uberreiniger | Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

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Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Enjoyable and largely correct article by Ben Stein:

http://www.americanprowler.com/util/print.asp?art_id=8693

Do I think George Bush is blameless? Absolutely not. He had an opprotunity to swoop in there, be the hero, and possibly redeem himself a little bit in a lot of peoples' eyes? Did he? No. As we all know, he showed up two days late and just sort of stood there mumbling something about it being "unacceptable." However, this op-ed piece makes a valid point.

This is a situation which has made people feel powerless. Having a Bad Guy to blame for it all makes people feel less powerless. But the ugly truth, chock full of ugly implications for this nation, is that every single city, state, and government official with the ability to fail in this situation, did fail. From the mayor of New Orleans with his failure to coordinate bus evacuations right on up to the Oval Office with their boggarting hurricane-proofing money for the Iraq war. You can set up one man as a straw target all you want to to take the blame for it, but it changes nothing. What we have here is a catastrophic failure of an integrated system of give-a-damns on a massive scale.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

While I infinitely dislike President Bush, I must completely agree with you. It is not just his fault or even mostly his fault.

That said, this really bothers me:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05bush.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1125900698-UiEY64NotQQvytMEA4XaFw

Yeah, I read it earlier on your LJ and was appalled but unsurprised. 'Bout the way I'd expect Rove to handle things. And Condi just might have picked the worst possible time to go shoe shopping. Ever.

Yep. Yep indeed.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4834204

Thought you might like to see this. Essentially, it's an NPR piece by a guy who helped with relief efforts in the Congo. He is pointing out that the response to the NO hurricane is likely as fast as it is possible to respond to a disaster of this magnitude. He is also pointing out that the people bitching about the time it took are unrealistic in their outlook if they think an entire nation can mobilize in less than 72 hours.

well honey babe, you know how i feel about bush :P ... but i have to agree to an extent..i just find it interesting that whenever something happens in florida we're down there in two shakes of a lambs tail...not so in this situation..granted it turned into a virtual lake wobegone rather quickly..would like to see how much of the money raised by red cross actually gets used for the victims, as it's my understand that unless you specify that you want all of your donation to go to the victims, they only give 20% and take the rest for overhead...we donated through another group American Harvest: America's Food Bank Network or something like that. Dad said he read yesterday that Hilary Clinton (yes, i know, not one of your fav's) said something to the effect of if we're not able to respond to a crisis like this, how are we going to be able to respond to another terrorist attack. i have to say, that was food for thought. ok, i'm done rambling. trying to keep my mind busy, as you know tomorrow's the "big day" :D

Actually, it took time to get people in Florida too, and that damage was on a smaller scale than the submerging of a major city. We went for two weeks without power during the first one. I hate to say it, but it was the local/state companies and organizations that made it tough. They didn't want people from the Gov't or other states coming in to take over and tell them what to do because they had already not used funds the way they should've, which would've prevented much of the power outtages.

I just do get tired of any disaster being used as a platform for bitchery from people who were bitching anyways before anything happened. They seem more interested in getting some topic of substance to bitch about to supposedly "back" their complaint than they are about fixing anything(heh.. i guess i'm speaking specifically about a couple self-righteous doofs on my friends list who figure they're really helping Katrina victims by whining almost exclusively about Bush and his administration alone for the last week).

i'm not talking about this last time, i'm talking overall..didn't take em a week to get down there.. from what i've read a big problem has been with FEMA ... i don't spend my days bitching about Bush, but I know some people that do :). I'd rather be part of the solution than the problem, I guess. and even at 9 months pregnant, i've managed to find a way. Irks me that other don't. They'd rather gripe about who the problem is or point fingers and say that those people down there deserved this, disgusting mindset if you ask me.

Dealing with FEMA is a pain to deal with. And they take forever to compensate people who need help immediately. Two groups of neighbors directly to the east of me lost their homes last fall(as in, they can't live there. uninhabitable or with ceilings missing.) and one is still living in a trailor in the front yard. After MILLIONS of dollars were claimed by Miami residents(people who weren't hit all season by any storm), they had the nerve to come up and question everyone in my county to make sure that WE weren't trying to fraud FEMA. We kindly answered their questions and suggested that they go speak to those honest Miami folks about imisappropriated funds.

From what I hear, no one really did. I could say something about karma and Miami here, but I don't believe in it and don't think it would be very kind and appropriate. I hush up now:)

If I were an employee of FEMA, I wouldn't go advertising it right about now unless I was interested in seeing how villagers dealt with suspected witches in the Middle Ages or how small Southern towns dealt with blacks a few decades ago. This disaster showed their crippled, indifferent bureacracy for exactly what it is.

No, Hilary's absolutely correct here. Can't argue with that logic at all.

The Red Cross got into a HUGE PR mess following 9/11 on account of what you describe. I don't like to donate to them anymore, although I did for this. Out of my next paycheck I'm sending some money to Lutheran World Relief Fund, who are a charity I trust.

I don't give to the Red Cross anymore either, well, I'll give them blood, but not money.

The problem is, there were sufficient warnings that were issued by both the Mayor of New Orleans, and the President of the United States where they in absolute CLARITY said: "Get OUT!"

There were literally hundreds of thousands of residents who simply said...Nah, I'm going to sit this one out. And we see the consequences of that decision.

This is the single largest natural disaster in our history people. We're not talking about a creek or a river overflowing it's banks and flooding a few houses and businesses. We're talking about WHOLE cities being flat-out destroyed. And not just New Orleans, but the coast of Mississippi, and places in Alabama.

It's funny to me how intellectually desolate crackheads like Kanye West want to blame George W. Bush for a so-called lack-of-response, but the Mayor of N.O. didn't see it fit to organize a mass exodus of citizens with the HUNDREDS of school buses that were literally left in an enormous parking lot for two days before the storm hit and now sits in 4-5 feet of water. Guess it was more important for him to get himself out of town than to focus on a massive evacuation of the people in his city.

Would I absolve FEMA of any blame? Absolutely not. In fact, if I were President Bush, I would fire the head of FEMA for the traffic jam that was the response to the disaster. There was clearly WAY too much red tape and beauracracy for a focused and expeditious response to take place.

Also, I would blame the New Orleans Police Department. Yes, N.O.'s finest DID organize a mass exodus from their DUTIES when over 200 of them turned in their badges and fled like cowards from the ensuing chaos of looting, raping, and murder from N.O.'s thugs, who apparently chose to stay behind and take advantage of the disaster victims. Want a real heartbreaker? How about the 7-year old girl who was raped and murdered by one of these animals? Nice, eh?

Fortunately, a group of men came upon the scene and beat the man responsible to death. Thank God, someone did the right thing and just killed one of these bastards. No arrest, no miranda rights, just swift justice.

Add to that, the fact that these thugs were actually FIRING at Medical Evacuation crews and you can see where some police presence could have really been helpful. Maybe if the NOPD would have had the guts to stick around for the aftermath of Katrina, we would have heard far fewer heartbreaking stories like that of the little girl.

This is a massive tragedy. Much larger than I think even some of the experts might have imagined (due to the number of people evacuating before Katrina hit).

President Bush is heading up an investigation into both the preparedness of emergency management services leading up to Katrina as well as the results of the response in its wake. Hopefully, some heads will roll at both the state as well as the federal level wherever there is evidence of either negligence or a lack of urgency.

In the meantime, we should all contribute either monetarily or otherwise to the national effort to clean up this mess. People need to roll up their sleeves and get dirty, not just stand around an bitch about a make-believe conspiracy of racism. That is the exact opposite of help.

Yeah, but the joke is on those N.O. cops who quit as they missed out on their FREE VEGAS VACATION! That's another thing that makes me sick. You're a shiny bright apple, Mayor Nagin. Real shiny bright.

New Orleans cops have always been like that. FEMA has always been incompetent. And Nagin a real peice of shit. What the tragedy is that when things hit as they are, the world sometimes needs more and it punishes you for slipping.

You know me, I hold all accountable from New Orleans police to Congress, but nature is also nature. Sometimes its time to stop blaming and start picking up the pieces.

But you also know me, I think our whole way of life (American liberal to American conservative) has become skewed.

That is a reasonable response. The FEMA debacle keeps on getting worse and worse, but that is not the President's fault.

People need to roll up their sleeves and get dirty, not just stand around an bitch about a make-believe conspiracy of racism.

Hell, it would be easier to say its a conspiracy against Southerners. But that probably isn't true.

I am taking some refugees into my home this weekend. I wish I could get in and help, but FEMA is still making aid very difficult to do given New Orleans dangerous condition.

Hell, it would be easier to say its a conspiracy against Southerners. But that probably isn't true.

It's taken us nearly a hundred and thirty years to develop a working prototype of Ulysses S. Grant's "hurricane gun" as he called it. But we finally got the bugs ironed out about two weeks ago and boy howdy, I tell ya, she's a beaut!

(I know my sense of humor is inappropriate, but it's how I cope.)

It's okay, I found it morbidly funny.

Sorry to double-post, but all one needs to do is look at the State of Louisiana's very own Emergency Operations Plan. In particular Section D and Part III of Section D. Check out #8 of Section III. Keep reading for even more VERY well written plans to deal with such an emergency as Katrina.

It is clear to me now, that this mass of humanity debacle that happened in the aftermath of Katrina, lies squarely on the shoulders of the Mayor and State government of Louisiana for NOT implementing THIS very plan of operation.

http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/plans/EOPSupplement1a.pdf

Read and weep, because you won't hear this side of the story on CNN, MSNBC, The NY Times or the L.A. Times. They're going to be too busy politicizing this into a Bush-bashing opportunity.

Once again we're going to seriously disagree, but here're my two cents.

For what it's worth, I think this is the excuse the media has been waiting for to go on a witch hunt for President Bush, and quite frankly, I don't actually care. I hope it's a witch hunt on par with when Clinton was outed for screwing around with Lewinsky, the difference being the astounding loss of life in this instance.

This is George W. Bush's equivalent of when the FBI was finally able to nail Capone for tax evasion. And when Jon Stewart, who ordinarily retains at least some small measure of unbiasedness and is in actuality probably one of the finest political commentators in our country...when he goes on national television and tells the right-wingers "No. Just shut up." and virtually seethes with anger on air, I'm going to listen. I've never seen him that angry in my life. He's smiling, but there's a point after he shows a blurb of Bush that's so plainly awful that he just shakes his head and goes "...more after this." and cuts to commercial.

I'm not seeing where we seriously disagree in what you've said so far. I agree Bush messed this up completely. I just like to remind people that he's not the only one. Nearly everybody who could fail, did. And I like your analogy about Al Capone. I've been dwelling on the irony that it wasn't wars or terrorism that finally did him in in the eyes of the world. It was a simple act of nature.

The disagreement will likely come in that while I love Ben Stein as an entertainer, I've never cared for him as a republican shill, and right now, members of the party have to speak the party line. They have to speak the party line because it looks like Bush might get crucified for this. I sincerely hope he is.

Whether or not everyone else screwed up is of little relevance. He didn't end his vacation. My mother's without power or plumbing right now for an undetermined amount of time and I cannot reach her. I can assume she's okay because she's made sure to call and let me know here and there, but knowing that the severity of this catastrophe could've been lessened if someone had been prepared would've made my day.

As our leader he's supposed to set the standard, but he takes more vacation time than any other president I've known, and heaven help him and that shit-eating grin of his if he has to cut his vacation short to save lives. So if this is the incident that opens the floodgates, to turn a phrase, then fantastic. He can dodge the senseless deaths of Americans and Iraqis with talking points all he wants, but we're facing the deaths of Americans on American soil, and I think the media and everyone in that area have just about had it.

This is where it gets messy. Every time an entertainer dares to not conform to the industry strandard of ultra-liberalism, they are automatically labelled a Republican "shill". Had he come out spouting a lot of inane C-Span-ready rhetoric, then I'd call him a shill. As is, he just wrote an essay in keeping with his way of observing things and I thought it was clever. Had it said. "Bush is never, ever wrong, best president ever! Woo-Hoo!" I wouldn't have posted it.

Yes, our leader should set the standard. And he didn't. And he deserves to be made accountable.

Oh, and Condi? Worst time to go shoe shopping. Ever.

Except that Stein was a republican shill prior to his entertainment career. He's a republican before he's an entertainer. And he's been shilling for the republicans for as long as I can remember.

I'd like to refute a couple of points Stein made.

Stein said this:

His job description does not include making sure every adult in America has a car, is in good health, has good sense, and is mobile.

My answer is this:

In many ways, that's exactly what his job description entails. His job is to make sure that Americans are cared for. That's the role of the fucking government and if they're not going to do that, we've got some problems.

Stein said:

There is not the slightest evidence at all that the war in Iraq has diminished the response of the government to the emergency. To say otherwise is pure slander.

My answer is this:

Except that the money we've blown on that stupid war and all the troops that are there as opposed to here could all have helped tremendously.

Personally I actually think Kanye West had shit for brains when he said what he said on TV. It's not a question of whether or not Bush doesn't care about poor black people. He is in fact, not racist, as Stein said. The reality is that he doesn't care about any of his constituents, black or white. And why should he? He's gonna be gone in three years anyhow, no chance to return. For the next three years he has carte blanche to fuck up all he wants. He's more dangerous than he was in his first term.

His job description does not include making sure every adult in America has a car, is in good health, has good sense, and is mobile.

My answer is this:

In many ways, that's exactly what his job description entails. His job is to make sure that Americans are cared for. That's the role of the fucking government and if they're not going to do that, we've got some problems.

Actually, it would seem that way on appearance but it's not the case. If his job description were to provide everyone with a car, mobility, and health (good sense is beyond the power of any leader to provide,) we would be a socialist state. As we are a capitalist state, those things are quite simply beyond his purview. Bush fucked up saving the poor people of New Orleans, but he's not the one that put them there. They wound up there on account of over two hundred years of class, governmental, and racial interaction. The deck was stacked against many of those people from the start.

I had been getting the impression for some time now that Bush has the "it's my second term, so I don't care!" attitude going on. I never noticed that attitude in Clinton, but it seems to be there in Bush. That's a purely subjective observation on my part, though, so I could be dead wrong.

act_3,

You are exactly the kind of person that will bring America down.

The whole "gimme" mentality is so ridiculously lame that it barely deserves a reply. But I like flattening ignorance whenever it raises its ugly head so here it goes...

It has NEVER been, nor should it ever be the role of the Federal government to take care of you. To coddle you through life and make sure you have everything you need. You are NOT entitled to have a car, a house, or any other luxury or privilege that is earned by people who WANT to work and make life "livable" by earning it.

You see, New Orleans is a microcosm of what's IS wrong with this country...Liberalism.

My question is...WHY are so many of those people poor? We live in the greatest country in the history of mankind's existence. A land where people like Dr. Ben Carson can literally work himself out of poverty and become the first Neurosurgeon to successfully seperate siamese twins conjoined at the head. A place where anyone who has the desire and the determination to roll up his or her sleeves and apply themselves can pull themselves out of the mire and desperation of poverty and become more than they were told they could be.

But liberals like yourself (except with legislative power) believe that the government (i.e. taxpayers-a.k.a. people that work) has the responsibility to pay those who would rather be in poverty than go to work and make a living because they are lazy or they were taught through generations that you don't have to work because massa government will send you a check every month.

That is enslavement. There is an enormous difference between someone who CANNOT work (due to a debilitating disease or disability) and those who simply choose to be poor (like most of those who live off welfare).

Liberalism teaches that a socialistic society is the model for utopia. Yet all the places that are being "taken care of" by massa government are always wrought with drug abuse, gang violence, chid abuse and neglect and single moms whose "baby's daddy's" are nowhere to be found. What a "great society" indeed.

The good news is...your side is losing. Every election, every opinion poll, your side continues to lose ground. The reason is that you don't have a monopoly in the media anymore. The truth is out and it's available for everyone who seeks it. We don't have to have our opinions shaped by a bias adopted by Ted Koppel, Dan Rather, or Tom Brokaw. We have tipped the scales and have more balance now.

Losers always bemoan their circumstances, especially if they feel that "it's not fair", and then they hold out their hand and expect a payout from big government. Winners roll up their sleeves and say "How can I make my situation better?" and then they take action.

Only 13% according to a CNN USA Today gallup poll blame Bush for the clusterf*#% that was the aftermath of Katrina, so good luck on your theory that "the media and everyone in that area have had it." It's just not so.

As far as your hope that "Bush will get crucified for this" goes...keep dreamin' little dreamer. Most of America loves this President and only morons will hold him responsible for providing for the poor in this country.

As someone who's had an opportunity to witness poverty happen to close family, I will strongly encourage you to shut the fuck up.

The government is supposed to ensure that its citizens are cared for. It should ensure it's people are in good health, it should ensure that they are educated, and it should ensure that if they slip or misfortune comes upon them, that they are capable of pulling themselves together again.

This is why programs like welfare, medicare, social security, and unemployment exist.

But the distribution of wealth in this country is fucked. If you want to sit here and toss Bush's salad while low income families eat dirt because he decided the only people who really deserved tax breaks were the ones who could afford them, you have my permission to choke on whatever you dig out of his ass crack.

The government is supposed to make the tools available for people to dig themselves out of poverty to go on to lead productive lives. As someone who lives in an area where a minority rampantly cornholes the system, I will admit it isn't perfect. But it's been there to help people. If the government isn't supposed to help us, then why the fuck should they be intervening in New Orleans?

I don't need some fucking red state Christian hick telling me I'm an idiot with the shit I've seen when it's clear to me all you do is swallow whatever you're spoonfed. Historically, liberals have dragged you whiny pussy conservatives into the future, and we made a better country for it. Things you take for granted now were fucking heresy to people like you decades ago. If everyone just shut up and listened to conservatives, women wouldn't have a right to choose, wouldn't have a right to vote, and you'd still be a slave owner.

You can both knock it off now.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

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I completely agree. Hurricane damage makes me rant.

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Well...

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Random added point...

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