Thursday, September 01, 2005
Real Solutions
Just so you don't think I'm one of those irritating whiners with no solutions, here's what the Feds (ie the president) could have done: On Tuesday the President could have ordered an immediate deployment of a minimum of 50,000 military troops, with a full complement of amphibious vehicles, into the city with a commitment during a television address to the entire nation to order as many more troops as proved necessary. The President could have showed up in New Orleans, as he did in New York City after 9/11, to lift the morale of the city by holding the people and wading into the flood waters. The military could have deployed thousands of life rafts in the water logged neighborhoods so that people could have saved themselves from the flood waters. Hundreds of Greyhound buses (not the yellow school buses we've seen) could have been ordered to the city to evacuate the refugees who had been too poor to leave the city in the first place. The Secretary of Defense could have ordered abandoned military bases all across this nation to be opened and readied to receive the refugees from Katrina. Adequate food could have been airlifted into the city (we've done it before when other nations and cities were in trouble). People are living on rooftops with no food or water. People are still dying in the streets! Come on! The quote of the day from yesterday was from a man trapped in his apartment, on a cell phone. He said, "I expect Jesus to come back before the military get down here." Oh, no wait, Mr. Chertoff just said, "We're not going to tolerate lawlessness." Riiiigh! I'm wondering how much longer Americans will tolerate our government?
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3 comments:
I think that we have narrowly avoided disaster so mmany times in the past that we simply shrugged off the very real threat that Katrina posed, even after she hit.
Again, I would go back to two things: If they allow this city to be rebuilt in the exact same manner as before, and in the exact same place, we should fire the whole lot of them. Yes, people have lived here for their entire lives, but the city is GONE, and now is the time to do it right.
Secondly, while I agree with all of the comments about how we helped the Tsunami victims, and our lack of response here, I think we also need to remember that we were part of a LARGE multi-national force that helped out the Tsunami victims; here we are doing this one almost completely alone. How well do you think the response would have been if we let Sri Lanka handle their own problems?
This is probably the largest single disaster to ever hit this country and it wiped out an entire cities infrastructure, we must be cognizant of that. Why do we not here the same things in Biloxi and Gulfport? Because once the hurricane hit, the basic infrastructure (roads etc.) were intact, and help COULD get there.
While I completely agree with the 'what we should have done' assessment; truth be told, the lack of effort and pre-planning by the government has caused them to be painted into a corner with this one, and now they are struggling to get in.
BTW, I am sick of hearing these Louisiana politicians throwing it all over the fence and blaming the Feds. Where the heck was Blanco's plan; she could have just as easily put together buses, gotten people in there and gotten some pre-planning done. Instead, there is no indication that she did any of these things. They (Fed and State) are all to blame for this mess, they need to stop throwing it all over the fence for the Feds to take the full brunt of the blame. Barbour in Mississippi has been much more willing to do that.
Ray, you give such well thought out remarks. The truth is that everyone, including the victims, share some of the burden and blame, but we ALL have the responsibility to fix it.
Absolutely... Our church is going to be doing a drive to help raise support funds, and we are organizing a concert in Denton as well...
I take no credit for this; this is from the heart of a wonderful congregation...
BTW, my theme for Sunday will be dealing with our responsibility as Christians... I put together a brief slide show with pix from N.O. and Scriptures...
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