I was going to write about the photographer F. Holland Day this morning. However, when I read the news about this latest court ruling against the good citizens of New Orleans, I couldn’t help myself. These are the very people the court system should be helping and protecting from criminal injustice whether it be on the part of other citizens, corporations, or the state
The United States of America Federal Government is Immune to Lawsuits based on its failure to protect its very own citizens!
We should be outraged over the dismissal of all class-action lawsuits against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by our federal courts. Once again, the citizens of New Orleans have been SCREWED! I am increasingly of the opinion that the system of law and courts inherited from the Roman Empire and of which we are so proud is a failed system. I know that many of my fellow citizens feel that New Orleans and its citizenry deserved to be wiped off the map because they lived in an area so terribly flood prone. However, this new court ruling is a travesty in line with the 2000 Supreme Court ruling that stopped the counting of votes here in South Florida, thus preventing the logging of many absentee votes. I am aware that in the case of the New Orleans class action suit the judge based his ruling on a 1928 law that states that the Federal government is immune to law suits based on the failure of flood control projects to protect citizens. However, this particular ruling sets the tone for all future ruling on government flood control projects in all coastal and river flood planes that affect most of our major cities. According to government studies, most of us live in DANGEROUS storm and/or flood prone areas. So, why bother to have any dams, levees, pumps, and/or other expensive flood control projects if the government is not going to be forced to stand by them? Why spend vast sums of money on half-ass projects designed to fail should a hurricane or other storm or series of storms reach slightly above normal proportions? We might as well pass a law that allows George W. Bush to stay in office another term, shut down the Army Corps of Engineers and spend the money saved on more foreign wars!
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