i would have to argue that in fact reasa is wrong. first of all yes he has a poiint in of the fact that the state and city are in part to blame.
HOWEVER:
the mayor did order the city evacuated. Admitedly, he did not provide public transit for the evacuation of those citizens who were unable to evacuate themselves. there was no precedent for that in american public life. evacuations are rarely taken seriously the press and much of the public consider them optional
this seems to have not been an error so much as a continuation of american public policy at the locan and regional levels which is shown to be inadequate and contintues to be so..
So what if he ordered the city to be evacuated. I can order my city to be evacuated now, but I doubt anyone would listen. The mayor should have spent more time organizing public transportation leaders and less time whining like an invalid on TV and maybe the death toll would be in the 100's not the 1000's.
It was a HUGE error on the part of Mr. Nagin, soon to be the former mayor of New Orleans. He was simply under qualified on every possible level for dealing with this disaster and it showed.
Like I said, Americans should take heed of this and take their elections on the local levels much more seriously. These are the people who will be making the decisions when they count, not the federal government.
Think of the local government as the first responders and the federal government as the hospital. If you fall and break your neck and the paramedic who first arrives on the scene man handles you with a fireman’s carry into the ambulance. I don't care if you live next to the worlds best hospital, you will die.
as to the governer,
the goverener infact asked for antiona guards support on thursday. hwoever washington's response was slow. thi s has been alleged to have been becasue communications were slow.
admitedly the goverener also delayed the entry of teh red cross and others into the city but this was in response to "alleged" violence and disorder in the streets.
Umm could you please use MS Word or just spell check your posts for me. It's hard to make a rebuttal when I can't really understand what you’re saying.
I don't think the governor is as much to blame as the mayor; however she was still woefully inept at dealing with this disaster.
which brings me to the president.
i hate to bring this up but in fact the american president is one of th e most powerfull political figures in the world. he is in now way shape or form a figurehead. in additon to being teh commander and chief of the armed forces, possesing the power to veto legislation which incurs his wrath. he also beacsue of political precedent in the aunited staes in able to appoint the leaders of nearly every federal agency including FEMA when he is elected to office. thus the leadership of FEMA is ultimately the responsibility of Bush.
The president may only use US troops for 90 days without Congressional approval and any veto he makes can be overruled by Congress. He is a figurehead and that is, basically, his intended constitutional role. Although Bush has seemingly strengthened the presidency, his main concern should be that of foreign affairs.
I do agree that Bush made an absolutely pathetic and poorly planned choice for the head of FEMA and that is the only blame I will recognize for Bush himself.
furhter it is the policies of the administration which pulled money and people from FEMA into the department of homeland security. contriburted in a serious way to the agencies ability to perform the role it had in this crisis.
Disputing the Federal governement's responsibility in this area is pointless.
The storm was predicted by teh National Hurricane Center the federal government had declared the area a federal emergency area. URL=http://www.fema.gov/about/history.shtm]FEMA's mission remains: to lead America to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disasters[/URL].
FEMA had both the money and the resources to deal with this disaster; unfortunately its leadership was under qualified and negligent. What resources had been positioned beforehand were than hampered by the idiocy of the state and local officials.
You keep referring to these declarations; unfortunately a declaration is meaningless if you don't have the ability and cooperation to carry it out. Declaring an area a Federal Disaster Area does not mean the local and state governments instantly transform into one unified Federal Voltron that smashes away hurricanes, hurls water towers and unites the people into one happy grateful community.
The Federal government relies on the local and state to work with it. What you had here was a failure of leadership on every level and accordingly nothing worked properly. Again most of the deaths could have been avoided had the local and state government functioned properly and efficiently before the storm even made landfall.
The states rights movment is dead. believe it.
Ah so you’re a fan of big government? Well you have a perfect example of how well that works out. I guess that crazy Thomas Jefferson guy had no idea what was best for America…because we’re not a gigantic nation made up of 50 states with different people, needs, interests, industries, etc…
The point is people need to realize that the Federal Government is a gigantic bureaucracy, and like any bureaucracy it is incapable of the kind of quick reaction that any kind of natural disaster requires. Local and State governments MUST be able to cope, or at the least properly prepare so there is actually something left for the Federal Government to work with when it gets there.
i forgot to mention that desipte numeruous warnings the most accessavble member of the bush administration was infact shopping for shoes at the time when the crisisn utterly predicably went down. (ms. rice)
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Because she could do what to help the situation in Louisiana? Hold a press conference? Or did you expect her to row out into the Gulf with a bag of ice and attempt to lower the water temperature.
For the last time, the worst mistakes had already been made before the hurricane even made landfall.
Not to mention the abysmal behavior of the NO residents. Looting for food and water is fine, but shooting police and burning buildings is pure idiocy. That’s an entirely different debate however and I’ll stop it here.
Topic: A Comparison (Read 4471 times)
