I posted a lot of jokes and funny pictures over the weekend. It was a Holiday weekend, the weather was as close to perfect as you can get, and I did not want to waste all day on the internet. Was it appropriate with the death of a Supreme Court Chief Justice, and massive death and destruction in the heart of the Old South? I do not know nor care.
I enjoy reading a great number of blogs. One of my favorites is Moonbatty. She is a liberal, but that is OK, it takes all kinds to make this great country work. She writes in an honest heartfelt manner. I believe she is a good and caring person. I made a half-thought comment on this post. I believe more thought is in order.
My heart goes out to the families and victims of Katrina. I am truly sorry for their loss. Now for the heartless bastard side of me. This attitude represents much of what is wrong with this country. We have created a whole class of people who think they are owed something. Someone is always to blame. Spill some coffee -- blame McDonald's. Slip on some ice -- sue the homeowner. If life is not perfect -- someone is at fault!
I have a small scar on my left shoulder blade. I was born caesarian, the doctor cut me. Today, that little scratch would be a hefty lawsuit. My parents were just glad I was alive and healthy.
A few years ago my daughter was a passenger in a car driven by one of her friends. The driver hit a patch of ice and struck a utility pole. My daughter hit her head pretty hard and had to go to the hospital. The insurance company paid the doctor bills. She was fine, just a headache. A few days after the accident, I received a call from the adjuster. The insurance company wanted to send me a sizable check, if I would sign a waiver and promise not to sue. I refused. Not because I wanted to reserve the right to file a lawsuit, but because THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH MY DAUGHTER. I know many of you will think I am a dumbass. But how could I honestly take money for a non-existent injury? The adjuster said I should think of it as payment for me or my daughter missing work. No work was missed. I routinely bitch about the cost of my auto insurance, without a doubt, it is the rip-off of the times. But by taking the payoff, I would have only added to the problem. I signed the papers, refused the money.
This hurricane visited terrible tragedy and destruction upon the States of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. Moonbatty posted an incredibly sad quote from a NY Times interview with a victim:
The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything, Mr. Broussard said. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night.
"Nobody's coming to get us" he said through his tears. "Nobody's coming to get us."
On Saturday, weather experts were predicting that Katrina, fresh from hitting Florida (we seem to have forgotten that 11 people died there), would gain strength to Catagory 5 and make a beeline toward New Orleans. By Sunday and Monday it was clear the Gulf Coast was in for a pounding. FEMA and others were calling for evacutaions of New Orleans. Why did the Mayor and Governor not order the mandatory evacuations of nursing homes and hospitals? More to the point, why did this man not personally go and rescue his mother and take her to safety himself? "Oh Mommy, I am so worried about you, I hope someone comes and gets you".
When (not if) the next big disaster comes, whether it be a tornado, a flood, a hurricane, an earthquake, or major terrorist attack, you are depending on someone else to save you and your family -- you are an idiot. Disaster preparedness begins at the local level. In this case, local is your immediate family. Next you look after your neighbors and friends.
The city of New Orleans did a woefull job of ppreparing for this tragedy. Now they just want to place the blame and point fingers. This hurricane was an act of nature. Regardless of RFK, Jr's idiotic position, this hurricane was not caused my global warming, George Bush, nuclear testing, big oil, the world bank, Karl Rove, Halliburton, Osama, Tony Blair or the Euro. It is a naturally occuring act of nature. Period. Go to the Hurricane Forecasting Center's page. You will see that hurricanes are not getting stronger, or more frequent, but they go in decades long patterns. We have more destruction, but that is because we have more to destruct than we did 70 years ago. 100 years ago we did not have hurricane warnings, just a strange swell to the sea, and storm clouds on the horizon. Hurricanes and typhoons struck with little warning of their true ferocity. Loss of life was stupendous. Now we know days and weeks before landfall. There is no reason the elderly are stuck in a nursing home waiting on rescue. Mr. Broussard should be ashamed, it was his responsibility to save his mother.
Much has been written and broadcast about the slow response of FEMA and others to rescue the victims. One jerkoff at the DU wrote with "trembling hands" of his anger over the delays. He related that the people of New Orleans had resorted to cannibalism. He made claims that we did not save these people because the were black. Such ideas sicken me, this is the worst kind of race baiting. I do not deny there are race problems in this country, but the individual who would let a person suffer and die for the color of skin are far and few between. I will take no arguments on that statement. One last bit, to really piss off some of you. It was less than 10 miles to dry ground from the Superdome. Many healthy able bodidied people stood there, screaming for help. Even the slowest, most out of shape person could have walked to safety in a day. Like hell would I just stand around and let my kids go hungry and thirsty. I would have carried them as far as necesary to get food and fresh water.
One of the commenters at Moonbaty described the process required to mobilize the National Guard. Funny, the same liberals who are against the military, do not want the guard recruiting in schools,are the first to scream for National Guard help.
Thank you for sticking with me this long. To sum the situation, the corupt administrations of the cities and Parishes and State of Louisiana did not prepare for a calamity of this magnitude. The plans were half formed at best. The Feds can react only with the speed of a turning battleship. The suffering is caused by people who did not heed warnings, who did not prepare, who counted on inept local politicians to save their ass. Somehow, all of this, to the liberals, is the President's fault.
Hell, lets blame my dog. He farts a lot, putting methane into the atmosphere. This contributes to the hole in the ozone that causes global warming. Thie rise in ocean and air temperatures created a hurricane force storm that hit the southern tier of States. Lots of people died and businesses and homes were destroyed. My dog killed Mr. Broussard's mother. It makes as much sense as blaming the President.
9 comments:
Good post. Have you read the "Tribes" essay at ejectejecteject.com yet?
DANG YOUR DOG! DANG HIM TO HECK!
hehe!
Post pics of the dog. Don't talk bout billary no more, please. Only so much cankled basilisk you can take in one lifetime.
Good stuff! By the way, Brian Williams on NBC news a while ago finally brought up the matter of the flooded school bues and the disaster preparedness plan that was not implemented-the mayor has refused to comment and continues to blame the governor and Bush-he claims he abdicated the chain of command what ever in hell that means. I pplan to keep that picture of the school buses on about every third day until MSM gets off of Bushes back. Hell bubba can screw up bad enough without MSM having to put this on him.
A corrupt system cannot be changed by those who have the power to change it. Why? because those with the power to alter it benefit from said corruption. If you benefitted from the corrupt system (extra cash in your bank account, a nicer house, better parking...etc) would you want to change it and toss your benefits into the toilet? that's thought number one for the day. Thought number two is: Now then, why does the U.S. spend more time inspecting the Nuke Programs of the Axis of Evil than the weather-proofing along our coastlines? Yeeeeaaaaah, let that thought simmer for awhile, buddy! ;-)
The entire chain of command must take blame for this tradegy. Local, state, and national. To absolve the federal government of blame because it can only "turn at the speed of a battleship" is crazy. If this is the best FEMA can do, we're all in trouble! Multi-state diseasters of this scope require a strong federal response. Would anyone imagine that their city's mayor should be the only person responsible for dealing with the aftermath of a WMD attack or earthquake? This is still the USA, even if you live in corrupt New Orleans, and we do have a right to expect that FEMA will show up before 5000 people are dead...what is this, Bangladesh? Blame everyone, I say. Demand better.
Anonymous (I love some of your poems),
The basic understanding of our system of Government tells us this is a problem that must be handled locally. The Federal Gobvernment has NO role unless invited by local government. By design FEMA is a clean up operation. Do I think there are organizational problems in FEMA, yes. Do I worry about the ability of FEMA to handle a large scale terrorist attack? Yes.
This does not change the fact that it is NOLA and the State responsible for the welfare of its citizenary.
Hoosierboy--
I'm glad to know that someone still reads my stuff...those are some old poems.
Don't you think you're being a bit academic to claim that the administration/federal government bears NO responsibility whatsoever in lives being lost? I think everyone looking at the matter objectively would agree that the crisis could have been handled better....better co-ordination, better communication, etc. Lives could have been saved if action was taken sooner.
In a country where the federal government is fighting wars to make us "safer", and has created a federal department to secure the homeland, they haven't done very well. Sometimes we only know our true deficiencies during a crisis, and we've been exposed. In the end we live in America, all of us, and to claim that its actually *okay* that the feds were slow to respond is really to hide behind statutes and evade responsibility.
If its not a federal problem, why send troops at all, why have federal flood insurance (maybe we shouldn't acutally). Part of disaster recovery "emergency management" would be to respond after the tragedy....and FEMA was very poor at this. I don't think anyone would blame FEMA for failing to better evacuate the city beforehand...but to have their director saying that "all is going well" at the height of the crisis after the hurricane shows an inept beucracy. And if Bush himself could be falted for anything, then its is not having an agency which *could* help "manage" a crisis....if that isn't FEMA job we need a new agency...or should have had one already.
Anon-by your logic why have local and state governments at all? Why not just a big nanny state that we can expect to take responsibility for us from birth to grave and beyond. Either we are a free people who have control of our destiny at local levels or we just turn it all over to the Feds.
On one hand the liberal left screams about recruiting for the National Guard then blames Bush because he didn't mobilize the guard-which is not under his control for local disasters. ( The military does have congressional authority to mobilze the guard to serve whenever or wherever needed-why not blame the pentagon or congress) The mayor has adeaquate time and resources to evacuate the people before the levees broike but didnot even follow his own disaster preparedness plan-there are pictures of flooded school buses to prove it. He has no comment.
The governor has authourity over the La National guard-why didn't she send them in sooner-it was her responsibility-not FEMA or Bush's.
Yes indeed. There have been a lot of screw-ups but not on the part of Bush and the Feds. When called they acted as fast as they could act. Troopss were already on standby and were dispatched when notified to go. What else could you want?
The donks have got what they want-something else to blame on BUSH but they LIE through their socialist teeth. The picture of the school buses is proving them liars and there are about a million bloggers pushing the picture to MSM-forcing them to recognize that it was the mayor and governor who screwed up. SPIN AND TWIST BUT YOU CANNOT HIDE THE PICTURES OF THE BUSES!
Hey, I'm not absolving the local officials...they are guilty here, and I'm not arguing the busses don't exist. I'm more concerned what happened *after* the storm...after the city was already full of water and people were drowning.
In the United States government isn't either state/local or national...we have a federal system, in which power is divided between both. We dumped the Articles of Confederation and wrote the constutition better address issues that individual states can't handle alone (national defense, interstate commerce, etc). Would you want to think that your local mayor alone was responsible for your well being? That if your town was wiped out in a tornado and your overwhelmed local officials were busy looking out for their own wrecked houses that you were on your own? Would that be just too bad for you? To have the much richer, more capable national government step in during the worst natural disaster in recent memory doesn't make it a "nanny state", but in fact does precisely what it was *created to do* in the first place.
And no one, Trent Lott, President Bush himself, etc. thinks that the feds are above blame here. Making mistakes doesn't make them evil people...this disaster stretched everyone to their limits (state and local). And people have died as a consequence. In my analysis, it was a failure by all sides to appreciate the depth of the crisis as NOLA began to fill with water. The feds could have moved faster....with greater urgency. I saw the interview with FEMA director Brown that where he thought everything was going very well, at the precise time when it was at its worst. He would have known if he was only watching TV! He would have seen the problems live on Fox News/CNN/whatever. Sure Blanco might have called for help earlier, too...I'm not looking for Bush to take all the blame here. There is plenty for everyone. I just want a safer America.
Anyway, thanks for listening.
P.S. Polls show that once again people's reaction to the disaster is divided by political allegence--Dems blame Bush, the Republicans (75% or so) think the federal response was fine...I just wish we could get past that stuff and look at what actually happened!
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