Newt blames the Katrina victims
darkcrow
Posts: 1,102
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/03/04/newt-blames-the-victims-of-katrina/ (for the audio)
(Newt Gingrich, speaking at CPAC) blamed the residents of New Orleans' 9th Ward for a "failure of citizenship," by being "so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane."
And he called for a "deep investigation" into this "failure of citizenship."
Here's the full quote:
How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane. (emphasis original)
(Newt Gingrich, speaking at CPAC) blamed the residents of New Orleans' 9th Ward for a "failure of citizenship," by being "so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane."
And he called for a "deep investigation" into this "failure of citizenship."
Here's the full quote:
How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane. (emphasis original)
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http://www.reverbnation.com/brianzilm
prior to the hurricane; the news interviewed several people that refused to evacuate. the order was given to evacuate; but these people were going to fight the hurricane themselves. what other conclusions could you come to? the people are either stupid; ignorant; or uneducated.
you stopped short of saying that bush caused the hurricane to divert attention from the war.
can you explain what responsabilities government has in natural disasters? in a disaster of this size; what could the government have done differently? especially after sending so much money to the tsunami victims. how much of the budget was spent trying to evacuate those who refused to leave? if the city was evacuated as ordered; the billions spent on post evacuation would have been spent on rebuilding.
when the government runs out of money it's because you don't want to pay higher taxes.
they could have actually provided the requested funding for those levies. people knew this was a possibility but the government did nothing to fix it. perhaps if we werent pouring billions into worthless interventions in other countries, we'd have the funds to do things like that. shit, we could have had the army engineers do it and kept that precious military funding up.
so the biggest storm in history is headed for you and you stop to think whether you should gamble your life over some posessions? i can see your point to some extent but they should've left. especially after seeing the devastation of the tsunami. when they chose to stay they took responsability for themselves.
Hehe...they tried that. But then "Save our Wetlands" sued them in 1977 and won. Thirty years later, the Wetlands finished the job.
That's very easy for a wealthy person such as yourself to say that. To some of these people, these possessions were all they had to show for a life spent working. So, leave it all behind to go somewhere where you dont have anyone waiting for you, or try to ride out the storm. And it wasn't just a few petty possessions that could be easily replaced. It was houses that people spent their whole life paying for just to call their own. In a society where your success is based on your possessions, I can understand why many would choose to ride out the storm, hoping that it's not as bad as it seems to be.
By the way, I wasn't trying to use your wealth against you.
i've got projects in my state the government should take care of too. and what about the other levies throughout the country. and since you brought it up; the people knew the levies wouldn't hold and THEY STILL STAYED; making them bigger dumbass's than implied. i don't think it was very smart to build a city below sea level AT THE EDGE OF THE OCEAN and rebuilding it when the ice caps are melting is even stupider. you expect so much from government but you don't want government in your business. make up your bloody mind.
The question is, where were these thousands of people going to go, and how were they going to get there?
Hotels in surrounding states were full (even if they could afford rooms at the increased rates), Highways were back up for hours (not that many of these people had cars), and there were not enough shelters (the biggest one turned out to be a huge crisis on it's own).
I'm not saying the people are totally blameless for staying, but you make is sound so easy just to up and leave everything that they ever owned, when a lot of these people stayed and lived through numerous storms and evacuations.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
i was born dirt poor. at times i worked 3 jobs swearing i'd never be poor again. but when a wildfire threatened my ranch i took pictures of my possessions and evacuated. i left everything behind. i've got some great pictures from that fire and it was stopped a mile from my house but i was in the same situation and chose saving my life over the posessions i worked so hard to get. i should also add that i couldn't get insurance because the ranch was in a remote area so i could have lost everything without any way of replacing it. i understand what you're saying but i was in a similar situation and i chose life.
But you gotta understand that not everyone would. and that the situation isn't as black as white as "The smart ones left, the dumb ones stayed".
By the way, what does this guy expect to happen with a "deep investigation into failure of citizenship"?
the people didnt know the levies would give. scientists had told the government but they'd done their damndest to make sure no one else knew about it. yeah, new orleans is not the most stable city, but it serves a very important purpose to this entire country as the gateway to the mississippi and most of middle america. having a city there on the mouth of the country's largest river and only inland access to the ocean is critical. we all benefit from that.
i want government to provide the services it was enacted to provide... chiefly regulation and streamlining of interstate commerce. it provides services to its citizens and it should. that's why we have it. but yes, it has no business sticking its nose in my private life. but things like public parks and general municipal services are the exact purpose of government. that is there job. so there is no contradiction in expecting government to do what it's supposed to do to maintain roads and facilities while staying the fuck out of my private life.
The same thing that happens with a "deep investigation into the failure of government" -- nothing.
sued who? i recall reading somewhere that levee projects were proposed to congress several times in the 90s and voted down, nothing to do with judicial injunctions.
That's like saying I told the US government that when they went into Iraq they wouldn't be able to control the people. Whatever Newt!
what were the pictures for?
That's what I figured. What you gonna do? Throw em in jail? From what I've seen and read, that'll atleast give them better shelter than the FEMA trailers.
In 1977 they sued the Corp.
"The Army Corps of Engineers also designed a Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Barrier to shield the city with flood gates like those that protect the Netherlands from the North Sea. Congress provided funding and construction began in 1971, but work stopped in 1977 when a federal judge ruled, in a suit brought by Save Our Wetlands, that the Corps' environmental impact statement was deficient. In 1985, after nearly a decade of court battles, the Corps scrapped the plan, and decided on reinforcing the city’s levee system instead."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_preparedness_for_New_Orleans#Late_20th_century_hurricanes
that sucks. but it still doesn't explain why subsequent projects to reinforce the levees were shot down.
possible FEMA relief. and since i was leaving a lot of guns behind; i wanted record of them in case they were stolen.
the pics of the fire should be able to be sold and i'm looking into that. i've got mines exploding with fireballs going thousands of feet into the air.
They weren't. Those "projects" were still going on when Katrina hit.
How can you utilize a wetland? Well, you've already seen how wetlands can be utilized. Your city, for the most part, maximized the usage of wetlands over the usage of levees. Your town flooded. The wetlands served to make that flood less severe. So if you're happy with the results, stick with the wetlands.
You could, however, look beyond both and realize that neither wetlands nor levies are required to prevent a flood of that nature. You could look at more advanced drainage systems and dikes. Furthermore, you'd be wise to actually reclaim areas of the gulf by building off-shore barriers that suppress storm surges. But that's not going to happen here. Your town seems to be demanding more levies. And I'm not sure it's ready to give up its wetlands either.
waste more taxpayer money i suppose.
when in a similar situation; i evacuated and slept in my truck. if i lost everything there would have been disaster loans and other help. my responsability was to save my life; and get out of the way for those sent to help. the firefighters needed to concentrate on the fire; not the hold out in the cabin on the hill. this is what happened with katrina. the attention was diverted to saving the people instead of controling the situation.
ah, so you were expecting the government to replace your possessions? yet the new orleans residents are stupid for wanting the same thing?