RANT: No one has taken America away from anyone

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 11:04 am

After Katrina there were a lot of conservatives ranting about how it was OK that the feds completely cocked it all up because th feds shouldn't be doing emergency response anyway. I rather suspect that if the federal response had been adequate, that they would have been OK with it. But it's hard to say.

-Username17

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 11:52 am

FrankTrollman wrote:After Katrina there were a lot of conservatives ranting about how it was OK that the feds completely cocked it all up because th feds shouldn't be doing emergency response anyway. I rather suspect that if the federal response had been adequate, that they would have been OK with it. But it's hard to say.

I heard stuff like that mainly to justify privatization and demonstrate that the government can't do anything right. I'm with you in thinking that if the government hadn't screwed it up, there wouldn't have been much protest.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 2:59 pm

There were several failures with Katrina. The biggest was the failure of the state to declare the emergengy and formally call upon FEMA for assistance. Then there was the problem with the trailers, which was caused by placing a need for getting a whole lot of trailers built quickly as opposed to spending several years doing environmental impacts on the design. (Note: compare to the statements after 9/11 that the air was safe; a lot of people responding days later to the collapse of the twin towers - even those who simply rushed in to give water to the workers - contracted really nasty cancers and most of them have died hirrible deaths. In the FEMA trailers, "Residents have reported breathing difficulties, persistent flu-like symptoms, eye irritation, and nosebleeds.") Likewise there was a problem with top down micromanagement. I would love to say that is a unique feature of the Federal Government, or a unique feature of Government, but it's not.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 7:38 pm

tzor wrote:There were several failures with Katrina. The biggest was the failure of the state to declare the emergengy and formally call upon FEMA for assistance.

I'm going to stop you right there, because that particular myth is on Snopes.

That's just not true. Louisiana did get declared a state of emergency by the governor of Louisiana. On August 26th.

-Username17

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:02 pm

Perhaps you should take it up with the President, because he sees it differently and he was there. Bush recalls Katrina aftermath in 'Decision Points' memoir

"The tone started out tense and got worse," Bush wrote. "The governor and mayor bickered. Everyone blasted the Federal Emergency Management Agency for failing to meet their needs. Congressman (now Governor) Bobby Jindal pointed out that FEMA had asked people to e-mail their requests, despite the lack of electricity in the city. I shook my head. 'We'll fix it,' I said looking at FEMA Director Michael Brown. Sen. Mary Landrieu interrupted with unproductive emotional outbursts. 'Would you please be quiet?' I had to say to her at one point."

...

"My question silenced the raucous discussion in the Air Force One conference room on Friday Sept. 2, 2005," Bush wrote. 'The governor is in charge,' Mayor Nagin said, pointing across the dark wood table at Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

"Every head pivoted in her direction. The Louisiana governor froze. She looked agitated and exhausted. 'I think it's the mayor.'"

The former president also wrote about the failure to send in federal troops sooner. He said he pressed Blanco to allow federal troops into the city, but said she resisted. Also objecting was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"That left me in a tough position," the former president wrote. "If I invoked the Insurrection Act against her wishes, the world would see a male Republican president usurping the authority of a female governor by declaring an insurrection in a largely African-American city."

In the South, Bush wrote, that "could unleash holy hell."

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:15 pm

That's Bush's rambling ghost writer fabricating something about September 2nd.

But it is a matter of historical record that the Governor of Louisiana declared a State of Emergency on August 26th, and the Gulf States requested troop assistance from the Pentagon the same day.

Bush did meet with Nagin on September 2nd, 2005. But his rambling fanfiction about finger pointing four days after Katrina hit is rather meaningless. The help he's talking about had already been officially requested three days before the hurricane had made landfall.

You can check this on Fact Check, or Think Progress, or fucking Wikipedia.

Wikipedia wrote:In a September 26, 2005 hearing, former FEMA chief Michael Brown testified before a U.S. House subcommittee about FEMA's response. During that hearing, Representative Stephen Buyer (R-IN) inquired as to why President Bush's declaration of state of emergency of August 27 had not included the coastal parishes of Orleans, Jefferson, and Plaquemines.[17] (In fact, the declaration did not include any of Louisiana's coastal parishes, whereas the coastal counties were included in the declarations for Mississippi[18] and Alabama.[19]) Brown testified that this was because Louisiana Governor Blanco had not included those parishes in her initial request for aid, a decision that he found "shocking." After the hearing, Blanco released a copy of her letter, which showed she had requested assistance for "all the southeastern parishes [but not by name] including the New Orleans Metropolitan area and the mid state Interstate I-49 corridor and northern parishes along the I-20 corridor that are accepting [evacuated citizens]."

-Username17