Please stop sending me the following talking points from Christopher Ruddy!
Don't Blame Bush for Katrina
I have received three emails today of this crap and want all of you to know that I knew this was coming Sunday when we all received word that the "blame game" was being focused on Blanco and Nagin and the State of Louisiana.
All of this was fabricated over the weekend and put into the message network late Sunday.
Its good to know that all of you are doing your jobs by repeating it verbatim.
But I want to ask you, what does it say about what they actually think about you when they know that you will just repeat whatever they say without questioning it, or even thinking about it a bit, before repeating it and spreading it.
Personally, I'd say that they must think you all to be pretty damn ignorant when they can put stuff out there that is so factually wrong, and you just take it and run it right down the field without even the slightest bit of questioning, whether or not its correct, or even worse if its even relevant to the issue at hand!
Here is my favorite quote, this must have just gotten your blood boiling when you read this eh?
Aaron Broussard
"For God's sake, just shut up and send us the money!"
Of course that's not what the actual article says, you see my ignorant friends someone altered it before getting all of you to send it out, it really says
"For God's sake, just shut up and send us somebody!"
Just send us somebody!
See they know that you will just spread stuff like its no tomorrow, pretty amazing eh?
Of course the entire article is a red herring to the actual reasons for all of the criticism, the article states!
The media would have you believe that this disaster was worsened by a slow response from President Bush and his administration, though the primary responsibility for disaster response has always been with local and state governments.
It is true that federal response was not as fast as it could have been. The president himself has acknowledged that fact.
But the press has focused on the first 48 hours of federal response, not uttering a word about the fact that New Orleans had 48 hours of warning that a major Category 4 or 5 would make landfall near the city, yet local officials apparently did little to prepare.
Obviously, Gov. Blanco did not effectively deploy her state's National Guard.
And New Orleans' city leaders did almost nothing to evacuate the portion of the population with no transportation. In failing to follow their own evacuation plan, these officials did little to pre-position food, water and personnel to deal with the aftermath.
I was surprised Sunday to watch Tim Russert, on his show "Meet the Press," tear into Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff. During his encounter with Chertoff, Russert did not suggest once that local government had any role in dealing with the disaster. Russert also asked for Chertoff's resignation.
It wasn't until after the first 29 minutes of his show – 29 minutes – that Russert raised the question of local responsibility. And when he did so with Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, he did so in a passing way. Broussard brushed off his question with a non-answer.
Broussard began his interview claiming that the nation had "abandoned" New Orleans.
That is nonsense and a lie.
Broussard, who was never identified by "Meet the Press" as a Democrat, spent much of his time attacking the Bush administration, as has Democratic New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.
Broussard then ended his performance as he collapsed in tears with a demand: "For God's sake, just shut up and send us somebody!"
His tears didn't wash with me. My sympathies lie with the tens of thousands of people who have suffered or died because local officials like Broussard, Mayor Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco, also a Democrat, failed monumentally at their jobs.
OK, I know to all of you that all of that is pretty damning evidence against Louisiana, the Governor and Mayor Nagin!
But really is it?
Well, first of all I draw your attention to the fact that they managed to evacuate 80% of the city as well as significant portions of many other townships and areas of Louisiana.
Pretty damn good results in my book, but lets look at this in detail a bit OK.
Have any of you actually thought about what it takes to co-ordinate evacuating that many people?
Do you have any idea of the work effort involved?
They mobilized the local and state personnel from all agency's to accomplish this evacuation, police, state patrol, firefighters, ems personnel, bus drivers, state and local government personnel, etc.
The opened significant numbers of shelters, maned them, changed the direction of freeways and co-ordinated a massive evacuation, etc.
You act like doing all of that is, lets see what does the article say?
My sympathies lie with the tens of thousands of people who have suffered or died because local officials like Broussard, Mayor Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco, also a Democrat, failed monumentally at their jobs.
Are you fucking nuts?
All of these personnel were activated on Saturday to begin to prepare the plans for managing this massive evacuation.
But yet, you all think that it is the state and local personnel failed?
I think your just plain nuts and incapable of realizing the failure of FEMA and the Presidents policies.
You reference the points in the article that it is the states primary responsibility to manage disasters, but yet you ignore the incredible feat accomplished and they very fact that they did exactly that.
But get this, that's not what everyone is complaining about. What everyone is complaining about is the fact that it took so damn long for the help to arrive.
Remember all of those people who started activating the disaster plans and the evacuation plans? Well guess what, they were still the only ones there on freakin Tuesday when New Orleans was flooded and people were dying by the thousands
"For God's sake, just shut up and send us somebody!"
Yes, that's right, people who had been up for 72 or more hours were the only ones there. This is the rub folks, the state and local disaster plans depend on the fact that at some point FEMA will bring in fresh boots on the ground along with food, water and medical supplies.
"For God's sake, just shut up and send us somebody!"
That's the issue!
Don't you realize that everyone who even thought about a levee breaking knew that thousands would die? Don't you realize that they knew that there would over a hundred thousand people that could not be gotten out?
But, you demonize the city of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana.
Really? Well personally while acknowledging that its not acceptable that over 10 thousand of our fellow Americans have died, I also have to say that if that is all that might have died in this terrible disaster its a significant achievement when you think about it.
There are 1.3 million people or thereabouts in the New Orleans area. So if that number is correct then really, doing the math 10,000/1,300,000 is 99.23% of the people who were saved.
Wow, seems like the state and the city did a pretty damn fine job, no thanks to the federal government eh?
What about the ones who died at the Super-dome, the Convention center, the hospitals, the nursing homes and all of the other places where it is apparent that they all died because no one was there to assist the people of New Orleans in backing them up and providing food and water and medical supplies and law and order?
"For God's sake, just shut up and send us somebody!"
Many of those people escaped out of their houses from the flood waters and went to high ground and that is where they died.
So the issue is not the evacuation plan, it is the lack of the additional personnel and resources of FEMA that killed needlessly, so quit with the red herring and the smokescreen it just does not wash with me.
"For God's sake, just shut up and send us somebody!"
And what of all of the people I've seen interviewed as late as yesterday in Mississippi, Alabama and all over Louisiana that have said they have not seen one single person from FEMA... yet
"For God's sake, just shut up and send us somebody!"
And what of those 10k or more who got trapped in the flood waters and died, what of the incredible amount of property damage that occurred, what of the fact that and entire economy is literally gone and won't be back for some time if ever?
Well, its pretty certain that if those things would have been taken care of years ago with shoring up the levee's and the wetlands that protect New Orleans from rising waters and hurricanes, well
you see, all of that could have been prevented.
Just as 9/11 could have been prevented and the Iraq war could have been prevented and trillions of dollars of deficits could have been prevented.
So all of that blood is on the hands of the federal government, the federal government has a responsibility to the American people to protect our city's, our land and our economic system.
So please give all of us a break, quit with the criticisms of the people who managed to save nearly 99.23% of the people through well executed, co-ordinated plans for doing so, quit criticising the people who were up for 5 days trying their best to save even more people while seeing thousands of people die that they could not save, while no-one from FEMA came to help and relieve them.
They are the heros, they did their job! Your President, his cronies at FEMA, the republicans in congress who refused to fund the levee system repairs and the department of Homeland Security did not do theirs!
No matter how delicious the red herring is and no matter how much smoke you spread around, you and the people you put into office are the ones who failed!
Period, end of discussion!