TRCSF said:
I find it odd that you call Mayor Nagin corrupt and ignore Bush. Bush is the guy who appointed his campaign manager and his former college roommate to FEMA, if that's not corrupt, I don't know what is.
It wasn't Nagin or Blanco that cut millions of dollars to the Army Corp of Engineers and FEMA, or sent thousands of Louisiana National Guard over to Iraq. It wasn't Nagin and Blanco who sat on their hands for three days after the hurricane hit.
I know the Republican spin machine is pointing straight at Nagin and Blanco, but I've yet to see one valid criticism of the way they've handled things.
And I see you're repeating the racist, classist arguments from Barbara Bush about how these people are going to be better off now.
These people have lost their homes, their jobs, their money, their pets, their families, their friends.
To say they're better off now is beyond the pale.
Guilty as charged; the feds are guilty of being a massive, bloated, non-agile bureacracy, filled with both heroes and slugs, saints and sinners, at exactly the same time. They are constrained by being made up of, on average, average human beings.
Ditto State, local, and city government.
But I'll bite; how do, on average, average Americans vote for and people 4 overlapping layers of government with all those layers of middle managers and bureaucrats, all scared to death to go outside the book, to break the chain of command, to stick out their neck, without employing anything other than, on average, average Americans?
And..as the details of this latest example of bureacratic sluggishness unfurl, when do you think we'll all finally admit the shame of seeing just how pathetic, on average, bureacracies peopled with average Americans are?
Remember, we all need jobs; even the less than Average American. So...how do we do this?
Bush, too, the whole bloated flabby phalynx of gov'ts.
Well, forget it; because this is how we do it, and this is what we get, becasue we can't even agree on whether Bush's dissapointment was in demanding more or demanding less of that which doesn't work.
The word 'overwhelmed' or 'overwhelming' gets used a lot in the context of this event, as reported by those on the ground.
I think sometimes when folks use that word, that think that it should mean 'nearly overwhelmed' or 'nearly overwhelming.'
But, when an event goes beyond 'nearly' and is actually 'overwhelming,' the consequences are that our systems get 'overwhelmed.' Is that stating the obvious, because that is my forte, you know?
The consequences of 'overwhelmed,' if words have meaning, are what we are seeing; clearly, many of our systems--it would be overwhelming to even list them, much less, fix them, much less, make each of them un-overwhelmable in advance--have been overwhelmed.
Our bureacracies cannot respond as fast as is needed to this overwhelming event; they are ovwerwhelmed. Safety addled people who are 24/7/365 fearful of making choices/mistakes are not all going to suddenly become laser beam focused superhuman hero warriors, efficiently cutting corners, taking risks, and throwing out the book that is too long to read in such an emergency anyway, and just magically organize into an efficient bee colony and 'get it done.'
What we are seeing is the limits of, on average, human cooperation.
So, it's reasonable only to ask, 'How can this be done 'better, faster, smarter?'
Do we need better raw materials, because we're limited by human beings as they are?
Especially, human beings in and around the hardly a little secret 'Big Easy,' where the local political machine is notoriously corrupt beyond the pale, and has been forever. Is that now just easily dismissable as being irrelevant? We tolerated that fact...forever. That has consequences.
So, was there some paternalistic State gov't that was supposed to make that somehow all allright? Or even, a paternalistic federal gov't? How, exactly, do the people of Vermont reach all the way into New Orleans to straghten their ass out, either now, after being 'overwhelmed,' or before the fact, to make the unfathmomable impervious to being overwhelmed?
We'll all be digging out those dusty academic papers now, the ones that have existed for decades describing this catastrophe. Or at least, referring to those two hour NOVA or DISCOVERY CHANNEL pieces, you know, the ones complete with CG animations of the event we are witnessing that maybe .0004% of the population would ever take time out from their busy schedules and deem to sit through, much less, take seriously, and wondering, 'Gee, why weren't the folks living in the 'Big Easy' up in arms for decades, demanding triple tiered redundant levees, and ponying up to pay for them, or at least, in the tradition of Boston's Big Dig, begging their pols to beg Congress and the rest of the also not paying attention nation to pay for them?
For a time, the situation will be 'overwheming.' Let's hope and pray and do what we can from afar(give money, at least, to those who can do)that this period is as short as is communally possible(ie, humans on average), which is not the same as humanly possible.
Gradients can really be ugly sometimes; they are uncaring things. Maybe not New Orleans proper, but a year from now, the area in and around the devastation is going to be absolutely booming with reconstruction. There will be massive displacement and heartache and tragedy, and none of that can be made whole, but at least when it comes to employment as a means to reconstruct one's life, there will be enourmous opportunities for employment in and around the region, as clearly, there is a lot of work to do. The rest of the nation will help shoulder the burden and shower the region with the cash do do it, just add sweat and creativity and on average, people will do what people do.
But, it's still overhwhelming.
Their actions speak for themselves. 
