Replying to RE: "Congratulations America!!!" thread.

It usually isn’t my nature to post a thread or even a reply to any political opinion but its Sunday and apparently nobody does any work on this day…damn hippies.

This is in response mainly to Michael Moore’s “letter� and to a certain few who share a similar opinion.

Firstly, this is a natural disaster…there isn’t a single party to be blamed for it. Multiple minor mistakes trickling down into one large one, yes. But that is almost always the case when something bad happens. To the best of my knowledge this is one of the largest if not THE largest natural disasters to ever hit the NO area. A proper format of rescue and relief structure can only be hypothesized without any real previous experience… Well, now that experience exists and you can rest assured things will be dealt with differently in the future.

Local and State government could have easily said, round up all of the public transit we currently have in operation and send em out to the street corners. Load em up and peace outta here. Surely that wouldn’t have 10 out of 10 people on it but I’d be willing to bet 7 out of 10 people would go. There simply isn’t enough manpower resource to evacuate 100% of the population. Always some guy sitting in his attic etc… But none the less that would have been a start for the people without the financial ability to evacuate.

Slow response. The problem here lies in the way three government levels must operate in a natural disaster situation. Local, State and federal. For example; Hey Mayor, should I put this boat in this water? Mayor says, well I have to check with the governor…Hey governor, should we put the boat in? Governor says. Hey Pres. put the boat in the water? Pres. says Yah drop er in there! 24 hours have now gone by. I think this pyramid of permission should likely be erased in future natural disaster cases.

Opinion: We are supposed to have the best military in the world. I agree…they are very well trained. They are trained to asses, plan and act. They will also do so right now rather than later. I believe what really should have been done was to give the generals and the military control of the area for the time period directly after the storm subsided. The troops with all gear should have been stationed around the state of Louisiana ready for action the moment the storm had cleared and been given the permission to plan and act accordingly. They are trained for these rescue scenarios. Hindsight is 20/20 however… I suppose that decision is a federal one and lays in our Presidents hands.

The levee issue. Certainly the engineers assessed and agreed that the levee renovation was to cost 10 million dollars. They approached the federal government for this and received only 3 million…and increasingly less each year. Sure, federal cuts did make their job more difficult. But instead of having “due diligence� for the public safety of the people of NO they decided to build a somewhat “half assed� levee system. Actually a “30% assed� levee system. The government officials on this project are in my mind supposed to be businessmen. The government tends to have this incredible ability to sprout up new legislation in their favor rather efficiently and quickly. So at the word of budget cut why not invent the “levee renovation issue� and offer 20 year tax notes to commercial investors. They could approach large corporations with the notes which would in turn get 20 years of property tax (for example) exemptions in return for their million dollars or whatever it be investment. You could generate the remaining 7 million dollars it would take to repair the levees properly in just about 24 hours. Done deal…possibly could have saved lives and homes…possibly could have not.

I think it is rather apparent that the fact that president Bush himself did not make a timely appearance in the state is irrelevant…we all know that wouldn’t have improved the situation. That’s just a Moore tactic to recruit a heard of sheep for his bandwagon.

That’s about all I have to say in response to his letter and that thread in particular. Remember though, opinions are like assholes. Everyone’s got one and they all stink.


_________________________________________________________ If I can't do it homey, it can't be done. I'ma let the champagne bottle pop ima take it to the top fo sho ima make it hot. Trouble maker whaaaat!!!