"What I'm seeing on TV now is a third-world country with a government...

[laststeamtrain]

From Laura Rozen's blog WAR AND PIECE:
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002471.html


September 02, 2005
"What I'm seeing on TV now is a third-world country with a government unwilling or incompetent to fulfill its tasks."

Flood Relief: How it should be done. Dutch broadcaster and human rights activist Frank Tiggelaar writes:

Dear Andras, Laura,

Watching events unfold in the New Orleans area I had flashbacks of the 1995 river Rhine and Meuse floods in Holland. Then, in just under two days authorities staged a forced evacuation of almost half a million people (total Dutch pop. is 16 million) and 2 million heads of cattle, pigs etc. It was the most orderly mass-operation I have ever seen.

I live near Holland's main disaster hospital AMC, which can effectively triple its capacity from 1,200 to 4,000 patients in 3 hours by opening up its six-story undergound disaster unit, and witnessed how hundreds of ambulances, army trucks and dozens of medicopters (including German and Belgian air-borne operating theatres) brought in hospital patients, people from care homes and the disabled from the disaster areas. Roads were closed to all other traffic, in hospitals across the country an overwhelming - and fortunately unnecessary - number of staff and volunteers were on stand-by.

The material damage was incredible, but there were no casualties, there were three meals every day for every temporarily displaced man, woman and child, all cows were fed and milked, there was no looting. National public TV within days set up a disaster charity show which raised over 60M guilders (EUR 30M) to pay for damages not covered by insurance.

What I'm seeing on TV now is a third-world country with a government unwilling or incompetent to fulfill its tasks. I feel very, very sorry for the residents of the area.

Frank
************************

I'm thinking this is where the US SHOULD be/Would be if we hadn't gotten off the path of progress.

I so hope this is a wake up call. I so hope this is the end of the 'tax revolt', 'starve the government', trickle down, mumbo jumbo economic policy.

Krugman nailed it today in the Times. CAN'T-DO.

The few hundred 'households' that have annual incomes of two hundred or more millions of dollars need to be SOAKED big time. Then we CAN-DO when we need to...

[Eloriel]

1. Wow. That makes me burst into tears of rage NOMINATED

It's so damn true. :cry:


I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK.

[PsN2Wind]

2. Sudan

with tall buildings

[tom_paine]

3. Imperial Amerika IS a Third-World Country, and has been since 2000

We are only witnessing the slide of the rest of it to join it's Upper Layers.