Ramblings' Journal

Manslaughter and obstruction of relief. This will get uglier before it gets prettier...

Just keep on sharing the truth - if the extreme left choose to shove their fingers in their ears and play the "nananananananana" game, then so be it.

I'm not an avid Bush supporter and there is plenty of responsibility to fall on FEMA's shoulders - for sure. But the epicenter of responsibility is at the Civic and State levels - they are the first responders - not the federal government. The Feds have no jurisdiction in these situations unless requested by the Governor - plain and simple.

As a very important side-note, it seems clear to me that underneath all the shouting about race, the deeper issue centers on poverty. To be sure, race plays a part, but all colors and creeds experience poverty. What can we, as a people, as a nation, begin to do (besides a gazillion new social programs that achieve only marginal success at best) to affect change in regards to poverty?

CNN picked up on the Red Cross story today, so it looks like the dam's beginning to burst (perhaps not the best metaphor). They did hasten to assure their viewers that there's still "plenty of blame to go around" (i.e., they'll still be engaging in Bush-bashing).

CNN picked up on the Red Cross story today, so it looks like the dam's beginning to burst (perhaps not the best metaphor).

I wonder if all the moonbats that poo-poohed this are going to start backtracking.

Waiting...

Waiting...

(It's a good thing I'm not holding my breath.)

Pretty harsh assessment of Blanco and Nagin there, Michael, but I'm not going to disagree with you.

If there were places in New Orleans that didn't get flooded, or if Nagin had access to buses that could've been used to get people to those places or elsewhere, then there ought to be much hell to pay.

Partisan politics -- phooey. There are incompetent and wicked people on both sides. People who have been given positions of power and all the money that power lets them grab. People who don't usually do anything difficult and yet are often entrusted with our lives and always make choices that affect our lives. While we engage in our frat-boy debates -- go Big L! go Big R! -- they are busy taking even more for themselves.

There must be more we can learn from these events than who was wrong and their party affiliation. Unless every issue for you is just one more hand in the game that ends in Novembers.

Lisa M suggests the issue is poverty. I agree and raise her by stating that class issues trump all others, almost all the time. Unfortunately, in this country we all believe we're on the rich side. We'd rather believe that we're rich or will be soon than figure out how to live based on different values. We're too busy making moral judgments about our neighbors (encouraged by those busy taking our money and power) to really dig in and make our local communities strong economically.

That said, this country is in an ongoing crisis regarding race -- and in particular the lasting effects of hundreds of years of enslaving African-American people -- and that crisis has no end in sight. The crisis isn't a policy priority, in fact it hardly registers in the public arena. It is so overwhelming that few dare approach it, and there are no imaginable gains in approaching it for most people in power because most people in power are not visionaries. And most people in power are not idealists. But the principles of democracy are ideals, and to cultivate a living democratic system, you must be at least part idealist.

To confront the race crisis, people must believe that their lives would improve if the lives of their fellow citizens improved. And most people do not believe that. The same is true with class. So our country will become more and more polarized: fewer and fewer people will have more and more resources, and more and more will have less and less. And everyone's quality of life will be worse.

My suggestion? We should each examine our values and actions to discover if we have a good balance between acting for ourselves/our families and acting for a greater common good. I truly believe that this alone, magnified by millions and manifested in our everyday lives, will raise the standard of living for all citizens.

Their cherished point about Bush being nuts when he said that nobody anticipated the levee being breached took a battering on Nightline tonight--they had an expert on (didn't get the name will look for the transcript tomorrow) who was very critical of FEMA's response, but he absolutely highlighted the fact that Bush was right on that narrow point, that the assumption had always been that the water would overtop the levee, not bust it open.