Please re-read my earlier post on air dropping supplies.
An aircraft in the air does no good to those on the ground. They have to drop things to the terrain below in order to affect a situation.
Tripler
Again man, you have to think in three dimensions here.
You do understand that you are obviously guessing here right? That you have no knowledge of what it actually (in real life I mean) takes to plan and implement such an operation. You seem to be saying that you know they should/could have and you think the reason they didn’t is because there are mostly black people and …what??? the cone heads in the white house wanted the niggers to suffer a bit and make cleanup worse before they did anything?
I don’t know what it takes for them to do what they are doing either. I do know that I find the response unacceptable. it infuriates me that there are thousands of helpless American citizens suffering for most of a week and the US government seems virtually incapable of giving them needed relief. It sickens me that even after all of the Homeland Security preparedness hype that if a major disaster struck my city that I could not count on my government to help me when I needed it most. But what really makes my Cheerios taste like piss is when people like you and the CBC (black caucus) want to insert your politics into such an overwhelming tragedy.
Again: “groups prepared to supply food and water poised in a semicircle around the city.” Seems pretty clear to me. I mean, I might not know anything about military logistics, but I’d hope Mr. Brown does. Apparently, he thought it was possible, logistics and terrain notwithstanding. So if I agree with you guys that it really was impossible, I’m essentially concluding that the FEMA director is either a liar or completely incompetent. Which brings me right back to the original point: I have a hard time believing our military and homeland security departments are incompetent.
But you want us to believe they are homicidal racist and that is the reason. Well that is a relief. Since I live in the Denver Tech Center and there are alot of rich white folk here I should get an airlift from Marine One the day before anything happens here.
I may not know much about the art of military logistics, but if this is the best we can do, I’m pretty sure I could match our efforts with a Cessna and a trip to Sam’s Club.
Hmmm…you seem to be arguing with somebody, but I don’t know who that is…
Why? Read a few of the other threads on the topic. Brown had no experience in disaster management before he was given his post as a political favor for fundraising efforts. FEMA dissolved the internal department specifically created to address such situations as this one as one of the earliest efforts by Brown’s predecessor (also appointed for his ability to manage campaigns, not disasters).
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
And aside from the politicians doing their yakkety-yak, I agree with you. The military and its civilian leadership do know what they’re doing. But it’s like baseball: We can’t call the next pitch a “ball” or “strike” until it crosses the plate.
So, if you’d like to share what you see in your crystal ball with me, I’ll happily forward that up my chain of command.
Tripler
No, really, I will. And I’ll call our Intel section of “Miss Cleo” to confirm everything.
ok, tomndebb, I think I need a refresher on forum rules. How is the above less offensive than my earlier remark?
No problem. Looking into the same crystal ball I did on Tuesday, when I magically learned that two more days without food and water would be catastrophic to the victims already on the edge in New Orleans, I see…a major hurricane will directly hit New Orleans within the next 50 years. I see…people stranded…hungry…needing food and water. Call Cleo for details.
Then it would seem that the flaw lies in New Orleans itself, in that it totally failed to prepare for this, not in the rest of the country, which was taken off guard and probably thought no one would build a coastal city below sea level. Heck, I never thought about it. I never particularly thought about New Orleans being a “black city,” either.
Yes. It takes time to move air stock, get the right fuel ready, pack the food, identify good target zones, and then make the mission. Sure, you can randomly drop them sporadically, but what good would that do?
Yes, but they have to be moved from the holding areas, packed into the right kind of boxes, and get parachutes attachted. All that stuff has to be moved into the same place and hands gotten to do it. And no one particularly expected to be doing this on Tuesday morning.
Not incompetent: Slow. The bigger an organization becomes, the harder it becomes to coordinate. It was probably not until Tuesday evening, at best, that Fema actually understood the scale of need. It was probably not until Wednesday morning that they had a plan ready and put it into action. That they got back this fast is a miracle of hard work, supplies, and riches.
Seriously, Sequent I don’t think you quite comprehend just what you are asking. If it really were that easy, don’t you think it would have happened? Is it really probably that Fema hates black people so much that they stand around shooting the breeze watching them suffer… but only for 2 days?
True. But I wouldn’t go so far as “malice.” The word I’d choose would be “neglect.”
I’m glad you think what I describe this OP as is offensive too.
Should have quoted this
When the alternative is doing nothing at all? I’ll take a sporadic shot a relief. I think the desperate people on the ground would take one, too.
Really? Those supplies were “pre-positioned” for fun?
I’m not asking anything more than what most of the rest of the country is asking. Again, if you think I’m saying FEMA hates black people, I’ll refer you to AFAIKnow’s imaginary thread. All I’m asking is that they do what they said they were prepared to do after the storm. That’s all. Next time, maybe before the media has to shove the truth down the government’s throat.
Well, no, it’s a science, not an art. Perhaps you do not understand what the word “art” means, but logistics is a logical application of resources to move material from one place to another. There’s nothing terribly artistic about that.
So why isn’t there a central repository of emergency supplies? The richest nation in the world can’t afford to assemble a warehouse of jugs of water, modular tents, blankets and dried goods within a short drive of an airbase? Christ, you’d think the government had never heard of Wal Mart. Or hurricanes. Does nobody remember Hurricane Andrew?
if you are not saying that racism is the reason they are not doing what you think they should do and are willing to let more black people die because they are racist, then what are you saying? And If I am totally off the mark on this then I take back everything I said because I misread your OP and most of your subsequent posts and will apologize.
My guess is because he’s not saying that. It seems to me that he’s saying that that’s what you are saying. And essentially, it seems that’s what you are saying.
I don’t know why they waited so long to start; I assume they have good reasons. Or like bandit said, they’re just slow. I don’t think anybody involved in this effort would purposely withhold help or delay it out of a racist motivation. I’m sure there are many varied and reasonable excuses as to why this took as long as it did, and I don’t think racism is one of them. But I do think racism/classism creates the atmosphere in which such reasonable excuses are tolerated and considered, well, reasonable. I do think that if we were looking at a bunch of stockbrokers sitting in the Superdome, I wouldn’t be hearing nearly as much about the complicated art of military logistics, however well-founded such discussion may be. We’d just get it done. Failure would not be an option.
Funny, I must have missed a few posts because I simply don’t remember saying “the cone heads in the white house wanted the niggers to suffer a bit and make cleanup worse before they did anything?”