Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

[uberreiniger]

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.

Comments

[adonijah74.livejournal.com]

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.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

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.

[rolodexpropaga.livejournal.com]

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.

[rolodexpropaga.livejournal.com]

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.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

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.)

[rolodexpropaga.livejournal.com]

It's okay, I found it morbidly funny.