Monday, September 05, 2005
The Blame Game, etc.
Regarding the Hurricane Katrina debacle, I'm of the opinion that there is plenty of blame to go around.
For example, if our President hadn't been so gung-ho to invade Iraq _and_ reduce the tax loads of the wealthy, we would have had enough money to mend the levees that failed in New Orleans. Apparently, New Orleans' officials knew the levees needed repair and asked for the money; they only received a pittance, however, since we are currently sending a whole lot of money to Iraq...and, hey, weren't we supposed to get more oil out of the whole Iraq deal? I distinctly remember Mr. Rumquist bellowing about how the war would pay for itself via increased oil delivery/resources. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The only people getting anything out of Iraq are the people who work for Halliburton (uh, Mr. Cheney?). Oh, and the terrorists who have raced into Iraq from surrounding countries since we invaded.
So, yes, the Bush Administration _does_ bear some of the blame. Also, the Feds were pretty damn slow about getting aid to New Orleans...and I'm pretty sure it would only take a military plane a couple of hours to fly there from, say, Virginia or Washington, D.C.
Of course, the people who actually _run_ New Orleans didn't exactly have a disaster plan in place, either. Piling thousands of people into a football stadium isn't a bad bet to ride out a brief storm, but keeping them there sure was. The same school busses that take kids to public school could have been used to truck people out of the city before the storm. I know, I know, hindsight is 20/20. Still, everybody knows that a good portion of New Orleans sits below sea level -- that's why they bury people in those fancy above-ground tombs (the so-called cities of the dead). Back a few hundred years ago when the city flooded periodically, it was common for coffins to work their way out of the ground and float around the city. So nobody should have been surprised.
But, hey, who am I to yack about it? Here I sit in my warm, dry house mouthing off. I sent my donation to the Red Cross, but there's probably a lot more I could do to help. I'm going to sign off now and think about that.
For example, if our President hadn't been so gung-ho to invade Iraq _and_ reduce the tax loads of the wealthy, we would have had enough money to mend the levees that failed in New Orleans. Apparently, New Orleans' officials knew the levees needed repair and asked for the money; they only received a pittance, however, since we are currently sending a whole lot of money to Iraq...and, hey, weren't we supposed to get more oil out of the whole Iraq deal? I distinctly remember Mr. Rumquist bellowing about how the war would pay for itself via increased oil delivery/resources. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The only people getting anything out of Iraq are the people who work for Halliburton (uh, Mr. Cheney?). Oh, and the terrorists who have raced into Iraq from surrounding countries since we invaded.
So, yes, the Bush Administration _does_ bear some of the blame. Also, the Feds were pretty damn slow about getting aid to New Orleans...and I'm pretty sure it would only take a military plane a couple of hours to fly there from, say, Virginia or Washington, D.C.
Of course, the people who actually _run_ New Orleans didn't exactly have a disaster plan in place, either. Piling thousands of people into a football stadium isn't a bad bet to ride out a brief storm, but keeping them there sure was. The same school busses that take kids to public school could have been used to truck people out of the city before the storm. I know, I know, hindsight is 20/20. Still, everybody knows that a good portion of New Orleans sits below sea level -- that's why they bury people in those fancy above-ground tombs (the so-called cities of the dead). Back a few hundred years ago when the city flooded periodically, it was common for coffins to work their way out of the ground and float around the city. So nobody should have been surprised.
But, hey, who am I to yack about it? Here I sit in my warm, dry house mouthing off. I sent my donation to the Red Cross, but there's probably a lot more I could do to help. I'm going to sign off now and think about that.
