So... Hurricane Katrina
 

This post is also sponsored by Amber and powered by Satan

It's too late for me to write my own posts, so I'll just post something from another website. So enjoy being offended!

---

Dear US Citizens,

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the recent disaster following Hurricane Katrina has revealed several things wrong with your society. It has a cancer - a gaping, seething wound that you really, really need to see someone about.

Your people are behaving worse than animals. Your government is proving itself to be ineffectual when it comes to looking after its own people. And your citizens have shown brazen stupidity in the face of an oncoming disaster.

Animals? Yes: you're raping, beating, robbing and killing your own people, at a time when you should be banding together to assist those around you. You're making a mockery of the sense of international image that your country purports to exhibit. The moral outrages occurring on a minute to minute basis in New Orleans are a national scandal.

Government? Well ... where do I start? how about with the US Army Engineers, whose job it was to decide what kinds of levies to build around New Orleans? The decision was reached, on the basis of a cost/benefit analysis, to build levies to withstand Force 3 hurricanes - in an area widely known to suffer from those and much worse in the way of weather. How in God's name could it have been decided that, to save money, an entire city would be put at risk? The cost of building better levies cannot have been anywhere near the cost in human life that decision has created, let alone the years of work and effort that will go into trying to get New Orleans back on its feet?

Relief efforts are ****ed. It's been days since the levee broke, and the chain of command in terms of rescue has proven itself woefully inadequate. I'm gobsmacked at how disorderly and disorganised it appears to be.

Stupidity? Oh yeah. Again, I make the comparison between the Tsunami and Katrina. Your citizens had days to get ready for this, to leave town and make for higher ground. Yet so many thousands decided to ride the storm out - bars in New Orleans were still serving booze as the Hurricane's winds hit the shoreline. And now, since they've been stranded by this most horrendous occurrence, the people left behind are descending into brutal, animalistic behaviour.

I'm hoping that soon I'll read reports of people doing the right thing, of helping each other and attempting to keep order, rather than smashing windows to steal TVs and shooting, beating and raping each other in the streets.

It's ****ing shameful - for a nation's government to put itself on a pedestal as the beacon of all that is right and good in the world, and when things go south, that government and its citizens react like this.

I'm sorry guys - I really am. I know that these people are doing it really tough at the moment, but the facts speak for themselves. the disaster has shown that there are some severe problems within the US - problems that require urgent attention.

Let me know if there's anything I can do to help...

That is freaking strangely offensing to me..
I don't know what to say..
So i'll just say this.
:rant:

I can see how this would be offending, but it is really true...

Well it is quite offending... But like^ it's true :chairhit:

Oh yeah, I wonder if anyone was listening to When the Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin when the hurricane hit.

On a related note, it seems like everything I see happening here (the US, not owf) just serves to increase my anti-american sentiments.

Towards amereicans? I may not be a type who loves this place and thinks it's better than everywhere else but I hate it when people be stereotypical.

I hate American politics and government, and the direction this nation is heading in practically every way.

Plus the fact that Bush was reelected convinced me that most of the people who live here are idiots.

(People are stupid the world over, but I really expected better from one of the most powerful and supposedly educated nations in the world)

It's wrong to generalise the American people, but some of the people I've seen being interviewed on the news following the hurricane are the stupidest people I've ever heard.

I have to agree with every point made in that statement Cheese posted.

Because it's not like there aren't donation/various other collection drives going on all over the nation to send aid.

Because it's not like anybody is particularly happy with the way the government has handled the situation.

Because it's not like the media has pinpointed and milked every possible negative they can think of. It's always best to remember that unless there's some truly spectacular feat of nobility or heroism occurs, reporters will most always push back minor successes in place of doom and gloom.

PS.

Anti-American sentiment has been, is currently, and will remain a major pet peeve of mine. It's one of the most stereotypical, cliche, and hasty generalizations one can make. I'm an American, I've done nothing wrong, and yet the ground I happily trod upon every day is tarnished. The national government makes a mistep, and thus various other political achievments of the past and present are shifted aside. Congratulations on your pessimistic selectivism; I hope it gets you far in life.

And while I don't support him myself, I've spoken with various Bush supporters of actual intelligence. Suprising, I know, but they're around.

I don't agree with any types of generalization, I think it's wrong to lump people together and say that all Americans are fat, all English are snobs and all French live romantically for food.

I can see how that could be offensive, but like most other people here, I generally agree with it. But, I know that some people are doing the right thing.

Did anyone see this clip on the news. An old man lost control of his car whilst driving over a road which had flooded, and his car was being dragged into a huge lake sorta thing. This young man raced over to him, and got him out, even though both of them could've died.

These people need help, and the goverment hasn't done much yet.

- Rexy

What I think is the scariest part of the disaster is how coffins just started floating on the water. It would make me shit myself if a corpse just popped out like he wanted to kill me. Good thing the mortuaries break their backs, phew!

I can't stand any of those bastards in Washington D.C. They keep talking talking and talking about how they have these BRILLIANT plans to turn the country around, but they never DO anything. And No Child Left Behind sucks beagle balls!

Our goverment does suck ass...
And the fact bush ot back is even more strange...
Thank god i'm not a busher..
:spin:

True, but many are having to pull back from certain shelters as they cannot guarantee safty for their staff. Yesterday the news said thugs have actually taken over some shelters. Taken over! And sadly, most of all the thuggy people you see on the news are African American. Way to inforce a stereotype. It's no wonder Martial Law has been declared, which hasn't been done since WWII in Hawaii. (Definition of Martial Law here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law)

Oh, and here's something wonderful that I heard from a friend. Bush is denying foreign aid help. (Although some countries are still donating to American Red Cross and such.)

I couldn't find anything about this, but I found these quotes:
"Bush told ABC-TV: "I'm not expecting much from foreign nations because we hadn't asked for it. I do expect a lot of sympathy and perhaps some will send cash dollars. But this country's going to rise up and take care of it."

"You know," he said, "we would love help, but we're going to take care of our own business as well, and there's no doubt in my mind we'll succeed. And there's no doubt in my mind, as I sit here talking to you, that New Orleans is going to rise up again as a great city."

I find them sort of humorous. I also found a sign on the side of the road that said "Impeach Bush, give him a REAL vacation" to be pretty funny too.

Thank you Majic, you couldn't have put it into better words. This is one of those moments I really wish I could get all charged up and spew all my views but I can't. All I can say is anyone who has CNN availble to watch please do, it has to be the most non watered down news station availble to people in the United States right now. They are openly accusing the government, and not being shy about voicing out against not only the slow response, but also the lack of preparation and/or precautions that could have been taken to help prevent the widespread chaos that has ensued in New Orleans and that surrounding area.

'Good thing the mortuaries break their backs, phew!'

Mortuaries break the corpses backs?! Why?

It has to be said, i'm not that fussed about all the commotion going on around New Orleans. You have the people bitching at the American Government because most of the people who stayed behind were Black/poor/ill. Well, surely only the ill people had reason to stay behind and the Black/poor were just being lazy f*ckwits? If they had days to leave, then they could've at least made an effort to get to safety.

So, with that reasoning, one could say that the majority of people who stayed behind were stupid and this is just a form of natural selection. Meh.

Another reason why i'm not bothered is because America has been pissing off Mother Nature for quite a while now and this is shown through all the natural disasters Mother Nature hurls at them. Yes.

It does irritate me, however, how everybody jumped on the 'charity' band-wagon as soon as it involved a wave and some Asians who couldn't swim/forgot to put on their water-wings/lost their surfboards. But just because it's America everybody's all "Yeh...whatever". New Orleans has been seriously bent over a table and violated by Katrina...

...then again, it is just America, so yeh...whatever.

Well, maybe because the Asians affected were mainly poor people who lived in coastal shanties made out of plastic bags and aluminium spares? Western countries have huge contingency funds should anything go wrong. America has infrastructures that support these people. Maybe it doesn't seem like they're doing anything now, but how many Americans did you see criticizing Bush during the Florida hurricanes? A lot.

Apart from India and Thailand, the Asian nations affected were mainly poor and don't get any governmental assistance in rebuilding their homes and picking up the pieces of their shattered lives. Look at how many times San Francisco has been plagued by earthquakes. I'm sure if you went down a street in San Francisco now you wouldn't see any ruins or flattened buildings, everything gets rebuilt and redesigned to withstand the next potential disaster.

Maybe the destruction caused by Katrina is in the billions. I'm sure that in a few years time the victims will be living in homes again with water and electricity and such. The Asians needed charity. How would government money get to such remote areas and help ALL the people? In countries like that, it's impossible what with all the corruption. What I'm trying to say is that the US is one of the richest nations in the world and that the government will eventually rehome these people and do all it can to make sure life resumes as normal. The 'Asians who couldn't swim' needed charity. It'll be years before their lives ever resume normality. Their crops are destroyed, their livelihoods gone etc...

The UK and Taiwan will be giving monetary aid.

Israel will be sending a special medical team for those situation.

Mexico will be sending monetary aid, I believe.

Venezuela will be sending the special rescue team of Simon Bolivar to aid in rescue efforts.
Also: 'President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela - a major oil exporting country - said he had offered to send cheap fuel.

The state department has not decided whether to accept it.'

NATO will be organizing aid. And the UN is organizing the international community, with the experience of their organizations, to help people in the disaster area.

The UN seems to be useful to the US, doesn't it?

There's only one thing worse than a stupid American, and that's a stupid American who thinks he's being smart by bitching endlessly and long into the night about how "woe is me" the country is.

This guy is apparantly so nonplussed, so ANGRY about the state of affairs, that he's actually too busy venting his frustration on a website to be able to spare any of his free time helping these people. That's how mad he is. He's so mad that I bet he's pressing the keys in a REALLY angry way.

I'm so utterly fed up with people who make vague remarks about the state of "the machine" while sanctamoniously basking in the glow of their self created righteousness as they observe "the faulty system" as it, in their eyes only, comes crashing down around everyone's ears. As if by making this assertion they become instantly correct and all knowing, and may swim endlessly in lakes of liquified correctness. They don't cite anything to back themselves up, nor do they ever make a convincing argument, and even their point is fragile at best - but they don't need to go very far when making assertions and pro-their-cause rhetoric, because they're SO right in their mind. They're bitching for the sake of bitching, hating the US for the sake of hating the US - they know there's something wrong with it somewhere, because it's what they hear everyone else talk about, but they're too vapid and boorish to work out for themselves why they're so pissed off. So instead they just take every available opportunity to inform you quite sagely that things are bad, but not point out why exactly, as if you're expected to just agree with them and their position of assumed authority on the subject.

I'd like to know what exactly is so bad. And don't just tell me "oh such and such is bad" because I want proper, cited information. Not some bull that you've just made up because you think you know what's going on, and not some mediocre propaganda from a left-wing political party website either. What exactly is going so wrong?

I'm assuming your talking about me? (we must rap battle now, its the only way to solve our differences)

well I'll reply later, I've got some fun gardening work to do

edit: I'm not American (though I do have to live here until I graduate), Polish citizen and all that good stuff

You want information, you got it. I don't care if it's not cited...have you ever seen the show, Trailer Park Boys?

Because if they don't, the body sits straight up over time. They don't do it to bodies that are being creamated though.

You assume wrong - you quoted from a website, I'm referring to the author of the article you quoted.

Hah, I thought you had declared war on all that is Kuba. It does seem like the author is dancing on top of a giant tragedy (plus focusing on some rather rare occurances like rape), but then again...

From what I've heard/read the government has been refusing aid from all sorts of places, like search and rescue teams from Canada and Russia. The relief effort is amazingly disorganized and people are still getting killed. This did happen in one of the poorest areas of the nation, but people taking potshots at national guardsmen and aid helicopters is just ridiculous. Anyway its 1:30 and I should probably sleep before being dragged to church against my will

That is exactly what he's doing. These people who couldn't or wouldn't leave new orleans for whatever reason, are now dying, and he's happy about that because it makes him "right". He hasn't given an ounce of thought as to what is really going on, or why these people haven't left, or why things are going wrong - he doesn't know the reasons, he just assumes in his infinite wisdom that it must be something to do with "idiot America".

So yeah, fight the machine buddy, fight it from the lofty heights of the computer in your mother's basement.

It's so bizzare that this situation happened the way it did. We all knew that it was coming, but it was just ignored/badly planned. It looks like something you'd find in a third world country, not in the United States. What this tells me, is that, we're not ready for the things we should be. The war in Iraq has taken center stage, while what's important in our own country is pushed to the side. It's an illusion of safety, because what this has shown me is that the govenment is just as confused as the rest of us.

The goverment may be confused but definitely could've done more up to this point than it has. I heard they only sent troops yesterday...that's terribly slow and they could've been sent a lot earlier.

How do you know that "the government" is confused?

It probably involves a lot of planning and logistics to send the military into a disaster area.

And this "illusion of safety" is shattered because it takes a hurricane to make you realise that you're never safe from mother nature? Come on, it's a hurricane, fastest winds on earth, you can't launch anti terrorist missiles at it and make it go away. It's going to level everything, and there's nothing you can do about it. All you can do is try to evacuate as many people as possible, and if some people don't leave of their own accord well that's their problem isn't it? I don't see why the government should anticipate and have a contingency plan for stubborn morons. The people they'd be going in to help would be people who had the option of leaving but didn't.

Well, actually, the fastest winds on earth are a tornado. Just some small informing.

I really couldn't care less. To me a tornado isnt a "wind".

The whole hurricane thing sucked. New Orleans was a beautiful town. So much history, quite literally, down the drain.

Looting and whatnot sucks too. A testament to humanity, indeed.

The point is, we've known for so long, that New Orleans is a trouble spot. If a major hurricane is headed in that direction, relief should have been in place before hand. It shoudn't have taken as many days as it did, and they've admitted it themselves.

It's what happens after such a disaster, that I expect a higher level of competence and protection. The president doesn't even know what the hell's going on, though that's pretty much expected these days. After what happened on 9/11, you'd expect them to be better prepared for a large scale disaster, but it doesn't look like they've learned anything.

There were a lot of people that, for whatever reason were unable to evacuate (the poor, the ill, etc.). It does however suck that there were those stubborn morons, with the means to leave, yet did not. You have to realise that a lot of these people have children, who are not guilty of anything, they don't deserve to be left behind to die.

Better as hell not be the Karma thing again. However, the POW abuse in Iraq deserves justification.

Did you ever think that they couldn't afford to leave? All the public transport was taken, and even if they had a car, they were backed up everywhere. You could then argue they could have ran to safety or whatever, but since these places get warnings to evacuate every year when the hurricanes come and nothing much happens, it's easy to see why they thought 'Oh, it'll be alright'.

I agree that perhaps more could've been done before hand to prepare for the worst. But I don't really think you can compare 9/11 to a hurricane. They're completely different things, the latter being a HUGE strain on help and rescue services. If new york had been hit by a hurricane on 9/11, then the situation would've been far worse - a disaster area of 1km squared compared with a disaster area of 100s of km squared.

I find it interesting though that people are saying New Orleans is now effectively a dead city, and will remain abandoned forever. Anyone heard any more on this? Cause right now I'm sceptical at best.

I haven't heard anything about it being abandoned entirely... but I suppose I can see why some people wouldn't want to go back. They're will always be those who want to rebuild their homes, though. I can't imagine that there won't be at least a handful of people that will want to reclaim their former lives.

Regardless, if a city is built over the ruins of New Orleans, even if it is still called New Orleans, all of the historic architecture will still be lost. Suck.

The entire area is caked with raw sewage, rotting food and corpses, and chemical spills. It will cost in the hundreds of billions to make the place habitable and sanitary. Most of the people who lived there were poor anyway, now that everything is gone they have no real reason to return and probably wouldn't want to if given the chance. In my opinion New Orleans is dead, and its a horrible waste to rebuild it in the same way (they could at least move it a bit above sea level)

Yeah, I know, but I did anyway. :p

Right now there are less then a thousand people in the city (I think). The estimate I've heard is 9 months (until the city can be reinhabited), but it's probably too soon for those kinds of figures.

'Better as hell not be the Karma thing again. However, the POW abuse in Iraq deserves justification.'

Don't be Gay. If anything this is Karma for America being so f*cked up when it comes to pollution, it has nothing to do with the Browns. Hell, if anything, the Browns had some Karma kicking the sh*t out of them for being so vile and vindictive to women.

'Did you ever think that they couldn't afford to leave?'

Yes. But they're poor. So i don't care. They still could've walked. Regardless, who the Hell builds a city near water? With only enough Hurricane protection to protect against Mark 3 Hurricanes.

Let's face it. God is punishing the evil ones!

Well you're all going to burn in hell for using a computer too!

[/PA]

Individuals are affected by Karma, not entire countries, nations or peoples. Karma doesn't tend to affect people in life - it affects your next life.
So, a better way to put it would be that they are getting comeuppance for being 'bad' in their previous lives. Individually.
Naturally, Karma doesn't effect every event that happens in the world. Some are just chance.

I see. That was sort of what I meant. I mean the innocents who died in Iraq. Either way, I believe whenever something bad happens, something equally good happens too.