Here's an intersting far left (farther left than DesElms, ha!) take on Hurricane Katrina and the federal and state governments. http://www.themilitant.com/
Can someone tell me why.... When his city is in the throws of massive devastation caused by hurricane Katrina, the Chief of Police of New Orleans had time to go to a football game last Sunday in New Jersey? Cops are deserting his force and CNN had an article on possible large scale looting still ongoing by the New Orlean's finest and the chief is at a football game in New England!?!? Amazing, absoloutely amazing..... Let's see: a. The mayor decides the city cannot afford to evacuate the poor so they plan to house them in the Superdome with no food or water. 150 buses which could have been used to evacuate the victims are flooded just a couple of miles away from the Superdome. His chief of homeland security says they never had plans to evacuate people anyway. The mayor and his family flee to Baton Rouge where he pleads for the federal government to do something. b. The governor refuses to let in the ARC because she believes that will encourage the people to stay when they should be leaving. c. The levee board is under indictment (pre-Katrina) because they cannot account for $60 mil. of fedearl money given to them since 1998. You can see from current studies published by these same levee boards that they are more interested in building casinos and parks than leveee's anyway, oh and hiring relatives of local politicians including the governor, the mayor and Sen. Landrieu. d. A local congressman is under indictment and hijacks a NG squad, truck and helicopter to go to his house to recover personal belongings, taking these crucial personnel and equipment off of the task of evacuating victims for 2 hours. This is just a small part of the idiocy demonstrated by the local authorities in Louisiana and Sen. Landrieu still has the nerve to say she is going to punch someone if they criticise the local authorities one more time. They are absolutely clueless down there.....
And yet, Air America wants to say the whole diaster is Bush's fault! The idiocy of it all! I think there is blame enough for all involved, but the lion's share clearly belongs to local, regional, and state authorities,
1. I think the article is more fair then most others from the Far Left. 2. I have always liked Senator Landrieu and think, despite her wanting to punch Bush, she is a reasonable and fair woman. 3. Today the news showed the evacuation in Galveston. It was chaotic. This is what would have happened in N.O. had the Mayor and other officials evacuated early. No matter what, a storm of the magnitude of Katrina and Rita will create chaos and reek havoc regardless of preparation, planning, and execution. Flawless execution of plans in the midst of an erratic storm just won't occur.
He did call for evacuation and, according to what I've read, 80% of N.O.s population beat feet (not on the Mississippi mud). But...the population of all of Louisiana is but 4.5 million (Mississippi - 3.0 million, Alabama - 4.5 million). Texas is a whole nuther story.
Now decimon, do you call that early considering a Cat Four or Five hurricane is about to slam a city of roughly 1.3 million that needed to evacuate the poor, homeless, elderly, incapacitated, mentally ill, imprisoned, and those who lacked transportation?
Good question. I won't be the first to bring up the practical problems in getting people to evacuate. Can you not show up for work for a storm of uncertain strength and landing (as of two days before landing)? Can you forcibly evacuate the institutions of the infirm for each potentially catastrophic storm? For how many potentially catastrophic storms can you do that and will you cause more harm for repeatedly jumping the gun than would be done by a storm? I'm not doing this to be argumentative but because I don't believe there is any good answer to these situations. Nagin probably is the luftmenschen he appears but I'm not quite convinced. What exactly he was able to do is still not clear.
throes wreak and unless Nagin is more than one of himself, Luftmensch (Ger.) or luftmensh (Yidd.), not Luftmenschen/luftmenshn
Thanks Uncle Janko. Actually, I caught my mistake and meant to correct it but didn't as I am semi-glued to the television. I still have distant relatives and some friends in the path of Rita. What a mess! Be thankful when hurricane season is over.
Re: Can someone tell me why.... There does seem to be ample culpability at all levels of government. OTOH, Michelle Malkin offers an interesting take on a young man who is either a hero or a thief. The “Incredible Story” link provides more information about Mr. Gibson’s deeds. http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003453.htm
The facts provided in the story are inadequate and so one must suspend judgement. I would only point out that these two categories (hero/thief) are not mutually exclusive. Jack
I wouldn't call him either one. He saw a need--suffering humanity--and made a decision to come to their aid. I guess if I had to give him a name, it would be "Good Samaritan." As an aside, Michelle Malkin is an angry, embittered young lady who is not taken all that seriously because of her mean-spirited demeanor and acerbic attacks on anyone with whom she disagrees. She does those of us in the center or slighly right-of-center a great disservice.
