Why Do YOU Think The Government Was So Slow To Act In New Orleans?

[DistressedAmerican]

I favor the trying to "starve folks out" theory.

However, not allowing people to leave and starving them at the dome and center makes me wonder about that explanation.

Why do you thing they did nothing for 5 days?

Let's get all of the theories together on one thread and we can hash them out.

FANTASTIC!

[jody]

1. Incompetence compounded by apathy. n/t

[FormerRepublican]

2. I think it just literally never occurred to him to do anything ...

For those of you who have seen The Mummy Returns, do you remember when the Scorpian King grabs the priest type guy who was head of the British Museum, and the priest type guy cries out to The Mummy "save me, save me" and The Mummy says "Why?"

That's George Bush. Same mind set.

On another note, has anyone noticed how similar George Bush looks to that really ugly looking vulture they have in California that eats dead stuff off the road? That fits George Bush, too. Feasting off dead people. Maybe someone with photoshop can put a picture together showing the similarity...

[Catherine Vincent]

15. Yes, I remember that scene.

It may be some truth to what that rapper said in Bush not caring for black people. Had it been mostly white people screaming "HELP!" and pics of white women and their babies in the heat like that, would he have reacted quicker. It's like Bush was punishing them for not voting for his sorry ass.

[MichiganVote]

3. Because they're cheap and all they want to do is bow and scrape

to the Shah of D.C., George Bush

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. Bush and Co wanted

as many people to die as possible and to inflict as much damage as possible on the infrastucture because Rebuilding New Orleans for his rich friends, would be a win-win situation all around.

Bush & Co could care less for human life, all they care about is themselves, money and property.

[NYC]

40. I agree with that assessment.

[cthrumatrix]

5. if you want a "federal takeover" you need chaos to reign

[bassman79]

43. I agree with this.

[tjdee]

6. Do you know how hard it is to get tickets to Spamalot?

Well, do you?

[1932]

7. Because the people whose interests they serve benefit from chaos.

They make their money of the huge swings.

And it runs the entire spectrum from construction to Rudi Guiliani's private security business.

The more polarized wealth is, the more instability there is, the more crime and misery there is, the better off Republican insiders become.

I think they didn't realize how bad it would get, and I think they probably believed that their "savages/Lord of the Flies" spin was going to be more effective and that Americans wouldn't have so much compassion for poor, black people.

[me b zola]

21. evil always benifis from chaos

Very much like Iraq.

I don't know the answer to the OP's question, but several things keep running through my mind.

contracts

gentrification

practicing for martial law (which they tried pretty damned hard to have in NO).




They treated the good people of New Orleans as though they were the enemy. They refused to send in water & food. When they did come in, they came locked & loaded. I am furious.

[stillcool]

8. Incompetence....

I think that these people have their heads so far up their asses that they are clueless about any part of government except oil, and defense as in defense industry. They decimated both intellectually, and monetarily FEMA. There was no national disaster prior to this to see how their new and improved version worked, or didn't. With each appointed position another layer of ineptitude was added. Also, their love of public relations and FORM is obvious in everything they do. Its all packaging filled with hot air.

[Applan]

9. Because they are totally unfit to lead

Bush has appointed people like Brownie to high positions who know absolutely nothing about the job they are being paid lots of money to do. This administration has been living on borrowed time and with the lack of war planning and now this, have been exposed.
They are only interested in screwing the US people, the middle and lower class taxpayers, for everything they can get. At the end of their 8 years they will leave the mess to the next administration to clean up, most likely democrats. Isn't that always what happens with republican administration, don't they always empty the coffers to line their own pockets and then sit back and wait for the democrats to fill them back up?

[longship]

10. Criminal negligence born out of unbridled greed.

n/t

[electron_blue]

11. intentional

I'm not sure of the motive. If they were that incompetent, lazy and bored by hurricanes they wouldn't have helped as much as they did last year. If you compare/contrast Bush/Fema treatment of 2004 hurricanes with Katrina, you find out that they actually tried to help last year, and actually did help. Not great and miraculous, but definitely helped. And with Katrina in LA/MS- virtually nothing.

Another fact has not gotten enough attention with the press or DU. After Katrina clipped Florida before heading into the gulf, the National Guard and other federal help was on the scene of the disaster (cat 1 hurricane only) within 2 days of landfall. Yet, when that same hurricane hit N.O. several days later (cat 4-5) no help for 5 days.

THIS is why I think it was intentional.

Why? My mind can't wrap around a reason why. I've read several ideas from others and they scare the crap out of me.

[burythehatchet]

12. K. A. O. S.

or

C. H. A. O. S.

I just happen to like Get Smart

[Canuckistanian]

13. Sheer incompetence at first.

These FEMA idiots were novices, mere dilettantes at the art of disaster management.

THEN, someone got he bright idea. "Hey.. ", they thought, "... these blacks are poor and violent. They're going to rebel and import their jihad to to us decent folks."

So, FEMA went into full "Terraist Protection" mode. Ergo, the lockdown of the Convention center, the bridge blockade, the cutting of communication lines (terraists need to chatter, you know) and the constant patrols of trucks bearing heavy firepower and little else.

For a perspective on this, go to the posts on Hullabaloo (Digby's blog).

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

He makes a very convincing case, with historical refences about "black rebellion" scares that turned out to be pure fiction or at least wildly overblown.

[PublicWrath]

24. no terrorists in waist-high sewage

Yet another very good reason to keep Fema separate from Homeland Sec.
I don't want them in the habit of treating large population groups as if they were suppressing an insurrection.

[Canuckistanian]

27. Too true.

FEMA should be purged of all idealogues and appointees. They should act according to need first and national security second.

[bpilgrim]

14. To STRONG-ARM the local authorities to surrender ALL control of the state

to set a precedent.

they tried to BLACK MAIL the local authorities cept the plan didn't go according to the white-board diagram and they said NO.

that is why it is CRITICAL that we back up mayor Nagin and the Gov. to STOP these MURDERERS before they strike again.

nagin CRYS OUT for help MP3...
http://news.globalfreepress.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=search&cat=0&pos=1

peace

[melody]

16. to quote John Adams...

"You cool, conservative men hang to the rear on every issue so that if we go under, you'll still remain afloat".

[stillcool]

29. how appropriate...

[PublicWrath]

17. leverage on Governor

It is a peculiar policy to "starve out" those who were dying and begging to be evacuated.

Rescue and relief efforts were held up and thwarted in every possible way, even after supplies and evac personnel were right outside the city,while Bush tried to strongarm Blanco into declaring martial law allowing the Bush government to make all decisions about which neighborhoods would be razed and rebuilt according to their lights, and which companies would get rebuilding contracts paid for by us. Messes like this hurt everybody but the guys who get the contracts.

Find a post called "The New Orleans Hostage Crisis" posted on DU a day or so back.

Just imagine how many contracts got handed out when Baghdad was "allowed" to fall into chaos and all those ministries,etc. were torched.

[DistressedAmerican]

45. Welcome to DU PublicWrath!

:toast: :bounce: :hi:

[BrklynLiberal]

18. I think Walt Starr hit the nail on the head.

The goal is Grover Norquist inspired privatization of disaster response...so the BushCo cronies can make money off that too.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4689331

[DistressedAmerican]

22. Yeah, I Just Saw That Post. I Think He Is Onto Something.

Faith Based Disaster Response?

Fucking creepy.

No creepier than the other likely explanations though.

[PublicWrath]

31. No Faith

Faith in disaster response was what I had before Katrina.

[BrklynLiberal]

39. It is in the $privatization$ part that I believe where BushCo "faith" is.

[Cleita]

19. It's because we don't have a government anymore. We have

been legally ursurped by business who has little interest in governing anything that doesn't make them a profit.

Meet the Ferengis.

[Kenroy]

20. I honestly believe

it was incompetence, bolstered by a total lack of urgency because nobody "important" was hurting.

I don't think it was deliberate. I don't think the feds WANTED this to happen. I just think they were horribly incompetent, and for whatever reason, just didn't see the situation as a huge catastrophe until a bit after the fact.

It's still inexcusable, though.

[smurfygirl]

23. Bush doesn't care about black people

I think Kanye had it right

[Ready4Change]

25. I don't limit them to a single reason.

The lead off was that they cut levee rebuilding funds. Figured the odds of that biting THEM was low. Bad luck, along came Katrina.

They then figured "we may get nailed for cutting those funds. We need to handle this somehow." My move would have been to act early and vigorously, so as to reduce the damage. However, on Sunday, after having declared an emergency, they reviewed the situations. Realized that even if they acted strongly there would STILL be massive losses. What to do, what to do?

That's when some one said "What if we go the other way? Turn a major disaster into a HUGE one?" Delay all aid for the critical first day or two, let things really go to hell, then ride in with the calvalry. Bush can be the hero again, we can fill the news with engaging stories of noble victims and get in some poignant photo ops.

A bonus, perhaps unspoken, was that making this an even pigger story would shove Rove/Plame off the radar scope.

So, for me, 3 reasons.
- Levees broke because they yanked funding.
- Made the story bigger in an attempt to CYA, and
- Drop Rove/Plame of the radar scope

[MojoXN]

26. Pure, unadulterated, 100% uncut, Grade-A, Top notch, Numero Uno...

premium, best in show, first-class INCOMPETENCE!

You can call me MojoXN, by the way.

[TahitiNut]

28. Corruption. Allow me to offer an analogy ...

We hired thieves for our fire department. They've been shining up the fire trucks and sweeping the driveway. We're happy. (At least some of us are.) Then there's a fire. They're called out ... but take days to get the trucks out of the firehouse and then they're ineffective.

Why?

Well, it turns out they've been siphoning gas out of the tanks, selling the fire hoses, selling off the axes and first aid kits, using the generators at their vacation cottages, and pretty much looting the place. They've also been having parties upstairs and most are hungover every day.

Why didn't anyone notice? Some did. But others kept talking about how much less the "town fathers" were spending and how nice and shiney the trucks looked and how pleasant the firemen were to school kids. Besides, they go to some really popular churches. (It's strange about what happens to the offerings there, though.)

[spacelady]

30. Bush & Co. did not realize it was important until someone told him.

Seriously, until local officials were able to communicate & were screaming obscenities to get attention, the Feds were clueless & once they got a clue, it did not occur to them that they had to expend money & resources to "those people" until they were told it would be politically incorrect to ignore the situation, whereupon they grudgingly allocated some funds while wildly trying to blame anyone but themselves for their criminal negligence.

[mmonk]

32. To make sure all crony

organizations were in place with their contracts.

[beetbox]

33. Fascistic Racist Savage Capitalism

To consolidate the powers of the National Security State known as the Federal Gov't. Once establishing control of the region it enables the vision of the corporate sponsors to plow through unimpeded by pesky carnivalesque queer folk, unappealing and illiterate (in the eyes of the imperious developers) black folk and other riff raff that are now being "sheltered" in various places of exile.

But as culpable, criminal and loathsome as the Bush Administration is, it is only the apotheosis of an overarching trend in American society that has been gathering force for decades: the destruction of the idea of a common good, a public sector whose benefits and responsibilities are shared by all, and directed by the consent of the governed. For more than 30 years, the corporate Right has waged a relentless and highly focused campaign against the common good, seeking to atomize individuals into isolated 'consumer units' whose political energies kept deliberately underinformed by the ubiquitous corporate media can be diverted into emotionalized 'hot button' issues (gay marriage, school prayer, intelligent design, flag burning, welfare queens, drugs, porn, abortion, teen sex, commie subversion, terrorist threats, etc., etc.) that never threaten Big Money's bottom line.

They have always wanted to get rid of all of this.
A 70% African-American city where resistance to white supremacy has supported a generous, subversive and unique culture of vivid beauty. From jazz, blues and hiphop, to secondlines, Mardi Gras Indians, Parades, Beads, Jazz Funerals, and red beans and rice on Monday nights, New Orleans is a place of art and music and dance and sexuality and liberation unlike anywhere else in the world.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

34. Oil n/t

[KerryOn]

35. Incompetence and Iraq....

No doubt about it. Incompetence and the Iraq war.

I disagree with those that say it was on purpose.

The government could not respond to the hurricane in a timely fashion, because the people that have taken over the Republican party were to busy making them selves rich by steeling tax dollars and borrowed money through Halliburton no bid contracts. Plain and simple.

If Bush had not attacked Iraq all the billions of dollars could have been spent strengthening our borders, and planning for such disasters. This should be the main talking point, because it is true.

This country is being ran by a bunch of idiots, most of whom were appointed to their positions by their friends, so they could get a piece of the pie as well. Very few of them are qualified for the positions they hold.

Furthermore there is so much red tape involved and meaningless laws that slow the process down. No one wants to make a decision because of the fear of being fired, after all they want their share of the pie. And so if they do nothing they will never get in trouble. Because of all the red tape, they can simply keep pointing their fingers to other people until the pointing ends right back where it started. And in the end Bush will give them all metals.

[DistressedAmerican]

46. I Tend To Agree Strongly With What You Say!

"This should be the main talking point, because it is true."

It has almost disappeared from the discourse. We really are a nation of sheep!

[KerryOn]

52. Everyone just seems to get off track....

Everyone is trying to find ways to hang Bush for anything they can, and they get so caught up in it, they can't see it there staring them right in the face.

The hell with the racism strategy. There is racism, but most is hard to prove. Instead we should be concentrating on the things that can be proven.

I'm glad someone else agrees with me.

Thanks!

[pinto]

36. Incompetence. Fear. Incompetence. Fear. Incompetence.

That's off the top of my head.

[Jamastiene]

42. That about sums it up. Plus I do think there was at least an

element of apathy for the poor and black people in this country. I'm one of those people who sees too much of the same sort of stuff happening locally to ignore it.

[banana republican]

37. PLEAZE GO AWAY CAN'T YOU SEE I'M ON VACATION???? N/T

[DistressedAmerican]

47. Love Your User Name! And Your Post Is A Riot! Call The COPS!!!

:rofl:

"I've got to live my life."

[Lecky]

38. Incompetance...

Nothing new with this administration.

[Yavin4]

41. They Weren't Bush Pioneer Donors

First, Bush is an idiot. Second, he's surrounded by people who believe that the government ONLY serves the rich and the powerful. The people of the Gulf coast were not rich and powerful, thus, they didn't get any government help.

[KellyPaDem]

44. As a way to ensure

that people left places like the Superdome and the convention center without trying to go back to there homes. It's just my opinion, but I keep picturing them trying to prevent the public relations nightmare of elderly people being handcuffed and forced out of their homes in large numbers. I think they believed that if you provide food and water people would stay and wait for the water to go down and then try to salvage things from their homes. They wanted the city cleared out and in their opinion the best way to do that was to make sure people were damn happy to leave. Notice when the buses finally started arriving to relocate people. No one complained about where they were going, what was going to happen to them when they got there, or what was to happen to their homes. They were just so happy to get food and water and someplace to feel safe. They went quietly along. In their opinion they just waited alittle bit to long. Bastards

[DistressedAmerican]

48. Starve Them Until They Are Docile. Explains My Reservations In The OP!

Thanks. I was looking for a reason that they would starve folks at the shelters. That makes a boat load of sense!

[OctOct1]

49. I Know, I know the reason

You know Bush was falling in the polls because of Cindy
You know that he needed a 9/11
You know they would capitalize on anything
You know FEMA was held back
You know that when Bush showed up everything started moving
You know that Texas was the place to move people to. (Duh) ever wonder why Texas??

If you compare what they did for Hurricane Frances last year and what they did for Katrina, it is so obvious.
They purposely held back and even stopped help from coming.

They wanted this to damage democrats and give Bush a 9/11 glow

Can anyone say Giuliani enough
This is a call for strong Republican leadership and the crushing of Democrats

There spin goal is as follows
Democrat Mayor = inefficient
Democrat governor= failed to act
Democrat = weak
Democrat = failure
Democrat - entitlements
Democrats are wieners
Democrats are creating there own demise.




To top it off, they have Lieberman doing the investigation. HA, HA.
I am from CT and I know Lieberman will give it to them on a silver platter.

[Tsiyu]

50. because 77% of the folks in New Orleans

voted for Kerry.

This is the punishment for failing to support the looters and thugs in the White House.

This is a "lesson" to uppity poor people.

Don't piss off Repukes. They will kill you while the Fundy Christians watch and cheer them on.

[charlie]

51. To kill the legitimacy of the federal govt

Watch the spin going on. Talk of "bureaucracy" and Brownie's incompetence. It bolsters the rightwing argument against "big gummint." Fire Brownie and get government out of the way, let the private sector work its magic and all will be well. FDR style public works is anathema, the glittering efficiency of Halliburton is the the panacea.

[ohio_liberal]

53. It happened because George Bush...

...doesn't care about the poor and/or black people. Period.

[Beaver Tail]

54. lindashaw has a good theory

+http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4693843

Bush has gotten what he wanted in the struggle with LA governor Blanco. New Orleans in now under martial law.

That's good for him. The precedent has now been set. What Bush really wants to do is destroy posse comitatus, which now prevents the US military from taking control of any city in this country.

Now, under any number of pretenses, Bush can at least circumvent posse comitatus. He would probably like to repeal it altogether.

This "blackmailing" of New Orleans by withholding aid is not about class warfare against the poor or black society. Nor is it for getting Halliburton more contracts. It is about giving the Defense Department the power it has always wanted: ultimate, bottom-line control of this country.

[leftofthedial]

55. more than one reason

1. they are incompetent, arrogant and utterly lacking in empathy

2. they are confident that their ownership and control of th emedia will allow them to spin ANY story their way

3. the bigger the problem, the bigger savior the bushturd can pretend to be (also the bigger the contracts to Halliburton)

4. they wanted to scatter the black population of that part of the coast, opening prime space for redevelopment and weakening an unfriendly voting bloc.

5. they are evil. they also don't believe that anyone who is not wealthy is a human being.

[gollygee]

56. They don't care about black people

[RC]

57. They wanted the blacks to riot, all the better to declare martial Law and

shoot them down. Did anyone else notice that when they did get water and food there was usually not enough to go around?

Shooting the survivors would save shipping costs for moving them thousands of miles away. Also if they are dead, they can't fight to keep their homes.