Go to A Distant Drum of the Coming Revolution
- Add a comment
- Go to Rich Congressman Diverts Nat’l Guardsmen From Aiding Endangered Poor
Welcome, growler, WBB Fan, and Debbie!
Welcome to the fray! Glad to have you on board.
Old business: Dennison, you are missing something in my use of contrast. But the bottom line of your comments is pure gold.
Scoop, I'll do you one better: Dumbass of the Month, Grand Prize.
Growler, intersting angle. I will growl along with you at those who are out of touch. But be wary that you are not out of touch with them. It is easy to look at the powerful and dismiss them all out of hand. But some among them may well be more in touch with us ordinary folks than you think. Another growl: This issue here is not being out of touch, but rather unethical conduct, which can fairly be called an outgrowth of it. I don't see the have/have not divide as having a bearing on it. Crooks abound on both sides.
WBBFan (and everyone else) - a story is coming out that Senator Landrieu was able to marshall busses galore in the 1996 elections when voters were needed at the polls. Why not now when lives were on the line?
Debbie, that is a downer, all right.
posted by
WriterofLight
on September 16, 2005 at 8:34 PM
| link to this | reply
pretty selfish
But since we're ridding the world of corrupt politicians as you say, let's get rid of Bush and Delay while we're at it.
posted by
DebbieDowner
on September 16, 2005 at 6:19 PM
| link to this | reply
Excellent comments!
Loved reading this....
I couldn't stand how poor of a plan the Louisiana govt. had. They had buses sitting in a parking lot...but no staff to drive them. Consequently, the buses flooded...well, of course they did. Why didn't the governor and mayor direct the National Guard to drive those? Why didn't they wait so long about telling people to evacuate?
This Congressman makes me sick....but it seems natural..he's a Democrat...they tend to think of themselves first...and "one of their own" too...ugh!
posted by
WBBfan
on September 16, 2005 at 9:46 AM
| link to this | reply
Writer
I saw that piece on the news. How sad a person he is! Said he went back in to get a suitcase his daughter needed, but other sources, like the guard said he came out with several items, not just a suit case. He was in the house for an hour, AN HOUR, to get a suitcase. While other's were still very much in harms way this black representive chose to save some of his own junk. What a piece of work he is!!
posted by
Offy
on September 16, 2005 at 2:58 AM
| link to this | reply
The more that you become a country of have and have-nots, the more of a chance that you elect government officials totally out of touch with reality, regardless of their party affiliation. How can a president, congressman, senator, mayor or any other politician tell me that they know what I'm going through and that they know how they can help me if they have not been in my shoes? Think about it. We always say that celebrities with money, most of them for the first time, are out of touch with reality. Now imagine how out of touch a politician who comes from a family with a history of money must be. Or one surrounded by other politics with money and pampered the same way. If Katrina does not show how out of touch these people are, then nothing will.
posted by
growler
on September 15, 2005 at 10:02 AM
| link to this | reply
WofLight I was going to write about this, this morning as my
Dumbass Democrat of the Day Award. It was nothing more then an abuse of power period.
posted by
scoop
on September 15, 2005 at 6:44 AM
| link to this | reply
"Am I the only one drawing political lines?"
Where did I even suggest that you are the only one drawing party lines?
Can we at least try sticking to reality here?
I fault anyone who draws party lines when the cost of bureaucratic constipation was human life.
DM
posted by
Dennison..Mann
on September 14, 2005 at 7:41 PM
| link to this | reply
I get it, all right!
Am I the only one drawing political lines? Read again what I wrote, and review for yourself how all this has been portrayed. Of course, this transcends party politics. But the charges that have been made have to be answered; if they are false, they must be refuted, and if true, then the necessary changes need to be made to keep them from happening again.
And the cause of the loss of life and property goes beyond party politics to utter human incompetence. That is what I decry, and that is what will continue to plague us until radical changes take place among the "leaders" who so rightly call upon to step down.
posted by
WriterofLight
on September 14, 2005 at 7:36 PM
| link to this | reply
Are You Really This Dense?
Don't you get it at all?
You insist on drawing political lines.
I won't engage in some debate over which party blamed which party for that party's failure to adequately provide for the other party's constituency.
Sheesh...
Get out of your perpetual "Us vs Them" mindset.
And hear this: I don't really care who's blaming whom for what at this point. The people suffered a tragic loss and humiliation because of party politics. I refuse to perpetuate the complete ignorance of the partisan attitude. I don't care if you're Democrat, Republican, or a Transvestite. If people died on your watch because of your inability to lead then you need to get the frick outta the way and make room for someone who can lead.
Got it?
DM
posted by
Dennison..Mann
on September 14, 2005 at 7:22 PM
| link to this | reply
Well said, Dennison!
However:
If you will take note of how all this has been covered in the former mainstream news media, all you are likely to see and hear is Republicans in general and Bush in particular are at fault, with little or no mention of the corruption, incompetence, pork-barrel spending and ineffectiveness among the Democrats.
Further, that's all you hear from most Democrats themselves, especially those most responsible for the debacle. (One very laudable exception is former Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta, who lays the blame where it belongs, everywhere.) And when you consider that the Louisiana and New Orleans governments were so predominantly Democrat, who do you think should take the heat for failures at their levels?
With that angle being so heavily covered in the news media, do you really take exception to a conservative holding Democrats accountable when so few others, including themselves, will? If calling my holding them accountable "making hay" feeds your herd, go for it. Had these people been held to account for the last few decades, the situation in New Orleans would have been far different.
One more thing: See this column for a report on what has gone right, something else you won't see widely reported in a bad-news-sells news media: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/pp/05254/568876.stm. I also have it posted, with a few cogent observations, in this blog on Monday the 12th.
posted by
WriterofLight
on September 14, 2005 at 7:13 PM
| link to this | reply
Glennb's back!
Welcome back, glennb! You have been missed, old pal, the neighborhood was pretty quiet without you stirring things up.
Yes, all criminals should be jailed, but where you came up with that from this is beyond me.
I notice that you are silent about what I actually wrote about, the use of the Coast Guard and National Guard by a Congressman to retrieve personal belongings when they were more urgently needed elsewhere to save lives. A qustion in return: Do you see nothing wrong with that?
posted by
WriterofLight
on September 14, 2005 at 7:00 PM
| link to this | reply
I've Seen Several Versions Of This Report...
And whether or not it's true really doesn't matter. There's plenty of blame to spread around on incompetent and self-centered politicians from both parties.
What's more disgusting is your ostensibly "every man" approach to a serious failure in government where you maintain your political "Us vs Them" mentality.
You seem more concerned with showing how Democrats were more responsible than Republicans for the debacle in the delta. Nice. Rather than fairly conclude that the whole system is completely inadequate, you'd rather make political hay out of some dime-a-dozen representative grabbing his laptop.
People died. Don't you get that? People died. Republican or Democrat, it doesn't matter. People died due to the inability of government to do it's job from the White House down to the NOPD.
Get with the program. Stop playing right into the political machine by fighting with the very people you pretend to have a kinship with.
Get out of your "Us vs Them" rut.
DM
posted by
Dennison..Mann
on September 14, 2005 at 6:27 PM
| link to this | reply
WriterofLight,
Question should read! Jail all rich politicians and pundits???
posted by
Glennb
on September 14, 2005 at 6:26 PM
| link to this | reply
WriterofLight,
And!! What is your point? Jail all criminals?? Start with our "White House" and work your way down! You need my help?
posted by
Glennb
on September 14, 2005 at 6:23 PM
| link to this | reply