What is really scary is can how you trust this administration to protect its citizens from an unexpected terrorist attack when it has demonstrated its inability to react sensibly to a forewarned and heralded hurricane and shown, what can only be fairly described as incompetence, in rescuing distressed and vulnerable citizens in the 5 days after the event.

I have defended the Bush policy on the Iraq war and will continue to do so because I know the alternatives will be far worse. But this defence now has become very difficult.

As I have said to my co-workers on many occasions, if you cannot look after your own family, how in heaven's name can you expect to look after someone else's.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's a shame you didn't have such a clear logic for the Iraq War. One of the main reason I and most Anti-war supporters didn't support the war was because we knew too well what a disaster the US army would create there when they would invade. Because this is how BIG organization work. They are messy. They can't help it. They created that monstrous situation in Iraq that they can't fix and they know it. This is why they will leave cowardly the place in a few years in total cahos. You supported this and your are indirectly responsible for the suffering of these people in their daily life. How would you feel if it was you and your family ?

Saddam was a problem, but the US invasion was a bigger problem in itself.

Edited September 4, 200520 yr by Butterfly

What is really scary is can how you trust this administration to protect its citizens from an unexpected terrorist attack when it has demonstrated its inability to react sensibly to a forewarned and heralded hurricane and shown, what can only be fairly described as incompetence, in rescuing distressed and vulnerable citizens in the 5 days after the event.

I have defended the Bush policy on the Iraq war and will continue to do so because I know the alternatives will be far worse. But this defence now has become very difficult.

As I have said to my co-workers on many occasions, if you cannot look after your own family, how in heaven's name can you expect to look after someone else's.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's a shame you didn't have such a clear logic for the Iraq War. One of the main reason I and most Anti-war supporters didn't support the war was because we knew too well what a disaster the US army would create there when they would invade. Because this is how BIG organization work. They are messy. They can't help it. They created that monstrous situation in Iraq that they can't fix and they know it. This is why they will leave cowardly the place in a few years in total cahos. You supported this and your are indirectly responsible for the suffering of these people in their daily life. How would you feel if it was you and your family ?

Saddam was a problem, but the US invasion was a bigger problem in itself.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Difficult as it is for you to understand and, post hurricane, for me to defend, it is here were we disagree.

I have seen at first hand the products of Hussein's actions. The USA is not competent enough to be worse than him.

I have seen at first hand the products of Hussein's actions. The USA is not competent enough to be worse than him.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not you to decide. Not your country or your call. Now millions more have to suffer because you "think" that taking Saddam out was a good idea. Good idea maybe for you and your like, but not for the Iraqi people.

The real question: How is Faux News spinning all this ? are they pissed to the prez or are they trying to cover this administrationn "arse" one more time ?

Any Faux News watcher here could give us some feedback ? spee ? you are a big fan of Faux, aren't you ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"Attacks on the Bush administration's tardy reaction to the disaster also came from unexpected quarters in the media; even conservative commentators on the usually loyal Fox News channel lambasted the President's performance."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/internation...1562429,00.html

I have seen at first hand the products of Hussein's actions. The USA is not competent enough to be worse than him.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not you to decide. Not your country or your call. Now millions more have to suffer because you "think" that taking Saddam out was a good idea. Good idea maybe for you and your like, but not for the Iraqi people.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What do you think "I have seen at first hand the products of Hussein's actions" means?

I have seen the bodies, touched the corpses. The only thinking that needs to be done is for you to imagine a Middle East with a dominant Husseini family.

The fires would be burning from Beirut to Cairo and from Medina to Tehran.

I have seen at first hand the products of Hussein's actions. The USA is not competent enough to be worse than him.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not you to decide. Not your country or your call. Now millions more have to suffer because you "think" that taking Saddam out was a good idea. Good idea maybe for you and your like, but not for the Iraqi people.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What do you think "I have seen at first hand the products of Hussein's actions" means?

I have seen the bodies, touched the corpses. The only thinking that needs to be done is for you to imagine a Middle East with a dominant Husseini family.

The fires would be burning from Beirut to Cairo and from Medina to Tehran.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Irrelevant.

You touching dead bodies of Saddam victims doesn't give you the right for you and your like to choose for the Iraqi people. You are not in this position. How would you feel if the Chinese or the French bombed your house and created cahos in your country because they think Blair is some evil character. Can you honestly answer that and look at yourself in a mirror at the same time ? waiting for your excuse

Edited September 4, 200520 yr by Butterfly

I have seen at first hand the products of Hussein's actions. The USA is not competent enough to be worse than him.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not you to decide. Not your country or your call. Now millions more have to suffer because you "think" that taking Saddam out was a good idea. Good idea maybe for you and your like, but not for the Iraqi people.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What do you think "I have seen at first hand the products of Hussein's actions" means?

I have seen the bodies, touched the corpses. The only thinking that needs to be done is for you to imagine a Middle East with a dominant Husseini family.

The fires would be burning from Beirut to Cairo and from Medina to Tehran.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Irrelevant.

You touching dead bodies of Saddam victims doesn't give you the right for you and your like to choose for the Iraqi people. You are not in this position. How would you feel if the Chinese or the French bombed your house and created cahos in your country because they think Blair is some evil character. Can you honestly answer that and look at yourself in a mirror at the same time ? waiting for your excuse

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would hope that if this hypothetical situation should ever exist in the UK:

• No democratic institutions

• No independent judiciary

• 4 secret police forces who could freely capture, torture and kill, controlled by various members of the ruling family

• Numerous incidents of eg mass gassing of the Welsh

• All revenues (from our oil?) going into the pockets or private projects of the ruling family

• Any one who voiced dissent in the leadership was summarily executed and his /her family also.

• Been forced into two suicidal wars, one of which killed hundreds of thousands of the citizens

• The ruler had a internal policy based upon the killing of two large groups of the land’s citizens

• A disproportionably large amount of money was being used to buy/create weaponry rather than alleviate the suffering of the citizenry.

• It was an undisguised intention of the ruler to invade at least two, if not three, of the neighbouring lands

• I could go on…

If that was the state of the UK, then I would welcome armed liberation by any land.

You two are going round in circles ....in a pointless way. Neither will persuade the other.

The USA is the world's superpower. It can do as it pleases and has the power to carry it out. If it wants to have big weapons and stop others from having them, it can. If it wants to change someone's Government, it can. If it wants another country's useless Government to stay put, it will.

Doesn't matter whether its fair or not. Life was never meant to be fair.

Upset the USA at your own peril. Saddam did, he got whacked. Everyone else has to cope with it. So its unsporting to invade another country, big deal.

It happened and thats that, so we may as well stop debating it ad nauseam. They're bigger than everyone else and carrying the biggest stick.

Back on topic:

As someone has said in an earlier post, Louisiana & Mississippi are two of the most corrupt states in the union and therefore, ripe to perform as they have done so, so far. What y'all have skipped over thus far too is the class & racial factor. When 9/11 went down, New Yorkers pulled together as 99% of Americans would do so in similiar circumstances. When Katrina went down, the middle and upper class whites (& blacks) got out of there in time. What y'all have been seeing on TV, obviously, are the poverty-stricken black folks who did not have a car or were too sick or too-little educated to comprehend the magnitude of their impending doom.

I came through the lower Parishes of Louisiana yesterday and it was something to behold...

Today's best cartoon - MSNBC

You two are going round in circles ....in a pointless way. Neither will persuade the other.

The USA is the world's superpower. It can do as it pleases and has the power to carry it out. If it wants to have big weapons and stop others from having them, it can. If it wants to change someone's Government, it can. If it wants another country's useless Government to stay put, it will.

Doesn't matter whether its fair or not. Life was never meant to be fair.

Upset the USA at your own peril. Saddam did, he got whacked. Everyone else has to cope with it.  So its unsporting to invade another country, big deal.

It happened and thats that, so we may as well stop debating it ad nauseam. They're bigger than everyone else and carrying the biggest stick.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Come on, let me play with TM. Isn't this the sandbox for big children ?

but pointless it is, no doubt about that, getting tiresome for me too. Where is the "tits" thread ?

Edited September 4, 200520 yr by Butterfly

You two are going round in circles ....in a pointless way. Neither will persuade the other.

The USA is the world's superpower. It can do as it pleases and has the power to carry it out. If it wants to have big weapons and stop others from having them, it can. If it wants to change someone's Government, it can. If it wants another country's useless Government to stay put, it will.

Doesn't matter whether its fair or not. Life was never meant to be fair.

Upset the USA at your own peril. Saddam did, he got whacked. Everyone else has to cope with it.  So its unsporting to invade another country, big deal.

It happened and thats that, so we may as well stop debating it ad nauseam. They're bigger than everyone else and carrying the biggest stick.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Come on, let me play with TM. Isn't this the sandbox for big children ?

but pointless it is, no doubt about that, getting tiresome for me too. Where is the "tits" thread ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, go and suck on a tit, because you've lost the argument.

Last time I'm going to react to you anyway, so byeee.

We interrupt this flame war for a special report from Foamy the Squirrel....

http://www.illwillpress.com/ <-- watch "neurotically yours" and the "hurricane report"

cv

Another thing that bugs me about this event, and others like it:

Pleading for help from the same God that brought the disaster upon them in the first place ? (Assuming you believe in God).

These people (and others like them) really believe that God will take a time out from slaughtering his children by the hundreds of thousands, using diseases, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and other disasters, to help out a couple here and there that escaped his wrath ?

\Pleading for help from the same God that brought the disaster upon them in the first place ? (Assuming you believe in God).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

God does not play dice. This disaster was caused by Bush, Cheney, big oil, the American right, El Nino, the polar ozone hole, and global warming. The American government conspired to alter the weather patterns and direct the storm at NO so that they could try to intentionally destroy a welfare underclass and rebuild the crime capital of America in their own vision. I thought everyone knew that! (sarcasm intended)

(sarcasm intended)

Good job you included that postscript, cos it didn't sound sarcastic !

The mathematics are simple:

Mea Culpa + I’m sorry we reacted far too late and incompetently + I will now devote the rest of my Presidency to building up the World’s Greatest Civil Defence Network = The USA will be a better place to live in and admire + Bush will be remembered as a noble and honourable President.

Flapping about like he has been (after his obligatory 5 days sleep) + his supporters pointing the finger and blaming everyone including God + no noticeable and lasting improvements in the Civil Defence Network = the USA will degenerate further, making it even more difficult to convert opponents to their style of democracy + a President who will be forgotten for the useless wimp he is.

***********

A little afterthought:

There seems to be rather a lot of condescending remarks about e.g. NO being the crime centre of the US, mostly posted by fellow Americans or Bush supporters - I just wonder whether we would have experienced such lack of solidarity or empathy from the UK citizens should e.g. Glasgow or Liverpool been hit by a similar disaster?

Edited September 5, 200520 yr by Thomas_Merton

A little afterthought:

There seems to be rather a lot of condescending remarks about e.g. NO being the crime centre of the US

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just stating fact, TM. Not that I like to rely upon the news media, but the press reports verify the fact.

Have you ever been to NO or any other crime ridden American city? I have visted, lived in, and worked in these places. Away from the nicey-nice touristy areas, NO can be a scary wild jungle. And it's not just the blacks. There is also the italian mafia, the cajun mafia, the corruption, etc. It is and has been a very dangerous place.

Watching CNN and they reported that some muslims in the middle east were saying the hurricane was Allah's vengeance against the infidels in America.

Watching CNN and they reported that some muslims in the middle east were saying the hurricane was Allah's vengeance against the infidels in America. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Makes me laugh when I hear stuff like that.

If that's the case, then Allah's vengance is pretty weak. Consider that "his" tsunami wiped out almost 200,000 people, mostly Muslim, yet "his" hurricane will probably account for a couple thousand infidels. Never heard any of them blame the tsunami on Allah though.

Just whos side is Allah on then ?

Not quite 2 years ago, an earthquake in Iran wiped out a small city. The mullahs (the real power behind the Iranian government) told the people it was Allah's vengance because the people in that city were "too western" in their thinking and lifestyle.

Typical of fanatics of any stripe. If it works for them, it's the will of (who ever they believe in). If it works against them, it's someone else's fault, not the entity they believe in.

A little afterthought:

There seems to be rather a lot of condescending remarks about e.g. NO being the crime centre of the US

Just stating fact, TM. Not that I like to rely upon the news media, but the press reports verify the fact.

Have you ever been to NO or any other crime ridden American city? I have visted, lived in, and worked in these places. Away from the nicey-nice touristy areas, NO can be a scary wild jungle. And it's not just the blacks. There is also the italian mafia, the cajun mafia, the corruption, etc. It is and has been a very dangerous place.

Yep...don't you just love those who pontificate about something they know little or nothing about?

I've been going through New Orleans on a bi-weekly basis now for over two years and it's got crime alright but it's no 'crime capital of America' by any stretch. The place is or was unique for the various cultures there e.g. Cajun, Creole, Black, Redneck etc.

There was no other city like it anywhere I've ever been; and the only really positive thing in my opinion w/regard to NO was the food.

Well I feel alot better now knowing that NO was such a bad place and the only thing good about it was the food.

I'm surprised Boon Mee didn't mention the music. Fantastic!

A little afterthought:

There seems to be rather a lot of condescending remarks about e.g. NO being the crime centre of the US

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just stating fact, TM. Not that I like to rely upon the news media, but the press reports verify the fact.

Have you ever been to NO or any other crime ridden American city? I have visted, lived in, and worked in these places. Away from the nicey-nice touristy areas, NO can be a scary wild jungle. And it's not just the blacks. There is also the italian mafia, the cajun mafia, the corruption, etc. It is and has been a very dangerous place.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yep...don't you just love those who pontificate about something they know little or nothing about?

I've been going through New Orleans on a bi-weekly basis now for over two years and it's got crime alright but it's no 'crime capital of America' by any stretch. The place is or was unique for the various cultures there e.g. Cajun, Creole, Black, Redneck etc.

There was no other city like it anywhere I've ever been; and the only really positive thing in my opinion w/regard to NO was the food.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But how many times did you actualy get out of your car?

And now the inevitable has happened. The Ice Queen, Head Witch, Queen of the Carpetbaggers, Hillary Clinton is now poised to exploit the hurricane victims and aftermath for her initial attack on the administration and launching pad for her candidacy. Only someone of her sleazy standards would even attempt to extract maximum political gain from this tragedy. Excuse me, this is making me sick. I have to go puke.

And now the inevitable has happened. The Ice Queen, Head Witch, Queen of the Carpetbaggers, Hillary Clinton is now poised to exploit the hurricane victims and aftermath for her initial attack on the administration and launching pad for her candidacy. Only someone of her sleazy standards would even attempt to extract maximum political gain from this tragedy. Excuse me, this is making me sick. I have to go puke.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yuk

And now the inevitable has happened. The Ice Queen, Head Witch, Queen of the Carpetbaggers, Hillary Clinton is now poised to exploit the hurricane victims and aftermath for her initial attack on the administration and launching pad for her candidacy. Only someone of her sleazy standards would even attempt to extract maximum political gain from this tragedy. Excuse me, this is making me sick. I have to go puke.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Regardless as to whether I share the same political description of the world as Hilary Clinton - and she is not exactly my flavour of the month - I can see nothing "sleazy" about starting a political campaign on the basis of criticising the most horrendous administrative b*lls-up since July 4, 1776.

We have heard a lot of people placing blame for the

disaster on everyone from the mayor of New Orleans to

President Bush. I ran across this article and after

reading it thought this is probably the best

explanation of why things happened as they did.

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

by Robert Tracinski

Sep 02, 2005

by Robert Tracinski

It took four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it also took me four long days to figure out what was going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists—myself included—did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over four days last week. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency—indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.

When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).

So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?

To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:

"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.

"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....

"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.

" 'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,' she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.' "

The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows a SWAT team with rifles and armored vests riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.

What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to speed away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Superdome?

Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?

My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage one night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)

What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"—the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels—gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of those who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then told me that early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails—so they just let many of them loose. [update: I have been searching for news reports on this last story, but I have not been able to confirm it. Instead, I have found numerous reports about the collapse of the corrupt and incompetent New Orleans Police Department; see here and here.]

There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit—but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals—and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep—on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

All of this is related, incidentally, to the incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. In a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters—not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.

No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. And they don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.

People living in piles of their own trash, while petulantly complaining that other people aren't doing enough to take care of them and then shooting at those who come to rescue them—this is not just a description of the chaos at the Superdome. It is a perfect summary of the 40-year history of the welfare state and its public housing projects.

The welfare state—and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages—is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.

Source: TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005

b]An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State [/b]

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Having lived in and around "welfare state" areas, tutored, supported and counseled "welfare state" kids, as well has having personally seen and experienced ghetto violence and other forms of anti-social behavior, it is easy for me to agree with a lot of what is written in this article.

Hopefully now, people will realize and accept that the welfare state initiatives of the 60's-70's effectively destroyed the urban middle class that thrived during the 40's-50's.

From the ashes comes the Phoenix. I hope that from the ruins of NO will come the future solution for poor, destitute urbanites in all of America.

Hand out? Or Hand up?

I hope people will get a hand out over the short term, to get through the crisis, but may the long term plan be a hand up. Also, when the hand up is presented, may the people to whom it is offered, take a firm hold rather than turning it down to wait for another hand out.

b]An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State [/b]

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Having lived in and around "welfare state" areas, tutored, supported and counseled "welfare state" kids, as well has having personally seen and experienced ghetto violence and other forms of anti-social behavior, it is easy for me to agree with a lot of what is written in this article.

Hopefully now, people will realize and accept that the welfare state initiatives of the 60's-70's effectively destroyed the urban middle class that thrived during the 40's-50's.

From the ashes comes the Phoenix. I hope that from the ruins of NO will come the future solution for poor, destitute urbanites in all of America.

Hand out? Or Hand up?

I hope people will get a hand out over the short term, to get through the crisis, but may the long term plan be a hand up. Also, when the hand up is presented, may the people to whom it is offered, take a firm hold rather than turning it down to wait for another hand out.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

All reasoning, especially that which takes a political agenda as its starting point, is sheer speculation.

And only of value to those who wish for constant re-affirmation of their political viewpoint.

What is factual is: the preparations before the disaster were inadequate to say the least,; the response to the disaster was very late and extremely embarrassing in its lack of effectively; the lack of sympathy and empathy of the rest of America for the plight of the Louisiana Bayou and The Big Easy has shocked all impartial observers.

The hows, the whys and the wherefores must wait for a legally empowered federal enquiry.