Blame Brown not FEMA

[no_arbusto]

Brown is to FEMA as * is to USA. FEMA, like all federal agencies, is based in Washington D.C. (a city that went 90% for Kerry). There's a good chance that FEMA is composed of the same demographic. We sound like freepers when we blame "big government".

[jim3775]

1. Blame republicans not Brown

Blaming brown will just make * make him a scapegoat, fire him, and claim the problem is fixed.

[Pirate Smile]

2. Blame Bush. Where does the Buck stop? Who put Brown in charge of FEMA?

A position for which he was completely unqualified.

Blame Bush!

[no_arbusto]

5. Exactly

Look at the cronyism and not the agency as a whole.

[bloom]

3. The top three FEMA people

were Brown (incompetent horse judge) followed by two political (Bush/Cheney) PR/media people.

None of top three were competent disaster specialists.


"JUDD LEGUM: Well, the number two at FEMA, he was actually head of advance for the Bush-Cheney campaign. So, essentially what he was charge of is planning events. And what's interesting is the FEMA response actually reflects his experience. Because what happened when there were -- you know, when Mike Brown made the request and said finally, you know, we need a thousand members from the Department of Homeland Security to come down and help out, they were really, you know -- they were charged with, you know, representing and putting a good face on the relief efforts. And that was explicitly what Mike Brown asked for.

And then when these firefighters volunteered from all around the country, they were put -- made public relations officers. So I think really the experience of the number two guy there, the chief of staff, and even as you go down the line, the number three really was a media strategist, did work for Maverick Media, which is the company that did campaign ads for the Bush-Cheney campaign. So, if you really look at the operation and how FEMA responded to it, they really responded to it more like a political campaign than a disaster.

AMY GOODMAN: Judd Legum of Center for American Progress, how does this compare to previous administrations, like President Clinton? Are these usually political appointments in FEMA?

JUDD LEGUM: ...For instance, James Lee Witt, who was the director of FEMA under Clinton, all of his top deputies had served for at least three years in the FEMA regional office. So, all of the people who were in these spots had extensive emergency management experience within FEMA. And, of course, James Lee Witt, who was really widely respected -- Republicans, Democrats -- for his work during the Clinton administration, he was the Director of Emergency Management for Arkansas. So, there's a really big contrast between what FEMA was in the 1990s and what it is now, which is really especially at the top spots a political dumping ground."

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/08/142204

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Blame Republicans who control all branches of government

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. Blame the Goat

[SnoopDog]

7. Brown takes orders from bush... That is where the cease orders came from.

[Divernan]

8. Thank you! I have been fighting some low posters flaming FEMA

Blaming the whole agency is playing right into Bush's hands. He, Allbaugh, Brown and Chertoff have been doing their damndest to gut, castrate, privatize and otherwise destroy FEMA for years. They have downsized the agency and there are currently 900 unfilled employment slots in the DC headquarters - this in an agency with about 7000 employees nationwide.

The only people who support Bush at FEMA are his political appointees and hires - The vast majority of FEMA employees, because they have chosen a career of great personal sacrifice to help other - are of course Dems.

FEMA employees around the country were ready, willing and able to go to the Gulf Coast even before the hurricane made landfall. But that lapdog Brown made them wait until Bush / Chertoff finally gave them the green light. They are currently working a minimum of 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and I know some who are working from 7 am to 1:30 am. So I will flame anyone on DU who is too lazy or stupid to educate themselves enough to appreciate these workers.

Those 3 "FEMA contractors" arrested for looting? They were privately contracted, and believe me the federal govt. does not hire people like that one at a time. They had to have had a private employer who perhaps did not do a criminal background check. It is suspicious that the news accounts I've seen do not identify the employer . Could it be . . . . oh, I don't know. . . . .
HALLIBURTON!

[bain_sidhe]

9. Not Brown. Not even Bush, per se

the fault lies with a governing philosophy that had no problem appointing Brown - simply because he was a "buddy" to Bush's buddy Allbaugh - to such a crucial post in the first place.

It's not Brown. It's not Bush, it's the partisan agenda they both represent.

Shameless plug... I wrote up my thoughts on this on my blog: http://www.webfaerie.com/faerie_bytes/?p=70">A time for partisanship

The gist of it:

I have read many articles and blog entries - some of them by people I respect - that say that now is not the time for partisanship. After carefully considering their arguments, I must - respectfully - disagree.

It was a partisan agenda that gutted FEMA. It was a partisan agenda that de-funded the Army Corps of Engineers flood control project. It was a partisan agenda that, through tax-cuts for profitable corporations and the most well off in this country, robbed this country of the wherewithal to respond with more than a token amount of assistance to those who have lost everything in this disaster.

Far from being “not the time for partisanship,” now is the time to get extremely partisan on their greedy Republican asses!

Now is the time to note, in a highly partisan manner, that, contrary to Republican kant, “good government” is not only not an oxymoron, it’s actually possible - as long as that “government” is run by people who believe that government is supposed to be good, instead of being just a nifty way to give buddies great government jobs, and funnel no-bid contracts to corporate cronies.

Now is the time to point out, in a highly partisan manner, that a lot more of the “public” is low and middle income than is rich, and maybe a government that defines “the public good” as policies that benefit a few rich families over the many low and middle income families isn’t really good for the public at all.

Now is the time to discuss, in a highly partisan manner, why people who work jobs are just as deserving of a share of the country’s wealth - and the support of this wealthy country’s infrastructure - as the people who make jobs are.

There's a little more there, but that's the main part.

[Divernan]

10. Could use your input at thread 4705423

where a lot of low posters, and possibly a few people who have been drinking a lot, are flaming all of FEMA

[Mr_Spock]

11. Yeah, FEMA was good when it was independent and funded

Bush destroyed FEMA and look what the result was!!

It's Bush's fault for destroying FEMA by making them a bureaucratic agency folded in with Homeland Security. That's why a bozo politico like Brown is there destroying the place.

Blame BUSH for ruining FEMA and appointing this god-damned hack!!

[The Jacobin]

12. Patronage Kills

FEMA worked in the past, it will work in the future, as long as the King of Patronage is removed from office as soon as possible.

Quick, someone send in an aggressive intern -- its the only reason the repugs will turn on him.