Oh, Katrina!
HOW TO HELP? GO TO: www.bayarea-redcross.org
And The Blame Game Starts:
What’s happening in New Orleans is an absolute tragedy. This is a great reminder of how we, as Americans, are always unprepared for these disasters. We never look ahead – we just react. And sometimes, the reaction process is severely slow. Based from several reports on the news, however, scientists did warn our head officials that a major hurricane in New Orleans would bring this sort of catastrophe. The infrastructures needed to be fixed and no one bothered to do anything about it. Well, someone did. Our president cut the funding for the Army Corps. of Engineers – not the proper action New Orleans was looking for given their weak levees.
Why has the relief effort been so slow? 4 days in to it and people are still without water, food, and medical help. Could it be because of lack of personnel – 40% of the Louisiana National Guard are serving in Iraq. Could it be lack of funds – billions of dollars being spent in the war in Iraq. Could it be because our government doesn’t value poor people’s lives as opposed to its upper-class citizens – if this happened here in the Bay Area or in Beverly Hills, it will only take a couple of hours for officials to respond.
Bottom line is I am outraged by all of our public officials (Democrats and Republicans) for not having any sense of urgency. They all knew ahead of time that this hurricane was about to cause havoc in New Orleans, and they were ALL ON VACATION. I’ve had it with these press conferences and “fly overs” over the damaged areas. It’s time to actually do some work and show some action. Bush & co. keeps telling the public that help is on the way, but as of yesterday, people were still dying in the streets. I tend to believe pictures and images than words from characters with questionable credibility. And if I hear our president say words again like, “resolve”, “hard work”, “this will make America stronger”, I’ll just lose it – I’m serious. I will!
And The Blame Game Starts:
What’s happening in New Orleans is an absolute tragedy. This is a great reminder of how we, as Americans, are always unprepared for these disasters. We never look ahead – we just react. And sometimes, the reaction process is severely slow. Based from several reports on the news, however, scientists did warn our head officials that a major hurricane in New Orleans would bring this sort of catastrophe. The infrastructures needed to be fixed and no one bothered to do anything about it. Well, someone did. Our president cut the funding for the Army Corps. of Engineers – not the proper action New Orleans was looking for given their weak levees.
Why has the relief effort been so slow? 4 days in to it and people are still without water, food, and medical help. Could it be because of lack of personnel – 40% of the Louisiana National Guard are serving in Iraq. Could it be lack of funds – billions of dollars being spent in the war in Iraq. Could it be because our government doesn’t value poor people’s lives as opposed to its upper-class citizens – if this happened here in the Bay Area or in Beverly Hills, it will only take a couple of hours for officials to respond.
Bottom line is I am outraged by all of our public officials (Democrats and Republicans) for not having any sense of urgency. They all knew ahead of time that this hurricane was about to cause havoc in New Orleans, and they were ALL ON VACATION. I’ve had it with these press conferences and “fly overs” over the damaged areas. It’s time to actually do some work and show some action. Bush & co. keeps telling the public that help is on the way, but as of yesterday, people were still dying in the streets. I tend to believe pictures and images than words from characters with questionable credibility. And if I hear our president say words again like, “resolve”, “hard work”, “this will make America stronger”, I’ll just lose it – I’m serious. I will!
3 Comments:
I think the relief effort is taking forever because we have to remember, this is a HUGE natural disaster. Hurricane Katrina is nothing compared to what the Tsunami did almost a year ago, and from what is seen from the relief efforts in Southeast Asia, reconstruction is gonna take a VERY long time. Katrina has effected an area of the US, equivalent to the size of Great Britain. However, you're right that the government response time is pretty slow which is kinda dumb and surprising, but from looking at the devestation, rebuilding Louisiana, especially New Orleans is gonna take at least a year. Gonna take a couple months just for them to pump the water out of there.
On another note, bunch of students from my college, about 100, are going with the Red Cross this week and next week to help out with relief efforts. Pretty cool people are willing to go, even to skip school and all.
I know it's a little late, but I found this article by your beloved Bill O'Reilly, which is pretty fair in dishing out the blame.
I hate it when he's right.
The same comments were expressed by Charles Barkley (of all people) during a basketball fund raiser yesterday. He said that anyone should not rely on the government for help. "Get your education", he said. However, if we cannot rely on our state and federal government during times of crisis, then what the heck am I paying taxes for? Oh yeah, Iraq.
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