CNN is saying
Cosmo
9,768 Posts
that tyhings are NOT in control and that they are employing national guards in aprtivular that are proficialent in "USING LETHAL FORCE"fidel castro is offering1100 doctors2600 TONS of meds
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WOW. Imagine that happened?!?!??
I read a photographer from the NY Times who's been in the heat of it for days, say it's only a matter of time before they seal off the city and stop letting the press in.
There's still 2000 people in the Superdome and they're saying they'll probably be there until Monday (???). The news said they've suspended trasporting people out of there (MEGA - ?????).
This seems very bad.
Meanwhile...
On NOLA it's too late, the whole goddam world has seen how badly this has been bungled, and how politics and racism are the main causes.
What's scary is how they will deal with disasters in the future, as public relations first, spinning and press blackouts for 'safety reasons'.
BULLSHIT is rising faster than the flood water.
Some of these reporters in nice warm studios need to use a fuckin dictionary too. If I hear one more asshole refer to these domestic victims as 'refugees' I am gonna beat someone! IGNORANCE.
You're not the first person I've heard make this complaint and personally, I think you're dead wrong but I'd like to hear you explain why you have an issue with the term here?
By the way, while refugee is typically meant to refer to an exile (within national terms), the base of the word is "one who seeks refuge" and that seems to apply here, no?
http://www.suntimes.com/output/hurricane/cst-nws-daley03.html
Daley 'shocked' as feds reject aid
September 3, 2005
A visibly angry Mayor Daley said the city had offered emergency, medical and technical help to the federal government as early as Sunday to assist people in the areas stricken by Hurricane Katrina, but as of Friday, the only things the feds said they wanted was a single tank truck.
That truck, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency requested to support an Illinois-based medical team, was en route Friday.
"We are ready to provide more help than they have requested. We are just waiting for their call," said Daley, adding that he was "shocked" that no one seemed to want the help.
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he would call for congressional hearings into the federal government's preparations and response.
"The response was achingly slow, and that, I think, is a view shared by Democrats, Republicans, wealthy and poor, black and white," the freshman senator said. "I have not met anybody who has watched this crisis evolve over the last several days who is not just furious at how poorly prepared we appeared to be."
Response 'baffling'
The South Side Democrat called FEMA's slow response "baffling."
"I don't understand how you could have a situation where you've got several days' notice of an enormous hurricane building in the Gulf Coast, you know that New Orleans is 6 feet below sea level. ... The notion that you don't have good plans in place just does not make sense," Obama said.
Obama said he expects his counterparts in Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama will call for congressional hearings, but he is ready if they do not. "It's heartbreaking and infuriating and, I think, is embarrassing to the American people.''
Daley said the city offered 36 members of the firefighters' technical rescue teams, eight emergency medical technicians, search-and-rescue equipment, more than 100 police officers as well as police vehicles and two boats, 29 clinical and 117 non-clinical health workers, a mobile clinic and eight trained personnel, 140 Streets and Sanitation workers and 29 trucks, plus other supplies. City personnel are willing to operate self-sufficiently and would not depend on local authorities for food, water, shelter and other supplies, he said.
Flanked at a Friday press conference by a who's who from city government, religious organizations and business, the mayor also announced formation of the Chicago Helps Fund for storm victims.
"I'm calling upon every resident of Chicago to donate what they can afford, whether it's 50 cents or 50 dollars," the mayor said.
People can make tax-deductible cash or check donations at any of Bank One's 330 Chicago area branches or by check at Chicago Helps, c/o Bank One, 38891 Eagle Way, Chicago 60678-1388. A phone line to take credit card donations will be set up.
Churches were urged to take up collections this Sunday, and firefighters are planning to collect at major intersections this weekend.
In addition, donations will be taken at this weekend's Jazz Fest in Grant Park, and $2 of every ticket purchased through Ticketmaster for the Chicago Classic football game at Soldier Field today will go to hurricane relief. The Shedd Aquarium announced it will donate $1 from every ticket sold this holiday weekend to relief efforts and has set up "donation stations" at the aquarium.
Homeless shelters enlisted
By midday Friday, Inner Voice, a private agency that runs 27 homeless shelters for the city, had rounded up space in unused facilities for about 2,000 storm refugees, should they need it, said president Brady Harden.
Ed Shurna, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, suggested the city tap recently vacated units at Cabrini-Green and Lathrop Homes that were slated for demolition but still have heat and electricity available.
Daley reiterated that students from stricken areas are welcome to enroll in the Chicago Public Schools and in the City Colleges. Cardinal Francis George on Friday asked that Catholic schools in the archdiocese waive tuition for displaced children.
More than 400 students have applied to Loyola University Chicago, most coming from its sister Jesuit school, Loyola University New Orleans. Half had been admitted as of late afternoon Friday. Spokeswoman Maeve Kiley said the school "will honor their tuition that they already paid.''
University of Illinois campuses in Urbana-Champaign and Chicago have admitted more than 100 students, including two foreign students who had Fulbright scholarships to attend Tulane.
Northeastern said it would waive tuition and fees for Illinois residents who already paid another school, and would grant in-state tuition to out-of-state students. Northwestern plans to let students pay what they would have at their original school and forward the money to that school.
How has racism played into this?
To use it in the lesser accepted term as SIMPLY 'one who seeks refuge' as opposed to the more often applied, generally accepted meaning within the context of exile from a Nation allows viewers and the media alike to more easily distance themselves from the mostly poor, mostly black victims as 'other'. We may not agree on this o-Dub, but it is just one more nearly invisible weapon that most can't even see that they are using to hurt people of color. Same with all the descriptions likening it to African crises. The only common denominators being skin color and crisis. Why not compare it to Turkish earthquakes or Japanese earthquakes? I hear more references to the Sudan than the Tsunami!
Please find some black folks in Duluth and watch CNN with them for about 10 minutes and maybe you'll figure it out.
probably not overtly, but i strongly percieve it as a subtext to the sluggish response. poor and black never gets the fed's blood pressure up unless it's prosecuting someone. then it's of utmost importance.
C****
I have to disagree (respectfully) with you here. I think the use of the admittedly loaded term "refugee" adds needed emphasis to the plight of these people. I look at the pics from the convention center and Superdome and it looks like a third world scene. One of the reasons it looks that way is because the federal govt dragged their fucking heels for days. All this talk about how they had to wait because it was dangerous...I mean WTF...why do these people have guns? It was a lot more dangerous for the people trapped inside the city with no food, potable water, medicine, escape from the heat. If anyone in the USA can aptly be described as refugees, these people are it.
As to the guy that asked how racism played into this, imagine of you will if 20,000 suburban whites were trapped in a similar situation. The official (and unofficial) outrage and reaction would be on full blast. Turn on Fox news and watch how they not-so-subtly turn the focus back to Mississippi over and over again. Not that people there aren't suffering, but there's just no comparison.
Trent Lott's house got destroyed. i'm so sad for that.
Maybe God really was involved.....
....NAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH....
I hear ya Lar, and I think it's just different ways to see it. The situation you describe above would RARELY involve the word 'REFUGEE' on the media. It just wouldn't. the term 'SURVIVORS', 'VICTIMS'...yes, those would be used in abundance, and in fairness, they are currently as well. But a wall of displaced, European WASPs hurricane victims would not be overwhelmingly referred to repeatedly as 'REFUGEES'.
It simply is a code for black and brown people, and it's overuse[/b] is my main gripe, not as a descriptor occasionally in terms of analogous situations. It is just an obvious case of code for one segment of the society that would not be in use for white people.
I guess every cloud really does have its silver lining.
I am sure it's been quoted here already, but Newt Gingrich made a comment and said something to the effect that the response has been terrible, and if there was ever a nuclear explosion somewhere, the U.S. is not prepared. When you have people from all areas saying that no one was prepared for something like that. Of course not, yet to me it seems that the simple concept of "help" is beyond a lot of people, and it's fucking pathetic.
As for not being able to get electricity in for the pumps to pump the water, how about using solar energy to power it? Pick up an issue of http://www.homepower.com or something.
According to the UN, a "refugee" seeks refuge outside its nation's borders. A "displaced person" is someone that is forced to leave their home, but stays within their national borders.
Technically, the folks down south are "displaced persons."
I guess "displaced person" doesn't quite have the same "zing" to it as "refugee"
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.response/index.html
Yeah, I read that yesterday and was surprised they would report something like that.
I just hope it doesn't get lost in the neverending flood of news stories coming in.
Ok man, time to get up out of this house.
...somewhere Sketch is eating a chicken salad with Spongebob.
If so then its done a piss poor job of everything in relation to this mess.
Reports coming out today suggest that Homeland Security is a huge part of the problem. Their mandate was around terrorism and when FEMA got swallowed up into the Dept., they redirected a huge amount of resources from preparing for natural disasters to preparing for terrorism.
I have to say, it's amazing how much kneejerk reactionism explains poor public policy. People were angry because they felt like we got suckered on 9/11 (and we were) but in response, they pushed tens (if not hundreds) of billions of dollars towards fighting terrorism - including allocating hundreds of millions to states where, no offense, but it's unlikely that terrorists would strike (unless Rhode Island has something I don't know about) and gutting FEMA in the process.
In hindsight, it seems I N S A N E since the chances of a natural disaster are so much more likely than a terrorist attack but Americans - especially politicians - were so paranoid about looking like they were caught off guard again that they got blinded to other dangers.
Btw, to note on another post: if C-N-fucking-N is herbing you, you KNOW shit is bad. All we need now is Fox to go on full blast mode and it's all over. I was reading Michelle Malkin's blog - she being Ann Coulter with black hair - and even she was taking some surprising positions of criticism on this whole deal.
Just to be clear, it'd be a mistake to place this on Bush solely. He's part of the puzzle, but there's a WHOLE lot of people who deserve ass kicking down the chain.
Oh man you didn't really believe all that did you!!!!!!!!!! (just kidding) Your 100% right and Bush is 100% wrong). All the diversion of funds was supose to make us safer. instead it's been used to fund reactionary, rights violating undertakings by those in power. Gee I wonder if any of the old FEMA money is being used to keep GITMO going. Or pay fed officers to spy on everyone and their dog just incase. Or pay for the Department of Homeland Defence whcih apperantly hasn't done anything.
Your totally getting down to it. The government is so do nothing and then reactionary. They could have prepared for this hurricane, instead they chose not to and now say "who could have know it would be so bad?". Last night on NPR they were talking about how the upgrade for the levees to with stand a level 5 would have been 2.5 billion. Now they are already looking at 10 billions just to get the ball rolling on the clean up. Stuff like this just make the govenment look like total idiots on so many levels.