I don’t think we’re in any substantial disagreement here. I’m not particularly familiar with the structure of your relevant government agencies here, so keep that in mind when reading my comments. I was under the impression that FEMA was primarily intended as a means of delivering adequate funding to allow a hard-hit locale to rebuild and recover after the fact, but that emergency response during the actual crisis was a more local thing. Perhaps I’m mistaken.
And I agree that there’s been a complete failure to simply take the required resources and put them to use. Richest nation in the world, you are. The resources are there. Waltz into nearby bottling plants and tell them you want all the bottled water they have, now, and turn the bottling machines on 24/7 until further notice. Waltz into the trucking company and tell them to get some trucks over to the bottling plant post haste. Etc. Adequate contingency planning would have had everyone put on notice before the storm made landfall that they might be required to contribute their services, and to be ready in case they were.
What really, really blows my mind, though, is the failure to get Guardsmen in place soon enough to prevent the complete collapse of social order. The single greatest responsibility of government, and they completely blew it. This is the really, truly unforgiveable aspect of the affair in my opinion.
If my post was taken as an effort to say that the federal response was flawless, believe me, that’s not my point at all.
I do think that those are saying, “Hey, it’s not brain surgery!” are off base. It IS highly complicated. Still, the fact is we hire people to those positions expecting them to solve highly complicated problems.
My ire above was raised becase there seemed to be a sense of, “It’s so easy, and they fucked it up!”
Anybody who thinks coordinating more than two people, much less agencies, at a time is easy must be either deluded or woefully inexperienced, IMO. I don’t think the complexity of the problem was ever the issue. ‘Teaching the elephant to dance’ doesn’t just apply to businesses. Any bureaucracy will move at glacial pace if given half a chance.
The problem is that disaster preparedness was made an overriding national priority years ago. A new federal department was created specifically to streamline and coordinate efforts to identify vulnerabilities and coordinate resources throughout all levels of government–and beyond–in response to catastrophes. I don’t think people are underestimating the horrendous complexities involved; they’re just pissed as hell and appalled that the systems created turned out to be so blatantly, lethally inadequate.
It’s impossible not to compare disaster response systems to the aftermath of 9/11. Effective contingencies should have been in place–and weren’t. Flubs, errors and miscommunications would be expected. Those happen even without disasters. The nearly complete lack of effective coordination is a helluva lot more serious.
New Orleans was the test case for the Bush administration’s lean, mean and streamlined govermental apparatus to handle domestic disasters. It failed, spectacularly. Common sense prevention and coordination weren’t better after all that expense, brouhaha and trumpeted public assurances. If anything, they were more inept. Politics, and government for that matter, are mental constructs based on common belief. I believe the Bush administration failed, in the worst possible way, to provide the basic planning, coordination and emergency response it taxed citizens to create and that they believed existed in some vestigally improved form.
Rather than digging for motives, Updike, how about you just analyze the above situation for what it is? What about it says anything to you other than “gross, insupportable incompetence,” or “lax and uncaring?”
Look, the people who are most immediately responsible are Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco. And then, yes, President Bush. Why would any of them want people to die? It doesn’t make any sense.
Since I am the one who made the it’s not brain surgery comment over here let me answer.
The big picture is easy. You have X number of people to move / shelter. They need food, water, and a place to shit. You need to provide security for them. The hard part comes next. You have to take these simple items and turn it into a functional operational plan. This is the hard part. There are 6 jillion details that need attention.
The reason I made the not brain surgery comment is not becasue only 5.99 jillion of those very important details got skipped, but rather because the simple easy things that anyone who has 3 functional brain cells would have thought of, wern’t. It’s not a case of they did not have quite enough water at the Superdome becasue they got more people then they expected. They didn’t have any on hand.
If it was just details that got overlooked, I would not be posting, because I agree that it is highly complex dealing with the details. I am posting because it appears that the planning never got to the details stage, the mayor and gov just thought that everything would be OK.
Also FEMA is not looking too good based on the last couple of links in this thread.
Shameful. Every fucking bit of this, at all levels, is utterly shameful and downright criminal. That jackass Bush is painfully incompetent to run this country and thousands of people are dying because of it. FEMA and DHS are HIS to oversee and command. The top people at those agencies are HIS appointees. The Mayor and Governor should have done more, absolutely. But Bush COULD have done more and fucking DIDN’T! He posed for photo ops, went on morning talk shows with his nasty smirk and gave us all the same fucking, condescending lip service he’s given us for 5 fucking years.
I said for an example. Specific answer - depends - shooting to harm? yes. Shooting as an attempt to signal for help? not so much.
you gonna agree that turning AWAY help at that time leaving people to die is vile?
Yes, let’s agree that the government fucked up. But where does the buck stop? Who is the highest power in the land in dealing with these things? Who ultimately bears responsibility for the multiple federal fuck-ups?
The best republican red-herring (and this one is used over and over again) is what’ would <insert democrat> have done? “What would Gore have done on 9/11?” is an example. Now the best defense that we hear is “What would Kerry have done in the New Orleans situation?” The response might be better or worse, I would argue it would be better but that would be another post.
NEWSFLASH ASSHOLES! GEORGE BUSH IS PRESIDENT! THE BUCK STOPS WITH HIM. If everything goes well for the country, like the stock market goes up or the jobs report is good, Georgie points to his tax cuts and claims responsibility. When things go good, the millions of people really responsible are never cheered and dipshit takes responsibility. BUT WHAT ABOUT WHEN THINGS GO WRONG? Then it’s everyone else’s fault but his.
Don’t you guys get tired of defending this chickenshit chickenhawk? Don’t you find your red herrings a lame arguing point? It’s akin to “if a brick dropped from the sky and hit you on the head…” They are just hypos and not real facts that we intelligent people are supposed to argue from. I mean, your man is president. He bears the ultimate responsibility whether things go right or not. So do something our president won’t and MAN THE FUCK UP.
