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

[sulawesigirl4]

One has to wonder how the absence of a significant amount of the National Guard (away fighting in Iraq) both personnel and vehicles/equipment affected the state and local response.

 

[Dreadsox]

I usually agree with you on several subjects, but on this, you disappoint me tremendously. That's all I have to say about that.

Why, because I have been organizing relief to be delievered...

Or because I just fail to jump on the bandwagon.

Save your disappointment. It has been a long week of worrying and praying here.

 

[DrTeeth]

Assuming this actually becomes an official federal issue after it's been declared a disaster area, I think questions about 4 days of either inaction or incompetence are justified.

 

[joyfulgirl]

Re: Trent Lott will rebuild, better than ever!!

What a monumental (so many have said this devastation is of biblical proportions, and for a man who allegedly sees himself in such terms, it's sort of scary to see his response today) opportunity he missed to say something healing and inspiring...does anyone think he shed a tear about all this?

Compare Bush's response to that of Tony Blair's during the London bombings, for example. Not that I'm a big fan of Blair but he was so human in his response--he was visibly moved and distressed. Bush just seems like this is a big inconvenience, another annoying event that has rained on his parade (no bad pun intended).

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

Have fun politicizing this whole thing....I will be back when there are other assumptions that are being used incorrectly to fit your adjenda.

Unreal. I can safely say that most of us here who are outraged do not have some huge political agenda; we just want to see something done about what has turned into a once "unfathomable" situation happening just a few hundred, or a few thousand, miles from us.

You're telling us we have no right to point the fingers at the so-called leaders of the country? Interesting.

 

[FizzingWhizzbees]

I never said I was happy with it. But I think the politicization in this thread is beyond people being happy or unhappy.

I don't think it is. People are rightly disgusted that as this disaster is unfolding the President is stopping for photo ops with guitars and birthday cakes, the vice President is on vacation and the Secretary of State is shopping for shoes. People are rightly shocked that it is five days since the hurricane struck and yet there are still tens of thousands of people stuck in a city where conditions are deteriorating by the hour. People have a right to demand an explanation as to why the government has as yet failed to adequately respond to this disaster.

Seriously, I just spent my week organizing some relief from my Lion's Club, My church, and my school......I do not have patience for this.

That's great, I applaud anyone who's making an effort to help the people affected by the hurricane and flooding. But why should that prevent people from raising questions about why the governemnt's response has been so inadequate? Why can't people help raise money or send supplies as well as demanding the government put in place an effective plan to help the people affected by these events?

 

[melon]

There is such a thing as "micro" and "macro" level response. In the "micro" level, aid preparation and assistance is of utmost importance and should transcend politics. Mistakes may have been made, but that's not the concern of the "micro" level.

"Macro" level, on the other hand, is where we ask the questions on the larger picture as to what should have been done, who is responsible, what can be done to prevent this from happening again, etc. This thread is mostly about the "macro" level, and I think is just as important as the "micro" level response. And not all of us are in a position to do anything at the "micro" level, but we should be supportive of those who are making a difference in this level.

Thanks Dreadsox for your relief work. It will be appreciated.

Melon

 

[DrTeeth]

I would also like to argue that evaluating the authorities' behaviour with disasters like this is absolutely necessary for either preventing the next one, or improving rescue operations after the next one.

 

[BorderGirl]

In the case of a forecasted Category 5 Hurricane Warning days in advance the "state" definitely bears responsibilty to have a plan.
It issued a mandatory evacuation.
Citizens who could get out on their own means did. That's good cause it's less for the state to have to do.
Those who could not because of econoimcs should have been evacuated to safety before the storm hit.

 

[melon]

Louisiana and many of their neighbors are too poor to be self-sufficient. They often rely on the "wealthier" states, which is equalized through federal funding.

But if you insist on state burden, maybe the South needs to raise their state taxes then. After all, "welfare is bad," right?

Melon

 

[phanan]

In the case of a forecasted Category 5 Hurricane Warning days in advance the "state" definitely bears responsibilty to have a plan.
It issued a mandatory evacuation.
Citizens who could get out on their own means did. That's good cause it's less for the state to have to do.
Those who could not because of econoimcs should have been evacuated to safety before the storm hit.

If the federal government had constructed levees that can withstand these types of storms, then the magnitude of this catastrophe would not be as severe. So yes, I blame the federal government for that, Democrats and Republicans alike.

And the federal response AFTER the storm hit has been ludicrous, to put it mildly. And for that, I blame our President.

 

[phanan]

Why, because I have been organizing relief to be delievered...

Or because I just fail to jump on the bandwagon.

Save your disappointment. It has been a long week of worrying and praying here.

Because, while I understand your frustration at certain comments, to declare to everyone in this thread that the politicization of this disaster is for taking advantage of certain views is outrageous. I'm sorry if you think our government is handling this well. Most of us disagree, and we certainly have a right to disagree. If you don't like it, don't say anything and ignore the thread.

And I applaud you for organizing relief, and to suggest that I am attacking you on that front is preposterous, and you know it.

 

[sharky]

Just watched the press conference......

Is that the same press conference where the Coast Guard helicoptors and troops were standing in the back doing NOTHING? How the HELL can we save anyone when the government insists on using Coast Guard saving equipment for a PHOTO OP?

I used to walk by a sign in a window across the street from the Ground Zero in NYC. It was a quote from Thomas Jefferson: "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." As Americans, we don't work for the government, we work for each other. We have to watch out for each other and help each other in need. We give money because we are lucky enough to have money. We fight for those who are less fortunate and get money and food and clothing to people in their darkest hour.

Because we watch out for each other, we have a responsibility as Americans to use our freedom of speech to question our government when they are wrong. It was WRONG for Condi Rice to be shopping in NYC instead of taking calls from international leaders who wanted to help. It was WRONG for Scott McClellan to say people shouldn't be stealing food and water because sooner or later, the government would show up with supplies. And it is WRONG that in the midst of all this, the vice president is on VACATION.

We can point fingers all we want -- LA didn't prepare well for evacuations, Mississippi should have saw this coming when they put in a casino law saying casinos had to be in barges that ended up being washed a half mile inland. Point, point, point. But this is a multi-state disaster which requires a multi-state government to respond like...oh...the FEDERAL government. No state could have enough resources to fight a Cat. 5 hurricane along and yet for almost a week, that is what has happened. Sure, you can bitch the NO mayor needed to evacuate people but how can a city with a majority of people below the poverty line be able to get money needed to pay for such an effort?

 

[randhail]

If the federal government had constructed levees that can withstand these types of storms, then the magnitude of this catastrophe would not be as severe. So yes, I blame the federal government for that, Democrats and Republicans alike.

Yes, if the levies had been higher then it would have probably reduced the damage but if the natural hurricane barriers, marshlands and alike, had not been bulldozed the damage would not have been as severe either. So you can extend the blame beyond the government to developers.

 

[kellyahern]

Because, while I understand your frustration at certain comments, to declare to everyone in this thread that the politicization of this disaster is for taking advantage of certain views is outrageous. I'm sorry if you think our government is handling this well. Most of us disagree, and we certainly have a right to disagree. If you don't like it, don't say anything and ignore the thread.

I don't think it's political either. It's not just people opposed to Bush who are critical of the response:

Gingrich criticism

Even Republicans were criticizing Bush and his administration for the sluggish relief effort. “I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can’t respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we’re prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

He urged Bush to name former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as the White House point person for relief efforts. “We need to get the job done now, and I don’t think anybody is better prepared to do that psychologically and otherwise than Rudy Giuliani,” Gingrich told The Associated Press.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9157866/

 

[sulawesigirl4]

Yes, if the levies had been higher then it would have probably reduced the damage but if the natural hurricane barriers, marshlands and alike, had not been bulldozed the damage would not have been as severe either. So you can extend the blame beyond the government to developers.

That's very true. And guess whose administration repealed the protection of 20 million acres of wetlands and opened them up to development?

 

[pax]

It was WRONG for Condi Rice to be shopping in NYC instead of taking calls from international leaders who wanted to help. It was WRONG for Scott McClellan to say people shouldn't be stealing food and water because sooner or later, the government would show up with supplies. And it is WRONG that in the midst of all this, the vice president is on VACATION.

Yes, yes, and yes.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I would hope his vacation is now over

I agree 100 % with what Gingrich said, how the heck would the govt ever handle a terrorist attack of that magnitude? It is terrifying to think about. Bush himself said today it looks like the Gulf was hit w/ the biggest weapon you can think of, something to that effect I don't have the exact quote.

I don't blame Bush or the govt, but I do hold them accountable for their response. That has nothing to do w/ my views on Bush either, I would feel exactly the same if it was Clinton or any other Democrat. Doing their best isn't good enough when dead bodies are on luggage racks and people who have already suffered enough are being raped.

I can't believe the press secretary actually said that about people taking food and water

 

[ladywithspinninghead]

I know this is hard, Melon, but in a time like this we should think rational. Oil companies donating money.

I`m by no means an apologist for the oil companies but I heard Shell is donating $1million dollars to the relief efforts.

Also, I read this very interesting article in the Globe & Mail this morning:

Nasty, brutish -- society's net snaps
Friday, September 2, 2005

At one point yesterday, as a helicopter-mounted camera showed a teeming swell of furious, gun-toting Louisiana residents mobbing a busload of supplies, a stunned British TV anchor spoke his mind on the air: "I'm having trouble believing that we're watching the continental United States of America. I mean, it looks like Rwanda."

A complete societal breakdown: Nobody expected that from hurricane Katrina, but that is what seems to have engulfed the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The threads that hold society together have unravelled, leaving destruction, looting, violence and desperation.

Americans, who rely on faith and fortune for so many of their most successful endeavours, are beginning to ask how those qualities have failed them so badly. Why is it that in some places struck by catastrophes of similar magnitude, entire societies pull together in enriching acts of mutual assistance, while other societies collapse into self-annihilation?

"Philosophers like John Locke and Thomas Hobbes tried to imagine what a 'state of nature' looked like -- we're now seeing it inside the United States and it's really brutal," says Alan Wolfe, a political scientist at Boston University who has written widely on the fragile foundations of U.S. society. "We're going to have to ask: 'How did we allow this to happen?' ''


In much poorer societies, such as Indonesia and Sri Lanka after the Boxing Day tsunami, or in more polarized societies like Montreal during the 1998 ice storm, scenes of looting, violence and selfish desperation did not occur. But the large U.S. cities of the South have a very different sort of group psychology, in which faith in individual fortune replaces the fixed social roles that keep other places aloft during crises.

In U.S. cities like New Orleans, in the analysis of the American-British organizational psychologist Cary Cooper, social cohesion depends on a shared belief that individual hard work, good luck and God's grace will bring a person out of poverty and into prosperity. But those very qualities can destroy the safety net of mutual support that might otherwise help people in an emergency.

"Fear itself motivates people in the U.S. -- the fear that you could lose everything," Prof. Cooper said in an interview yesterday from his office at the University of Lancaster. "That creates the best in American society, the inventiveness, but the moment the net is pulled out, it becomes a terrible jungle."

Observers have long recognized this tendency to societal breakdown concealed within the mass psychology of U.S. success.

"The moral mandate to achieve success exerts pressure to succeed by fair means, if possible, and by foul means, if necessary," the sociologist Robert Merton wrote in the 1960s. In times of crisis, fair means are too often replaced by foul.

There are exceptions: The extraordinary mass acts of mutual support that followed the Sept. 11 attacks in Lower Manhattan or the floods in the Dakotas, for instance, or the charitable activity that has all but ended the AIDS crisis in the United States.

But historians point to a constant threat of self-destructive breakdowns that seem to dot U.S. history, belying the thin veneer of civility that sits between entrepreneurial prosperity and mass chaos. The individualistic, egalitarian, anti-authoritarian values that have made the United States succeed have always been accompanied by an every-man-for-himself ethos that can destroy the system itself.

"America's egalitarian and meritocratic foundations tend to undercut just those institutions that sustain the values that so concern us," the American sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset wrote in his book American Exceptionalism.

The U.S. historian Steven Mintz says that the Americans of the early 19th century were constantly haunted by "the spectre of social breakdown . . . rising lawlessness, poverty, prostitution, irreligion and violence, which, if not stopped, threatened to destroy the new nation's democratic experiment."

He quotes Sidney George Fisher, a well-off Philadelphian of 1844 whose reaction to the events of the day -- riots between anti-immigration Nativists and recent Irish Catholic immigrants, chiefly over education -- seem to echo the responses of many educated Americans to this week's scenes from New Orleans.

Witnessing the crazed, starved mobs bent on violence who overtook the cities in those days, he said the country seemed "destined to be destroyed by the eruption of the dark masses of ignorance and brutality which lie beneath it, like the fires of a volcano."

In seeking parallels to the current shocking breakdown of basic social functioning in Louisiana and Mississippi, a number of U.S. thinkers said they have been forced to go back to the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.

That disaster, which utterly destroyed one of the most pious cities of the old Roman Catholic empire at the peak of its success, revealed to people across Europe that faith in God's good grace was not enough to keep a society aloft.

The earthquake provoked the leading philosophers and politicians of the age to seek answers outside the confines of the church, and led to the creation of secular thought and the modern nation-state.

This search for a new faith, in something less magical and more likely to save our cities, was the direct motivation for the concept of the 'state of nature,' in which life is 'nasty, brutish and short,' against which the philosophers described a new, secular order -- the same one that gave rise to the American Revolution.


________________________

Or maybe like New Orleans' mayor said, the violence is confined to just a few, mostly the drug addicts denied their next fix...

 

[BorderGirl]

New Orleans: Let's build a city below sea level and put a wall around it. No matter that it is built on marshland and continues to sinks every year.
That's fine, but sooner or later a huge hurricane will come and blow it away.
This is reality y'all.
Could this have been avoided? Maybe, if it had been an indirect Category 3.
They can rebuild the levee to withstand a Category 5 and the next week a Category 6 will come and blow it all away....
It will never be enough. It's called a natural disaster.
That's life on the turbulent Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I don't know if this has already been posted but it makes perfect sense to me

N.O. Mayor Ray Nagin :



"After 9/11 we gave the president unprecented powers to take care of New York and those other places.... you mean to tell me that a place where thousands of people and thousands more people are dying, we can't figure out [how to get them help]. . . Somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down and sit down the two (sic) them figure this out."


"I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city."

 

[pax]

Dreadsox, you know I have a lot of respect for the charitable work you do, but to say that people shouldn't be criticizing the government at a time like this--when our leaders have been collectively out to lunch, when resources are either being poorly deployed or not at all, when National Guard troops are spread thin or unavailable, and when the poorest of the poor are bearing the brunt of this disaster--well, that, in my opinion, is irresponsible.

We cannot just swallow this. We cannot say it was all right for Condi Rice to be out shopping, we cannot say it was all right for Dick Cheney to continue his vacation, we cannot say it was all right for Scott McClellan to criticize people who could not leave the city. It is not all right. It is beyond inexcusable.

If you were on a business trip or something, and one of your children got sick, or your wife had an accident, you'd come home on the next plane, right? You wouldn't dawdle in the local Brooks Brothers or decide to hang out on the beach for a few more hours. Why do we not expect the same behavior of our leaders?

 

[Irvine511]

Bush on CNN: "We got a lot of rebuilding to do.... the good news is and it's hard for some to see it now but out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic gulf coast... out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- the guy lost his entire house -- there's going to be fantastic house. I look forward to sitting on the porch. Out of New Orleans is going to come that great city again."

yes, i'm so happy Trent Lott will be okay.



out.

to.

lunch.

again.

in August ...

 

[U2democrat]

Yeah...when he started talking about Trent Lott's porch I was like "WTF is this idiot going on about?" and started yelling at the TV

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

yes, i'm so happy Trent Lott will be okay.



out.

to.

lunch.

again.

in August ...

My thoughts exactly, Irvine.

 

[hiphop]

I think it's time for a fucking revolution.

Organize one. Kick your prez out of office and make a peace march against poverty.

 

[verte76]

from my girlfriend, Wonkette:



The President's Response to Insurgent Katrina

Fox News and others are reporting that the President just got "his own bird's eye view" of Katrina's damage as Air Force One flew over the devestated region. Shortly after, Bush gave prepared remarks to the press pool:

We are making progress in New Orleans. The flood is in its last throes. Clearly, the hurricane has a hateful ideology and does not like our freedom or our dryness. We cannot surrender to it. In New Orleans, they are working on a draft evacuation; it is an evacuation process, and we must expect that if we are to bring American-style democracy to the Mississippi Delta.

The president added that "to pull out now would only give aid to the elements."

At first I didn't realize this was a joke.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

i must say first, as many may already know, i've voted for bush twice now... i've never been quick to criticize him or his administration.

i'll also preface this with a defense of the whole "vacation" thing that a lot of people are bitching about... all of congress was on vacation, too. so if you're going to yell at Bush and his administration for being on leave, in all fairness, he did beat congress back to D.C. by a few hours. ALL parties are to blame for their slow response to this tragedy.

but on to my first scatching criticism of the Bush Administration...

Frankly... I was putting together a bunch of paragraphs trying to voice how I felt... but then I read an article that quoted none other than Newt Gingrich, and he put it perfectly... so I'll just quote him instead...

"I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?" said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich

Now let's first say that don't think I'm comming over to the darkside and joining the Dems... I still think hard-core lefties are completely out to lunch. But what the fuck?!?! The one damn thing that the Bush Administration had going for them was about how they were fighting terror abroad and preparing for future attacks here at home. It's the selling point that's had me hooked.

But what the fuck?!?! WHat the fuck have you been doing for 4 god damn years?!?!

Bush has got to take the blame first, 'cause he's in charge. But I'm talking to Hillary, Schumer, Rice, Rumsfeld, Kennedy, Ridge, Chertoff... everyone who's been a so called leader in preparing us for a future attack... here ya go! Here's a practice run for ya, courtesy of mother nature... and you all failed miserably.

So what the fucking hell have you been doing in the past 4 years that it takes a week to get shit done?

Ponderous...

Fuck Bush, Fuck Clinton, Fuck Schumer, Fuck Rice, Fuck Ridge, Fuck Chertoff... Fuck 'em all.

 

[Irvine511]

But what the fuck?!?! WHat the fuck have you been doing for 4 god damn years?!?!

Bush has got to take the blame first, 'cause he's in charge. But I'm talking to Hillary, Schumer, Rice, Rumsfeld, Kennedy, Ridge, Chertoff... everyone who's been a so called leader in preparing us for a future attack... here ya go! Here's a practice run for ya, courtesy of mother nature... and you all failed miserably.

So what the fucking hell have you been doing in the past 4 years that it takes a week to get shit done?

Ponderous...

Fuck Bush, Fuck Clinton, Fuck Schumer, Fuck Rice, Fuck Ridge, Fuck Chertoff... Fuck 'em all.

the people are outraged at ALL our leaders.

yes, the Republicans are in power, but the Dems are hardly blameless.

we deserve better.

message to the people of the US: vote with your brains, not your emotions.

 

[Dreadsox]

Dreadsox, you know I have a lot of respect for the charitable work you do, but to say that people shouldn't be criticizing the government at a time like this--when our leaders have been collectively out to lunch, when resources are either being poorly deployed or not at all, when National Guard troops are spread thin or unavailable, and when the poorest of the poor are bearing the brunt of this disaster--well, that, in my opinion, is irresponsible.

We cannot just swallow this. We cannot say it was all right for Condi Rice to be out shopping, we cannot say it was all right for Dick Cheney to continue his vacation, we cannot say it was all right for Scott McClellan to criticize people who could not leave the city. It is not all right. It is beyond inexcusable.

If you were on a business trip or something, and one of your children got sick, or your wife had an accident, you'd come home on the next plane, right? You wouldn't dawdle in the local Brooks Brothers or decide to hang out on the beach for a few more hours. Why do we not expect the same behavior of our leaders?

Exactly what do you think the Secretary of State should be doing?

I HAVE NEVER SAID IT IS WRONG TO CRITICIZE THE GOVERNMENT.

I do have a problem with people for starters implying that the Iraq War caused the levy to not be fixed do to cuts. It is flat out not true according to everything I have watched.

We DO NOT have the facts about the rescue operation or the manner in which it is being handled.

Am I dismayed at the number of poor who could not get out. Absolutely. Is it Dick Cheney's fault....NO.

I have sat here pissed off because it was 24 hours ago my wife's uncle was taken out of New Orleans. The first buses were sent away to the dome even though they were hired by the hotel to come get them, the buses were diverted by the police elsewhere.

To me there is a difference between politicizing and criticizing.