why do you say that? From a monetary standpoint it is worse, but in the quantity of deaths it looks like it won't even be close. (Lets hope it doesn't turn out to be close anyway).
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: eilute
Well he does have to address it in some way. I'm not too sure what he should do differently.
As far as disasters go, this may prove to be larger than 9/11. We do not yet know how much damage there is.
WTF? Folks, this is MUCH worse than 9/11.
Originally posted by: conjur
Our own little Nero
Originally posted by: BMGSkulk
Awards...
This topic deserves awards for being the absolute, most ignorant, sac load of
spasming retard I have ever seen in a political forum. And I have seen thousands.
Not going to bother giving a rebuttal, as it will fall on stone deaf ears.
Just wanted to give credit where it was due.
Carry on.
September 1, 2005
Waiting for a Leader
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.
Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
Nancy Grace of CNN was all over the Burecratic Apology that was presented by the Whitehouse, They missed the event & sent out soothsayers.
Originally posted by: BMGSkulk
Troll....
The trolling is this entire thread.
Is everyone here NOT from the U.S.?
That's all you see is bash the U.S. threads.
Do you people not have a life or a second train of thought?
Unfriggin believable.
Originally posted by: BMGSkulk
Troll....
The trolling is this entire thread.
Is everyone here NOT from the U.S.?
That's all you see is bash the U.S. threads.
Do you people not have a life or a second train of thought?
Unfriggin believable.
Originally posted by: BBond
A woman was just on CNN telling her story of being taken on a nine hour bus ride from the Superdome to the Astrodome then being told she couldn't stay there.
AFTER SHE SURVIVED ONE OF THE WORST NATURAL DISASTERS IN U.S. HISTORY, IN A STRANGE CITY, WITH NO MONEY, NO FOOD, NO WATER, WITH NOTHING MORE THAN THE CLOTHES ON HER BACK, SHE WAS GIVEN A LIST OF SHELTERS TO CALL TO TRY TO FIND A PLACE TO STAY.
BRAVO PRESIDENT BUSH. WHEN THE STORM WAS OFF THE COAST AND EVERYONE KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE REALLY BAD YOU MAINTAINED YOUR COOL, STAYED ON VACATION, AND DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
MISERABLE FAILURE. THE WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Originally posted by: Condor
Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
Nancy Grace of CNN was all over the Burecratic Apology that was presented by the Whitehouse, They missed the event & sent out soothsayers.
You actually watch Nancy Grace? All Aruba all the time. Damn, can't she find a decent ditch digging job? It is good she found something new to whine about!
How about the stupid bastards that nominated an opponent that the Dub could defeat?Originally posted by: Darkhawk28
Originally posted by: BBond
A woman was just on CNN telling her story of being taken on a nine hour bus ride from the Superdome to the Astrodome then being told she couldn't stay there.
AFTER SHE SURVIVED ONE OF THE WORST NATURAL DISASTERS IN U.S. HISTORY, IN A STRANGE CITY, WITH NO MONEY, NO FOOD, NO WATER, WITH NOTHING MORE THAN THE CLOTHES ON HER BACK, SHE WAS GIVEN A LIST OF SHELTERS TO CALL TO TRY TO FIND A PLACE TO STAY.
BRAVO PRESIDENT BUSH. WHEN THE STORM WAS OFF THE COAST AND EVERYONE KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE REALLY BAD YOU MAINTAINED YOUR COOL, STAYED ON VACATION, AND DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
MISERABLE FAILURE. THE WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
And the stupid bastards in this country voted him in AGAIN!
Originally posted by: Red Dawn
How about the stupid bastards that nominated an opponent that the Dub could defeat?Originally posted by: Darkhawk28
Originally posted by: BBond
A woman was just on CNN telling her story of being taken on a nine hour bus ride from the Superdome to the Astrodome then being told she couldn't stay there.
AFTER SHE SURVIVED ONE OF THE WORST NATURAL DISASTERS IN U.S. HISTORY, IN A STRANGE CITY, WITH NO MONEY, NO FOOD, NO WATER, WITH NOTHING MORE THAN THE CLOTHES ON HER BACK, SHE WAS GIVEN A LIST OF SHELTERS TO CALL TO TRY TO FIND A PLACE TO STAY.
BRAVO PRESIDENT BUSH. WHEN THE STORM WAS OFF THE COAST AND EVERYONE KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE REALLY BAD YOU MAINTAINED YOUR COOL, STAYED ON VACATION, AND DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
MISERABLE FAILURE. THE WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
And the stupid bastards in this country voted him in AGAIN!
It's all about appearances, not substance, anyway.Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
Originally posted by: conjur
Our own little Nero
That G Chord would sound a little buzzy, don't care for his finger placement, sloppy
The coastal communities of South Mississippi are desperately in need of an unprecedented relief effort.
We understand that New Orleans also was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, but surely this nation has the resources to rescue both that metropolitan and ours.
Whatever plans that were in place to deal with such a natural disaster have proven inadequate. Perhaps destruction on this scale could not have been adequately prepared for.
But now that it has taken place, no effort should be spared to mitigate the hurricane's impact.
The essentials -- ice, gasoline, medicine -- simply are not getting here fast enough.
We are not calling on the nation and the state to make life more comfortable in South Mississippi, we are calling on the nation and the state to make life here possible.
We would bolster our argument with the number of Katrina casualties confirmed thus far, but if there is such a confirmed number, no one is releasing it to the public. This lack of faith in the publics' ability to handle the truth is not sparing anyone's feelings, it is instead fueling terrifying rumors.
While the flow of information is frustratingly difficult, our reporters have yet to find evidence of a coordinated approach to relieve pain and hunger or to secure property and maintain order.
People are hurting and people are being vandalized.
Yet where is the National Guard, why hasn't every able-bodied member of the armed forces in South Mississippi been pressed into service?
On Wednesday reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics.
Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!
When asked why these young men were not being used to help in the recovery effort, our reporters were told that it would be pointless to send military personnel down to the beach to pick up debris.
Litter is the least of our problems. We need the president to back up his declaration of a disaster with a declaration of every man and woman under his command will do whatever is necessary to deal with that disaster.
We need the governor to provide whatever assistance is at his command.
We certainly need our own county and city officials to come together and identify the most pressing needs of their constituents and then allocate resources to meet those needs. We appreciate the stress that theses elected and appointed officials have been under since the weekend but they must do a better job restoring public confidence in their ability to meet this challenge.
...For the White House, it was interesting timing. Over the last month, administration officials have deflected criticism of Bush?s monthlong stay at his Texas ranch by making the case that technology has made it possible for Bush to run the country from anywhere, even the so-called Western White House. Indeed, the Bush ranch is equipped with highly secure videoconferencing equipment and phones, and, according to White House officials, Bush has made use of them just about every day this month to talk to senior aides back in Washington and other administration officials scattered throughout the country.
Yet Bush usually hasn?t had to go far to reach his top aides. For the last month, Karl Rove, his closest political adviser, and Joe Hagin, Bush?s deputy chief of staff, have alternated turns living in a trailer just down the driveway from Bush?s main ranch house. Other officials have come to the ranch to meet with Bush face to face, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney. All three visited Crawford to discuss war strategy with Bush earlier this month. In other words, Bush?s days in Texas aren?t all that different from his time in the Oval Office, top aides say. Vacation or not, Bush is always running the country no matter where he is. ?When you?re president, you?re president 24/7,? White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters Wednesday.
So why is Bush going back to Washington now? When asked yesterday what Bush could do in Washington for hurricane relief that he couldn?t do from his Texas ranch, McClellan told reporters no less than five times that it was the president?s ?preference? to return to the White House. Asked if the decision was more ?symbolic? than logistical, McClellan said, ?I disagree with the characterization.?
From the moment Katrina set aim for the Gulf Coast, White House officials have had two other storms on their minds: last year?s devastating tsunami, to which Bush was criticized for responding too slowly, and the political turmoil that Bush faces here at home over the war and the economy. Indeed, August has not been a good month for the Bush administration. White House officials had hoped to capitalize on a slow news cycle to tout the president?s second-term agenda and his accomplishments so far. Yet a spike in casualties in Iraq this month has deepened already widespread worries about the war. That bad news was only compounded by the stampede in Baghdad on Wednesday that left more than 800 Shia pilgrims dead after rumors of a suicide bomber sparked panic.
That dismal news from Iraq, combined with rising gas prices here at home, has sent Bush?s poll numbers plummeting to new lows. An ABC News/Washington Post survey released Wednesday has Bush?s approval rating at 45 percent?down 7 points since January and the lowest every recorded this president by that particular poll.
Bush and other administration officials repeatedly say they don?t pay attention to polls, but they do admit paying close attention to the images of the war and the presidency that Americans see on TV. That?s partly why Bush abruptly called reporters to his ranch Sunday morning to make a statement about Hurricane Katrina as it inched toward the Gulf Coast states. The message: that Bush was ahead of the storm and would be there to respond to its certain devastation. It was in strong contrast to last December?s tsunami, when Bush didn?t make a public statement about the tragedy until three days later, well after the death toll had reached into the tens of thousands.
CONTINUED
Originally posted by: BBond
A woman was just on CNN telling her story of being taken on a nine hour bus ride from the Superdome to the Astrodome then being told she couldn't stay there.
AFTER SHE SURVIVED ONE OF THE WORST NATURAL DISASTERS IN U.S. HISTORY, IN A STRANGE CITY, WITH NO MONEY, NO FOOD, NO WATER, WITH NOTHING MORE THAN THE CLOTHES ON HER BACK, SHE WAS GIVEN A LIST OF SHELTERS TO CALL TO TRY TO FIND A PLACE TO STAY.
BRAVO PRESIDENT BUSH. WHEN THE STORM WAS OFF THE COAST AND EVERYONE KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE REALLY BAD YOU MAINTAINED YOUR COOL, STAYED ON VACATION, AND DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
MISERABLE FAILURE. THE WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Originally posted by: zendari
Originally posted by: BBond
A woman was just on CNN telling her story of being taken on a nine hour bus ride from the Superdome to the Astrodome then being told she couldn't stay there.
AFTER SHE SURVIVED ONE OF THE WORST NATURAL DISASTERS IN U.S. HISTORY, IN A STRANGE CITY, WITH NO MONEY, NO FOOD, NO WATER, WITH NOTHING MORE THAN THE CLOTHES ON HER BACK, SHE WAS GIVEN A LIST OF SHELTERS TO CALL TO TRY TO FIND A PLACE TO STAY.
BRAVO PRESIDENT BUSH. WHEN THE STORM WAS OFF THE COAST AND EVERYONE KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE REALLY BAD YOU MAINTAINED YOUR COOL, STAYED ON VACATION, AND DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
MISERABLE FAILURE. THE WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Bush isn't coordinating the Superdome evacuation. It's the state governments of Texas and LA that are.
Hurricanes come in two waves. First comes the rainstorm, and then comes what the historian John Barry calls the "human storm" - the recriminations, the political conflict and the battle over compensation. Floods wash away the surface of society, the settled way things have been done. They expose the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of corruption and the unacknowledged inequalities. When you look back over the meteorological turbulence in this nation's history, it's striking how often political turbulence followed.
In 1889 in Pennsylvania, a great flood washed away much of Johnstown. The water's crushing destruction sounded to one person like a "lot of horses grinding oats." Witnesses watched hundreds of people trapped on a burning bridge, forced to choose between burning to death or throwing themselves into the churning waters to drown.
The flood was so abnormal that the country seemed to have trouble grasping what had happened. The national media were filled with wild exaggerations and fabrications: stories of rivers dammed with corpses, of children who died while playing ring-around-the-rosy and who were found with their hands still clasped and with smiles still on their faces.
Prejudices were let loose. Hungarians then were akin to today's illegal Mexican immigrants - hard-working people who took jobs no one else wanted. Newspapers carried accounts of gangs of Hungarian men cutting off dead women's fingers to steal their rings. "Drunken Hungarians, Dancing, Singing, Cursing and Fighting Amid the Ruins" a New York Herald headline blared.
Then, as David McCullough notes in "The Johnstown Flood," public fury turned on the Pittsburgh millionaires whose club's fishing pond had emptied on the town. The Chicago Herald depicted the millionaires as Roman aristocrats, seeking pleasure while the poor died like beasts in the Coliseum.
Even before the flood, public resentment was building against the newly rich industrialists. Protests were growing against the trusts, against industrialization and against the new concentrations of wealth. The Johnstown flood crystallized popular anger, for the fishing club was indeed partly to blame. Public reaction to the disaster helped set the stage for the progressive movement and the trust-busting that was to come.
In 1900, another great storm hit the U.S., killing over 6,000 people in Galveston, Tex. The storm exposed racial animosities, for this time stories (equally false) swept through the press accusing blacks of cutting off the fingers of corpses to steal wedding rings. The devastation ended Galveston's chance to beat out Houston as Texas' leading port.
Then in 1927, the great Mississippi flood rumbled down upon New Orleans. As Barry writes in his account, "Rising Tide," the disaster ripped the veil off the genteel, feudal relations between whites and blacks, and revealed the festering iniquities. Blacks were rounded up into work camps and held by armed guards. They were prevented from leaving as the waters rose. A steamer, the Capitol, played "Bye Bye Blackbird" as it sailed away. The racist violence that followed the floods helped persuade many blacks to move north.
Civic leaders intentionally flooded poor and middle-class areas to ease the water's pressure on the city, and then reneged on promises to compensate those whose homes were destroyed. That helped fuel the populist anger that led to Huey Long's success. Across the country people demanded that the federal government get involved in disaster relief, helping to set the stage for the New Deal. The local civic elite turned insular and reactionary, and New Orleans never really recovered its preflood vibrancy.
We'd like to think that the stories of hurricanes and floods are always stories of people rallying together to give aid and comfort. And, indeed, each of America's great floods has prompted a popular response both generous and inspiring. But floods are also civic examinations. Amid all the stories that recur with every disaster - tales of sudden death and miraculous survival, the displacement and the disease - there is also the testing.
Civic arrangements work or they fail. Leaders are found worthy or wanting. What's happening in New Orleans and Mississippi today is a human tragedy. But take a close look at the people you see wandering, devastated, around New Orleans: they are predominantly black and poor. The political disturbances are still to come.