The newspapers are really laying into Bush for his three days absence on taking action and leadership on an event that unlike 9/11 is being felt in every state, not just some blue ones. It's nice to know that only now, a mere 10,000 cots are on the way, while 25,000 are now being evacuated from the Superdome... pathetic. What the hell was it with quoting all those numbers of blankets, ice, and meal. Something that is "going to take years" to recover from had to wait three days because Bush was on vacation, riding his bike, and insulting veterans by comparing WWII to Iraq. It was Saturday morning when everyone knew this was most likely to happen. Waiting until Wednesday afternoon is dereliction of duty. Not to mention the addition reserved that are required to be called up are three to five days away...
George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.
We will, of course, endure, and the city of New Orleans must come back. But looking at the pictures on television yesterday of a place abandoned to the forces of flood, fire and looting, it was hard not to wonder exactly how that is going to come to pass. Right now, hundreds of thousands of American refugees need our national concern and care. Thousands of people still need to be rescued from imminent peril. Public health threats must be controlled in New Orleans and throughout southern Mississippi. Drivers must be given confidence that gasoline will be available, and profiteering must be brought under control at a moment when television has been showing long lines at some pumps and spot prices approaching $4 a gallon have been reported.
Sacrifices may be necessary to make sure that all these things happen in an orderly, efficient way. But this administration has never been one to counsel sacrifice. And nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.
While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast's most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans's levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane's surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area's flood protection?
It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America "will be a stronger place" for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won't acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal.
"This is mass chaos," said Sgt. Jason Defess, 27, a National Guard military policeman who had been stationed on a ramp outside the Superdome since Monday. "To tell you the truth, I'd rather be in Iraq," where he was deployed for 14 months, until January. "You got your constant danger, but I had something to protect myself. [And] three meals a day. Communications. A plan. Here, they had no plan."
MSNBC Video Report:
[Stagnant water] cutting off access, leaving residents to hold up desperate messages for whoever might be watching from above. One of those flying over head is President Bush surveying the scene from Air Force One. But the people on the ground are more interested in the Coast Guard helicopters who come to give them a chance to live.
I already said this on my blog in a much longer post, but I will say it again - I am completely disgusted by the way the government has reacted to this disaster.
I know, everyone and their mother knew this was going to happen Sat morning. I don't think it takes a genius to know that 20% or so of the population does not have personal transportation. Cannot afford the $1,000 plane tickets, bus ECT. Bush could have called the air national guard and had them all out of their big cargo type planes. But know, they let social Darwin take over and it was survival of the economic fittest.
I actually saw the Homeland Defense Secretary on one of the news channels this morning and he had the nerve to say since it was a mandatory evacuation it was those people's choice to stay and that is why they are suffering. As though people with no money and maybe not even a car had a choice. It really angered me.
I know, it's just sick. It does not take a freaking genus to know that you have areas where the mean individual income is $11,000. People living paycheck to paycheck, no credit cards, cars, how in the hell would they get out?
Thursday, September 01, 2005
5 Comments:
I cannot believe this is my country…
This hurts me so much I cannot put it into words.