<p>I didn’t even see this little gem at first. Higherlead, who do you think is going to be un-informed enough to believe this piece of nonsense?</p>
<p>It’s an urban legend that New Orleans wasn’t reachable by road, one easily debunked by media accounts of the people who left New Orleans in commandeered school and RTA busses after the floodwalls collapses.</p>
<p>Why would you think people couldn’t use those same roads and bridges to get in? Do you live in some strange alternate reality where roads lead only away from town?</p>
<p>The bridges that were passable: Hwy 11 in NO east; I-10 Causeway in the West; the I-55 spillway from the North; and the Crescent City Connection leading to Hwy 90 and ultimately to Houston, a path many took to safety.</p>
<p>“But FYI, we did use the bridges to get people out. Over a million from SE Louisiana. The Superdome became the last resort only after the floodwalls failed.”</p>
<p>OH WAY TO REWRITE HISTORY. Only problem is people were herded into the Dome before the strom hit not after the floodwalls failed. I know because I was screaming at my TV and computer when I was watching those poor suckers herded in. Whuy was I so interested before the storm hit? Had to do with the fact I have a kid going to school in NOLA and wasn’t sure where he was, how he was getting out of town, or where he was going.</p>
<p>The last trains left NOLA empty because the mayor said they didn’t need them. Most the school buses drowned in their parking lots because why get people out of harms way when there was the dome? The National Guard wasn’t called out in any significant numbers. The cops were busy looting the Cadillac dealership if they hadn’t already abandoned their posts. The governor was totally clueless and had no plan, no idea what was going on, no way of communicating with local leaders in the affected counties, and no willingness to sign away any of her authority so the feds could do anything. Later she would block people from leaving the East Bank over the interstate bridge and have the state police block a Red Cross relief convoy from going in via I-10.</p>
<p>Go ahead with your idiotic Dail Kos inspired hate spin but I do know what went on in New Orleans and how monumentally incompetent and unconcerned and uncaring the local authorities were. If this were China most of them would have been lined up and shot. Instead they are allowed to spew hate filled disinformation for thew basest of political motives.</p>
<p>The people and more importantly the local and state authorities knew the floodwalls and levees and pumps were built to protect against a category 3 storm. Katrina was Cat 4 when barreling towards the coast and only weakened to cat 3 at the last minute. Don’t give me the bull that if they only knew the shoddy engineering. They expected a bigger storm and didn’t care in addition they did know there were problems all around the 350 miles of levees protecting the city.</p>
<p>Tell me this conyat which Louisiana congreemen earmarked the money for MRGO? Which congressmen earmarked the money for the locks on the industrial canal. These were local choices no Army Corp choices. The Corp works on the stuff the local congressmen want. Everybody knows how this system works.</p>
<p>“I wonder if all the people who thought it was acceptable for black people in New Orleans (which was all they saw on their TVs) to die of dehydration will feel the same way about Iraqis?”</p>
<p>You are right that is all the media show unfortunately the stats don’t bear that picture out? Interesting that huh? The deaths from katrina mirrored the cities racial makeup. Democratic politician don’t care any more about old white people than the do about Black people - heck they are guaranteed to get their votes if they happen to reside in a local cemetery.</p>
<p>I am tired of sitting here listening to this hate filled partisan BS spewing from you Far Left loonies. We are not going to make any progress in this country until you folks are exposed for the haters that you are and expelled from your own party.</p>
<p>higherlead, you’re telling fairytales about “all the bridges were wrecked” and “people expected federal help within hours of the storm passing.” Between that and the racial and sexist epithets you spewed in your first post–I think we all know what’s happening, and who the hater is.</p>
<p>Tell me, higherlead, are you still hostile to battered women’s shelters? Do you still insist that it’s better for a woman to experience violence at the hands of a man than to seek safe haven at a battered women’s shelter?</p>
<p>You know, there is always plenty of blame to go around. But if politicians fail on a local level (and I’m not saying they did) is it unreasonable to expect the Feds with their greater resources to be competent and step in?</p>
<p>As for local/Fed split it was quite offensive in our locality (NY) to have Bush show up at Ground Zero and make political hay out of that when the Feds did nothing here and the Fed. reaction to rogue planes was non-existent. NYers will never get over a Republican president telling NY to “drop dead”. Many of us saved those headlines.</p>
<p>As for hatred, your post is feverish and vituprative. I don’t thinking calling people “loonies” is any kind of love fest.</p>
When the country has been wrecked by the so-called president your support, there’s lots of room for anger. But anger, while motivating, is insufficient. As dear departed Brownie liked to say, elections are fun. May you enjoy 2008 even less than you enjoyed 2006 and spend the rest of your life in electoral irrelevancy.</p>
As of today 3699 US dead in Iraq. Life is shorter for some than for others.</p>
<p>The anger is because the disaster that is this administration is going to have consequences for decades. The trillion dollars wasted, the Jihadists mobilized, the loss of the support of the rest of the world, the polarization of this country - this is the legacy you have left for my children. And the dead-enders and enablers just keep spewing cliches: “Fight 'em there, or they will follow us home”,“More boots on the ground” etc. etc. </p>
<p>Now that Gates says that the political progress is not happening, that we should begin to plan for leaving, is it still “cut and run”?</p>
<p>This kind of personalized hate is far more frightening to me than anything the “bushies” or the “neocons” have done. May I remind you that your major candidates (with the exception of Obama) voted for this war. Your party also chose to support the surge (Schumer so elegantly predicting the following Sunday that it would be a failure notwithstanding).</p>
<p>There is more than enough blame to go around. Your hate is irrational. Oh, and btw–don’t be surprised if your anger so blinds you to reality that you lose the next election.</p>
A predictable self-deluding response. They voted for the war based on “intelligence” selected and concocted by the neocon cabal that had Iraq regime change on its agenda from day 1. There was not majority support for any surge, but the opposition was not veto-proof.</p>
<p>This is your war. You started it, you own it. We pay for it.</p>
<p>Oh yes, The Big Lie Theory. The theory Hillary didn’t even bother to check up on before voting for the war.</p>
<p>Guess it never occurred to Bush and his brilliant neocon cabal that they would be found out eventually, huh. </p>
<p>Oh yes. And Tony Blair is a blazing idiot also for going along with the war, huh.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again–the personalizing so typical of your side in these discussions. Why is this hate any different from hate shown to other groups? It amazes me how some hate is accepted, even lauded, by so many here. I don’t want to put people like this in charge of my country–thanks anyway.</p>
Absolutely. An opinion shared by most of his countrymen.</p>
<p>As for the “hate”, it would be laughable, were it not so pathetic, that it is now decried by the side represented by the likes of O’Reilly, Coulter, etc.</p>
<p>Let’s make sure everyone understands I don’t hate anyone, and saying I do doesn’t make it so…</p>
<p>Is indiscriminately calling people hate mongers, hateful?</p>
<p>Read what the rightwing says about people, especially what they have to say about non-WASPs, listen to their heroes on talk radio, and tell me who the hate mongers are.</p>
<p>“A predictable self-deluding response. They voted for the war based on “intelligence” selected and concocted by the neocon cabal that had Iraq regime change on its agenda from day.”</p>
<p>Excuse me, but the so-called “intelligence” was selected and concocted in the Clinton/Tenet lies of January/February 1998 as a coverup for the Clinton genocide. Virtually every “experienced” Democrat took it, hook, line, and sinker. Tenet continued the Big Lie under Bush, and, as he had already sold it once, when Bush asked him whether he could sell it again, Tenet claims at that point he told Bush “it is a slam-dunk.”</p>
<p>The question for Hillary is whether she refused to check up on the so-called intelligence before voting for war and the continuing aggressive, hostile occupation because she was in on the Big Lie, or because she was simply inept and too busy. I strongly suspect the first, which is why she can’t apologize.</p>
<p>Okay. We can leave the politicians and the who did what when rhetoric aside for just a moment. Why would anyone here take a position supporting this war when it’s clearly been such a disaster?</p>
<p>Caring passionately about the tragic death of innocent people JUST LIKE US is not hatred; caring passionately about the misguided continual cutting of social programs and support is not hatred; caring passionately about viciously having one’s patriotism questioned because one is a “liberal” is not hatred; caring passionately about the callous denial of basic human and civil rights to Guantano detainees is not hatred; caring passionately about the terrifying erosion of civil rights for American citizens is not hatred; caring passionately about the increasing unConstitutional presence of conservative religious sentiments in government policy is not hatred; caring passionately about the cynicism of two stolen elections is not hatred. It’s born of some anger yes, but more of love and grief.</p>
<p>“Okay. We can leave the politicians and the who did what when rhetoric aside for just a moment. Why would anyone here take a position supporting this war when it’s clearly been such a disaster?”</p>
<p>First of all, the war ended in 2003. So the question is why anyone would support the continuing aggressive, hostile occupation? I can easily think of at least nine reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li>As bad as it is, leaving would make things worse, and we have an obligation to those Iraqis we haven’t yet killed or who haven’t gone into exile.</li>
<li>As bad as it is, if “they” aren’t shooting at us “there”, they will shoot at us here (hence, we need to continue to maintain our suicide death squads in Iraq.)</li>
<li>If we leave, the training ground for our enemies will increase.</li>
<li>If we leave, we lose all leverage over the third biggest known oil reserve in the world, and it will likely fall under the influence of “our enemies” in Iran.</li>
<li>If we leave, the “entire region” will become unstable, Iran will end up in a war with Saudi Arabia.</li>
<li>If we leave, American corporations - and hence American workers - will suffer greatly.</li>
<li>If we leave, it will be another victory for Islam.</li>
<li>If we leave, hopes for democracy in the Middle East will diminish.</li>
<li>If we leave, we will have a reputation for abandoning our allies.</li>
</ul>
<p>I don’t agree with ANY of these reasons. But in varying degrees, I have heard cases made for all of them - by Democrats and Republicans alike.</p>
<p>Every person who does not share your views is not a clone of O’Reilly and Coulter. Ever since I joined this bb over a year ago, that’s all I’ve heard. Actually, all it does is show your own limitations, as does the question: “why would anyone here take a position supporting this war when it’s clearly such a disaster?” </p>
<p>Several recent polls have actually shown that the population is moving more and more each day toward the belief that we can achieve success in Iraq. No matter: you’ll just dismiss all these people as brainwashed “right-wingers.” It’ll come back to bite you–and that’s fine by me. </p>
<p>Taking a peak outside the echo chamber occasionally might be helpful; however I don’t think you will because I think you get off on your anger. The self-righteousness of it all gives you your own little daily high.</p>
<p>Several recent polls have actually shown that the population is moving more and more each day toward the belief that we can achieve success in Iraq. </p>
<p>Please tell me where I can find these poll so that I may read them for myself.</p>
<p>However, HH, you really are reaching to suggest as you have that there’s some kind of amazing upsurge of support for this. Most of the upsurge coincided with a dramatic increase of Bush’s reiterating the notion that Iraq and Al Qaeda always were linked and acted in concert. He himself admitted before this was a lie, but now he just debases himself because that’s all he has. If Bush can get 6-7% of the hothouse flowers out there to get more supportive of the war for a day, apparently these lies are worth it.</p>
<p>Overwhelmingly, the populace of our nation thinks it was a bad idea to have gone to Iraq and thinks it has not gone well. A superficial blip doesn’t change the long-term trends and realities.</p>