Well Cloud, I've been expecting you. Let's get down to business, shall we?
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Originally Posted by Cloud No.9
okay i'm not going to give any wishes for the dead as that is pretty much expected and i don't think needs to be said. but at the end of the day a blame will need to be settled for this and that is what i want to talk about.
What I'm reading from this is "Dumb Americans deserved it.".
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first of all the gulf of mexico. it is warmer now than it has eve been recorded. the reason for this is global warming and science tells us that that is being caused by the greenhouse effect and co2 emmissions. hurricanes thrive off warmer seas. it makes them fiercer, more frequent and longer lasting. the warmth of the gulf of mexico is part of the problem.
Incorrect! Hurricans have been in pretty much a 50-year decline in terms of frequency. The 1940's had the highest number of hurricans for any decade on record. As you can see the number of hurricans is, on average, lower now than it was in the first half of the last century. Ok, it's not fallen by a massive amount next to say, the 1860's or the 1920's, but then look at the 1940's and the 1880's. There is, in truth, not a great deal of a pattern to be drawn from those. The number of major hurricanes, also, can see seen to have only once been freakishly high (1940's) and only once been freakishly low (1860's). There is no trend towards a higher occurance or frequency of hurricanes; indeed is it possible to see that the averages have fallen slightly in the last 50 years.
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the levvy itself. poorly maintained especcially when compared to holland. too much money is being pumped into this war on terror and this was forgotten about. we knew this was a possible disaster. at the start of bush's forst term he ws told of the 3 worst case scenarios. a high strength earth quake in san fransisco, a large scale terrorist attacj on new york and a force 5 hurricane in new orleans. the concequences of this had been predicted and ignored. i am very suprised that any terrorist worth his salt had not seen those levvy's as a potential target and attacked upon it.
Agreed when it comes to there not being enough done here. Why did Clinton do nothing? He had eight years when he wasn't fighting a war on global terrorism. In actuality, the blame lies right back to the 19th century. Additionally, you show you don't know how the US system works - the levee's were the state's (Democrats) responsibility.
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the evacuation scheme. ruled over by money. if you were rich you had the money to leave. if you were poor you were left. money bought live in new orleans. if you were poor you were abondoned and left to be swept away. the size of someone's bank account was deemed as their right to survive. nothing else matter when it came to getting those people out. the poor were left to die for being poor.
Bullhockey. As I said, unless you're old, young, or infirm, you can walk up I-10 with your thumb out. Also, you've apparently completely forgotten Biloxi, Gulfport, and the other places affected in the 300-miles along the Gulf Coast. There's a whole ton of small towns, suburbs, and suchlike (Have you even heard of, for example, Houma? Metarie?) affected as well as the ghettos in the middle of Nawleans.
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that is not to say that the people who did stay do not carry part of the blame themselves. it was possible to leave. on foot. millions of people walked across the sudanese desert to escape the genocide. starving the walked across their country. it was possible to do the same in new orleans.
Fair enough, you recognize this. Consider my earlier point blunted.
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the national guard. the main concern was not the dying poor. drowning, starving and dehydrated. their main concern was looting. the possessions of the rich. yes there was some opportunistic looting but alot of it was to survive, if you were hungry and thirsty and dying would you not go into your local wal market and take what you needed to keep on living. but the national guard decided that the possessions of the rich (who had been saved from this disaster purely by being so) were more important than the lives of the poor.
You're joking, aren't you? You have no clue what you're on about. Now, there's not many people who say there's anything wrong with looting food and water and shoes and such (That was nasty water, they needed shoes, believe me.) to survive. And those who do say tolerance of one form of looting leads to other kinds of looting, which there may or may not be weight in. But there's no need to loot TVs, radios, whatever. Of course, preventing people from taking whatever possessions the dastardly oppressors have and that the poor crushed proletariat want doesn't exactly fit in with your *ahem* 'redistribution' plans.
Oh, yeah. There was also the way looters were shooting at doctors.
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organisation. it took a week for help to come for these people. many died because of that.
Fully agreed. WTF? This better lead to some major changes in how emergency situations are handled.
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it is also a failure of morality in a way and not just in the protection of the rich. the us refused to help niger when 3 million people were starving to death, refused to help sudan, refused to help africa. but now comes to nato and the eu begging for help in the same way niger did. the richest and most powerful nation should not need help in dealing with this. it should not need hand outs. and it is hypocritical for it to ask for it.
That is an absolutely insane claim. Your audacity in suggesting the massive amounts of contribution the US has given to nations all around the world (Remember, they pretty much paid for rebuilding Europe after WW2.), and the fact that they were pretty much the first and largest responders to the Asian Tsunami. The US in 2003 gave US$16.25 billion in foreign/development aid. The entire combined EU (At the time, 15 nations) gave US$37.14 billion. Now, I can say it's not fair to expect massive amounts from say, Austria or Luxembourg, but France, Germany, and Britain should all be easily up there. At any rate, just because the US (And the UN...) didn't pounce immediately upon whatever pet project you're using to bash them today and fix it doesn't mean they've no right to ask for help from anyone, ever. The US has shown itself over - what 250+ years? Something like that - to be a progressive and forward moving nation. Africa has spend their time being free from (European) imperialism fighting ethnic and civil wars and generally doing sod all in the way of progress. Even when a nation does well they let some crackpot in and it falls to pieces. Africa can have all the help she needs once she shows herself willing and able to make use of it. America can, and will. She gets aid.
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if this had been an african country no help would be given. and this thread would have been filled with "they refuse to help themselves" "it's not our responsibility" "we give out too much money". but now the shoe is on the other foot. now bush is crying out for help. in the same way he was been cried to.
Erm, might I remind you of this? I seem to remember... yes, it's coming to me now... I think I recall a massive charitably aid effort! My God, why, it's inhuman! How dare the Americans donate almost $2 billion, much more than any other nation? That will totally wreck up your portrayal of them! Wait, wait, I know. Just ignore it. Pretend it never happened. Focus on Niger, focus on Niger, focus on Niger. Indonesia? What's that? Why aren't you talking about Africa?
