He sent me this what seems to be a popular chain letter blaming welfare.
I took apart this "journalist's" statements in the article and responded with my own. My statements are
boldFirst of all I am very disappointed that despite over the months of sending you FACT filled information complete with sources, rather than having those rebutted instead in return I receive this article which not only reeks of intellectual dishonesty, but it offers NO outlook on the situation, no view of reality on what is really going on, no view of accountability, and worst of all bleeds of the "let's blame the victim mentality."
But I understand this "journalist" received his marching orders and is just doing his part to take the focus off the failures of this administration and obviously it works well even on intelligent people such as yourself.
But I digress, I've actually read this article before, but this time since it's coming from someone who I am content to call a relative I will take the time to give it a response. Let's go ahead and take a look at the words and statements of this person.It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.
Okay right off the bat that is a lie.
FEMA itself had posted back in 2001 that a flood in New Orleans was one of the three major disasters that it would likely have to face in the coming future. I sent you a pfd file of the requests from local officials dated Aug 28 to the president himself showing EXACTLY what they needed to help deal with the situation. It was even predicted by forecasters that the levees in New Orleans would not hold back a major flood despite bush's "no one ever predicted the levees wouldn't hold" statement. FEMA had before the disaster assured the local officials that they could count on their help BEFORE the hurricane struck and all the local officials had to do was just wait for the cavalry. The plans were there, FEMA stated it was ready, but "four days it took to figure out what was going on" well for two of those days FEMA was training fire fighters in Atlanta as to how to pass out fliers while people drowned. Those four days local officials WERE acting they were evacuating while FEMA was haulting food and water and supplies into the devastated areas.
I guess that's the sort of integrity you can expect from an organization that is headed by a man whose former job was a lawyer for the International Arabian Horse Show Association.
Did you know Anthony that technically you and every other police officer you work with is more qualified to run FEMA than Bush appointed Micheal Brown? Hey if that isn't affirmative action at its worst I don't know what is.
I might have to send them a letter to nominate you for the position but in this administration unfortunately you don't get fired until you voice a protest against it.Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.
Another lie. That is NOT the first thing public officials did. The first thing officials did was they evacuated as many people as they could (figures around 80%) of the city and much to the surprise of this so called journalist before the local govt went to work on evacuating survivors after the hurricane, was they rounded up those in the prison which was done largely by the sheriff (whom in my opinion him and his men who did the deed deserve a medal for how fast and efficiently they did it)
This journalist also fails to convey the location of where these stories filtered from: The superdome. Thousands of people were herded into the superdome, starving, sick, having gone days without supplies without food without drinkable water, people dying left and right as one account read
Leroy Fouchea, 42, waited in the sweltering heat for an hour to get his ration -- his first proper food since Monday -- and immediately handed it over to a sickly friend.
He then offered to show reporters the dead bodies of a man in a wheelchair, a young man who he said he dragged inside just hours earlier, and the limp forms of two infants, one just four months old, the other six months old.
"They died right here, in America, waiting for food," Fouchea said as he walked toward Hall D, where the bodies were put to get them out of the searing heat.
He said people were let die and left without food simply because they were poor and that the evacuation effort earlier concentrated on the French Quarter of the city. "Because that's where the money is," he spat.
And another
"I had to walk two blocks to get here and I have arthritis and three ruptured discs in my back," said Selma Valenti, 80, as her husband lay beside her, being revived by a policeman in riot gear. The two had eaten nothing since Wednesday."
These people were told help is coming help is coming the busses are coming they heard this for DAYS......So put yourself in the position of say the grandson of someone like Mrs. Valenti there and see if you could find it in yourself to maintain sanity.
Here's a photo of the scene
(Photo of all evacuees surrounding superdome)
I mean jeez you just can't imagine looking at the picture that any kind of crimes would take place...course not. Especially if you were rounded up in there and told "there's no going in or out and there's no food or water coming to you"
More about the dead and dying here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/hurricane_katrina
It should also be noted that the rape stories HAVE BEEN UNCOMFIRMED BY THE NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT
New Orleans police chief Eddie Compass said last night: "We don't have any substantiated rapes. We will investigate if the individuals come forward."http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1563532,00.html
So does this mean it's impossible or that it never happened? No.
But this so called journalist is basing his article and taking this rape story for example as a total truth when in fact it is an unconfirmed story at this point.
That is a clear case of intellectual dishonesty.
A little different perspective than that of the widespread rape and violence that this lying journalist would have you believe doesn't it? Yes these incidents happened and yes they are horrific, however given the situation these people were crammed into largely fueled the atrocities that took place but to paint this overall incident as a representation of "the failures of social welfare" is completely without base, dishonest, and shows the contempt this journalist has for his readers being that he knows his reader will likely not look deeper into the situation to get the full story of what he's trying to twist. The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.
The man-made disaster is the welfare state.
For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country
Okay here it comes! "BLAME THE VICTIMS NOT THE ADMINISTRATION FOR THEIR INCOMPETENCE!!"
So NOTHING in regards to the facts I sent you earlier and the facts that keep coming up PROVING WITHOUT A DOUBT that the federal government failed its citizens in this time of tragedy.
So what's a good bush patsy to do to get the attention away from his failures?
Blame the victims blame social welfare that ALWAYS gets the attention of those who just loooove to look down on the poor.
I already sent you articles on FEMA and the president's failure to act. Refer to them and let me know when you find anything that proves this man right when he says federal relief agencies, namely the one run by the International Arabian Horse Association exprt are not to blame at all for the incidents that led to more people dying than needed to be.
As far as people behaving as they were in a third world country well maybe that's because they WERE in a third world country at this time; no food, no water, their friends and family dying right before their eyes, the water they are neck deep in on full of shit, piss, posionous snakes, they see their babies going limp, they see their grandmothers slowly suffocating, they see no hope only empty promises...
If that's not the vision of a third world country I don't know what is.The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.
Yea some were yelling in cheers others were yelling "WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU???" Being that it took DAYS for anyone of authority to show up to help with the sick and dying.
You gotta love how this piece of shit of a man just has to point the "trash-strewn" streets because after all a city that has just been completely demolished by a natural disaster should be expected to have its streets all swept up and clean...you know just in case the president wants to have a photo op.
Also the comment "rabble of squalid listless people"
THOSE ARE PEOPLE WHO LOST THEIR HOMES YOU HEARTLESS PUNK!
How dare he is all I can say how dare he........These people are AMERICANS who LOST THEIR HOMES WHO ARE STARVING WHO ARE DYING and he has the audacity to refer to these people as a rabble as listless.
If anyone is perpetuating the notion that this is a third world situation IT IS THIS JOURNALIST.
"listless people" THEY ARE AMERICANS AND THEY ARE SUFFERINGWhat explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?
Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?
I just got done explaining all that above, but it's a great technique this guy has down: take the most wrenching statements and repeat them over and over again.
Attack the doctors?? another one he pulled out of his ass.
Causing drivers to drive away?? again UNCONFIRMED. Not to mention you go FOUR days with no food or water and orders to not go anywhere and then this bus shows up...
"Attacking people who are trying to save them?"
They are trying to escape they want out they weren't attacking them first off, a few isolated incidents of people desperate to leave the superdome to search for their families are the only confirmed reports.There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.
The welfare wards largely made up those who were left behind and huddled into the superdome. You can't have both ways; the vast vast majority of those left behind were all who lived or had been on welfare at one time or another. The situation this journalist likes to paint is one of a bunch of innocent hard working people having their lives ruined by a select few of those criminal types who have the nerve to take welfare handouts.
"The incompetent administration of New Orleans."
Let me tell you something about the incompetent administration of New Orleans. For starters the mayor had evacuation orders out before the hurricane struck which is what led to 80% of the people of New Orleans having fled safely.
Did you know that even FEMA didn't predict such a high rate of people that would get out? Their predictions were around 60% would make it.
Secondly this incompetent administration ordered the evacuation of the prisoners whom were expertly rounded up the brave sheriff and his deputies.
Furthermore as I said before the local government was promised assistance from FEMA which of course became a situation where the local officials did the hard work of trying to save people while FEMA did nothing but hamper them.
I guess it's the local officials fault as well that funding was cut to hold up the levees that may have stopped the flood.
"Nobody anticipated the breech of the levees" -George W Bush
Wrong. EVERYONE predicted the levees would break. Incompetence DEFINED
So this journalist can take his statements and stick them up his lying ass.What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.
The story that YOU ARE IGNORING Mr. bigshot journalist is the fact that people have come out, 94, THAT IS 94 OTHER COUNTRIES even offered to contribute with currently The Mexican Army on the ground and Canadian rescuers assisting. People in other states have come forward, here in Tucson Arizona we are expected to house 800 evacuees in our TCC.
Oh the local level you had nurses that were actually administering IV's into themselves so they could work for days without sleep, you had people "looting" food and giving it to those who needed it more, every ounce of heroism and compassion could be found in those who were trapped by this tragedy.....but it's more fun to focus on mythical stories of rape and those who dared to be poor.
And this constant talk of "values" people who don't help themselves, well what about people who physically can't help themselves, what about the sick, the elderly, the blind, those without a car. "Complainers" they are they just sitting around waiting for govt to help them.
But what do people like this journalist care about people in such groups? just like Babs "Many of these people were underprivileged anyway this is a step up for them" Bush hey they're poor, screw em God granted me the means to eat and be healthy it's their own fault that their poor.
As an American this Calvinist attitude disgusts me. As a human being it revolts me.
You know the only kind of people who are not taking action to help out or be of use?
People who write these kinds of articles and The Federal Government.But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.
Here's a newsflash for this journalist: THESE HOMES AND BUSINESSES ARE ALREADY DESTROYED There is nothing to damage. The "looted" goods from the grocery stores? well they would be spoiled and being eaten by flies and maggots at this point.
How are they going to make a living? well gee people who agree with this article feel that the govt should not assist them with any kind of welfare, so therefore to you business owners who lost everything to the hurricane, to you homeowners who lost your property, hey tough luck, Jesus wanted it to happen because the majority of you didn't vote for Bush so you're on your own.
"Living off stolen wealth is a way of life for them"
By that logic if you work for the government you are also living off of stolen wealth being that your salaries come from taxpayers who didn't exactly volunteer to hand checks over to you.The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.
On this note let me lay out a fact for all you anti-government pro capitalist reactionaries.
Capitalism in a short phrase is defined as a system where the government's sole responsibility is to defend its citizens from attack or disaster. Even in the most libertarian of minds the Federal government plays a role in helping citizens in time of serious tragedy such as terrorist attacks, acts of war, and disaster.
In this case the government has FAILED. Welfare isn't the issue THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FAILED and until evidence comes forward which proves this wrong this statement will remain true.
I also have to point out that the entire city of New Orleans, rich, middle class, poor all of them are now without homes.
The entire city of New Orleans has become a mass of "listless" homeless people.
Giving them any assistance would be against what I assume this journalist considers Libertarian or minimal government philosophy.
So we let them rot?
Now I want to ask this: What do those like this journalist say about government welfare being given to corporations? what of the government giving no bid contracts to crooked companies such as Halliburton to rebuild New Orleans?
THIS kind of governance completely goes against even Libertarian philosophy of free market competition: there is no competition when the government gives preference to who does what and who profits and worse yet does it at the expense of its citizens.
No friends what you saw in New Orleans was PRIVATIZATION IN ACTION.
When the government downsized agencies like FEMA to privatization and made serious rescue operations a thing of profit rather than priority THIS is the result of that
What we are swwing is the result of reverse socialism where corporations i.e. the president's major donors and special interests have taken priority over the livelihood of the citizens of The United States of America.
We have spent TENS OF BILLIONS to help turn Iraq into an Islamic Theocracy and thus have made our nation weaker, and more vulnerable to attack in the process.
But that doesn't matter because
(Picture of Halliburton's profits skyrocketing/ chart)
So how much of that are you getting? what does defending this type of government do for you? Why do you rail against your own interests why do you choose to join the chorus of those blaming the welfare, who in the grand scheme of things take barely even a fraction of your hard earned tax dollars when compared to the outright robbery of them by this administration's special interests, and to boot this form of robbery does directly affect you just as it directly affected the citizens of New Orleans.
How does anyone justify attacking people like Joanne, that's my girlfriend she was once on welfare, her family struggled, yes they got off it eventually but they needed it to eat, to be able to pull themselves up when times were tough for them.
She apologizes to all you hard working tax payers by the way for "stealing" from you she promises to repay her debt to society by becoming a teacher and hopefully someday teaching your children moral values like compassion, hard work, and respect for all people regardless of status or race.
So now I wonder when are you going to go after the largest beneficiaries of welfare this government has handed out to? when are you going to demand that they return the money they stole from you to do things like control the national debt, equip first responders, give healthcare to returning veterans from the war? funding for education, you know stupid things like that.
In closing the next article which champions spitting on the helpless or defends this administration's actions that is sent to me, please ensure that it is credible and provides sources, otherwise I will not even deem it worth reading.
It's articles like this that fuel the discourse this country is already suffering from and creates reactionary thought that completely clouds the ability to hold an intelligent discussion about the real problems facing our devastated nation today.
~N~And just for fun I cc'd this response to all those whom this email was forwarded to
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