is the glue that holds us together.

For some folk to view the double catastrophe of Katrina/Rita and the Federal Flood of New Orleans a perfect time to subject the American people to a NeoCon social experiment is somewhat like the experiments of Dr. Mengele in Nazi Germany. This is about Human lives and dreams, not the Ruling Elite and their aquireing of more money and toys.

He who has the most toys and shit at Death is NOT THE WINNER. It doesn’t work that way in the ‘Verse. It’s about how and why we live our lives… that we see a little bit of ourselves in those we meet, and we honor their Right to be who and what they are, just as they should do in return.

The NeoCons cannot understand this. They are stunted developmentally as Human Beings, and the kindest act we can perform for these creatures is to place them in a safe place and keep them from preying on each other. Watch over them and hopefully bring some enlightenment to their dark little psyches.

This is why I’m a Progressive Socialist.

August 23, 2007

Former Corps Employee Accepts Bribe

Freakin’ just color me surprised. The jackass is from Houston too!

From WWL.

Update: The T-P seems to have the straight skinny on this criminal.  (Thanks Sandstep!)

August 16, 2007

Projections For Hurricane Dean

Filed under: Gulf Coast,Huuricane Watch,Louisiana,New Orleans — Tags: , , , — Morwen Madrigal @ 2:37 pm

Can we say “OH SHIT!” ?

July 14, 2007

Rising Tide II


August 24 – 26 is our second Rising Tide Conference for New Orleans. Details here. (Yes, we are still putting it all together… no cans or jars in our kitchen… we cook from scratch to give you the best.)

Here’s our theme for this year:

July 10, 2007

Sin-nator Vitter’s “Past”?

When I posted last night on this breaking news, I couldn’t go much farther than just the current scoop. I’d heard rumours about Saint David Vitter, but had no real sources to verify them.

Here’s the best round-up of these sources, Oyster over at Your Right Hand Thief gives us the smoking gun. (Or is that a “dripping” gun?)

Ah Sin-nator? For the good of our State, and especially for those of us who are trying to rebuild our homes after the Federal Flood of 8/29, I ask that you now resign from your office, and resign yourself to your fate which will be meted out by your wife. For all of us impacted by your hypocrisies, it would be for the best. You ARE NOT the kind of person we need at this point in time. (Or at any time… )

Update- WDSU has some more on Vitter’s dealings with the Canal Street Madam.

July 9, 2007

Sin-nator Vitter Is Coming Clean?

Filed under: Louisiana,New Orleans,Politicians,Religious Reich — Tags: , , , — Morwen Madrigal @ 9:17 pm

I’m having a hard time with laughing myself silly over tonight’s revelation that Vitty-Cent has sinned with the DC Call-Girl ring.

“Family Values” my tush!

DC Madam’s website. (Prepare to wait awhile for a connection)

Who Remembers The White Kitchen?

Filed under: Aside,Louisiana,Memories,New Orleans — Tags: , , — Morwen Madrigal @ 8:18 pm

( Print circa 1950)
I do… our family ate there every month when we would do the New Orleans to Biloxi trip after we had moved from the city.

Found this doing a search for Jax Brewery memorabilia.

July 5, 2007

Why Must We Fight This Nightmare Every Day?

New Orleans and SE Louisiana were shattered by the hands of man and the needs of a Nation. That’s what happened on 8/29. (the shorthand is for those who can only remember tiny bits of data)

Once again, I’m going to give you my standard truth speech about the situation down here in the wetlands. I’m tired of doing this, but until we have our reparations and can rebuild, I guess this little Trans witch will keep doing her song and dance running.

First off, we, and our lands were sold and bought by powers, and we didn’t get a say in that. (Sorta like when the slave ship came to harbor and the folks were sold off to the highest bidder.) We had our own place back then… we were our own. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much say in the matter as the buyer and seller had tons of money and guns and we had fishing nets.

We just continued to live our lives and be ourselves. This is our world… screw anything else, this is where we lived, worked and died. (my ancestors are buried here, as will I when the time comes)

In the early 20th Century gas and oil was discovered in our part of the world, and the rapists came into the picture. Our wetlands, our protection and the source of much of the food for this country was carved up by 20,000 miles of canals so that the companies (read- shareholders) could cheap out their operations. The Nation grew upon those actions and profited greatly.

What did my people get from this? A few jobs and destruction of OUR lands.

The river was leveed in order to provide the country with the goods it needed in order to grow and thrive, and all we got for all that effort was a few extra jobs and no consideration for the Sword of Damocles that was hanging over our heads. (Oh yes… putting the Mississippi into levees stopped the natural process of land-building that the river had been performing for millions of years, all the way from Cairo, IL to our current delta.) Now our wetlands are dying because the river cannot replenish them.
What did the future of a bunch of French, Creole and Black lives mean when it came to the fortunes of the NATION? Shit! most of us didn’t even qualify as being white! (I’m one of them)  Only white people mattered until the mid-Sixties, and therefore we were not to be considered in the transaction.

So our part of this supposed nation of the Free, even though bought and sold by fuckers that never were a part of this culture, became nothing but fodder for the greed and need of the U.S. and it’s hubris. Our ancestors and our land created the prosperity of 2/3s of the country. Our people created great literature, cuisine and music that the Nation could never have conceived. We became the repository of the Old Worlds here in North America, an anachronism and a treasure.
Without our area America would never have come out of the Great Depression, never could have been the liberator in WW II, and never could have placed Humans on the Moon. This Nation would never have achieved the status it has today without using US. WE ARE the major power for this country, and even today, we are the basis of much of what the U.S. is and can be.
We gave willingly as dutiful citizens, but then there came a storm in August, 2005. Our protections against such storms, promised by the same Nation that was destroying our lands, freakin’ damned FAILED, AND MANY OF US DIED OR BECAME HOMELESS. Our world, our little part of it, almost died. Many voices  called for our death, but we would not hear them. We are rebuilding OUR land.
Our place almost died. Can you understand that statement? Look around what you perceive as your community being totally gone. Can you stomach that? That your friends, neighbors, shops and eateries are wiped from the face of the Earth? To know that the faces you have known for years are no longer next door or around the corner? To realize that the children (who you hated because of their pranks and noise), are no longer in the place their parents lived in? That they aren’t there to remind you of the continuity of culture? That you are no longer a part of the Dance of Life?
Can you imagine that in the place where you live?

Can you?

I mean really, can you understand all of the folks missing? That you are no longer a part of the thread of Life and history. That you don’t fucking count for shit? ANSWER ME!
If you can respond with a yes to the above question, then you understand where we, the 200,000 who returned to fix this city are coming from. If your answer is no, or who cares, may thou reside in the greatest depths of Hades.

In all of the 200+ years you in the U.S. have “owned” us, we have never begged. We took care of things and kept going. We provided what was needed. (Many of my ancestors lie on the bottom of the oceans because they answered America’s call.)

We here in SE Louisiana have more than given our pound of flesh for this Nation, and it’s time to get a little bit of it back in order to rebuild our homeland. We have more than earned it. Otherwise… you have no idea of the Hell you will have to live in if we are gone from the scene or if we decide to leave your little confederation of states.

Think about it.

I’m Morwen Madrigal, and I must live to be 80 in order to pay the debt of repairing my home that was damaged for the Nation. I gave almost 10 years to this country in service, and am again saddled for another 30 years.

What have you given to America?

Another Idiot Trashes Our Home…

From Hartford comes another freakin’ “know it all” editorial.

Y’all just know that I made my thoughts known at the paper’s site.

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