Why didn't Hollywood save New Orleans?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Hey UT, send them some zuchinnis.

[Brett's Honey]

Originally Posted by warch

What was revealed to me was what living in poverty and/or being elderly during a natural disaster looks like. Desperate. Unfortunatly expendible. The working poor.

I'm sure a lot were the working poor, but many of them were said to not have the gas money to get out because the evacuation came at the end of the month and their checks come on the 1st and the 3rd. Social Security and welfare?
I have heard the argument that being seperated and end up living in other places may have a good effect in the long run because there were a lot of families that had generation after generation learning to live off the government. One young lady on TV said all she got out with was her babies SS cards and birth certificates...............

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

This is the tw take on it, then, and it's quite familiar because it's been the same refrain for years:

1. Bush had his magic make-everything-better wand, and callously refused to wave it because the people he'd wave it at were black.

No, but he did have a responsibility to appoint people to head agencies to protect the most vulnerable. FEMA and Homeland Security appointees should be selected based on skill, not political expediency.

There appear to be three classes of people in his cabinet. The first are competent people that he knows personally and listens to. The second are incompetent people that he knows personally and listens to. The third are competent people that he does not listen to.

The FEMA director sounds like #2. Homeland Security head Chertoff makes me miss Ridge, who as a former governor would have known what was needed. Of course one reason Ridge might have left the job was that he realized that he could not get things done there.

Bush seems very reluctant to fire his friends, no matter how incompetent. it will be interesting to see how he can save Brown and Chertoff from what even he has acknowledged was an 'unsatisfactory' performance.

This really is a 'barn door' administration. They are completely reactive to all threats, from terrorism to infrastructure. Doesn't anyone there practice 'hope for the best, plan for the worst'?

Maybe if someone had mentioned the freezer full of dying embryos somewhere downtown we would have had a faster response. Since each one is a 'life', does that mean we should add 500,000 to the death toll?

[Undertoad]

FEMA isn't a cabinet-level post.

Well it would appear Mr. Penn's effort was a failure.

update, and then later a success

[tw]

Originally Posted by NICOTINEGUN

TW, it sounds like you are saying W. has to prove he isn't a racist before he proves he is one. Maybe I am wrong here, but that is what I read. If that is what you are saying, show me one thing that says W. is a racist.

That question was posted so that it would test your abilities to think logically. The question implies nothing. The question does not accuse George Jr of being a racist. Clearly the question was intentionally written to test responders. Can you simply answer the question OR do you have personal agendas that would distort the question?

Simply provide an example that George Jr is not a racist. After all, his appointments, promises (lies), and actions clearly left large numbers of blacks dead due to lack of food, water, and rescue. When such failures occur, the top man must fix the management problem immediately or be part of the problem. That being a basic definition of management as defined by William Edward Deming as demonstrated by his famous bead experiment. Even inaction by management is intentional action. And so we again ask, what did George Jr do that demonstrates he is not a racist.

Notice how UT uses his 'aluminum tubes are for WMD' reasoning to twist what TW has asked. I simply asked a simple question. UT attached personal baggage to the question. All I asked was

based upon the actions and promises of George Jr during this week in New Orleans and Washington DC, can you show me a single fact - a single act - that says he does not hate blacks? ... Just the facts. Actions are the bottom line. Show me where George Jr did anything last week to dispell the rumors of racism. Show me.

So far the only logical reply was that he kissed some blacks that were showered, vetted, and carefully screened. George Jr will not go among the refugees of New Orleans. Four letter words from the audience make bad press. IOW the only reply that suggests he is not a racist is a staged photo op.

Answers to that question might be taken forward to other speculations or used to comprehend public reaction. But none of that was asked here. The question was intentionally phrased to expose who could stay logical and who would even attach their emotional baggage to that question as an opportunity to insult. Thank you, UT, for again demonstrating why your logic insisted those aluminum tubes were for WMDs.

[Undertoad]

I told you that every time you bring up the aluminum tubes again, I would find another place on the Cellar where you were mistaken.

In this thread, tw blamed the breakup of the space shuttle Columbia on Bush budget cuts for NASA. "George Jr's massive spending cuts imposed on NASA to put money into boondoogles such as the anti-ballistic missile system." However, when pressed, tw could not identify any such budget cuts, and actually failed to reply at all until pushed hard. It turned out there had actually been a 1/2 Billion increase. tw was wrong.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Hey UT, send them some zuchinnis.

They don't want them either.

I warned you about the zukes.

[wolf]

A white man can never prove that he is not a racist. It is automatically assumed, and much like an accusation of child molestation, the taint can never be removed.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

FEMA isn't a cabinet-level post.

Well it would appear Mr. Penn's effort was a failure.

update, and then later a success

Ok, technically FEMA is no longer a cabinet level post, having been demoted beneath the Department of Homeland Security.

Heres a nice article on Destroying FEMA

[bargalunan]

Originally Posted by NICOTINEGUN

I still think the Bush Administration created a machine that can create and manipulate hurricanes and did so in New Orleans to specifically target the black community. That's racist, Man. Can you believe an administration would do that? It's horrible

I agree with you, it's horrible and technically it's difficult to believe in.

But as an ideology we don't need to believe, but look back at history :
- Nazi's administration planned industrial extermination of Jewish, Tziganes, Blacks, Gays, Disabled...
(Extermination camps were tried by Germans in Africa, in Namibia in 1904 (before Hitler) against the Herero tribe).
(Nazis reached the power democratically)
- French WW2 Vichy administration against Jewish too... Trains were arriving on time.
- Communist administration in URSS (goulags)
- and so many others

I don't say that's what happened in NO.

But some peole are so in lack of humanity that they can imagine the worst against people they feel different.
If they've got the power, the administration they control can realise their crazy ideas, using the most efficient technologies.

Originally Posted by wolf

A white man can never prove that he is not a racist. It is automatically assumed, and much like an accusation of child molestation, the taint can never be removed.

Well, Wolf I don't know about NEVER, but the tragedy of our country is that Jim Crow is still alive and well, although now mostly underground. My father was 1/2 Cherokee and looked full blooded Cherokee. He did run into prejudice, especially back in the 50's and 60's. I look much like my Swiss Mom, so no problem. But its out there. Believe me, its out there, although getting better.

[bargalunan]

In the Associated Press's article the black guy has looted a grocery

In AFP'one the two white ones have found bread and soda

[wolf]

Seems like a private company took over disaster management for New Orleans.

I suppose they're fired?

[Hemlock]

Originally Posted by bargalunan

In the Associated Press's article the black guy has looted a grocery

In AFP'one the two white ones have found bread and soda

They are different news agencies.

AFP = Agence France-Presse

AP = Associated Press

Learn to read before you spout off "racism" that someone has shown you. It could be that they have different standards for captions. Perhaps one will not sue the word "looter." Just because the guy who I caught breaking into my house was black, I am not racist for calling him a thief.

Originally Posted by Hemlock

They are different news agencies.

AFP = Agence France-Presse

AP = Associated Press

Learn to read before you spout off "racism" that someone has shown you. It could be that they have different standards for captions. Perhaps one will not sue the word "looter." Just because the guy who I caught breaking into my house was black, I am not racist for calling him a thief.

Oh, I don't see the French as having any problem with the word "loot," especially on an international story. If anyone was going to be afraid of law suits, it would be the US news agency which used that term in our litigenous society. I think you are being just a bit disengenuous here.

The problem would arise if you call the black guy who broke into your house a thief, but called the white guy who broke in someone who was "borrowing" something. That's what those two news captions illustrate.