Bush Tells New Orleans...

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
183

Push,

I have no problem with you pointing out issues here in Canada. It might be nice if you tried to discuss facts instead of preconceived caricatures though.

Generally though, topics on the forums in these parts are concerning America. I suppose I could simply not participate, which might make you happier.

Anyway, just so you know, I’m sure nobody took my post the way you implied. Calling me a US hater and so forth was just ridiculous, so I wanted to point out I had donated.

Again, if you had your crayons with you, you might have been able to connect those dots as well.

So, I have to ask you, what is the change in my perspective, with respect to thinking, because I happen to live in Canada? How come my opinions are from “a Canadian perspective” as you put it?

Are people no longer human when I cross the border to the south? Do they no longer deserve compassion when they are in need? I know I don’t subscribe to the theory that Bush is demigod that can do no wrong, but that is not purely a Canadian perspective, nor is it a perspective that all Canadians hold.

Is there any substance to your posts, or are you just anti-Canadian for some reason? I can tell you are anti-vroom at any point. Bully for you!

Go buy some crayons.

184

[quote]reddog6376 wrote:

So,… Bush could have done ALL this, and should be impeached because he didn’t.

[/quote]

No one is saying Bush should have done all of that. We are saying a 3-5 day late response shows he was unorganized and didn’t even think this was that much of an event to even cut his vacation short. Why is this so hard to understand?

185

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Prof, You are making our (those of us on the other side of the aisle on this issue) point. This was such a huge catastrophe that NO ONE, …the victims, the federal, state or local governments, NO ONE, could be as prepared as they should have been.
[/quote]

Let’s go slow, the issue is not who could prevent a natural disaster, it is “look how freaking slow they were to respond to a national disaster while people died”.

186

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Pro X,

You say that the mayor couldn’t use the buses to give effect to his mandatory evacuation order because ‘roads were closed’.[/quote]

Don’t simplify what I have said. I said that in LESS THAN TWENTY FOUR HOURS THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH TIME TO CONVINCE PEOPLE TO EVACUATE AS WELL AS GET THEM ALL OUT IN TIME. I mean, seriously, how many times does this need to be written?

[quote]
Why were they closed and who closed them?[/quote]

Hopefully they were closed by someone smart enough to realize that having cars on a highway during a hurricane is a bad idea.

187

[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
vroom wrote:
Reddog,

I’m not sure many people are actually trying to suggest impeachment…

JustTheFacts has, & I got the impression ProfX agreed with him. [/quote]

I haven’t said a thing about impeachment. I personally didn’t vote for the man. I also can plainly see that he bears some of the responsibility here. I am wondering what is wrong with those who want to act as if none of this falls on him.

188

[quote]Garrett W. wrote:
Prof X,
You don’t remember Hurricane Dennis very well, do you? Actually there isn’t much to remember. The hurricane itself didn’t really do any damage. However, over a half million people had to evacuate with the same type of warning people had with Katrina. (Also people started evacuating Friday in Mobile, AL. I espect the same thing happened in NOLA) [/quote]

I currently live in this area. I was right here as they expected Katrina to hit FLORIDA again until late Saturday afternoon. There was no warning days in advance. They were hoping to dodge the bullet in New Orleans until Saturday. The order to evacuate was Sunday morning. The hurricane Hit Sunday night-Monday morning. Quit acting as if these people had all of the time you are trying to pretend they had.

[quote]

Now to the problem of the homeless. The city should’ve gotten those buses and either evac. the city or sent police to move more people into the Superdome. Dealing with the homeless/poor is a difficult problem and would happen in just about any city. Shit happens.[/quote]

In less than a day, 2,500 people were supposed to be evacuated?

[quote]
You talk about roads closing? Road don’t close prior to a hurricane. The usually one way every interstate out of a city for a couple hundred miles when they are trying to evac people. Bridges usually close when wind speeds go over tropical storm strength.[/quote]

Did you miss how much time was available? I suppose you did. How convenient.

[quote]
And now for the response for disater relief. Lets say this storm is moving at 20 mph. You need to be safely (relatively) out of the way of this storm, so you stay 140 miles away (still 50-60 mph winds, heavy rain etc.) So waiting for the storm to pass, however, the storm now needs a few more hours to pass over you. Trees covering major roadways need to be moved. The supply areas need to be set up etc. etc. etc. Here it was suprising to see anything set up on Tues. and we didn’t have the worst of it. [/quote]

Things should have been set up on Tuesday. They weren’t for the most part. That is the problem.

[quote]
Some things have to be done before food and water can be handed out. These things take time. Some slow asses up I-59 clearing trees in the Pine Belt can slow the whole relief effort down by hours.[/quote]

Funny. I saw Harry Connick Jr. on the news after he made it in before we saw any heavy influx of National Guard. From reporters and those who did make it in, it was nowhere near that hard to get into the city.

189

[quote]freemark wrote:
I notice that Reddog and some others keep trying to change the subject. The subject is “after the levees broke did Bush bear any of the responsibility for the abysmal response of Federal government”? The simple answer is YES HE DOES.
[/quote]

There is a hyoooge difference in shouldering some of the blame - which I think will happen when it’s time to assess blame - and taking all of the blame for something that wasn’t even in his legal scope of responsibility.

I’ll tell you what, when I the Bush haters drop the partisan bullshit, and admit that the citizens of NOLA, Nagen(sp), and the Governor of Louisiana all dropped the ball way before the President did, then maybe there is a chance at taking an objective look and assessing blame.

In the mean time, I wonder if the 2000 buses that are underwater will ever run again. God knows they should have been running last Sunday.

But let’s not have a moment of common sense. That would interfere with those that want to blame Bush for all of it.

190

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
freemark wrote:
BostonBarrister, Rainjack, Zap Branigan, reddog6376 don’t think much of Bush. Their posts here indicate that they believe he is useless since if someone is incapable of helping he should not be blamed if he does not help. According to them the President is incapable of being of service in the case of a National emergency. We should not count on President Bush to lead us in a case of such obvious importance to national security and welfare. We should only rely on local responses. As a matter of fact now would be a good time for the President to make some overseas trips. He can comeback once we get the country cleaned up a bit. Go ahead and take a vacation Mr. President. We will call when we need someone to announce “mission accomplished”.

Zap Branigan wrote:
Because I think the city government shot itself in the foot when it failed to implemement the evacuation problem, that means I don’t think much of Bush?

I don’t think Bush can fly like Superman and pluck thousands of people off rooftops. Is that what you mean?

What the hell are you talking about? [/quote]

Zap
You seem to believe Bush has no responsibility for the terrible after disaster response of the federal government. But Bush can only be blameless if he was completely powerless to have any positive effect on the federal disaster response during the 3 days he ignored New Orleans. Bush is Commander-in Chief of the United States. It is ludicrous to assume that he could not have improved the response if he had concentrated on it instead of ignoring it. By saying he is blameless you are saying the President is powerless to have an effect on the people directly below him that he is supposed to command. This to me means that you do not think he is a very strong or capable President.

192

[quote]Professor X wrote:

In less than a day, 2,500 people were supposed to be evacuated?

[/quote]

Did you mean to say 2,500 people? Because that would take about an hour.

194

[quote]pushharder wrote:The President of the United States, with all the power that he has, is not an omnipotent god.
[/quote]

I think your gonna go to Hell for this one.

Actually there were relief teams in place in staging areas near Miss and Louisiana. So the question remains why did it take so long for the Feds to get into action if these teams were in place? There have been other disasters in the US and the response didn’t take a freakin’ week, not after Mt. St. Helens, not after 9/11, not after Hurricane Andrew. It seems to me that it was once again administrative incompetence that caused the delay.

I really don’t think there was some sort of conspiracy to let the blacks in NO suffer and die. I do think that rich white guys tend to care more about other rich white guys than they do poor black guys.

It was pretty amazing how the citizens of the US especially Texas, my home state, responded to the needs of their neighbors. So I guess we’ve seen both the best and worst of humanity come out of this.

WMD

195

[quote]throttle132 wrote:
freemark wrote:

As for Bush he is largely responsible for the poor after storm response. Bush is the President of the United States. Unless you believe he is the US equivalent of the Queen of England, you have to accept the fact that on a national emergency of this scale the President bears a great deal of responsibility on how our national resources are brought to bear.

A quick response by our President would have brought supplies and outside help into NOLA days earlier at a minimum saving hundreds of lives. Bush is the only person in the United States who could have guaranteed a much faster response across the board. Anyone who does not admit that Bush has at least some responsibility for the poor response cannot be considered credible on anything else they say on this subject.

Dammit, I want a lot more than that from the evil Booooosh! He had no right to be spendin’ money fightin’ an illegal war in Iraq when he coulda been building a huge 70,000 foot high wall in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic that woulda deflected this storm and others like it! The wall could extend from Brownsville, TX to Lubec, Maine. That stinkin’ Booooosh! No wonder nobody likes him![/quote]

What in hell are you people smokin’?

196

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Gee wiz, you have been making that exact point about the victims but you won’t concede that the governments/bureaucracies could possibly encounter some of the same kinds of problems that would hinder them from being lightning-quick, well- oiled, Scotty-beam-me-up machines. [/quote]

Lightening quick? They were “molasses slow”. No one expects either of the extremes.

197

[quote]doogie wrote:
Professor X wrote:

In less than a day, 2,500 people were supposed to be evacuated?

Did you mean to say 2,500 people? Because that would take about an hour.[/quote]

Bullshit. There are people there now who don’t want to leave because they heard the shelters were full, or because they are afraid to leave, or because they don’t have the means to support themselves. I would love to see your negotiation skills that would get all of those people in a bus in one hour.

199

[quote]reddog6376 wrote:

No, it was a display of the fact the aircraft carrier he was on had accomplished it’s mission. It did not read, “The War is Over”.

[/quote]

So you’re saying that that big photo op that GeeDub took advantage of was only to celebrate that one carrier’s mission?

Really, what are you people smoking and how do I get some?

200

[quote]WMD wrote:
throttle132 wrote:

Dammit, I want a lot more than that from the evil Booooosh! He had no right to be spendin’ money fightin’ an illegal war in Iraq when he coulda been building a huge 70,000 foot high wall in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic that woulda deflected this storm and others like it! The wall could extend from Brownsville, TX to Lubec, Maine. That stinkin’ Booooosh! No wonder nobody likes him!

What in hell are you people smokin’?[/quote]

Yeah, we are smokin’, aren’t we!

(It was satirical, bud. Hang in there. It’ll come)