After watching my family, friends, and co-workers discuss this issue ad-naseum for the last week and a half I feel it is time to vent as these frustrations. We have accomplished nothing, for no one will admit their own mistakes and shift their focus to the remedies, our country is content to ridicule one another while people died. This is no more apparent than the recent diatribes produced by Rush and Kanye.

Now some of my friends say that Rush Limbaugh is a pompous windbag, and some say Kanye West is a pretentious opportunist hack. Brothers, sisters can't we find some common ground here? Shall we just agree that both of these men are pompous, pretentious, opportunist windbag hacks? Why do you guys form opinions based on the observations others make for you, are frightened that they may not lie within the ideologies of network television or elitist weblogs?

I am absolutely sick of this partisan finger pointing, its like they are circle fisting one another. EVERYONE FUCKED UP. From the citizens who didnt evacuate, to the poor planning of the mayor and FEMA, to the delayed and lackluster response of our President. Its time to share the responsibility and no one is blameless. If here anyone else places the blame for this tragedy upon an individual or a demographic I swear I'll VOMIT BLOOD.

Couldn't this have been done via bumping the normal Katrina thread over the Critique of the Katrina Response thread?

A brilliant retort, you missed the entire premise of my discussion.

I think we should make sure those who made mistakes are held accountable. We should make sure we learn from what went wrong and ensure other US cities are prepared for catastrophes.

I agree exploiting the situation for political gain or finger pointing merely to enforce their own viewpoint is gross and unhelpful.

But hard lessons need to be learned from this and some people need to lose their jobs and we need to ensure they are filled by people qualified to fill them.

I think Miami/Fla should change their team nickname to Tropical Storm

If we stop talking about mistakes that were made, won't me make the same mistakes when there is another disaster?

Someone has to say, "People of Louisianna, your Governor made these mistakes. Decide if she can do better next time, or find someone that can."

Someone needs to ask Michael Brown if anyone in FEMA owns a television. So that in the next disaster his predecessor knows to have one.

The people who fucked up will call it finger pointing and the blame game, but you can either do it, or you can watch more people die.

ahhh the delicious irony

I agree completely. This past weekend I almost got into an argument with my sister-in-law (who is a seething, belligerant liberal), who seemed to think this whole Katrina ordeal was Bush's fault. I'm not a Bush fan myself, but I do fancy myself as a realistic liberal. There were plenty of mistakes to go around in this situation, there is no one individual cause for what happened. Putting all the blame on one person isn't going to fix a damn thing, and could actually have the net result of making things worse next time around.

I don't necessarily mind the beating that Bush is taking for this, but at the same time I have a hard time enjoying it. I do think he's deserving of a backlash for some of this past decisions, but not necessarily his decisions regarding Hurricane Katrina. While I've been waiting for his political stock to plummet for quite some time now, I don't really buy the "end justifies the means" argument. So I've actually found myself defending him a few times over the past week. I want to see his political stock plummet, but I want to see it plummet for the right reasons (which there are plenty of).

I think I'm done with Katrina as well, tv has shortened my attention span considerably.

I also think the reason why so much hate has been thrown around regarding the disaster is that we, as Americans, are humiliated by it. Humiliated by our federal governments response, by the state and local governments response, and the "I'm-a-celebrity-so-f**king-obey-me" bullsh*t that has been kicked around. We saw what happened in the wake of 9/11 and we were awestruck by the country's ability to join together and stop being "chirsitan-americans", "muslim-americans", "african-americans", or "white americans" and for about 2 weeks we were all just Americans. Then the pundits came in and ruined everything and sh*t got sour. This time it only took them hours to do the same thing. Even after all the Iraq war happenings, all the election bs, and all the GWOT events, I have never felt more disappointed in and disconnected from America then I have over the last few days.


"Rarely has it been so clear how much we, the ordinary people of this country, are better than our rulers. I hope that lesson is not lost on anyone, of any political persuasion. We are better than them and there is no good reason anymore -- if ever there was -- to keep on putting up with their lies." - Nicholas Weininger 9/3/05

Well said

I think all the hate has to do with the realization that we've been lied to since 9/11 about all this protecting-the-homeland-communicate-
better-in-an-emergency-Americans-are-safer-than-ever-before bullshit that Bush and the Republicans have been pumping up our ass with a vengence.

I agree, but I also think it should not be limited to only the Republicans in terms of politics, I think it's just politics as a whole and the Gov't.

You're right, I should have included Lieberman, but I usually assume that when I say Republican, everyone knows that I mean him too.

Word

Oh for God's sake, so everything that happens you're going to view with skepticism because you think you were lied to since 9/11? That's a complete copout for each politically-motivated partisan diatribe each time something bad happens, whether warranted or not. You know what, Clinton fucked up by not getting rid of Osama Bin Laden when he had the chance and completely mangled the health care proposals in 1993-94 by having his wife liberize the entire issue (and believe me, I can think of many, many more fuck-ups and "half truths" from that era). But you know what, I was able to see through the bullshit of the administration and give credit when credit was due and to absolve the President when he didn't deserve the criticism. People here can't seem to do that, no matter what.

Could you expand on these fuck-ups, if you don't mind.

Divided we fall, friends.

I don't want this to turn into a thread about the Clinton presidency, but I'll indulge you.

Whether you agree with them or not:

Comprehensive Health Care
Rawanda
Lani Guinier
Jocelyn Elders
Waco
Osama Bin Laden
Al Quada
Whitewater
Illegal Campaign Contributions from other countries
Don't Ask Don't Tell
Mid-term election 1994
Chinese and Israeli Espionage
Monica Lewinski

This is why I stated we should not limit this growing disdain to just Republicans but to all of politics.

What the hell does Bill Clinton have to do with this? Did he cut funding to the Army Corps of Engineers or are we going to talk about a blow job 10 years ago? Jesus christ bringing up Bill Clinton is about the most ridiculous thing I can imagine..