City in Chaos

[CD5Passion]

from what I've read from a guy who posted about his escape from the Katrina bashed cities, all hell has broken loose. gun fights, the cops outnumbered. people looting, and shooting one another.

they are having problems getting the relief busses in, 1 evac bus was hijacked

Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 10:34 pm Post subject: Its worse than you think.
I just made it out guys.

From what I've heard on the radio, and the little TV I've been able to see: the reality in there is worse than what you guys are seeing.

Its really fucked up and scary in there.

The city is gone, guys.

Its like Beruit, or Somalia.

I'm not lying..............

They're going to be EATING each other in there in about 3 days unless there are some fucking ARMED troops in there pronto.

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 11:49 am Post subject:
Its bad in there, and getting worse.

We need ARMED soldiers in there now, with weapons hot. Unarmed NG and exhausted, terrified cops are useless.

Some of the info I'm getting this morning is bad.

I don't care what the news channels are saying. There is NO order or control in the city right now. None. Period. They seem to be afraid that many people will rush back to defend their property if they know how badi it is.

Everything we have ever talked about in here about post-SHTF is happening. Rape, murder, looting, no communication.

The police are outgunned, and running out of fuel, ammo, batteries, you name it.

From what I saw, the New Orleans police dept has ceased to be a cohesive force. Many of them have no more idea of what is going on then anyone else.

I was going to hunker down, but I had to get my wife out of there. You do not want to be an attractive woman in New orleans right now. You can't stay completely hidden, due to the heat and humidity. You have to get outdoors sometimes, but if you do, you run the risk of encountering armed groups. My main worry was that someone was going to see her, and comefor her. The gangs have no real fear of one or two armed defenders right now. Shit, they're shooting cops and NG right now. I feel for some of my friends who stayed to protect their shops.

I don't know whether these are street gangs that existed before the SHTF, or bands who came together afterwards. Its law of the jungle in there.

If anyone has friends or relatives in there still, I'm sorry.

----

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 11:53 am Post subject:
I just saw where the violance and panic have spread to Baton Rouge.

A story just got out about a firefight in downtown Baton Rouge.

This is where I was planning on heading now that my wife is secure.

Also, police are taking firearms from private civilians because they are running out of materiel. No way in hell do i want ot be int that area without firearms.
_________________

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 12:13 pm Post subject:
This is unreal.

A friend of mine hooked me up with a link for radio traffic in NOLA.

Its total chaos. Command centers are giving out orders to units, and then going "Wait, who is this? Is this LSP?" " No, this is LNG MP unit." Their giving orders to units in the wrong part of the city.

They have designated units as "Defenders', "Penguins", 'Eagles', etc. Half the units are not responding when contacts attempts are made. Defender 5 has been out of the loop for hours, and noone knows where they are.

There seems to be a state EOC and a federal EOC operating down there, and everyone is getting mixed up.

---------
Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 12:23 pm Post subject:
A relief convey is lost, and is stuck on a street. There are flood waters to the front, and they cannot back out.

Armed civilians (which seemsto be the tag they are using for looters/thugs) are gathering.

Pelican Jock or Top(?) is trying to get aid to them.

Truck drivers are refusing to drive in. They are trying to get miklitary drivers for relief trucks.

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 12:34 pm Post subject:
This is a wierd mix of military, civilian and police chatter going on. I will continue to post the highlights (lowlights?) of what I hear on this thread.

Charity Hospital is being abandoned. They are requesting the fuel that was promised. A tanker was sent last night, but hte hospital says they have not seen it.

There is some guy repeatedly asking for Pat.

Par, are you there? Can you hear me?
_________________

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 12:36 pm Post subject:
Holy shit.

They just dispatched "Special Forces" to Charity hospital.

Special Forces?

Some guy identifying himself as a Colonel is sending in SF to the hospital.

I can't figure out if he is Army or police Colonel.

Sounds pissed off.

it goes on and on

http://s95150067.onlinehome.us/zs/ph...er=asc&start=0

......

[GT40FIED]

You know...I used to have a decent opinion of New Orleans. I figured maybe it wasn't like the rest of the south. Now I'm just hoping all of the good folks get out safe and all of the fuckers looting stay there and die. What does it say about your city when people are shooting at patients being transfered from hospitals? Fucking pathetic.

[KwikR6]

^^^Agreed

It's fucking stupid because all these "looters" are doing is hurting themselves. I can't figure out why people at this time would do that. Remember how the nation came together at 9/11? Well I would say that now would be the time to come together. Not split. I really hope any decent human being is outta there. And all the trash take care of themselves.

[CD5Passion]

i'm addicted to CNN

[GT40FIED]

Originally posted by KwikR6
^^^Agreed

It's fucking stupid because all these "looters" are doing is hurting themselves. I can't figure out why people at this time would do that. Remember how the nation came together at 9/11? Well I would say that now would be the time to come together. Not split. I really hope any decent human being is outta there. And all the trash take care of themselves.

Hell...I'm starting to think this may be worse than 9/11. That was a few buildings (not trying to downplay 9/11, but in reference to scale), this is a major metropolitan area. I can't think of a single other time in American history when a city of this size had to be completely evacuated. The fact that some fucking crotch gobblins are taking opportunity of other people's loss and suffering just goes to show you that they have no sense of dignity or community. How 'bout this...put down that plasma screen and the gun and go help someone off of their fucking roof. Or put that gun to good use and shoot whoever is trying to snipe national guard members while they're evacuating hospitals. Those reporters aren't much help, either. Hows aboot you put that fucking mic down, take your eyes off the ratings meter, and go help someone you self centered cyst of a human being. Just say goodbye to New Orleans. Even if it's rebuilt (which could take months or even years), don't expect a whole lot of people back.

[CD5Passion]

the city is done

[AzCivic]

i used to live there...goodbye and good riddance. kinda weird knowing the places i used to live and hangout at are all probably gone though.

[KwikR6]

Yeah I was actually going to bring up the reporters today. I was watching CNN at about 3am and it was kind of sick. They were showing all these people sick and dead alike. THen this reporter was there and he had his hair all done and looked well fed...probbaly got back on his helicopter after and was thankful he didn't get killed.

I agree the city will be done. The amount of deaths and diseases that are going to come out of this is going to horrible.

[GT40FIED]

Oh good...now the city's on fire. All that water and there's fire everywhere. From now on I think that if the National Guard sees anyone running around in the streets, they should just shoot them on site. No questions or warnings. Anyone left there who isn't in a hospital or shelter can't be up to any good.

Anyone else see Bush paying lip service to these people? Like flying over the area is going to help anyone (I'm sure it makes a good photo-op, though). All of those troops and he's still too chickenshit to actually land. Then he went to Mississippi and walked around and patronized people who'd lost everything before no doubt hopping on his plane and heading home for a nice steak dinner. Fucker.

[CD5Passion]

Originally posted by GT40FIED
Oh good...now the city's on fire. All that water and there's fire everywhere. From now on I think that if the National Guard sees anyone running around in the streets, they should just shoot them on site. No questions or warnings. Anyone left there who isn't in a hospital or shelter can't be up to any good.

Anyone else see Bush paying lip service to these people? Like flying over the area is going to help anyone (I'm sure it makes a good photo-op, though). All of those troops and he's still too chickenshit to actually land. Then he went to Mississippi and walked around and patronized people who'd lost everything before no doubt hopping on his plane and heading home for a nice steak dinner. Fucker.

haha he should land..you know how many people like take a pop off at him?

[CD5Passion]

haha national guard commander says that the national guard are very efficient on using lethal force and will take control back in the city lol

[KwikR6]

Originally posted by CD5Passion
haha national guard commander says that the national guard are very efficient on using lethal force and will take control back in the city lol

Welll I would sincerely hope so...fuck it's redicilious...

[Racing Rice]

What kills me is the fact that all of these people are bitching about not getting help yet, you have these fvcking idiots shooting at people trying to help. No wonder no one wants to help! They just need Martial Law and let the NG do their thing..

This was a post on offtopic.com.

This is from a friend of mine that went down there as part of medical-evacuation team. You should read carefully what he said...he was there....

Quote:
I just back back from 36hrs of medical transports in downtown New Orleans. It's pretty much like the news says it is, TOTAL devestation downtown. Surprisingly, our transport team (nurse, doc, 2 pilots, mechanic, and myself) was given full access of every LZ that we went to. That gave us a lot of access to people that knew what was going on EVERYWHERE. Every medical LZ was secured by swat, in house security and or MP's carrying AR's, shotguns, AND sidearms, fully dressed in riot gear in some HUMID ASS, HOT weather. Huey's, blackhawks, seadragons, and those twin rotor MONSTER Chinooks filled the air. At the second hospital we airlifted, our mechanic (helping lift pts.),my nurse, and I were left on the parking deck (the LZ) with ONE guy, with a ONE .45 and 4 blackhawks hovering above us. We were the last ones to leave and were waiting for my helicopter to come back to get us. We gave up our seats to put 3 more people on our heli. Those blackhawk guys are my hero's. The third hospital (Tulane) was a ZOO. 300+pts., and family were occupying the upper levels of the parking deck (hospital was empty). They had 5-6 heli's landing every 5-10min. Again, the upper deck was inhabited by transport personel and a variety of armed guards with a variety of weapons. Blackhawks were buzzing the air above us and all around. We were constantly warned to stay away from the sides as there were reports of people trying to snipe the roofs. I got lots of pics from this area. Canal street is, well a CANAL. The 4th hospital we airlifted was across the river in the "ghetto". When we landed, there were 6 guards ,armed to the teeth, in the streets surrounding the aircraft that were there. I thought it was strange that they weren't just standing there, but were actively looking around. Once we shut down, 8 more appeared out of nowhere and made a circle around the LZ. Come to find out, the police station, just 2 blocks down the road, was torched by rioters. This happened just hours before we landed. These are some crazy mofo's out there. We airlifted the pt's to the Joint national guard base just north west of N.O. There are a BUNCH of PISSED OFF SOMEBITCHES there, and about 500+ more pissed off somebitches rolled out of C130's while I was there. I was told that 1000's more were on the way. I asked if they had fired on anyone yet, and they said "not yet, but getting ready to". We had one marine came up to us and asked if we could take him to the SuperDome. This guy was dressed in full riot gear, 2 sidearms, shotgun on his back and AR in hand. He also had 3 rows of ammo across his chest and stomach. This guy was LOADED FOR BEAR and eager to get huntin. He begged for us to just let him off in the streets somewhere so that he could "get to work". We GRACEFULLY declined and said we weren't going ANYWHERE near the superdome. In case you hadn't heard. A National Guard member was shot at the superdome yesterday morning. I found out from one of the security commanders that 3-4 swat teams were let loose in the Super Dome shortly after that. I never found out what became of it though. I was damn happy to get the hell out of there, but also very happy that I got to play a major roll in getting the people to safety and getting them the MUCH needed medical care that they required.

I also got to see the other side of the story. Medical and security personel that have worked tirelessly for DAYS with little to no sleep, little to no electricity, and cold or dried food. These are the same people that shared their food and water with me. Hugged my neck and called ME their hero, for helping them out. If you ask me, they are the hero's of this ordeal. They haven't lost their since of humor either. Several of the hospitals that I went to had off duty staff roaming the halls with paper cups of wine and mixed drinks. After all, it is Norleans aint it. It was a very humbling experience. Virtually EVERYONE in N.O. has lost EVERYTHING they own and are jobless. Most of the hospitals will probably be shut down for a minimum of 2-3 months. It will take a couple months after that to get them back up and running. A lot of that depends on how bad they are looted. I know that N.O. Childrens just locked the doors when the last child left. There is literally MILLIONS of dollars of equipment that was left where it was taken off the pts. These people can only hope that some of it is still in working order, or even there, when they get back. They don't expect it though.

The wildest story I heard was from a woman in Baton Rouge. She and her husband were on vacation in N.O. when Katrina hit. They had to wade through the water when it was at it's peak, to get out. During the trek out of the city, they waded through water that was sometimes chest high. Along the way they dodged dead bodies in the water, BULL SHARKS swiming up and down the streets (2-4ft long), snakes and alligators. She said that they would rather take their chances with these predators than head for high ground and have to deal with the armed thugs that were killing and raping people at will. This was all downtown N.O. They made it to B.R. 3 days later.

Sorry if some of this doesn't make sence. I've had 4hrs sleep in the last 48 and am too tired and jacked to sleep right now.


As many times as we've heard stuff like this out of people that have been there, I think we need to give the people that are there trying to help a little more credit and get off of them for taking too long....

[CD5Passion]

m another board:

You're not alone in your thinking.

by Robert Tracinski

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.

When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).

So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?

To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:

"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.

"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....

"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.

" 'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,' she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.' "

The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.

What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?

Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?

My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)

What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.

No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.

The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is report.
__________________

[Racing Rice]

Nice post Darin. I've been saying alot of the same things. It amazes me that people want to point the finger at Bush and FEMA for not doing something soon enough. I have felt that the City and even the State levels are more to blame for the problems down there then the President is.

[GT40FIED]

Originally posted by Racing Rice
Nice post Darin. I've been saying alot of the same things. It amazes me that people want to point the finger at Bush and FEMA for not doing something soon enough. I have felt that the City and even the State levels are more to blame for the problems down there then the President is.

Well...that's true to an extent, but we're at a point in history where local and state governments are going broke in record numbers. They simply don't have the money to cope with anything even remotely like this. Add to that the fact that just yesterday the N.O. police chief said that as many as 500 of it's 1600 officers had simply quit...just up and left...and things don't look too good. What can the state government do anyway? They can declare a state of emergency, but all that does is speed up federal help. After 9/11, FEMA was there what...a day later (according to some even more distrusting of the government they were there a few days before)? The FEMA director just needs to be fired, plain and simple. A lot of people were going to die during this, no question. But maybe if they hadn't waited a week to send any significant help we wouldn't be looking at the possibility of 10K dead. That...and maybe we could swallow our pride and except some foreign aid for a change. Cuba has offered 1,500 doctors and 26 tons of supplies, France (who we just love to hate) has offered more aid than I can list, and even fuckin' Sri Lanka has offered money. But no...thanks for the offer...we're fine.

[ChrisCantSkate]

well, what gets me is why people actually stayed. when you know the only thing keeping your city dry are some levys that were built a long time ago to withstand a cat3 storm, and you have a cat5 staring you in the eyes... get the fuck out. none of the gov't agencys acted fast enough, but shit... i have NEVER seen anything like this, they dont know what the fuck to do first, and they have to worry about being shot at while trying to rescue people. i know one helicopter has gone down already cause of civilian gunfire, i herd one almost got jacked.. wtf.

im glad i finally saw on the news ysterday they are doing a manditory evac of N.O. it is about 10 days late, but they need to get those people out of there so something, even if its level the land, can be done.

as much tradition as new o. has, i think they need to rebuild most of it somewhere else. the french quarter is dry from what i saw yesterday, dunno how new that report was, but the rest of the city is under upto 20ft of water. lemmi tell you something about that area... ruined. no chance. even if they can drain the water, and the structures arnt ruined, theres a layer of sludge thats being left on everything that had standing water on it. now 5 days ago that standing water sediment would have just been mud, now its full of e.coli and dysintary just to name a few. i herd theres going to be/already is tons of lepors(sp?) now bcause of all the desease and water standing around.

/rant

[CD5Passion]

Originally posted by ChrisCantSkate
well, what gets me is why people actually stayed. when you know the only thing keeping your city dry are some levys that were built a long time ago to withstand a cat3 storm, and you have a cat5 staring you in the eyes... get the fuck out. none of the gov't agencys acted fast enough, but shit... i have NEVER seen anything like this, they dont know what the fuck to do first, and they have to worry about being shot at while trying to rescue people. i know one helicopter has gone down already cause of civilian gunfire, i herd one almost got jacked.. wtf.

im glad i finally saw on the news ysterday they are doing a manditory evac of N.O. it is about 10 days late, but they need to get those people out of there so something, even if its level the land, can be done.

as much tradition as new o. has, i think they need to rebuild most of it somewhere else. the french quarter is dry from what i saw yesterday, dunno how new that report was, but the rest of the city is under upto 20ft of water. lemmi tell you something about that area... ruined. no chance. even if they can drain the water, and the structures arnt ruined, theres a layer of sludge thats being left on everything that had standing water on it. now 5 days ago that standing water sediment would have just been mud, now its full of e.coli and dysintary just to name a few. i herd theres going to be/already is tons of lepors(sp?) now bcause of all the desease and water standing around.

/rant

good post chris

yeah I agree. they need to just let that place lay...tear down the walls and let the water stay..level the city. and rebuild elsewhere. the amount of work they will have to do to rebuild honestly isn't worth it.

[CD5Passion]

Originally posted by GT40FIED
Well...that's true to an extent, but we're at a point in history where local and state governments are going broke in record numbers. They simply don't have the money to cope with anything even remotely like this. Add to that the fact that just yesterday the N.O. police chief said that as many as 500 of it's 1600 officers had simply quit...just up and left...and things don't look too good. What can the state government do anyway? They can declare a state of emergency, but all that does is speed up federal help. After 9/11, FEMA was there what...a day later (according to some even more distrusting of the government they were there a few days before)? The FEMA director just needs to be fired, plain and simple. A lot of people were going to die during this, no question. But maybe if they hadn't waited a week to send any significant help we wouldn't be looking at the possibility of 10K dead. That...and maybe we could swallow our pride and except some foreign aid for a change. Cuba has offered 1,500 doctors and 26 tons of supplies, France (who we just love to hate) has offered more aid than I can list, and even fuckin' Sri Lanka has offered money. But no...thanks for the offer...we're fine.

did we really turn down the offers?

[GT40FIED]

Originally posted by CD5Passion
did we really turn down the offers?

As far as I know we have. We sure haven't taken anyone up on them. It's also worth mentioning that Venezuala offered us free fuel (after one of douche bag TV morons called for the assassination of their president) and another country (Germany, I think) offered us something like 1 or 2 million barrels of oil a day for 30 days. But hey...it's not like we need any of that stuff.

[AzCivic]

geez, do you just watch the news all day? how do you know this?

[CD5Passion]

Originally posted by GT40FIED
As far as I know we have. We sure haven't taken anyone up on them. It's also worth mentioning that Venezuala offered us free fuel (after one of douche bag TV morons called for the assassination of their president) and another country (Germany, I think) offered us something like 1 or 2 million barrels of oil a day for 30 days. But hey...it's not like we need any of that stuff.

unbeleiveable

[GT40FIED]

Originally posted by AzCivic
geez, do you just watch the news all day? how do you know this?

Haha. Not really. I don't think most of what I know was ever covered on CNN and I'm sure Fox News is trying to avoid it like rape. It's not like any of this stuff is hard to find, though. Links to (credible) news on Bush's refusal for aid:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Many_nat...uses_to_accept

http://www.drudge.com/news/72843/bus...ew-orleans-aid

Oh yeah...and then there's what he said on ABC...

Still, Bush told ABC-TV: "I'm not expecting much from foreign nations because we hadn't asked for it. I do expect a lot of sympathy and perhaps some will send cash dollars. But this country's going to rise up and take care of it.''

"You know,'' he said, "we would love help, but we're going to take care of our own business as well, and there's no doubt in my mind we'll succeed. And there's no doubt in my mind, as I sit here talking to you, that New Orleans is going to rise up again as a great city.''

Amazing. Either he really is as stupid as people have been barking for so many years (which I don't buy) or he's just plain hell-bent on destroying us all. Katrina did give us a good excuse for a test run of a police state. What dictat....errr....president doesn't love that?

[CD5Passion]

Originally posted by GT40FIED
Haha. Not really. I don't think most of what I know was ever covered on CNN and I'm sure Fox News is trying to avoid it like rape. It's not like any of this stuff is hard to find, though. Links to (credible) news on Bush's refusal for aid:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Many_nat...uses_to_accept

http://www.drudge.com/news/72843/bus...ew-orleans-aid

Oh yeah...and then there's what he said on ABC...



Amazing. Either he really is as stupid as people have been barking for so many years (which I don't buy) or he's just plain hell-bent on destroying us all. Katrina did give us a good excuse for a test run of a police state. What dictat....errr....president doesn't love that?

can you say Freudian Slip

[AzCivic]

the wiki news link didn't work, but that drudge report is just jumping to assumptions since there are reports of offers for help and there was some press conference where he said "not expecting...didn't ask" and supposedly some unnamed russian dude says they got turned down.

[AzCivic]

just found this saying europe isn't offering anything:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/inte...372348,00.html

i don't believe anything anymore.

[GT40FIED]

Well...that article was written about a week ago (it's dated Aug. 31st). A lot has changed in a week. Hell...a week ago the U.S. wasn't really offering any real aid to it's own people. Even CNN is reporting Vladmir Putin's offer to us if we ask (we won't). The paragraph at the very opening is defunct, too. In comparing Katrina to the Asian tsunami it fails to mention that even the country nailed the hardest by the tsunami, Sri Lanka, is offering us money.

I like how that article says repeatedly that we're more than capable of handling it ourselves, but somehow it ignores the fact that we didn't handle it ourselves and the whole thing became a huge and utter mess. But then again, like I said, it's about a week old. Regardless of who's to blame, I think we can all agree that Clinton was right when he went on TV and said that there needs to be an investigation of the failures. We dropped the ball big time.

[Wren57]

Sure other countries have offered to help... but not for free...

We've accepted Venezuela's offer for oil.
Kuwait has pledged $500b (yes that is billion), $400b in oil and $100b in humanitarian aid.
Iran's offer of oil was only in exchange for removal of trade sanctions.

We HAVE accepted other offers (albeit most are miniscule), and to say otherwise is so factually incorrect it is appalling and downright misinforming.

[GT40FIED]

Originally posted by highlander
Sure other countries have offered to help... but not for free...

We've accepted Venezuela's offer for oil.
Kuwait has pledged $500b (yes that is billion), $400b in oil and $100b in humanitarian aid.
Iran's offer of oil was only in exchange for removal of trade sanctions.

We HAVE accepted other offers (albeit most are miniscule), and to say otherwise is so factually incorrect it is appalling and downright misinforming.

Well of course it's not for free...but it's not like we don't bail any other country out of shit...whether they want us to or not. Besides, we give billions and billions of aid to other countries every year...so we're essentially just breaking even. I don't know where you've seen specific offers being accepted, but all I can see is that we accepted help late today from the U.N. (so in light of this recent news, I detract part of my previous statement). This, to me, seems like a symptom of every other way Bush, FEMA, and every other relief organization has handled this whole disaster...too little, too late. I'm sure he would've gone it alone if people hadn't become so outraged at his initial relucatance to take any help. Then again, macho posturing only gets one so far in life. As for Iran's quid pro quo offer, does it really matter? Aren't we coddling them enough already? I mean they pose 10x the threat to us that Iraq ever did and we're treating the with kid gloves. Who cares if we remove trade sanctions? We're already giving them the political equivalent of wet, sloppy blowjobs. I don't know if you've noticed, but Bush has squandered one of the largest budget surpluses in history to fund his stupid bullshit creating a MASSIVE debt. I'd think we'd bust nuts in our pants at the chance to not spend our own money. Then again...that would interfere with manifest destiny.

[CD5Passion]

would be better if someone was operating FEMA who was atually competant, and not just the leader because he is Bush's friend -_-

[Wren57]

Originally posted by GT40FIED
Well of course it's not for free...

So you are saying you realized other countries wanted something in exchange for aid yet you failed to mention that... seems misleading to me.



I don't know if you've noticed, but Bush has squandered one of the largest budget surpluses in history to fund his stupid bullshit creating a MASSIVE debt.

Do you know anything at all about the business cycle and how fiscal and monetary policy in this country works? I have a feeling if you did you might understand this a bit more.

[AzCivic]

So you are saying you realized other countries wanted something in exchange for aid yet you failed to mention that... seems misleading to me.

very true, besides our country doesn't Need anything, and if those who are offering us "aid" are willing to do it only in return for some special favors, i'd say screw off too.

[GT40FIED]

So you are saying you realized other countries wanted something in exchange for aid yet you failed to mention that... seems misleading to me.

I didn't spell it out because I figured it was assumed. It's not like we don't do it as well. Look at the French, for example. We bailed them out of WWII 60 goddamn years ago but all of the Bush-happy flag-suckling morons in this country got completely outraged when they told us what we could do with our war. We just assumed that since we helped them out 60 fucking years ago that they still owed us. People expect that favors given be paid back on the flipside...it's just human nature. So no...it's not misleading...it's common sense. As I find it to be common sense, I didn't feel the need to actually spell it out.

Do you know anything at all about the business cycle and how fiscal and monetary policy in this country works? I have a feeling if you did you might understand this a bit more.

You know what I understand? I understand that we used to have money and now we don't. I understand that the job market in this country used to be strong and now...well...not so much. I understand that, while it's probably not a bad thing to finish what your dad started, it's not the greatest idea in the world to lie to 300 million people so you can steal their money to do it. Oh...and I also understand this:

[Wren57]

So you don't understand what is behind that chart? What drives it to be the way it is? Do you know how GDP is measured?

ps- we have the lowest unemployment right now that we've had in a LONG time...
http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/feddal/ru
so... once again you were factually incorrect and mislead people AND the unemployment rate over time helps prove the existance of an economic cycle, yet another thing you have admitted to knowing nothing about.

My advice: don't talk about the economy if you don't know economics.

[GT40FIED]

Wren...do you think regular everyday folk care WHY the economy does what it does? No. No one gives a shit. They just want it fixed or at the very least they'd like to see some movement in the right direction. You're absolutely right...I'm sure you know more about economic policies and regulations than me. Congratulations. Now go fix it. How did this even become about who knows more about economics, anyway? What it's really about: for the first time in the last 5 or 6 years people are FINALLY realizing that our ineptitude is so broad reaching that it'd be laughable if it wasn't so tragic. We've put homeland security (the war on terror) before actual homeland security (saving our own in THIS country) by shoving so many resources halfway across the world that we can't respond to problems at home. After all, as this week's "The Onion" headline reads, "God Outdoes Terrorists Yet Again". If you wanna keep making apologies for Bush's increasingly obvious fuck ups, that's your prerogative...but please don't try to make it sound like anyone who disagree is lying.

While we're talking about fuck ups, let's discuss Michael Brown, director of FEMA. How did this man get into this position? For christ's sake...his last job was overseeing horse shows (I wish I were making that up). He was then fired from that job because he was, by all accounts, a world-class fuck up. I mean...I know politics is full of backroom deals and favors, but how the hell does a man go from looking after Arabian horses (and doing a poor job of that) to being the head of a major government organization that is responsible for massive response to catastrophes? Sure...he bunked with the former FEMA chief in college, but surely that doesn't qualify you for this job...or any job. Does it?

[CD5Passion]

Originally posted by GT40FIED
Wren...do you think regular everyday folk care WHY the economy does what it does? No. No one gives a shit. They just want it fixed or at the very least they'd like to see some movement in the right direction. You're absolutely right...I'm sure you know more about economic policies and regulations than me. Congratulations. Now go fix it. How did this even become about who knows more about economics, anyway? What it's really about: for the first time in the last 5 or 6 years people are FINALLY realizing that our ineptitude is so broad reaching that it'd be laughable if it wasn't so tragic. We've put homeland security (the war on terror) before actual homeland security (saving our own in THIS country) by shoving so many resources halfway across the world that we can't respond to problems at home. After all, as this week's "The Onion" headline reads, "God Outdoes Terrorists Yet Again". If you wanna keep making apologies for Bush's increasingly obvious fuck ups, that's your prerogative...but please don't try to make it sound like anyone who disagree is lying.

While we're talking about fuck ups, let's discuss Michael Brown, director of FEMA. How did this man get into this position? For christ's sake...his last job was overseeing horse shows (I wish I were making that up). He was then fired from that job because he was, by all accounts, a world-class fuck up. I mean...I know politics is full of backroom deals and favors, but how the hell does a man go from looking after Arabian horses (and doing a poor job of that) to being the head of a major government organization that is responsible for massive response to catastrophes? Sure...he bunked with the former FEMA chief in college, but surely that doesn't qualify you for this job...or any job. Does it?

steve is very right as a general public I can give two shits about how the economic system works (hell i cheated my way through that highschool course). fix it. it is possible to be fixed. Clinton did a good job bringing out nation out of the hole, why can't bush? because he cares more about what is going on "over there" our nation is falling apart and you can't deny that. Michael Brown sat around with his thumb up his ass waiting for Bush's approval to do shit about one of the worst disasters in american history.

Wren I respect your argument to an extent, but the truth is Bush isn't doing his first job and thats to keep the American people happy.
here's what the general public thinks of him

verall, 36% of Americans say that they approve of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president, 58% disapprove, and 6% are undecided.

Overall, 33% of Americans say that they approve of the way George W. Bush is handling the economy, 62% disapprove, and 5% are undecided. Among registered voters, 36% approve and 60% disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy.

A total of 29% of Americans say that the national economy is getting better, 17% say it is staying the same, and 53% say the national economy is getting worse.

Looking to a year from now, 27% of Americans say that they think their household financial situations will be better than today, 41% say the same as today, and 27% say worse than today.

I extract this from
http://americanresearchgroup.com/economy/