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In my surfing around looking for different thoughts on the whole Katrina distaster, I ran across this great blog entry. I totally love it. More that that, I agree with the main points of it. Read at your own risk, however. Although there is some offensive language, I'm sure it's the ideas that are in it that some will find the most offensive.
Quotes from it:
Who can not see the way the country has changed, not since 9/11, but before that – since the 2000 election? Who cannot feel the split, the division, that rips like a shredding sail on a broken mast, canvas tearing like the sound of musketry, as the rigging falls to the deck?
Race has nothing to do with this – precisely nothing. The mobs of murdering Hutus and swarms of slaughtering Serbs are as different racially as it is possible to be, and they are cut from precisely the same cloth.
That’s because the people I associate with – my Tribe – consists not of blacks and whites and gays and Hispanics and Asians, but of individuals who do not rape, murder, or steal
In New Orleans we have a mayor who left some 400-500 buses sitting fueled and underwater in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool saying that evil white conservative America was selling out his people within 24 hours of the catastrophe, from a safe and dry and adequately toileted location, while four years ago we had a Mayor who ran to the site of the disaster so quickly it is a full-blown miracle he was not killed when a building collapsed literally on top of his magnificent, combed-over head.
Sometimes, Bad Things Happen. Some things are beyond my control, beyond the control of the smartest and best people we have, even beyond the awesome, subtle and unlimited control of the simpering, sub-human village idiot from Texas.
Hurricanes come. They have come for all of human history, and more are coming. Barbarians also come to steal or destroy what they cannot make themselves, and they, like human tempests, have swept a path of destruction through civilization since before history was written on clay tablets on the banks of the Euphrates.
My favorite, because I often think it:
George Bush did not take over the White House with a six-shooter; people voted him into office with the biggest number of votes in American history. I’m one of those people, and [...] I demand my equal time.
Quotes from it:
Who can not see the way the country has changed, not since 9/11, but before that – since the 2000 election? Who cannot feel the split, the division, that rips like a shredding sail on a broken mast, canvas tearing like the sound of musketry, as the rigging falls to the deck?
Race has nothing to do with this – precisely nothing. The mobs of murdering Hutus and swarms of slaughtering Serbs are as different racially as it is possible to be, and they are cut from precisely the same cloth.
That’s because the people I associate with – my Tribe – consists not of blacks and whites and gays and Hispanics and Asians, but of individuals who do not rape, murder, or steal
In New Orleans we have a mayor who left some 400-500 buses sitting fueled and underwater in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool saying that evil white conservative America was selling out his people within 24 hours of the catastrophe, from a safe and dry and adequately toileted location, while four years ago we had a Mayor who ran to the site of the disaster so quickly it is a full-blown miracle he was not killed when a building collapsed literally on top of his magnificent, combed-over head.
Sometimes, Bad Things Happen. Some things are beyond my control, beyond the control of the smartest and best people we have, even beyond the awesome, subtle and unlimited control of the simpering, sub-human village idiot from Texas.
Hurricanes come. They have come for all of human history, and more are coming. Barbarians also come to steal or destroy what they cannot make themselves, and they, like human tempests, have swept a path of destruction through civilization since before history was written on clay tablets on the banks of the Euphrates.
My favorite, because I often think it:
George Bush did not take over the White House with a six-shooter; people voted him into office with the biggest number of votes in American history. I’m one of those people, and [...] I demand my equal time.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 09:31 pm (UTC)From:But who appointed them to thier position? and who then is accoutable for thier inaction, or poor performance as directors?
On August 26, Governor Blanco of Louisiana sent a letter to President Bush asking him to federalize the emergency. On the next day, August 27th, he sent a letter back confirming that he had indeed federalized the emergency. At that point, technically, the president was in charge, and he could have done what he wished.
Bush says no one could have predicted that the levees would break.
Not only COULD his administration predict it -- his administration DID predict it. So did Republican members of Congress.
FEMA itself predicted in 2001 that the three most likely, most catastrophic disasters facing America were a terrorist attack on New York (check), a New Orleans flood (check) and a major San Francisco earthquake.
Bush is either a president of incompatance, or lying.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-09 01:36 am (UTC)From:I didn't say that, I said that he won the office fair and square: A larger number of people voted for him than voted for anyone else. I voted for him because I felt he was the best choice to lead the nation. I still believe that. I don't believe he's perfect, nor do I believe that he shouldn't be held accountable for his actions. However, ever since the 2000 election it has become more and more apparent that a great many of those who were/are opposed to Bush are not the least bit interested in accountably but rather in vilification. Bush, to them, has become the embodiment of everything that is evil (not just wrong, not just opposite, but actually evil) in the world. They also imply that anyone who supported Bush had to have done so because they were stupid or evil. They firmly believe that any thinking, intelligent person could have voted in a way they did not. Well, here I am -- an intelligent, thinking person -- standing up and saying: Bush isn't a bad guy just because you don't want him for president.
n August 26, Governor Blanco of Louisiana sent a letter to President Bush asking him to federalize the emergency. On the next day, August 27th, he sent a letter back confirming that he had indeed federalized the emergency. At that point, technically, the president was in charge, and he could have done what he wished.
Ah... no. Federalizing the emergency merely allows the state and local governments to access Federal resources that would not normally be able to access. It allows the federal agencies to alert their personnel to the possible need that may occur. Federalizing an emergency doesn't usurp the Constitution nor does it remove from the local and state government from the responsibility of their jobs. FEMA is a mop-up organization, it's not the first response nor is it the primary response. That is the job of local and state governments who have the plans and the people on the ground. The feds provide the extra stuff that is beyond the local and state.
So, for example, the Mayor of the city was responsible for the 400 - 500 school buses that were supposed (by their own emergency plan) to be used to get the people out of the city. The fact that those buses sat unmanned and unused, is not the president's responsibility. Nor was it Bush's responsibility that 60% of the New Orleans police force walked off the job. It wasn't Bush's responsibility to demand a total evacuation of the city, just like it isn't the Army's responsibility to forcibly remove those who don't want to leave -- that is the job of the mayor and the state.
Do you realize how much authority would be given to the Executive Branch if merely federalizing an emergency removed all power/responsibility from the state and local levels? The Patriot Act pales in comparison.
FEMA itself predicted in 2001 that the three most likely, most catastrophic disasters facing America were a terrorist attack on New York (check), a New Orleans flood (check) and a major San Francisco earthquake.
Ah... I've read this before. I've yet to see the memo. I'm thinking it's probably the same FEMA memo the was so extensively quoted after the Twin Towers attack, only I see they've changed the phrase "terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York" to "terrorist attack on New York". More believable that way, I guess.
Bush is either a president of incompetence, or lying.
Or perhaps people are so caught up in their own paranoid vision of the world that they can't see reality as anything but a conspiracy of deceit and incompetence.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-09 01:48 am (UTC)From:Bush isn't above reproach, but he also isn't God. I'm startled by the number of people acting like our government is some sort of God-substitute, supposed to be all-seeing and all-knowing, supposed to have superhuman control over every soldier, governmental employee and American citizen out there.
And yet, the same people get very upset when this same government attempts to get closer to all-seeing and all-knowing. Attempts to gain information are generally met with extreme hostility. It's a very naive and self-defeating way to view the entire process, IMO. With this agenda, there can BE no "right move" for said government.
Which is, of course, what their varied opponents want. This insistence on "us vs. them" that the media embraces so wholeheartedly makes for some very illogical commentaries and weakens the nation as a whole. Somebody must say everything is done incompetently, nobody is allowed to get by with saying something was well done, and then people wonder why so many US citizens are on Prozac. Not to mention look at how much time and energy is wasted on that absolutism.
But who appointed them to thier position? and who then is accoutable for thier inaction, or poor performance as directors?
I wanna know what constitutes "poor performance" when they started out with a situation they couldn't possibly have remedied enough to prevent these events. If you get a good look at the science journals, the levees were not built to withstand this sort of punishment in the first place, and there is no way yet to control hurricanes. It was a DISASTER. When disasters of this magnitude happen, people die. Nowadays, they get to die to a soundtrack made up entirely of pointing fingers that could be better used to...oh, say...help people out?
On August 26, Governor Blanco of Louisiana sent a letter to President Bush asking him to federalize the emergency. On the next day, August 27th, he sent a letter back confirming that he had indeed federalized the emergency. At that point, technically, the president was in charge, and he could have done what he wished.
Aid was sent. More aid needed to be sent later, and it was. Swarming the city with "aid" before what was needed was known would have helped no-one, and might well have created more victims. The first rule of rescue (as taught by the Red Cross and many other rescue and safety organizations) is don't become a victim yourself. Pouring people into the city before the basic infrastructure was checked out would've caused huge problems if something ELSE had given way at the wrong time. Yes, people died while rescuers were being cautious. But MORE people DIDN'T die from the rescuers being INcautious, and IMO that's far more important.
Bush says no one could have predicted that the levees would break.
He said that once, and honestly, there was never any certainty beforehand. Hindsight is 20/20 and apparently very popular right now. Nobody would have noticed the comments about the possibility of the levees breaking had it not happened. But since it did, the folks who said it suddenly look all sage. Many of them had good information, such as KNOWING the levees were only rated to stop Cat. 3 hurricane forces in the first place, but they didn't know the levees wouldn't perform far past their designed capacity. Many similar things do, after all; and we, being often uninformed of these things, never notice that they did so.
Not only COULD his administration predict it -- his administration DID predict it. So did Republican members of Congress.
So did the city. According to an article from Scientific American in October of 2001, they had 10,000 body bags stockpiled against just this occurence.
I dunno, it bothers me a lot more that the CITY didn't do all it could to prevent this than that the Federal government, whose scope of responsibility is far broader than a single city, didn't.
Bush is either a president of incompatance, or lying.
Or he's got opponents who really don't LIKE reality and hold him responsible for its existence.