Thursday, August 31, 2006
When the Levees Collapsed. posted by Richard Seymour
Spike Lee's brilliant new documentary about Katrina should be seen as widely as possible. It is a four-part documentary, and I'm uploading Parts I & II as fast as I can, and will post further links asap. I will upload Parts III & IV this evening if possible.For now, here's the first ten minutes:
And here's the second:
Straightforward links will be added to later uploaded segments rather than embedded videos.
A couple of quick comments. The documentary has to peel through layers of misperception by some people, and wilful misdirection by certain political figures, and the story is not straightforward. There are questions raised about the levees, and whether there were explosions, but it isn't principally about that. There is tonnes of footage from within, lots of discussions with different people, who Lee allows to tell their own stories. He's a bit too soft on Nagin so far, to be honest, but one or two relevant criticisms are raised. There is a cutting account of some of the conduct of the Bush administration and some historical discussion. The issues of race and class intersect in obvious ways: contiguous, rather than competing issues that is.
Segments: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
That's all of parts I & II.