MERGED==> The politics of Katrina + Trent Lott + Michael Moore

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anitram said:


It is in many parts of the world.

And some of the finest institutions in the world, like Oxford and Cambridge have tuition rates for home students which are neglible compared to the shittiest US schools.

If you want to subsidize education, you can. Where there is a will there is a way.

It's just a matter of priorities. Apparently in the US we place great value on big honking SUVs (people can get tax breaks on the very largest ones) and the gas to power them. :shrug:
 
Everywhere, including here, all of everything will be spin. I despair of anything ever really changing except to disintegrate further. On the whole, FYM is a smart and compassionate group. It's been fun.
 
nbcrusader said:


There were people arriving in Houston from the Superdome within 48 hours of the passing of the storm. That is after a major place of refuge was deemed no-longer suitable.



I guess now that most of us have broadband, we turn our nose at dial-up response times to anything.

It was a little bit more than 48 hours before that happened, and when people are dying, you're damn right things should be done faster than they were. A helicopter can drop food and supplies into the middle of the desert in Iraq - it could and should have been done immediately after this storm hit as well. I'm sorry you don't feel the same way.

Why do people completely miss the point of criticizing this? If it was Clinton in there instead of Bush, I'd be just as pissed, and I'm sure most others here would be too.

Your comments are, quite frankly, sad to read.
 
My minister...probably the most liberal person I know gave a great sermon today.

She spoke about blame and her horror at the fact that we are so very quick to point the finger of blame, yet there are still people needing help and rescuing. She said there will be plenty of time to point the finger of blame, but, that energies should be used elswhere so that as many lives can be saved as possible.

:up:

Our church and the interfaith alliance that has been built in our communitity are also looking into getting local housing to help people relocate until they are able to come home.
 
Your minister is right Dread. The Blame Game has become America's most popular parlor game. We need to focus on helping the people of the Gulf. It's desperate. There have obviously been screw-ups but perhaps the press is overstating the case. I'm so far behind on my news it's pathetic. I didn't get my cable connection back until last night.
 
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Not sure where this originated or who actually wrote it but it was emailed to me so I thought I'd pass it along - apologies if it's been posted already.
_________________________

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore
 
I don't feel that the blame game has taken over.

As for myself, I am just shocked that we were so unprepared for some immediate aid (first 5 days). I feel strongly that many have taken all the shock and disgust as typical blame-game politics. But my shock and disgust is from the tragedy itself and our leaders apparent lack of grave concern from the very earliest hours. This has no political boundaries for me, as the democrats have failed to push any agenda since the terror tragedy in New York. Their job is to keep topics being ignored made known.

But as many have pointed out the time for that blame is not now.
On that point, I really must say that my shock, horror, and disgust in real and of no political motivation, and I feel that may be true for a majority.
 
jay canseco said:
I feel strongly that many have taken all the shock and disgust as typical blame-game politics.

The easy way out: blame-game card.

Saw that Fox report, Hannity Colmes and Smith Rivera, right in/at the Convention center?

Gimme a break.. Fox is known to be very supportive of the administration and usually they´re pretty biased, and everyone knows. And still people have the nerve to say for a natural disaster no one should be blamed. Well guess what: no one is blamed for Katrina - but the politicians and agencies are for the way they´re dealing with it.

I know it´s not easy to get hundredthousands out. But obviously I could have been done faster and there were no appropriate plans for such a disaster.

And I will tell you right now it will be exactly the same next time.

What are the people gonna do if a nuclear power plant blows up, they have to flee into non-radioactive emergencies, and many of them are without a car? They will be left on the street to die. What will happen when the people realize that they can´t eat the food stocked at the non-radioactive emergency center? Because the Department of HS and FEMA forgot to keep the food fresh and it´s been lying around there for 2 years?
 
As far as whose head may or may not roll.

Politically, this may end up a lot like the aftermath of 9/11. Bush will urge a delay in any Congressional hearing so he will have time to successfully shift some of the blame to the local level (the conveniently Democratic mayor and governor. I smell a lot fo potential new Frican-American "red" votes! Esp in Texas if the poor stay there. IN addition to the genuine humantirarian concern, down the road, the Texas governor will find politcal opportunity as well.)A lot of the blame will get shifted to the lower levels as usual. The heads of FEMA and Homeland Security are not only Bush appointees but personal friends. So they will keep their jobs (just as Trent Lott, Bill Frist, Tom DeLay, and Karl Rove have. Speaking of Frist...he's going some way to redeem himself by personally toruing places where people in NOLA are suffering. You didn't expect Bush to show up in any of the well-documented hellholes in NOLA, but aides should have determined, or he should have wanted, to go to place where people were suffering and spend time there. The hospital patient evacuees at the airport where Frist is were a sight not too terrible for Presidential eyes. The airport triage center was operating the precise same time he arrived in the city on Fri. )

But one thing he will not be able to dodge is the economic ripples and effect, at the least. I imagine that right now he and aides are busily seeking to classify or destroy any possible documents, if they exist, reagarding FEMA and Homeland Security's actions the past week, and esp the botched 2004 funding for the levy repair, that critics say went to Iriaq instead. They may be able to escape taint for that. Proving that one-third of the LA National Gaurd personnel and fully HALF of its material (trucks, choppers, etc) was in Iraq at the time, how they will dodge that, will be more difficult.

I just hope the poor Mayor does not become the scapegoat for all this. It will be easy to put all the blame on him. In Bush's eyes, he is the worst sort of apostate. In a time when he is triyng to reach out to black voters, Nagin was a former Republican who switched parties in 2002 and successfully ran for mayor. Now, his office no longer exists. And when NOLA rebuilds, of course he's history. Nobody has clean hands in this, but Nagin's, IMO, are the least dirty of all. There was only so much he could do, and in these disasters, they should be run from the top-down. We know the anguish that man is feeling. I watched an interview with him this morning. He was well-dressed and polite and sedate. What a contrast from Fri. What must be going through his mind...

Blancho is toast. Governor-wise, LA will go Red. I think that's a given. I just hope that a Republican version of Huey Long will not arise. For those of you who don't know who he was or the circumstances of his rise to power in the 30's, now is a good time to learn. And remember, for those of you who do know, he had Presidential aspirations, and Roosevelt was openly afriad of him. The only thing that stopped him from possibly becoming President in the late 30's was an assassin's bullet. A good book is "A Nation In Torment: America In The Years Of The Great Depression" by Gary Nash. I learned alot aobut politcal stupidity in that book. AN interesting comment is how much Herbert Hoover was like W. In 1930-32, the worst yrs of the Depression, he was like W "small government" minded and extremely close to business interests. In the early 30's, people were pressuring the Feds to organise an agency and funding for the victims and jobles etc, but he kep relegating authroity for the consequences of the Depression to the States. Even when there were food riots and angry marches and outright starvation in America ( in 1931 alone, there were 5 or 6 major hospitals in NYC that documented 100+ death a year from starvation) he still refused Federal funding for Depression relief. This was alarge part of why he FDR got in, when the country used to hate FDR. And hence, FDR going 360 degrees in the opposite diection..the New Deal. Interesting stuff, about people and politcal parties and social unreast and economics. What we have today is the biggest dpsplacement of people since the Dust Bowl. As thw Chinese say, May you live in interesting times...I recommend this great book to everyone.

As far as politcal ripples, it makes no diff to me if Bush stays or resigns. There will be Deomocratic sniping calling for his gead, I"m sure. So far, though, they are being smart, and keeping quiet. As long as the Dems keep quiet, and let Bush hang himself ( A tactic that Reiad has perfected so far) they MAY have a chance of getting back Congress next year.

I imagine, that there were many in the Republican party who we already know have Presidential aspirations ( Frist, Guliani, and now my dear Governor, George Pataki) may laready have been chafing under Bush's bit, and had not liked him. I am sure now that some of them may even now be thinking the whole Adminstration a bunch of bumbling folls and privately cursing and despising the name of Bush. They may be planning an all-out assault on Jeb should he decide to run in 2008, and of course Jeb will run. The Bush dynasty must continue, right? What will be interesting is how much the ripple effect of Katrina may have on the Republican Party. I am predicting that even if the Republicans manage to keep control of Congress, few in the Republican party will want to hang on to W's coattails. The name of Bush will become politcal poison, just as Clinton's did after Monicagate. This is not factoring into the Iraq dilemma if the contry has a civil war in the next 3 yrs. SO far, the results even before their elections don't look good. Can Jeb realistically run now, without incurring the wrath of his own party (and you KNOW JEb will try to play up his own favorable hurricane relief experiences, in contrast with his bro's. But that won't wash, next to Frist being in the trenches in the aftermath. Today he 's not only doing some good humanitarian work, but playing good politics.) And of course, whoever Karl Rove supports, is the one who runs for Prez. Guliani is an iconic figure. Can he successfully challenge Jeb for the nomination? What if Karl Rove tells his pal W in 2007 that the polls show America is sick of the name Bush, and that the Republican ticket is better served with Guliani? Would he tolerate that, or fight the advice?

It will be interesting to see the political fallout. But if there are no hearings on Katrina before the en dof the year, it would be a disgrace. If these :censored: idiots in charge of Homeland Security and FEMA are not FIRED, it will be a disgrace. The American people are already indeirectly suffering from the diversion of badly needed domestic funds to Iraq. Now, they are going to suffer more b/c of this. With the refugees, the oil shortages, the loss of the Mississippi as a major import and export area for weeks (months?) it;s hard to imagine how this could nbot affect the economy for years. And then, we'll have to find jobs for the refugees. And how can the HMO"s go on as suail, when so many need medical care? Tikme sof great social shcange usually come in the wake of disasters.

And now the 2 court vacancies. Even if the Court goes 6-3 Right, how can anyone for example, realisticaly hear an affirmative action case now? how can anyone realistically support doing away with it? WIll there be public pressure to support social programs they otherwise wouldn't support? How much of Bush's domestic agenda can survive now?

This is a test, America..a test....and God is watching.
 
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The media can talk about blame all it wants. They're not responsible for getting help to the area. The governments, whether local or federal, need to focus on getting everyone else.

The media will keep harping on what it wants, and no one should be surprised when it does exactly that.

As for Michael Moore, while I might agree with the basic sentiment, he needs to drop the childish tone and over-the-top sarcasm if he wants people to listen to him. I think even the liberals aren't paying much attention to him anymore.
 
jay canseco said:
I don't feel that the blame game has taken over.

As for myself, I am just shocked that we were so unprepared for some immediate aid (first 5 days). I feel strongly that many have taken all the shock and disgust as typical blame-game politics. But my shock and disgust is from the tragedy itself and our leaders apparent lack of grave concern from the very earliest hours. This has no political boundaries for me, as the democrats have failed to push any agenda since the terror tragedy in New York. Their job is to keep topics being ignored made known.

But as many have pointed out the time for that blame is not now.
On that point, I really must say that my shock, horror, and disgust in real and of no political motivation, and I feel that may be true for a majority.

:up:
 
there was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.
 
From Meet the Press this morning:

SEC'Y CHERTOFF: Michael Brown got on TV in Saturday and he said to people in New Orleans, "Take this seriously. There is a storm coming." On Friday there was discussion about the fact that even though this storm could fall anywhere along the Gulf, people had to be carefully monitoring it. We were watching it on Saturday and Sunday. The president was on a videoconference on Sunday telling us we've got to do everything possible to be prepared. But you know, Tim, at the end of the day, this is the ground truth: The only way to avoid a catastrophic problem in that soup bowl is to have people leave before the hurricane hits. Those who got out are fine. Those who stayed in faced one of the most horrible experiences in their life.

MR. RUSSERT: But that's the point. Those who got out were people with SUVs and automobiles and air fares who could get out. Those who could not get out were the poor who rely on public buses to get out. Your Web site says that your department assumes primary responsibility for a national disaster. If you knew a hurricane 3 storm was coming, why weren't buses, trains, planes, cruise ships, trucks provided on Friday, Saturday, Sunday to evacuate people before the storm?

later in the program:
interview with Jefferson Parish President Broussard

"MR. RUSSERT: Hold on. Hold on, sir. Shouldn't the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of New Orleans bear some responsibility? Couldn't they have been much more forceful, much more effective and much more organized in evacuating the area?

MR. BROUSSARD: Sir, they were told like me, every single day, "The cavalry's coming," on a federal level, "The cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming." I have just begun to hear the hoofs of the cavalry. The cavalry's still not here yet, but I've begun to hear the hoofs, and we're almost a week out.

Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.

But I want to thank Governor Blanco for all she's done and all her leadership. She sent in the National Guard. I just repaired a breach on my side of the 17th Street canal that the secretary didn't foresee, a 300-foot breach. I just completed it yesterday with convoys of National Guard and local parish workers and levee board people. It took us two and a half days working 24/7. I just closed it.

MR. RUSSERT: All right.

MR. BROUSSARD: I'm telling you most importantly I want to thank my public employees...

MR. RUSSERT: All right.

MR. BROUSSARD: ...that have worked 24/7. They're burned out, the doctors, the nurses. And I want to give you one last story and I'll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. 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. She drowned Friday night.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. President...

MR. BROUSSARD: Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody. "

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
 
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MR. RUSSERT: Welcome all.

By now this animation by NBC News has become very familiar. It shows exactly how New Orleans is that so-called bathtub, a city in between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. And when those levees break, the city can be flooded and disaster can occur.

Mark Fischetti, you wrote an article for Scientific American 2001...

MR. MARK FISCHETTI: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: ...and you basically predicted this very thing happening.

MR. FISCHETTI: Right. The article came out in 2001. It was based on computer models that Louisiana State University had been running for several years. A plan had been put together in 1998 already by scientists and engineers what could be done to protect New Orleans if a Category 4 or 5 hurricane came from the south as it did.

MR. RUSSERT: So when the president and Secretary Chertoff say, "We were surprised that the levees were breached," were you surprised?

MR. FISCHETTI: I wasn't surprised. I felt sick Sunday night myself having written this piece and seen the computer models about what could happen in this very instance. I wasn't the only one to write about it. Others have written about it. The models have been out there.
 
phanan said:


It was a little bit more than 48 hours before that happened, and when people are dying, you're damn right things should be done faster than they were. A helicopter can drop food and supplies into the middle of the desert in Iraq - it could and should have been done immediately after this storm hit as well. I'm sorry you don't feel the same way.

Why do people completely miss the point of criticizing this? If it was Clinton in there instead of Bush, I'd be just as pissed, and I'm sure most others here would be too.

Your comments are, quite frankly, sad to read.

It is sad that you make assumptions about how I feel. You can claim we should have done this or that until you are blue in the face. But it won't help one person in the Gulf Coast area today.

I'd say most of us here don't know the complexity of coordinating all the relief efforts, yet we are abundantly blessed with the gift of criticism.
 
Michael Moore/Open Letter to GW Bush

Got this in an email on Friday/Saturday. Thought I'd share...

Subject: Michael Moore had a few thoughts . . .


Vacation is Over... an Open Letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush
by Michael Moore

Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Dear Mr. Bush:
Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.
Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?
Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!
I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?
And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!
On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.
There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.
No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!
You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com
P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy
 
Lila, that letter was posted earlier today in another thread so I've merged your thread into that one. Hope that's okay. And apologies for the bizarre title this thread has now had imposed on it. (Trent Lott and Michael Moore in a room together? I'd pay to be a fly on the wall for that one. :wink: )
 
nbcrusader said:


You can claim we should have done this or that until you are blue in the face. But it won't help one person in the Gulf Coast area today.

I disagree. It seems that FEMA and the administration did not seem to get in gear until they started getting heat about their slow response. If people had not complained and said nothing, I hate to think what the response would have been now.

That's where a lot of the anger is coming from, I think. The reporters on the ground were showing these horrible conditions and Mr. Brown of FEMA was acting like things were going great.

Just read this on another board, it was posted at about 2:30 p.m. EST:

The Mayor of Hattiesburg, Mississippi was just on CNN talking about how there are trucks full of water and ice standing by near his city but that the FEMA representatives there will not authorize the distribution of the water.

This is today that this is happening.
 
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kellyahern said:
From Meet the Press this morning:

MR. BROUSSARD: ...that have worked 24/7. They're burned out, the doctors, the nurses. And I want to give you one last story and I'll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. 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. She drowned Friday night.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. President...

MR. BROUSSARD: Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody. "

What reading this doesn't show is that Mr. Broussard, a middle-aged, white, burly, county sheffif-type broke down sobbing uncontrollably during his story and screamed for help through tears.

This is all so gut-wrenching everwhere you turn :sad:
 
AliEnvy said:


What reading this doesn't show is that Mr. Broussard, a middle-aged, white, burly, county sheffif-type broke down sobbing uncontrollably during his story and screamed for help through tears.

This is all so gut-wrenching everwhere you turn :sad:

Yeah, there's a video of part of it on the msnbc sight. I couldn't watch the whole thing :reject: :sad:.
 
What kind of blows me away about all of this was... that on Monday - during the day, most of the press was announcing Katrina a NON-EVENT for New Orleans. That NO was safe.

It wasn't till that night when the levees broke. It wasn't till early Tuesday morning before anyone realized there was substantial flooding.

So, it wasn't really till Tuesday afternoon before people realized there was a REAL REAL problem. And by then, it was too late. Sending in relief while the water was rising would have been suicide. You had to wait till the water receded.

Ughhh!!!
 
Our international standing has taken another huge hit, the pictures seen around the globe show third world chaos and despair right here in the richest country in the world. Five years ago we were admired, now our reputation is in tatters. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the poor, left to die because they couldn't afford to escape the city, I couldn't believe my ears when I heard the politicians making excuses for their failure to protect those who counted on them. The 'legacy' of the Bush administation is sealed now, one of incompetence and failure.
 
sharky said:


Not even that, but FEMA is now PART of Homeland Security. And the guy Bush called "Brownie" -- Mike Brown -- was fired his last position working for the International Arabian Horse Association for mismanagement of funds. If you can't take care of a bunch of horse lovers, why the hell should you be running FEMA?



NBC just had a story about this guy's qualifications. They even had a guy from the International Arabian Horse Association wondering how Brown got the job at FEMA.
 
kellyahern said:



NBC just had a story about this guy's qualifications. They even had a guy from the International Arabian Horse Association wondering how Brown got the job at FEMA.


Nepotism.
 
Katrina victims anguished at leaving behind pets
Last Updated Sun, 04 Sep 2005 16:21:09 EDT
CBC News

As Valerie Bennett was evacuated from Lindy Boggs Medical Center in New Orleans, her rescuers told her there was no room in the boat for her two dogs.
NEW ORLEANS - SEPTEMBER 03: Donnie Panarello Sr. (R) and Donnie Panarello Jr. (L) pull dogs Chance (2nd R) and Buddy down a flooded street as they evacuate the hard-hit Chalmette community of Saint Bernard's Parish September 3, 2005 in New Orleans. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

She pleaded. "I offered him my wedding ring and my mom's wedding ring," the 34-year-old nurse said Saturday.

They wouldn't budge. She and her husband could bring only one item, and they already had a plastic tub containing the medicines her husband, a liver transplant recipient, needed to survive.

It's a scene that's been repeated over and over again during the past week: rescued pet owners, forced to leave their animals behind.

In an oft-repeated story reported last week by The Associated Press, a police officer took a dog from a little boy waiting to get on a bus leaving New Orleans. "Snowball! Snowball!" the boy cried until he vomited. The policeman told a reporter he didn't know what would happen to the dog.

Some at the medical centre, fearing their animals would starve without them, asked a doctor to euthanize them. He improvised a makeshift gas chamber by wrapping a dog kennel in plastic.

"The bigger dogs were fighting it. Fighting the gas. It took them longer. When I saw that, I said 'I can't do it,"' said Bennett's husband, Lorne.

The Bennetts ended up leaving their dogs with the anesthesiologist, who had promised to care for people's pets - about 30 in total - on the roof of the centre.

"He said he'd stay there as long as he possibly could," said Valerie Bennett, speaking from her husband's bedside at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital. She said that Saturday, he was still there, according to a posting on the PetFinder web site.

Louisiana State Treasurer John Kennedy, who was helping with relief efforts Saturday, said some hurricane victims were refusing to leave without their pets.

"One woman told me 'I've lost my house, my job, my car and I am not turning my dog loose to starve,"' Kennedy said.

He said he persuaded refugees to get on the bus by telling them he would have the animals taken to an exhibition centre.

The U.S. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals picked up two cats and 15 dogs, including one Kennedy found tied up beneath the overpass next to an unopened can of dog food with a sign that read "Please take care of my dog, his name is Chucky."

The fate of pets is a huge but underappreciated cause of anguish for storm survivors, said Richard Garfield, professor of international clinical nursing at New York's Columbia University.

"People in shelters are worried about 'Did Fluffy get out?"' he said. "It's very distressing for people, wondering if their pets are isolated or starving."

The Bennetts had four animals, including two beloved dogs.

On Saturday, as Hurricane Katrina approached, both went to the hospital to help and took all four animals with them.

They fed their guinea pig and left it in its cage in a patient room. They couldn't refill its empty water bottle because the hospital's plumbing failed Sunday, they said. They poured food on the floor for the cat, but again no water.

"I just hope that they forgive me," Valerie Bennett cried.




These poor people have suffered such emotional, psychological and physical trauma and most don't have the means to address the issues which will affect them for the rest of their lives. First, they are unable to leave the danger zone, then they suffer the horrors of experiencing the hurricane, then the floods come, then they are moved to a place where they hope help is coming, none shows up for days. As the story above describes, many have the added anguish of having to give up their beloved pets which we all know is very difficult. And now, after all this chaos and suffering, they must come to terms with fact that they have lost everything including many loved ones. I hope that the authorities don't overlook the emotional well-being of these people.

:sad:
 
http://www.katrina.com/


This site was started 7 years ago by a woman named Katrina Blankenship who is a web designer. She has converted the site to help provide links and message boards for family members to find out info about loved ones.

Good for her. One person posted that she was offered $500,000 for the site but refused to sell.:up:
 
WASHINGTON POST !!!! FEDS URGED GOVERNOR BLANCO TO ACT... SHE REFUSED!!!!!

Micheal Moore will eat his words.......

Looks like the President suspected that the locals were no Rudy Guiliani and Bernie Kerrick and requested that Blanco and Nagin sign the paperwork get out of the way..... they didnt till it was too late.....


Quote:
Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state’s emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. “Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,” said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

“The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana,” White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. “The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana.”

Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state’s victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680.html
 
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