View Full Version : My anger is beyond words...
I know this is off-topic, and may be inappropriate to some, but frankly, I don't really care right now.
The past week, I've been working at my freelance job. The horror, devastation, and despair that has passed before my eyes during this time is unimaginable---and I am comfortably doing a job in an overly air-conditioned office in NYC. I am more horrified than I was working the week of 9/11 and seeing those images.
There were warnings during the end of the last week in August that New Orleans was going to have some problems. Monday afternoon after Katrina hit, I even jokingly said to my boss something about the damage not being in NO as they predicted. Boy...how wrong I was. Later that evening, we saw the first aerials out of NO. I knew then we were in for a long week.
My job at the network I work for btw, is on the transmission desk...fiber, satellite, and courier so I get to see some of the video that never makes air due to the graphic nature of it. I really wish people could see more of it...it may hit home to how bad the situation has been.
In between, I've done my best to keep up with what the papers are writing, what the blogs are writing and who's doing what. And I'm pissed.
This is such an incredible failure of our government. The feds fiddled while Rome burned. It took days before I saw the national guard there (on video). Where the fuck were they? I saw the Coasties there right away, thank goodness, but that was it. Where the fuck was this Homeland Security Agency ready to respond at a moment's notice?
Sorting out paperwork submitted in triplicate, it seems.
Where was Bush?
Learning how to play guitar in California with some two-bit country music "star" and playing golf. We should pity him because he had to come back two days early from vacation. I wish I could share my week with him. Condi was busy seeing Spamalot on Broadway and buying thousand dollar shoes on 5th Ave.
Where was the relief and help? Being chased away by FEMA it seems.
And the accountability?
Being spun by Karl Rove.
Meanwhile, I just learned that the dead are being dumped into one of the poorest counties in the US. It's a county with a median income of less than 10K a year.
If this is how our nation reacts to a disaster that was predicted ahead of time, we are fucked if we ever get a major terrorist attack. I worry about us, I worry about our children, and I worry about our nation.
I'm am pissed and shell-shocked beyond belief.
BLO usually puts out a fundraising effort around this time each year (give or take a month) but I would encourage you to send that money to those that are displaced from their homes because of this natural and political failure. There are plenty of small orgs that could use your help that are doing relief efforts on a grassroots level.
I do not recommend the American Red Cross nor the Salvation Army at this time due to their discriminatory practices.
I agree that it was horrible and a mess, and alot of things went wrong, but my feeling is to get it all cleaned up first and then sort out what went wrong.
When it comes to blame its easy to point fingers everywhere. Mistakes were made at all levels starting with the mayor of N.O and going up the ladder from there. After having seen the Gov of Lousiana on the tv several times it was clear to me at least that she had no clue as to how to take charge right from the begining. She did decline a offer from the feds on the friday before katrina hit to let the feds move in and do the evac`s of N.O. Would that have made a difference ? we`ll never know . As for FEMA, they have a very poor track record from day one, just ask folks in Florida.
I do feel very badly for all the people in the gulf area affected, and just maybe after all is said and done that things will be put in place to prevent or at least minamize the effects in the future.
Thanks Betsy for expressing your concern about the tragic events unfolding in New Orleans and elsewhere in the south. I am chagrined, having recently made a donation to the Red Cross for Katrina relief, to read your statement that donations should not be made to the Red Cross because of their discriminatory practices. Can you bring me up to speed on their bad practices? After reading your remarks, I did look at some smaller alternatives, but they are mostly religious organizations, and I am not sure that I would want my relief dollars mixed with a religious message. Do you have any recommendations on secular relief organizations that do not discriminate?
Peter
The ARC still refuses to accept blood donations from gay men, even though they can test for and get results for HIV almost instantly---long before their blood makes it into the distribution stream. The ARC also admitted after 9/11 that most money raised never made it to 9/11 victims and survivors.
The SA will not allow LGBT people to work for them as a matter of policy.
I'll try and gather a list this evening of others who can use your money.
prince....ss?
09-07-05, 01:00 AM
Good morning Betsy have a nice hot cup of coffee with your wake up call. Where have you been? You are just now discovering how messed up our system is…How about the welfare sluts out there…I work my ass off all week so that the people too lazy to get jobs can use their food stamps to eat steak while I scrimp for hotdogs or PB&J.
I also like this one last year the news media was interviewing this poor guy with the inability to manage his meager wages…the poor bastard only made $60,000.00 a year, while the majority of the country is just above poverty.
Or how the media fails to give the real story about the fuel prices. People here are spending more than half their paycheck just getting to and from work.
I also like how our military won’t allow women into some job positions just because they are chicks…
Life aint fair, bitching does not help. So if you don’t like something don’t bitch, fix it, do something about it.
Sorry but I get tired of all the bitching and nobody doing any thing about it.
The all American past time…Bitch, Bitch. Bitch.
Gee I also like this cool blog thing…reminds me of sitting in a bar and having some drunk give you his thoughts on some stupid topic.
So now that I have bitched I do feel better, although I’m sure that this was not attractive to the reader…I hope I have not knocked you into a fit of depression. Or caused you to smack your kids or kick the dog, shit in your neighbors yard, or key the first Mercedes you pass in the parking lot. Relax it’s just my opinion.
Looking for the positive…..nope not there ….ok!
Have a nice day!!!
Dana Gold
09-07-05, 12:45 PM
The article below may be shocking to some ; in it, people of notariety actually were thankful and joyous about the destruction and proclaimed it publicly:
http://www.counterbias.com/399.html
A neighbor of mine told me an acquaintence (work) of his remarked that Katrina was "necessary"....a "cleansing" as this person put it.
:omg_smile :confused6 :umno:
PS: The "cavalry" may have been slow and stumbling "getting there", but relief efforts are unprecedented and I think they're doing a "good job" now....disaster victims are even being compensated with $2000 debit cards from the gov't.
It's the toxic severely polluted waters that resulted from all the bacteria from dead bodies and sewage, oil, and various chemicals that I believe are of grave concern, and one I believe will strain the relief efforts to the maximum in the long run.....for that is one thing the cavalry and everyone else (CDC etc) was not prepared to deal with it all. :wilted_ro.....
And I know this may sound selfish.....but, the apparent generosity of these agencies etc should not be confused with "free money and services"...in reality, the average US citizen (taxpayer) will be "footing the bill"....one way or another.
:thinking2
if dc had a hurricane, there would have been a quicker response to dc needs than N.O. and Miss. gulf coast.
this makes me wonder how quick our gov is to judge and how fast ou gov repsonds to the USA.
Az1
With all due respect, $2000? Would that would be enough to regroup after you lost your home, everything in it, and your car (if you owned one)?
Shit, $2000 is barely enough to pay security deposit on an apartment in some places.
Do something about it? I didn't vote for the emperor currently in power. I am looking forward to the 2006 elections. I only hope that the 'majority' doesn't end up with amnesia. I suspect the bodies floating in city won't be forgotten anytime soon but then again, FEMA has now banned photographs of the dead and have kicking the media out of NOLA so I guess we won't be seeing those images anytime soon again. Government censorship is like that...if you don't like the story, black it out. Make sure you really block out the photographs also:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v668/maryscottoconnor/MLW%20Pics/kat2_600.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v668/maryscottoconnor/MLW%20Pics/Alligator500_500.jpg
You need more reasons for being a bit bitchy right now?
I'd rather foot the bill for the forgotten americans than I would to foot the bill to kill innocent Iraqies.
The director of FEMA has the following qualifications:
Embattled FEMA head Mike Brown insists he is well-qualified to lead the nation's disaster response agency - though he spent his time before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency probing whether a breeder was performing liposuction on a horse's rear end.
From http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/344005p-293720c.html
This evening, the horse ass liposuction inspector dictated that the debit card program will end. Those needing relief will now need to call an 800 number or access their website (IE 6+ only). Please provide a bank account number or bank transfer number. Yeah...
Hmmmppphh.
Oh. And then there is this:
President Bush issued an executive order Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage.
In a notice to Congress, Bush said the hurricane had caused "a national emergency" that permits him to take such action under the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in ravaged areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.
From: http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/08/news/economy/katrina_wages.reut/
The Davis-Bacon law requires federal contractors to pay workers at least the prevailing wages in the area where the work is conducted. It applies to federally funded construction projects such as highways and bridges.
Naw...no reason that Halliburton should be have to pay their employees the prevailing wage to help the region recover, particularly those who were most affected and need the jobs the most.
Betsy
Dana Gold
09-09-05, 01:40 PM
Betsy, you are quite right that the current administration is a P.O.S.; I'll be the first to say that, since all those "elected" are "in bed with each other". Their primary concern evidently for their own self-righteous domineering agenda....and for those who are in their league (the faithful). However, to clarify, the "cavalry" I mentioned was not solely from the gov't, nor state and local authorities, but from private organizations....and assisitance from other states themselves.....and all these volunteer people are to be commended, I believe, for a job well done....even the smallest rescue effort is a positive thing. I myself am a 1st Responder and HazMat team member and I knwo that mobilization without clear leadership subtracts from the efficiency of the group and hampers the speed of the same. The state and local gov'ts, I might add, were just as deficient if not more so, than the "federales"....because it was their own constituents they neglected.....they, too are responsible and to be held accountable for the fiasco. Just look at the poverty level in N.O.,one of America's most famous cities....look at D.C., or other major metropolitan areas; below poverty level poor and homeless are growing, whilst the gov't traipses around the globe "spreading democracy" and wasting billions of dollars and thousands of lives..for dubious ventures....where's the money for the health, education, and social welfare of our citizenry!? New Orleans and other storm-ravaged areas are but a symptom of a society that, only on a surface level, looks good. Raise the "curtain of camouflage" and lo and behold!.... we have the Wizard of Oz deceiving people by the portrayal of a fearsome diety, and commanding an entire society through the manipulation of societal mores and imposition of illusionary doctrines.......and the subjugated are the Munchkins, many of them "converted" and blind to reality, now bowing and cow-towing to the Great Oz. The US has within its boundaries both the richest (industrially) yet, the poorest (demographically) sectors. Across the boulevards from Oz (D.C.), reside the shanty-town inhabitants of the "emperors'" domain. The reason the gov't is scrambling to "fix things" now is because they are being publicly exposed and ridiculed/critized for their historical ineptitude and blindness to certain domestic human realities.....can it be that their present concern and reaction to the crisis is more of a political nature, and concern for the dirt-poor denizens secondary or worse (sinners and abominations, maybe?)....i.e. they have "lost face" to Americans and the world, and are socio-politically compelled to put forth maximum effort....$2000?...yeah, I'd take it and be grateful, it's infinitely better than absolutely nothing in a chaotic hell-hole where people are being eaten by alligators, or getting sick and/or dying.... from the elements of nature and/or water-borne viral/bacterial infection or industial pollutants.....or from each other.
The censorship is nothing new either; the realities of the wars and natural disaters America has experienced, have all been sanitized, the actual news and events "corrected and controlled", and vomited back to the citizenry in the form of gov't sanctioned and/or "moral" propaganda. And tax-payer cost?...yes, all the f*ck-ups of gov't, the ill-begotten foreign entanglements and wasteful "projects"....the people all have and will always pay for Oz's arrogance and stupidity with our dwindling incomes and actual lives....the gov't rich while the Munchkins grow ever poorer...and the far-off campaigns to "protect America" (VietNam and Iraq) nothing more than teenage wastelands and "dustbowls" of national debt.....they "play", we pay. They sh*t...we clean it up.
What we see happening in the South today is only one of the sores of society that have been festering for decades....unnoticed and disregarded, until catastrophe strikes and then the proverbial "day late and dollar short" becomes evident with the people paying for it in the worst way.
:sarcastic
PS: More pics that one may not see in US news media: (thumbnails and mid-page right column)
http://www.stern.de/politik/panorama/:Panorama-Get/545649.html
There were warnings during the end of the last week in August that New Orleans was going to have some problems.
<snip>
In between, I've done my best to keep up with what the papers are writing, what the blogs are writing and who's doing what. And I'm pissed.
<snip>
This is such an incredible failure of our government. The feds fiddled while Rome burned. It took days before I saw the national guard there (on video). Where the fuck were they?
<snip>
Where the fuck was this Homeland Security Agency ready to respond at a moment's notice?
<snip>.
Where was Bush?
<snip>
Condi was busy seeing Spamalot on Broadway and buying thousand dollar shoes on 5th Ave.
<snip>
Where was the relief and help? .
<snip>
And the accountability?
You want accountability? Huh?
How about starting with Ray Nagin, the MAYOR of New Orleans? He was the one with one with the PRIMARY resposibility for evacuating those consituents without the means to do so on their own.
The man who, instead of following his own policy and using the resources (http://www.mermaidlady.com/images/buses.jpg) at his disposal to evacuate them, chose to herd them into a structure unproven to hold up in such a storm, in the middle of a city with levees insufficient to stand up to such a storm. What about him?
Yes I am outraged too. I cry every time I think about what happened in the Superdome last week. But facts are what will matter, when those resposible are called to account. Not whether or not they happen to belong to a political group that you don't like..
Righ now I am just trying to help out when and where I can. I am only donating goods and services, not cash. I would encourage others with storm refugees in their communities to do likewise.
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