What's Bush Got To Do With It?
When the face of suffering is black, somehow our high standards for effective action and compassion begin to sag. The truth is, George W. Bush left these people behind a long time ago
Don't say that a hurricane destroyed New Orleans. Hurricanes don't drown cities. It was a "perfect storm" of a different kind which put that great city underwater: Bush-era neglect of our national infrastructure, combined with runaway global warming and a deep contempt for poor African-Americans.
The result: catastrophe. The flooding was not a result of heavy rains. It is a result of a weak levee -- one that was in mid-repair when the storm hit. And that levee, which has held back floodwaters for time beyond memory, collapsed for one simple reason: Bush refused to fix it last summer, when local officials were begging him to do so. Instead, he diverted those funds to the war effort.
full story Here
Don't say that a hurricane destroyed New Orleans. Hurricanes don't drown cities. It was a "perfect storm" of a different kind which put that great city underwater: Bush-era neglect of our national infrastructure, combined with runaway global warming and a deep contempt for poor African-Americans.
The result: catastrophe. The flooding was not a result of heavy rains. It is a result of a weak levee -- one that was in mid-repair when the storm hit. And that levee, which has held back floodwaters for time beyond memory, collapsed for one simple reason: Bush refused to fix it last summer, when local officials were begging him to do so. Instead, he diverted those funds to the war effort.
full story Here
posted by _H_ at 7:01 pm
4 Comments:
I won't waste a lot of ink on this, but these claims are pure nonsense and simply ill debated political attacks. The levees are as good as they were under Clinton and were deemed 99.5% effective. Nothing is perfect, but they were deemed adequate until such time further spending could be justified. If you want a similar, and as silly, counter argument: Clinton could have taken those soldiers that he used in Waco to kill those families and sent them to New Orleans to work on the levees. Silly? It's the same as arguments being made by the left.
The money spent on the levees, or not spent, was determined after creating budgets based on national priorities, balanced with potential costs and risks. That's the way the system works.
You can always find people predicting disasters of which 99.9% will never occur. Yet, you will focus on the 00.1% that did. "Experts" are predicting that we'll get hit by an asteroid. So, should we divert all resources to that just because some think that it could happen soon? No.
Think rational and logically about this. The problem of New Orleans spans many administrations and local and state governments. If it is Bush's fault, then it is shared with all those who preceded him and all the others who sat around.
It is amazing, but not unexpected, that the left would want to divert attention and resources to blaming Bush rather than helping people in need. I'm not surprised. To the left, power is more important than doing what is right.
as you know woody , I am not American , so i dont feel it my place to get to involved , but the article above was one that paint's a popular view with many and it puts across the views of that camp rather well
my personal opinion:
Katrina was not like sept 11th , The warnings were there for over a week .
The government (local and national) have no excuse for not being prepared for a worst case situation
when the tragedy of the tsunami happened in asia , food and water was being dropped within an hour
when 50,000 died last christmas in Iran from an earthquake the rescue team were on site and saving lives in large numbers within a few hours
in both of the above there was NO reports of robbery,rape,anarchy,chaos,murder etc
the rescue effort for katrina was a complete shambles and how this is being shown outside the US is not how you are seing it
there weree tens of thousands of people who could not leave when they were asked to , they had nowhere to go , they had no car or cash to use
these people were abandoned ,
this is shocking , they had 5 days notice
the troops should have been on standby
did you know that yesterday was the FIRST DAY that paramedics actually landed in the city of new orleans
did you know that the red cross was ORDERED not to enter New Orleans at all by the government , they say so very cleartly on there own web site
disorder at such a time should not have been possible , if the standby had been put in place then the troops could have been there within HOURS not days !
we can get food dropped on a country in africa within a few mere hours of a crisis but a super power can't even drop so blankets and medicine in 4 days !
come on woody , it is a shambles
at least hundreds have died , not due to a hurricane , not due to a flood , but due to absurdly disorginised attempts to do something
another example , the local government told people to go to the stadium as they would be safe
they were NOT
there was no water
no toliets
no eletricity
no food
no medicine
no doctors
nobody in charge
people were murdered inside the stadium
british tourists were raped in full view of everyone inside the stadium , having done exactly what they were told to do
why on earth after 5 days had the government not dropped in any of the following ?
medics ?
food ?
medicine ?
generators ?
soldiers ?
the red cross ?
clothing ?
blankets ?
those people got nothing , and horrific though it is , it does not compare to what the people of asia had to cope with recently
America is a super power and they cant even get food to people in there own city ? come on please
i dont care where the buck stops
but people are to blame , to say that there was a 0.1 % chance of this happening does not seem to add up
how often do the authorties become so concerned that they tell the entire city to leave before the event ?
how dumb do you have to be to not realise that some people would not be able to ,
(i was just watching them (7days on) evacuating a hospital only half a mile from dry land , these people had run out of medicine and electricty days ago , people have died , and they are only HALF A MILE away ,
i agree with all those that say that a crisis like this should not be political , but some people dont release that this works TWO ways
defending the undefendable is just as wrong
hundreds of americans have died due to not being prepared for an event that had a whole week to be ready for
heads should roll and plenty of them
I am not defending the response. I'm deflecting inappropriately directed blame. In our system, the city and state have primary responsibilities for these matters with the federal government supporting them in emergencies.
This was not like 9-11, but if we knew that the WTC and Pentagon were going to be bombed and told the people to get out of the buildings, then those buildings would have been emptied. The city took its time to order an evacuation, partly because of legal concerns by the mayor, and the mayor did not use the city's transportation system to move people out.
Today, I am watching rescuers on the news frustrated because, even now, they cannot get people to leave their homes that are up to five feet in water. Even when the govenment is doing all it can, you find that you can't save stupid people from themselves.
this point from you is similar to the one you posted under "China offers U.S. $5 million in aid " woody so i have answered you there
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