bull. the media is totally slanted, as nate's article just showed. why is it that black people "loot" while white people "search for food and supplies"? it sickens me when i hear the press bash people wading in, essentially, a cesspool in 100 degree weather in order to find some kind of food, water, or supplies to help their families. i'll tell you right now, if there were a flood and i was a victim on a rooftop with a family who was starving and thirsty, i'd loot everyplace. i'd loot grocery stores, i'd loot gas stations, i'd loot jewelry stores, i'd loot pawn shops... i'd loot the hell out of everyplace i could in order to try and a) get things for my family and/or, b) get valuables that i can trade for food, water, and supplies... or even rescue.Soliex wrote:I wouldnt wanna go into an area where chaos is let loose. i heard people are actually sniping the aid workers going into the area because they still wanna loot and be uncivilized.
people do desperate things in desperate times. to say that rescue workers were sniped is absurd. the fact of the matter is that desperate people stranded on their rooftops, delirious after 4 or 5 days of heat and starvation, threatened rescue workers with gunfire so that they'd rescue them and their families. the media made it seem as if it was just a bunch of stereotypical urban black people who, without logic, decided to arm themselves with their gats and bust caps in people, even rescue workers (like they ALWAYS do, right?
). don't feed into that crap... it's just dumb media "black vs white" tricks.if any of you guys have read any of my posts pertaining to politics or government, you'd probably know that i was a poli-sci minor in undergrad and very much hate bush.... however, this russian journalist took it a little too far. by writing such a slanted article, it destroys any credibility this journalist might have.... even though, on some counts, he's absolutely correct.
that article was even too much for me to handle. it made me laugh and just start skimming rather than actually reading. journalists like these should be fired.
as for the blame, i think a large portion of it lies squarely on the shoulders of george w bush. he should have a) went on national television and strongly urged the people in new orleans to evacuate, b) urged local officials to evacuate areas, c) declared martial law, d) not played the fiddle while rome was burning (in other words, playing golf and enjoying great weather while death and destruction befell the gulf coast is a poor way to show leadership).
and what the hell of the readiness for a potential terrorist threat in new orleans? billions were pumped into that city for readiness programs in the case of potential attacks. if we couldn't utilize the various resources at hand to evacuate people in a hurricane attack scenario (a scenario in which we had days in advance for which to prepare), or otherwise, how deep in the flood waters are we, really?
yes, terrorists DO warn the government and president of a timeframe and modality of their attack (as was evident to the letter bush got back in may 2001), but it's harder to pinpoint the exact timeframe (give or take a few hours) and exact location when it comes to a terrorist attack than it does with a ginormous category 5 hurricane "of biblical proportions."
personally, i think the hurricane naming system is terrible. enough with this "hurricane pussyname mcwonthurtyou" crap. you think people are gonna leave their houses for a hurricane named katrina? they gotta come up with power names.... names that will make you grab your balls and run... names based on the severity of the hurricane. if it's a category 1, call it hurricane disney.... if it's a category 5, call it hurricane annihilation or hurricane zotar or hurricane thor or something....
EDIT: oh, and as for the gas thing... i believe that the american oil companies are holding out on american citizens in order to get even richer off of, what would be to them, a minor setback. i feel this way because we currently have about 400% more oil and gas than we say we do thanks to leeching oil in iraq. i understand that there's a global shortage... which is why the oil and gas companies are hoarding the 400% extra squandered in iraq in hopes to keep their companies lasting as long as they can. they're afraid of legislation that will move away from them and towards alternative fueling (a bill which dick cheney pissed on back in july of 2001 when bmw came with technology for hydrogen fueled cars that have over 200 horsepower... he said that alternative fueling was a waste of money and unrealistic and that we needed to spend more of our money and resources on a global defense shield... good call, dick
).everyone knows, according to the hubbert curve, that oil production has been on a permanent concave down trend (decline) since around 1974 and was predicted to peak in the year 1995. we've been riding the downward slope of the curve for quite some time, now. for someone to say alternative fueling is "unrealistic" and "a waste of money" is dickish (pun intended). between now and about 12 years, we're about to feel the most powerful plunge in oil production ever (isn't it ironic that around 12 years is the proposed timeline given by the government on when we will get out of the middle east?). anyways, i'm just about worn out on bush and his cronies... they embarrass me about as much as howard dean.
