anyone else pissed off at that rapper for saying bush doesnt care.....

[MCS]

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this is coming from a guy who has been listening to Atmosphere's new album for 3 days straight.

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Wow. That's a close decision, but I think if you play well postflop it's still +EV.

[Nightwish]

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Condie Rice and Colon Powell are about as familiar with the struggle of poor blacks as Paris Hilton. Besides, if you were Republican and you had a reputation for giving a rat's patoot about minorities wouldn't you scatter a few around the cabinet to deflect criticism? Don't beat up Bush too much though, he doesn't know any better. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain; Rove.

Kanye for President

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Your post gets my vote as the dumbest post ever made on 2+2....by far!

First, you have no [censored] clue what you're talking about when it comes to Condi and Powell. Both come from poor backgrounds. Take even a cursory look at either one's biography. Comparing them to Paris Hilton is ludicrous.

Second, what would you have said if Bush had placed no blacks in his administration? Given your open hatred of Bush (let me guess, you're a partisan Democrat who blindly hates any Republican, right?), you'd surely say that it was proof that Bush is racist. So, no black in administration = Bush racist. And blacks in administration = Bush racist too. Why don't you just say that Michael Moore or whatever loonie you worship told you that Bush is racist regardless of what he does and be done with it?

Finally, the thing with Rove is a wonderful conspiracy theory. Maybe you should write a book about it some day.

[beernutz]

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[ QUOTE ]
Condie Rice and Colon Powell are about as familiar with the struggle of poor blacks as Paris Hilton. Besides, if you were Republican and you had a reputation for giving a rat's patoot about minorities wouldn't you scatter a few around the cabinet to deflect criticism? Don't beat up Bush too much though, he doesn't know any better. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain; Rove.

Kanye for President

[/ QUOTE ]
Your post gets my vote as the dumbest post ever made on 2+2....by far!

First, you have no [censored] clue what you're talking about when it comes to Condi and Powell. Both come from poor backgrounds. Take even a cursory look at either one's biography. Comparing them to Paris Hilton is ludicrous.

Second, what would you have said if Bush had placed no blacks in his administration? Given your open hatred of Bush (let me guess, you're a partisan Democrat who blindly hates any Republican, right?), you'd surely say that it was proof that Bush is racist. So, no black in administration = Bush racist. And blacks in administration = Bush racist too. Why don't you just say that Michael Moore or whatever loonie you worship told you that Bush is racist regardless of what he does and be done with it?

Finally, the thing with Rove is a wonderful conspiracy theory. Maybe you should write a book about it some day.

[/ QUOTE ]

While I agree with you completely that the poster you are responding to is a complete idiot and is likely ignorant of the backgrounds of Rice, Powell, and West I am pretty certain that Condoleezza Rice's family was not poor but more properly described as middle class. Her father was a minister and guideance counselor in Birmingham when she was growing up and her mother taught music. They were friends, from what I've read, with some of the wealthier black families in Birmingham. I grew up in Tuscaloosa around the same time she lived in Birmingham so I think I have a pretty good idea of the type of conditions she grew up in. To say her upbringing and background is in any way similar to that of Paris Hilton is just about the most laughable and moronic thing I think I've ever read here on 2+2 and check my reged date.

[LittleOldLady]

OK, my house and car and every single thing I own except a few changes of clothing that fit in a small carry-on suitcase are currently lying at the bottom of many feet of disgustingly contaminated water, so I am in a position to say a few things on the subject.

Judging from his several early statements, the main thing that Bush cared about was the Colonial pipeline, the oil refineries, and Port Fouchon, the only place in the country where supertankers can unload. At least that's all he talked about early on. This at a time when many people were on their roofs desperate to be rescued. We in Louisiana knew very well about the importance of these installations to the country as a whole. That's why the Louisiana congressional delegation begged repeatedly for funds to combat coastal erosion--a plan which the Bush administration did not support. In fact, several days after the storm, Bush was asked if he now supports coastal erosion abatement, to which he answered that the problem was with the levees. The interviewer had to explain to him the role that coastal erosion played in the destruction of New Orleans and surrounding areas. But, shortly after the 17th Street Canal levee broke, Bush said, with his My Little Goat expression on his face, "Who knew the levees would break?" In Louisiana we ALL knew the levees would break. My conclusion: Bush was not knowledgeable about the problems posed by coastal erosion and an inadequate levee system, despite the bills introduced annually to address these problems, and really only cared about the effect of the storm on the oil and gas industry.

As far as what Kanye West said, there is no evidence that Bush cared about any people impacted by the storm until it became clear that it was political necessary to be seen to care.

The media with the help of Jesse Jackson made this into a race story. It isn't and wasn't. As Mayor Nagin, a creole of color himself, put it, it is a class story, not a race story. People of means who had a car in good condition and money for gas, hotels, and restaurant meals made it out of the city and the neighboring parishes in good order. They filled every hotel room from Louisiana to Tennessee and lots of homes owned by friends and family. This included blacks, whites, Asians, hispanics, and every other type of person in a cosmopolitan port city. People who could not drive out of the city and surrounding areas (the poor, the elderly, the disabled) stayed out of necessity. Many who could get out stayed by choice--because of their pets, because their neighborhood survived Betsy and Camille, and because they wished to guard their property from looters. Some of these people (mainly the poor, the elderly, and the disabled) went to the Superdome which was first opened as a specialneeds shelter for the disabled and then opened as a shelter of last resort for the general public. These people were predominantly poor and black, and the media concentrated on them because (a) the Superdome was physically accessible to the media and (b) because the journalists decided this was a race story. Down the street in the Convention Center it was a different story. The people packed in there included both an assortment of poor, elderly, and disabled New Orleanians and the tourists who were forced to leave the hotels. Most of the tourists were more or less well-to-do and white, and they were the ones at the mercy of the raping and pillaging. White, black, rich, poor, they all suffered together.

Now let's take St. Bernard Parish, the story you didn't see. St. Bernard Parish is almost entirely populated by working-class whites. To be honest, it is not a place that welcomes black residents, although there are a few black hamlets in lower St. Bernard. St. Bernard Parish was also 100% under water. Not a single St. Bernard resident has a home to go back to. Did you see on tv the throngs of working-class whites rescued by boat and brought to the Chalmette slip where they waited in vain for days to be brought out and where some died? The government was no more in a hurry to bring them out than they were to evacuate those in the Dome. But you didn't see that because (a) the complete inundation of St. Bernard precluded the camera crews from getting in and (b) the "story" was about poor blacks being neglected, not about working-class whites in similar straits.

New Orleans is a poor city and a majority African-American city. Therefore the majority of the people left in the city were poor blacks. The affected area as a whole is white-majority and working-to-middle class, so in fact more white working class people were stuck in destroyed homes with no power, food, or water than were poor blacks. Many of the houses owned by white people were destroyed by wind and falling trees,and the people in them were stranded without supplies because the roads were blocked by downed trees and powerlines. See, for example, Slidell, a well-to-do bedroom community east of the city which took the brunt of the winds. I can assure you that the government did not break its back rushing to save the white, upper-middle class Slidellians. Of course, many Slidell residents left, but those who stayed were in a fix....

As far as there being a plan that somehow local government failed to carry out, there was no such plan ever adopted. There were a number of plans propsoed on paper, but none was feasible, and hence none was adopted. The only exception to this was the contraflow traffic plan worked out after the horrible Ivan gridlock of last summer. This plan, which converts all interstate lanes to one-way out of the city and which includes a staged evacuation starting with lower Jefferson, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines, was put into effect after much wrangling (the Governor of Mississippi and the rural Louisiana sheriffs at first refused to particpate), and it more or less worked. Many more people evacuated for Katrina than evacuated for Ivan, and traffic, while very heavy, was not the nightmare it was for Ivan. Otherwise, the only plan for evacuating the poor, elderly, and disabled was the "buddy" system whereby those with extra room in their cars were urged to offer a seat to neighbors who would otherwise be stuck (that is how I myself got out). Also churches were encouraged to pair up with similar churches in safe areas and take out their elderly, poor, and disabled congregants in church vans/buses. That was it as far as the poor, elderly, and disabled evacuation went. Of course, that is totally inadequate, but everyone knew it.

When I first moved to New Orleans 25 years ago (I went through Betsy up in Pennsylvania and only watched Camille from afar as an employee of an insurance company), the Red Cross opened shelters provisioned with food, water, cots, generators, sanitary facilities, staff, security, etc., throughout the New Orleans metro area. A few years ago, the Red Cross decided it would no longer provide shelters south of I-12. That led to the first disaster of using the Superdome as the shelter of last resort for Georges in 1998. Since 1998, many ideas have been formulated for sheltering/evacuating those who can't get out by themselves, but none of them is feasible. That led to the second and much worse Superdome disaster of recent days.

[Richie Rich]

Actions (or lack thereof) speak louder than words.

btw- I'm white.

[benkahuna]

Thanks very much for sharing your story and information.