To all of those that blame Bush for the hurricane Katrina debacle. What do you think of this?

Question

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/peterson.asp

Steve and patriotwww:

You two obviously didn't read the link I posted. Typical libs, always practicing "contempt prior to investigation". Blabbing and running your mouths BEFORE you gather your facts.
Yep, typical libs.

Just as I thought. People are squawking before they read.

Most of you are missing the point entirely.

This man is talking of "moral poverty" being the cause of the huge problems after Katrina, not physical poverty.

I think it ticks off libs because a black man is pointing out the failures of the welfare state and the state of entitlement.

Answer 1

I am not sure that black and white (race) is as big of an issue as self sufficient and government dependent. There are a large number of people in New Orleans who are living under the poverty line and require government assistance. This is not inherently bad if these people are trying to improve their situation in life. In my opinion, there are plenty of people in New Orleans who have sat and did nothing waiting for the government to come and bail them out. Everyone who knows anything about the government knows that it takes to government a long time to do anything, even if it is urgent. There are miles of red tape.

Self sufficient people would have been cleaning stuff up, looking to help their neighbors, and helping restore peace and order. This is exactly what happened after the flood of 1997 wiped out the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota (about 80,000 people). There were no riots and there was no waiting for the government to ride to the rescue. People stepped up and helped each other and tried to rebuild their city. The people of New Orleans have failed to do this.

So the main difference self sufficient people try to clean up their city, help their neighbors, and rebuild their lives. A person dependent on the government will sit on his *** and do nothing until the government does these things for him.

Answer 2

An answer from a complete and utter moron:

The Bush Administration made several serious mistakes immediately following Hurricane Katrina. Some were public relations mistakes, some were administrative.

They were not the only ones making mistakes. But they were the only ones who rest of the country voted for. So it made a lot of sense for the rest of the country to be critical of Bush's mistakes while ignoring Nagin's errors, since we could not vote him out of office.

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson's editorial doesn't change that.

He is critical of Ray Nagin, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan and others. But he is the author of a book called “Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America." Would you expect him to suddenly not be critical?

By the way, I think this has already been discussed before, hasn't it? I mean, the column itself is almost two years old.

Aren't't there some other, more recent excuses for George W. Bush's failures?

Answer 3

We all know for a fact that there's a TON of money just sitting there, waiting for people to use to rebuild their lives. We also know that they can't get enough contractors down there to rebuild fast enough.
I'm not sure skin color should have anything to do with it. We can't say with 100% certainty WHY things are the way they are & we'd be doing ourselves a serious injustice if we group people based on somehting like color. Everyone is different, regardless of their color. It just makes us sound ignorant when we lump people together becuase I'm sure there are quite a few people that don't deserve to be categorized this way.
You wanna do something about Katrina, go there & help rebuild - you could probably make some serious cash if that's a motivator for you. Talk to the people, see life there for yourself, don't take the word of others though, you'll just look silly and uneducated.

Answer 4

This was an EXCELLENT article.
We were in New Orleans this past January. The Downtown part of New Orleans looked fine - like nothing had ever happened there.

We met some city workers on our cruise ship who HATE New Orleans...WHY? The blacks there will not work. They said that over 75% of the blacks in New Orleans do not work and of that 75%...50% had NEVER worked. They depend on the GOVERNMENT for everything and fall apart when they need to be self-reliant. And WHO did they AGAIN elect as their Mayor - even though he is HIGHLY ineffective...Democrat Ray Nagin. Unbelievable!!!

Answer 5

To our dear bleeding hearts who are still clueless---the warning for Katrina came well in advance to evacuate. It is the job of the local/state government to evacuate. Of course they can not FORCE people to leave, but Nagin and the useless Governor did NOTHING. The blood of those who perished is on THEIR hands. It is also the responsibility of the state to rebuild. The federal govt's role is to send relief (which they did-albeit not very timely which BTW has been misappropriated and stolen.....probably by Nagin himself).....not to rebuild.

The poor and infirm could've been evacuated--by all those busses which sat idle. 99% of the aftermath could've been avoided, had the mayor and governor done their jobs in the first place.

Now my liberal friends, how many of you went down to NO to help? (I did)

Answer 6

So you blame the poor for their poverty?

When you don't have a car, it's difficult to leave town.

Incidentally, I think your questions typifies the conservative approach to our nation: any individual who is in need should expect no help from our government.

This is not the America I want to live in, though. I actually believe it's okay to help the less fortunate - even admirable. And perhaps more essentially, I think this is one thing that has made America stronger. I believe that pitching in to help a neighbor in need makes our entire nation stronger, and I see the government as the extension of the people. So if it's good for people to do it, it's good for the government to do it.


EDIT:

I read the link before I responded. It's one editorial by one guy blaming poor people for wanting help in a crisis. I find it interesting that you don't feel similarly angry at New Yorkers who received government help after 9/11.

And I won't call you a typical conservative, because despite my disagreements with that philosophy, it is founded on more than adolescent name calling.

Answer 7

I agree. But according to the Chinese they can control the weather and are planning to do so during the summer Olympics. Why didn't we think of using something like that? Guess its not carried in the seasonal department at walmart yet.

Answer 8

that site you provided offers nothing. Bush is responsible for the poor response after Katrina leaving people on houses for days. I never thought I'd see a President let people die during a federal emergency and then praise FEMA for their "outstanding" work.

Answer 9

I've seen this before. Kudos to the REAL Rev. Jesse.

Answer 10

Do you realize it took Bush 3 days to even get a clue?
AND he praised Michael Brown?