Chertoff Scolds the Poor and the Dead
Via Atrios
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff speaks:
What a heartless, idiotic thing to say.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff speaks:
"The critical thing was to get people out of there before the disaster," he said on NBC's "Today" program. "Some people chose not to obey that order. That was a mistake on their part."Right. Choosing to be poor is a big mistake: no car, no credit cards, nowhere to go in case of a disaster. Those are the people who didn't evacuate.
What a heartless, idiotic thing to say.
posted by Daryl McCullough
3 Comments:
boingboing posts an email from a New Orleans relief worker stating the following:
The poorest 20% (you can argue with the number -- 10%? 18%? no one knows) of the city was left behind to drown. This was the plan. Forget the sanctimonious bullshit about the bullheaded people who wouldn't leave. The evacuation plan was strictly laissez-faire. It depended on privately owned vehicles, and on having ready cash to fund an evacuation. The planners knew full well that the poor, who in new orleans are overwhelmingly black, wouldn't be able to get out. The resources -- meaning, the political will -- weren't there to get them out.
Sounds plausible to me. I don't believe there were fleets of busses organized to bring the willing poor of the area to higher ground.
I want to know who stole my country of limitless possibility for everyone, and what they did with it.
"The critical thing was to get people out of there before the disaster."
Yes, that was the critical thing. So why didn't they do that? Doesn't the government have things like vehicles? How do they move troops around? And where do troops stay when they are staging for maneuvers or actual combat? Do they drive their own cars up to the battlefields and stay at the motel 6? And I could have sworn that we used to have things called tents that could be used for temporary shelter in emergencies.
What has happened to the US government? Four years after a big emergency that supposedly acted as a wake-up call, we find ourselves completely unprepared for emergencies. What the heck have we been doing!? Oh, right. Starts with an "I" and ends with a "Q".
That's different. Iraq is important because of all the oil they control.
Oh, wait a minute...
Post a Comment
<< Home