Steve please tell me you're not trying to counter my offensive with one news article? And one that doesn't even mention that the FEMA director himself has said that their response has been far from adequate. :honest:
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Steve please tell me you're not trying to counter my offensive with one news article? And one that doesn't even mention that the FEMA director himself has said that their response has been far from adequate. :honest:
seems like what steve is doing is what most republicans are doing - defending with attacks. squirt, i've really appreciated your extra research on this - i am so shocked when someone says something like "it's not the federal government's fault that the national guard is gone" or says it wouldn't make a difference, i go blank or cry.
our people are dying, starving and being raped and murdered by more of our desparate and angry people. the army was given less than half the money it said it NEEDED to keep those people safe, and now the equipment and people we need are not there because they are in iraq. and the money isn't there.
and bush supporters aren't admitting the facts. they are claiming that this is a local problem, when it isn't. they are saying "nothing would be any different if clinton were in office". this isn't a competition - this is the people in new orleans dying and living without support during THIS disaster. even if all other presidents did a terrible job, the only president in charge right now is bush. and the situation has been grossly mishandled.
their knee jerk reaction of defending the current government makes me sick to my stomach, and it makes me cry. do the bush supporters have no consciences whatsoever? do they not care about all those poor people at all? is the only important thing to pass the buck so that their party/president is shown not at fault?
I don't think I've ever seen Steve declare his political affiliation here or anywhere else? Why is it assumed he's a Republican?
We could all just run about the boards agreeing with eachother on every single aspect of every single argument so long as we're all sided against Bush and the Republican right, but I think his alternative perspective (alternative in relation to the vast majority of us) is a breath of fresh air.
It's like... you have these political threads on a gay webmaster board but for what purpose? To engage a discussion? Or for us all to just come in, post "HUZZAH! HUZZAH!" and move along on our merry way content in the notion we all agree with one another?
Steve could very well be a diehard democrat who just likes playing devil's advocate for sake of discussion. Or he could be a staunch libertarian. Or a card-carrying republican. Or have no party allegiance whatsoever and simply fashion his opinions on various issues based upon the research he's done and information he's gathered about that particular issue (as opposed to towing the party line and assuming that because such and such political party says so, that must be the position to take).
I'm not the least bit fond of Bush and love a Bush-bashing session just as much as the next guy. But we could play monday morning quarterback with every president on every decision that turned out to have been the wrong one since the nation was founded. I'd love a clairvoyant president just as much as the next guy but with all the decisions the nations leaders have to make, it doesn't surprise me when there's a fuck up. Especially when you throw a massive natural disaster in to the mix. I think there's a big difference between an intentional campaign to deceive the public (as I believe there was with Iraq) and simply droppin' the ball on an infrastructure project.
BDBionic - i could be wrong, and remembering the wrong guy, but i'm pretty sure that steve told us he was a republican during the elections - and explained to me things about being a republican that were actually positive. which was cool, actually. but if i have the wrong person, steve is still defending time and again a govenment which is allowing the people in new orleans to starve when we have food, to die in the streets. how can anyone defend something like this?
and he does it by saying that the local government is the responsible party or by blaming the local democrats, including people who have begged for funding for the levies for years.
this is not just dropping the ball here - which would be inexcusable anyway. it was specifically the white house that gave less than half the money to the army corps of engineers that they needed to build strong enough levies to keep new orleans safe. the national guard is in another country, even though their function was to keep us safe here. a lot of the equipment we need now is also in that country.
we should not have had resources taken away from this country and sent to another country. it's my personal opinion that our safety HERE should take priority over an offensive somewhere else.
our people should come first :(
Well I think there's a difference between defending something and addressing various factors that could have led to its existence. Sometimes issues aren't as simple as good vs. bad and right vs. wrong and there are infinite factors that contributed to the way things are today. It could be oversimplification to just up and say "It's Bush's fault New Orleans is so fucked". That's what I see Steve pointing out.
And it could have been me who you're thinking of re: being a Republican. I was a member of the Republican Party and eagerly active as such until the Bush Administration started leading us in to Iraq. That's when the flags went off in my head and I became a Bush-disliker. And know I've shared that here before and made posts of the like you'd mentioned.
And playing devil's advocate... those that supported the invasion or Iraq felt they were looking out for our safety here. That by invading Iraq we were going to prevent terrorists from striking us at home. That's the slogan upon which the entire invasion was based and through which public support for it was built up leading up to the invasion and for a good long while following it. Now, we know it's all bullocks now as many of us knew it was then. But a significant majority of this nations citizens felt invading Iraq was in the best interests of all of us at home. Despite having been built upon false premise and pretense, that was the intent of many when we invaded. So even "home vs. abroad" could be an oversimplification.
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Originally Posted by BDBionic
I like Steves input immensely. I like to be challenged as well. I like the fact Steve gives his opinion, and not only that, he backs it up with facts. Part of good debate is having and equally good opponent. I agree with Steve on a LOT of topics... I don't agree with Steve on this particular topic.
It's frustrating when someone is doing something wrong, and the people expressing themselves about it are accused of "bashing" the person. I'm an independent. I don't care what party line Bush, or anyone else, falls under. What I care about is my country, who is leading it, and what they are doing.
Notice I don't support D- Senator Landrieu on most of her platform, but I do support her work over the years to protect her people from natural disaster. I'm not a party hardliner, R or D.
Unfortunately this administration has been very good at demonizing people who disagree with them, and manipulating the public by intimidating the press, but now it's gone to far. Everyone is fed up, and now Bush is saying the response is not satisfactory... but of course, it will be someone elses fault.
When the national guard was stretched to it's limit the administration was warned months ago that we were stretched to thin, again this administration didn't listen to the people hired specifically to defend the interests of America, our best and brightest, ignored, again.
Nobody is Monday night quarterbacking, or second guessing, what has happened, a LOT of us have been posting about this for months, even years, now.. and here is the result. The man needs to answer for what he's done to our country.
they felt they were defending our safety because they were told we were, but it just ain't so. iraq was pretty much ignoring us when we decided they had wmd. they didn't - but we went anyway.
most of the people i know who supported this war believed that the taliban, afganistan, and iraq were all tied together. i still talk to war supporters all the time who feel it's a good thing we attacked iraq because of 9/11.
so basically they are supporting a war that is killing people and taking away our own protection because they believe something that isn't true.
you could say the war thing is an oversimplification, but, as far as the national guard specifically - their function is to protect us, not to be a fighting body away from here when we are not being in any way threatened.
Regardless of ones opinion on Iraq, it is our federal governments responsibility to maintain safety at home. Homeland security ( so apply named ) was merged with FEMA, by G. W. himself, to protect the interest of the American people on our soil.
I've paid a good percentage of my income, since the day I started working, to protect me in time of need, as have the people in the Gulf. Bush has taken that money and used it to take a dictator out of power, that his father put in power when he was President.
$500,000 a day is being spent in the Gulf right now with this relief effort. The army corp of engineers asked for $105,000 to fix the problems in New Orleans, they were denied. Now countless lives are lost and we are spending more money then ever imagined in the South.
Bush was golfing as oil prices reached new all time highs. Bush was on vacation while gas prices reached all time highs. Bushed stayed on vacation as the hurricane barreled towards the Gulf. Bush only left his vacation a few days AFTER the hurricane to "address the issues of this natural disaster"
My God this wasn't an unforeseen earthquake or tidal wave, this was a storm we saw coming for days. How hard is it to go to work when you see disaster headed right for your country? The man has taken the most vacation days in the history of the U.S. presidency, and this vacation ( 5 weeks ) was the longest presidential vacation in 36 years. SOURCE Why is it those of us who've called him out over the years are seen as the bad guys? I don't get it
um.. the figures in my last post were to be millions, not hundreds of thousands ooops :mental: $105 million and $500 million