The housing situation
Sep. 1st, 2005 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
heidiAngua, Selkie and others who may have space available for displaced people - ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bkdelong has some links and a fabulous concept on his LJ...
Now, I said yesterday that I wasn't going to be political.
This isn't political. It's about people; it's about lives.
Speaker of the House Hastert doesn't think it makes sense to rebuild New Orleans
Condi Rice is shoe shopping when countries like Canada and Jamaica want to lend support to the search & rescue mission in the Gulf Coast.
But, of course, what search & rescue mission? FEMA has suspended some of its operations in New Orleans but nobody seems to know which operations are actually continuing.
Carnival Cruise Lines has been looking into using some of its ships to house the displaced, but why wasn't a plan for such things put into place as an option of last resort months, if not years, ago? They have ships that travel in and out of Mobile; they could be so useful for thousands of people as temporary housing right now.
Why weren't naval vessels sent out of Virginia on Sunday, instead of yesterday? They could've been in the gulf by now; why aren't they?
Bush diverted money that had been designated to help shore up the levees to Iraq. Bush enabled the sending of *high water vehicles* to Iraq from the Gulf Coast - which area d'ya think *normally* needs them more?
And here's the worst. George Bush went on GMA this morning, and he said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
Did he lie, or is he that stupid?
I think it is entirely possible that nobody *told* him that the levees might be breached. The man doesn't read the papers or watch the news under normal circumstances, so he relies a lot on what he's told. And it's possible that nobody showed him this article from Kansas ("The fear was that flooding could overrun the levees and turn New Orleans into a toxic lake filled with chemicals and petroleum from refineries, as well as waste from ruined septic systems.") or this one from New Mexico ("Had Katrina not shifted, hurricane waters could have spilled over levees and swamped the saucer-shaped city in a toxic soup of refinery chemicals, sewage and human bodies.")
If that's the case, then he should fire the idiots who didn't fully inform him.
What's the likelihood of that?
I'm going to wrap this one up with
bkdelong has some links and a fabulous concept on his LJ...Now, I said yesterday that I wasn't going to be political.
This isn't political. It's about people; it's about lives.
Speaker of the House Hastert doesn't think it makes sense to rebuild New Orleans
Condi Rice is shoe shopping when countries like Canada and Jamaica want to lend support to the search & rescue mission in the Gulf Coast.
But, of course, what search & rescue mission? FEMA has suspended some of its operations in New Orleans but nobody seems to know which operations are actually continuing.
Carnival Cruise Lines has been looking into using some of its ships to house the displaced, but why wasn't a plan for such things put into place as an option of last resort months, if not years, ago? They have ships that travel in and out of Mobile; they could be so useful for thousands of people as temporary housing right now.
Why weren't naval vessels sent out of Virginia on Sunday, instead of yesterday? They could've been in the gulf by now; why aren't they?
Bush diverted money that had been designated to help shore up the levees to Iraq. Bush enabled the sending of *high water vehicles* to Iraq from the Gulf Coast - which area d'ya think *normally* needs them more?
And here's the worst. George Bush went on GMA this morning, and he said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
Did he lie, or is he that stupid?
I think it is entirely possible that nobody *told* him that the levees might be breached. The man doesn't read the papers or watch the news under normal circumstances, so he relies a lot on what he's told. And it's possible that nobody showed him this article from Kansas ("The fear was that flooding could overrun the levees and turn New Orleans into a toxic lake filled with chemicals and petroleum from refineries, as well as waste from ruined septic systems.") or this one from New Mexico ("Had Katrina not shifted, hurricane waters could have spilled over levees and swamped the saucer-shaped city in a toxic soup of refinery chemicals, sewage and human bodies.")
If that's the case, then he should fire the idiots who didn't fully inform him.
What's the likelihood of that?
I'm going to wrap this one up with
[L]eadership is everything we are not getting from this White House. Instead of challenging us to push ourselves to accomplish great things, we get platitudes. We can do better than that. I hope you had a chance to read today's editorial in the New York Times, called "Waiting for a Leader." If you haven't read it yet, please take a few minutes to do it. The Times is asking an important question. It's one I've been asking for a long time as well: Where is the leadership in America today?
. . . [J]ust this past week, there was at least 36 hours notice that a major hurricane was going to hit the Gulf Coast, including likely a devastating blow to New Orleans, which certainly came to pass. The President continued with his regular schedule on Monday and Tuesday in California, Arizona, and Texas to hold some staged Medicare events and enjoy more vacation time, while finally returning to the White House yesterday. The joint task force including National Guard set up by the Pentagon failed to be on the scene in New Orleans in a timely manner to stop the looting and assist in the evacuation. Where is the leadership?
Then just this morning, the President claimed that no one could have anticipated the levee breaches we've seen in New Orleans after Katrina hit. That's not leadership, that's an excuse. In fact, people have predicted this kind of disaster for many years, including President Bush's own FEMA in 2001, when they ranked hurricane flood damage to New Orleans among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing America. Instead, funding was significantly cut back, leaving key engineering projects on hold. Instead, this Administration focused on the war in Iraq, tax cuts, and private sector economic growth without asking the American people to make needed sacrifices for the good of the country. Again I ask you, where is the leadership?
