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WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!Posts: Joined: 2004-04-23
It took Nixon just 72 hours to help the same area in 1969 when Camille hit, yet it takes friggin Bush a week to get from his friggin ranch in Crawford Texas?
What the hell is that crap? OOOOHHHHH RIGHT! We are way too busy in Iraq to help our own damn people. (Oh, and yes I am yelling, sorry.) I just got in an arguement with my best friend because it's now being called a black issue. One more lovely thing to start dividing us.
Oh and ttrry before you say one word ... "whatever."
What a friggin example WE are! We cant even help our own damn people, but we sure as hell can raise our gas prices! People are loosing it down there and finallyBush does something. I cant wait to here the excuses. My Catholic Grams would say "thats God paying you back" anytime something bad happened ... she's passed now, but I just bet she would be sayin that to Bush!
I have donated through redcross. If anyone wants to donate you can call 1-800-help-now or go on their website. Its devastating.
Message was edited by: Joeanna Nee
Submitted on Sat, 2005-09-03 12:18
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
There's an article in the Guardian today about the relief efforts (or lack of):
Why did help take so long to arrive?
Communication breakdown and lack of National Guard blamed for slow response
Julian Borger and Duncan Campbell
Saturday September 3, 2005
The Guardian
'It is incredible, the government had no evacuation plan ... the first power in the world and it left its own population adrift." It will be particularly galling that the man voicing those thoughts, echoed yesterday by many across the United States and around the world, was Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, and one of the Bush administration's main hate figures.
That bewilderment, tinged with anger towards officials at local and national level, was shared at the scene of the disaster and by political commentators and disaster relief experts. In Louisiana, local and state officials voiced anger yesterday at the Bush administration's response.
So what went wrong with the relief effort? Why, so many days after Katrina struck, is there still such chaos, despite the fact that there was ample warning of what might befall the Gulf coast?
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has been accused of being so concerned about the possibility of a terrorist attack that it failed to prepare properly for a much more inevitable natural disaster...
Click here to read rest of article...
The reference to Chavez is interesting. In a way he's just using it as an excuse to criticise Bush, but it's worth remembering that he had to deal with a similar disaster shortly after taking office:
Click here for info on Venezuelan flood
The Independent also has an article focusing on the Bush Administration's responce to events:
The questions a shocked America is asking its President
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 03 September 2005
Why has it taken George Bush five days to get to New Orleans?
President Bush was on holiday in Texas when Katrina struck. He then spent Monday on a pre-arranged political fundraising tour of California and Arizona, which he did not cancel or curtail. On Tuesday he surveyed the hurricane damage - but only from the flight deck of Air Force One, prompting criticism that he was too detached from the suffering on the ground. He didn't give a speech until Tuesday afternoon - 36 hours after the storm first hit - and didn't embark on a proper tour of the region until yesterday. Key advisers have come under fire for similar levels of detachment. As the full magnitude of the disaster unfolded, the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, was seen buying shoes in New York, and Dick Cheney remained on holiday.
Click here to read full article...
Message was edited by: Matt Murrell - added article from Independent
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
From an article by Michael Parenti on
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-09/03parenti.cfm
"The free market played a crucial role in the destruction of New Orleans and the death of thousands of its residents. Armed with advanced warning that a momentous (force 5) hurricane was going to hit that city and surrounding areas, what did officials do? They played the free market.
They announced that everyone should evacuate. Everyone was expected to devise their own way out of the disaster area by private means, just as the free market dictates, just like people do when disaster hits free-market Third World countries.
It is a beautiful thing this free market in which every individual pursues his or her own personal interests and thereby effects an optimal outcome for the entire society. This is the way the invisible hand works its wonders.
There would be none of the collectivistic regimented evacuation as occurred in Cuba. When an especially powerful hurricane hit that island last year, the Castro government, abetted by neighborhood citizen committees and local Communist party cadres, evacuated 1.3 million people, more than 10 percent of the country's population, with not a single life lost, a heartening feat that went largely unmentioned in the U.S. press."
...
"It was not until Day Three that the relatively affluent telecasters began to realize that tens of thousands of people had failed to flee because they had nowhere to go and no means of getting there. With hardly any cash at hand or no motor vehicle to call their own, they had to sit tight and hope for the best. In the end, the free market did not work so well for them."
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Joeanna,
Nice of you to acknowledge that a Republican did something right.
I noticed that everyone now considers themselves an expert on hurricanes and hurricane relief. Where were you guys last week?
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
whatchin the damn news and YOU? ERGO: "whatever"
foolishly believing that all the millions of tax dollars that get spent, and the reports of people on the news stating they didnot have the money to evacuate, that somebody in my goddamn government gave a flyin fig for the poorest communities in the United States, and where all our damn oil refineries are in the first place! Now, if I were a conspiracy buff ... I'd be wonderin', but since Im not ... I'm just a pissed off INDEPENDENT (since you keep blabbing about republican/liberal I feel the need to holler) watching little tiny babies be rescued into the fire from the frying pan. What friggin news are you watchin? Have you no compassion, can you not see the ineptness that has occurred???? Unbelievable! This causes you no outrage??? Your fellow Americans? There but for the Grace of God go I.
Once again, contact your local redcross, please. Thank you.
Message was edited by: Joeanna Nee
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Joeanna,
"compassion"? compassion to me does not mean looking for people to lash out at, or politicizing the misfortunes of others. I already sent in my check before I read your blurb.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
According to the New York Times, most of the criticism of Bush is coming from his own party. They're worried that the negative publicity will taint them as well. A lot of the Democratic party (with some exceptions) are sitting it out for now, to avoid being accused of politicising the situation.
Besides, it's a little harsh to criticise Bush for heading off to a fundraiser during Hurricane Katrina. Getting that roof fixed on the West Wing of the White House is obviously a national priority. Especially if you live there.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Matt,
The NYT is hardle impartial. They seem to have overlooked the chain of blame which stretches from a 30-year old levee system designed to withstand only lesser storms; to the people of New Orleans and everyone who has ever been there who know the city is built below sea-level; to individuals who refused to leave in time because in their own words they were "stubborn" or decided to "ride it out" ( it's a myth that they were all too poor); to newspapers in New Orleans who published headlines just before the levees broke that the city had dodged the bullet; to the Mayor of New Orleans, to the City Council, to the State Legistlature of Louisiana, to congressional representatives in Washington DC who could have lobbied harder for upgraded levees and carried out a better evacuation; and then finally all the way up to the Whitehouse 1500 miles away.
Funny how many politicians in the disaster area say the disaster was not their fault, that others up the line should have anticipated it for them. Where I come from, they call that passing the buck.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Ttrryosborn,
It's not Bush's involvement in the construction of the levees that's being criticised. Rather the fact that a) his administration has been responsible for drastic budget cuts to organisations like FEMA, and b) his slackness at responding personally to the disaster.
No-one's saying that all those who remained behind were too poor to evacuate. But there does seem to have been a lack of plans to help those who'd have trouble moving out of the city. Again from the NYT:
Brian Wolshon, an engineering professor at Louisiana State University who served as a consultant on the state's evacuation plan, said little attention was paid to moving out New Orleans's "low-mobility" population - the elderly, the infirm and the poor without cars or other means of fleeing the city, about 100,000 people.
At disaster planning meetings, he said, "the answer was often silence."
Click here to go to article...
Message was edited by: Matt Murrell
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Matt,
Budget Cuts?
Budgets are passed by Congress. Any congressional member from Louisiana could have attached a "rider" to any appropriation bill at any time if they felt they needed to reinforce the levees. It is done all the time for efforts allot smaller than this. No one did. How would a man sitting 1500 miles away, in Washington DC, know of a 200 foot weakspot in a wall if no one next to the wall says anything?
Slackness at Response? New Orleans was hit by TWO disasters, not one. The first was the storm, on Sunday. The second was the levees breaking, on Tuesday. New Orleans newspapers told the world that the situation was safe, on Tuesday, just before the levees broke. The head of FEMA said that the newspapers gave the agency the false impression that New Orleans was better off than others areas hit by Katrina. Efforts had to be readjusted to the CHANGING SITUATION. Finger pointing is easy, escpecially for politicians close to the situation who want to pass the buck. To make them blameless, or worse, to praise them for passing the buck to someone you don't like is hardly courageous. Since this mob mentality has made everyone a disaster relief expert all of a sudden, how would you handle a hurricane disaster that strikes several states? Which area should you send the most aid and the least aid to? How long should it take to rescue 100,000 plus people? Should you organize one big relief effort, or just send people piecemeal into a 100 square mile disaster zone? Since the roads are all under water, how would you get a relief effort into a disaser zone? What should you send in first-- food, or water, or medical supplies, or blankets? What quantities should you send in? Should you send them to hospitals first, or relief centers? Who should you evacuate first-- people on rooftops, or those at the relief centers?
Should you fire relief agency employees because they can't be everywhere at once? Should you let them do their jobs? Or, should nouveau-experts do it instead?
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Ttrryosborn,
The cuts were to FEMA, which saw it's budget drop by 25%. This was so the money could be used to pay for the war in Iraq and Homeland Security.
"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?"
- Newt Gingrich
Everyone's coming under criticism for this. Bush included.
"The head of FEMA said that the newspapers gave the agency the false impression that New Orleans was better off than others areas hit by Katrina."
Your recovery organisation gets it's information from the papers! And you're suggesting that there isn't a problem?
Perhaps he should've heeded CNN?
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Matt,
Glad to see you're coming around to the reality of apportioning blame. The question left is when.
Newspapers and False Impressions?
Do you know how newspapers work? They report the news. They report what local officials tell them. If local officials,on Tuesday, gave the wrong status to newspapers and FEMA after the storm passed through, last Sunday, then they made a wrong JUDGEMENT CALL. To be fair, knowing if every foot of a 100-mile levee system is holding would be a tough task for anyone. That is why a mandatory evacuation order was given to the citizens of New Orleans before the storm hit.
100% of the population heard the order. 80% left. Those left behind have said they were "too stubborn" to leave or wanted to "ride it out". I haven't heard anyone say they were "too poor" to leave. As a blanket answer for staying, that is a myth. What can any official do in such cases?
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Ttrryosborn,
I've linked to enough articles here and on the other thread to show that lot's of people involved in disaster preparations over the years were worried something like this would happen. The ability to evacuate an entire city just doesn't seem to have been in place. What was done for those that didn't have transport? Or were too sick to move? Where was the $400bn military budget when it was needed?
I've heard plenty of explanations for why people didn't leave town, from poverty, stubbornness, to "hurricane fatigue". Perhaps you need to broaden your news coverage?
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Matt,
Thank you for acknowledging that poverty was not the blanket reason people stayed in New Orleans. Some people bore the responsibility for their misfortune-- not just Bush.
Were some worried about possible disaster? Of course, but not enough to do more than talk. There are those who write about The Big One hitting Los Angeles. I haven't seen them do anything either. Perhaps, they're waiting to blame others as well.
"hurricane fatigue" is the same thing as stubborness. Residents had heard the call to evacuate before and nothing happened. It's like to boy who cried wolf once too often.
The military budget and disaster relief? Apples and oranges.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Ttrryosborn,
"Thank you for acknowledging that poverty was not the blanket reason people stayed in New Orleans."
Given that I hadn't suggested otherwise, the thanks seems a little unnecessary.
"The military budget and disaster relief? Apples and oranges."
Not when you can use the military and it's equipment to evacuate people. Especially when a state of emergency in the area was declared two days before the Hurricane made landfall.
Click here for an article from Salon.com
Message was edited by: Matt Murrell
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Matt,
The use of the military in New Orleans?
You haven't read my own post yet regarding the refusal of Louisiana's democratic governor to cooperate with Bush in order to get the troops into New Orleans. A President cannot simply invade a state. There must be a declaration of martial law by the governor first. The governor refused.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
According to the article you referred to, the Governor declared a state of emergency on August 26th. Wouldn't that have been enough for Bush (or whoever) to put the military at their assistance? Apparently the Pentagon has criticised the Bush administration and FEMA for creating too much red tape.
Troops in the region were mobilised before the hurricane even hit, under Joint Task Force Katrina. The National Weather Service were predicting massive damage to city as early as August 28th. Why were so many people just left behind?
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Matt,
Mobilizing troops is very good. However sending them in still requires a governor's declaration of martial law and a request for those troops. Louisiana's governor stalled.
People left behind? We already went over that. Many refused to go, or did not think it would be so bad. It's an academic question if no one provided a way out. Nobody in city government activated the bus system to carry them. The photo of New Orlean's bus fleet sitting neatly parked in the bus yard under water makes you wonder what city officials (who blame others after the fact) were thinking. Getting the buses rolling would not have been a federal decision.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Ttrryosborn,
Apparently (stress on the "apparently" for now) the governor of Louisiana couldn't declare Martial law, as no such term exists is Louisiana state law. The nearest they have is the "state of emergency", which was declared.
Makes sense, given that troops are in the city right now.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
From the Times-Picayune:
The state Attorney General's office on Tuesday sought to clarify reports in some media that "martial law' has been declared in parts of storm-ravaged southeast Louisiana, saying no such term exists in Louisiana law.
But even though no martial law exists, Gov. Kathleen Blanco's declaration of a state of emergency gives authorities widespread latitude to suspend civil liberties as they try to restore order and bring victims to safety. Under the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act of 1993, the governor and, in some cases, chief parish officials, have the right to commandeer or utilize any private property if necessary to cope with the emergency.
Authorities may also suspend any statute related to the conduct of official business, or any rule issued by a state agency, if complying would "prevent, hinder or delay necessary action'' to mitigate the emergency.
It also gives authority the right to compel evacuations, suspend alcohol and weapons sales and make provisions for the availability and use of temporary emergency housing.
The law gives mayors similar authority, except they do not have the right to commandeer private property or make provisions for emergency housing, according to a background brief prepared by the state Attorney General's office.
Click here for full article...
The same paper also has a copy of a letter from Blanco to Bush requesting help, dated August 27th.
Message was edited by: Matt Murrell
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Matt,
Perhaps you don't understand the difference between state and federal authority. Governors can invoke "state" emergencies. It has happened in California many times.
It used primarily in cases of fire, or small catastrophe. In a large catastrophe (for example a large earthquake) the governor would immediately ask for federal assistance. It's always a judgement call. Until that call goes out, the federal government has to sit on the sidelines. To think that a small state like Louisiana could handle Katrina and the breaking of the levees alone is a major miscalculation. Others suffered while the governor delayed.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Ttrryosborn,
According to the press releases coming out, she did request help. It just didn't arrive in time.
You're basing a lot on one story in the Washington Post. The Bush official claimed that Blanco hadn't issued a state of emergency, when the article itself notes that she issued one before the hurricane had even hit.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
If the Truth Be Told....
"The reaction of the Bush administration to the catastrophe of its own making in the invasion of Iraq and its response to the disaster unleashed by Hurricane Katrina on the US Gulf Coast have both revealed gross incompetence and a criminal contempt for human life. Both have led to soaring death tolls and immense suffering."
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/noir-s0 [...]
"GROSS INCOMPETENCE AND A CRIMINAL CONTEMPT FOR HUMAN LIFE"
- 'NUF SAID.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
It is a shame that the present political duopoly prevents the people from expressing, through the ballot box, genuine socialist sentiment, which in discussing not only disaster relief, but is what lies fundamentally at issue in all our debates about war, health insurance, social security, etc. Indeed, a government of the people, by the people, FOR the people is a socialist concept.
This country needs a large dose of socialism to recorrect a proper balance between private property interets and the General Good. Bush has so far marginalized considerations of the General Good that the federal governement today is but an instrument for the protection and extension of private interests.
Hence, I am against making ANY contribution to any charity for the Louisianna victims: ONE dollar to charity means one dollar less the federal government would be politically compelled to spend. In fact, ONE DOLLAR in charity for the New Orleans victims means nothing more in net effect than ONE DOLLAR more for Bush's war.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Neocynic,
Donate the money to the charities. Then, once everyone's safe, start putting political pressure on your government. Otherwise the victims of the Hurricane get used as a political football.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
"What the hell is wrong with Bush". Is there any need to ask this question when the obvious answer is - EVERYTHING.
There isn't one single issue on which he hasn't screwed up and that includes the economy, given the dramatically increasing cost of oil and the repercussions that will now be felt as a result of the underfunding of protective measures in New Orleans and elsewhere and the consequent fall in refinery capacity.
Ttrryosborn's vain attempts to 'shore up' the gaps in Bush's record are laughable.
Message was edited by: brolly3
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Matt Murrell,
Ttrryosborn will never concede that Bush and his administration got anything wrong. It's as simple as that. He will try to 'pull rank' on anyone who isn't American and supposedly acquaint them with all the reasons, Constitutional, State,local and logistic that nothing could be done better than it was. He is the supreme apologist for Bush. He will wriggle every which way according to what you adduce to support any criticism of Bush. Black will become white and visa versa, to order. Inconsistency is no problem for him.
I would be surprised if there is any single issue that Ttrry would concede that Bush got badly wrong. This is what loses him credibility when a few concessions would help to restore some confidence in his judgement.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
brolly,
Black and White? It is you and others who refuse to concede that Bush may be right and others wrong. You overlook a great many truths and facts to achieve that. You rely heavily on half-truths, exaggerations and misrepresentations. I merely point the flaws in your arguements. It's not hard. The latest attempt to pin the disaster in New Orleans on Bush is a classic example.
City and state officials are principally responsible for messing up the evacuation (if an 80% evacuation in 48 hours can be considered messing up). Delays by the governor to ask for and accept federal assistance would be difficult to blame on the Administration.
As of today a fully-equipped mobile hospital unit developed by the Office of Homeland Security capable of caring for 113 patients has been sitting along the roadside 70 miles north of New Orleans. It has been sitting idle since before Katrina struck. Louisiana officials have refused to let them deploy to the disaster site. I'm anxious to see how you can blame Bush for that.
I would be equally surprised if there is a single issue that you would concede in his favor.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
A very small man in a very big job.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Ttrryosborn,
["In fairness, a storm of this magnitude which affected an area the size of Great Britain would challenge the best laid relief plans of anybody including those on OD who think they have all the answers".]
The statement above is true to a point. That point is that the plans were far from the best. They were just plain bad and the buck must stop with the Bush administration. After all what do you need a president and Federal Government for, if the main responsibilities for protecting life and limb are not taken on by them.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
There was an opinion piece in the Guardian Weekly today that seems to have caught the situation fairly well:
Team Bush's bad day in Wyoming
Peter Preston
Monday September 5, 2005
It wasn't just all the president's men who failed in Katrina's wake
The grisliest quote of the week, the one to cut out and keep, came when reporters asked Lea Anne McBride what her boss was doing as New Orleans sank, stank and suppurated. "He's working from Wyoming today," said Vice-President Dick Cheney's official spokesman brightly. At which point - against all odds - you began to feel slightly sorry for George Bush.
No one with any semblance of rationality can pretend that Bush carries personal blame for the debacle of New Orleans. He didn't personally go through the fine print of recent budgets and strike out the item marked "Levees, strengthening of". He didn't personally choose the federal emergency mastermind for such crises (a former selector of horse-show judges). As a notoriously light reader, he clearly never clapped eyes on commodious newspaper and official warnings of hurricane wrath to come.
The president was on holiday, as usual, when Katrina roared in from the Gulf of Mexico last Monday. Perhaps he took the first TV reports - that New Orleans had missed the worst - as gospel, and went for a jog. Perhaps his staff didn't want to wake him. The mythology of "commander-in-chief" and the reality were starkly separated again. It's foolish to dump everything (including the historic woes and racial divisions of a city born to sing the blues) on poor George alone.
Click here to read full article...
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Joeanna Nee, et. al.
As this latest Pew Research Center poll demonstrates, the perceptions of Katrina's aftermath is divided along the fault lines of race. Collectively, the federal authorities and the Bush Administration are viewed more negatively than the state/local authorities. While this may be unfair in the face of such of a calamity, more Americans seem to think the response by the Federal Authorities could've been better.
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=255
9/11 traumatized American society by inaugurating a new era of insecurity. The thought that Americans could be attacked on native soil (even with all that military might), has introduced a shiver in the american consciousness that will be hard to remove any time soon. (With or without success in Iraq.)
If not attended to quickly, Katrina's legacy will be the reopening of the racial wound that will not heal. In addition, Americans will now question the dependability, ability, and will of its own government to help them quickly in a time of desparate need.
Concurrently, the world looks on in astonishment as the greatest single power the world has yet known resembles more of a third world nation in its immediate reaction to the disaster rather than the self proclaimed global military hegemon ready to take on all comers opposed to freedom and democracy.
There is nothing to gloat or smile about in this sad spectacle. There is hope in the goodwill of the American people to help its own survivors.
Re: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BUSH?!?!
Globalserver,
Let me start by saying that the racial division has never been healed, especially down south. Where the heck do you live? I grew up in Mass. in and around Boston, if your white try taking a stroll through Roxbury at night and if your black try taking a stroll through Dorchester. The race issue was definitely present during the OJ trial.
Besides that, in the darkest hours people sometimes need laughter. It reminds us that we are human, that all is not lost. When the father of my son and unborn son suddenly died, I was devastated. Crushed. If I didnt laugh, I would have curled up and died. What good would I have been for my child and unborn then? It is commonly called gallows humor. Ever hear of it? It is a common survival mechanism when the human heart is weighed to heavy with sorrow and helplessness. I donated what little I have, people up here in Maine are offering to host families in their own homes and offer what little they have. There is only so much pain one can carry before they need to regenerate the soul and the soul was meant to soar. Where there is sorrow may there also be light- so sayeth the Lord.
Oh, in case you dont know where Maine is, East Coast USA.
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