A 2.7 trillion budget and we can’t rebuild one of our major cities?
Shortcomings in aid from the U.S. government are making New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin look to other nations for help in rebuilding his hurricane-damaged city.
Nagin, who has hosted a steady stream of foreign dignitaries since Hurricane Katrina hit in late August, says he may seek international assistance because U.S. aid has not been sufficient to get the city back on its feet.
“I know we had a little disappointment earlier with some signals we’re getting from Washington but the international community may be able to fill the gap,” Nagin said when a delegation of French government and business officials passed through on Friday to explore potential business partnerships.
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Yes, don’t forget, “God wants us to rebuild New Orleans”.
By all means Mayor Nagins. Have at it. Perhaps “god” also intend you to go to those Frenchies. Perhaps Bush won’t dynamite the levees next time around. The man is pathetic.
Dugger… They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in Heaven? Or is he in Hell? Or is he in Narleans? That damned elusive Pimpernel …
Hmm. That’s an interesting notion.
Maybe we could convince the French to take it back. Conservatives won’t have to spend any money rebuilding the city and liberals gain an oasis of Gallic culture.
whoops, sorry, wrong thread…..!
Of course cons would love to forget about New Orleans. Good riddance to bad rubbish, right? The fact remains that this tradegy was 10X worse than 9-11 and yet the response is so minimal. See if we actually had some sort of enemy…. Oh yeah, Reagan already defeated the poor awhile back and they have been forgotten ever since. I mean we have terrorist to kill and we can’t be bothered to do anything else. Life and reality stopped after 9-11 so we can hunt down islamafacists(sarcasim). I say go to England, France, Germany or who ever else actually gives a rats ass about our country because this White House doesn’t care. I take this issue very personal because it is my “hometown”. Not even Bush’s dad sucked this bad when it came to taking care of the homeland, which is pretty pathetic. Who gives a rats ass about Nagin’s personality? If it feeds your pathetic snipes about the issue, Nagin was a Republican who ran as a Dem. He has been a dumbass regardless of party. Can you people even take this issue seriously? I say he lobbies any nation willing to help and embarass the hell out of this White House and shame them for Bush trying to save his ass. GWB couldn’t even talk but for a second about Katrina in his State of The Union but can only think about Familia Bush uber alles. When government or the American public can’t be bothered to stop thier lives and give a crap, an action like this would show how callouse and decadent we are as a nation and POSSIBLY get somebody to take some action.
Ollie, I will repeat my question for you since you dodged it in another thread….
“But how do you get a warrant on a phone number when you don t know who is on either end of the line? Again, SEAL operator in Afghan gets a number off a computer. We tap the number and hear someone named mohammed in Kabul talking to Achmed in detroit. Well, the phone number goes to a guy named chuck jones .
How do I get a warrant, even two days in retrospect? I don t necessarily have probable cause, I don t know the names of either parties, and I don t know their nationalities. All I know is that an E-4 SEAL found the number on an Al Qaeda computer& .”
Can any of you explain how you would get a warrant under these conditions?
Take Nagin out of the equation.
Are you seriously arguing that we shouldn’t rebuild New Orleans?
This seems to be a trend- France potentially helping New Orleans, Venezuela helping our low-income people with heating oil in the Northeast, pretty pathetic that we can’t won’t provide anymore and have to have handouts from other countries.
But I guess Paris Hilton having a 7 figure tax cut is more important, right?
O Dub,
Cool it!
Paying off Bush’s benefactors ain’t cheap … $2.7 trillion will only go so far.
I’m sure if Paul Bremer Construction or Brent Wilkes Remodeling were available for work in NOLA … then we could start talking.
If you really care about rehabilitating New Orleans, you can drag your bleeding liberal ass on down there, and help out, while I’m shipping out for Iraq, OK?
Ever hear of the free market? You can have ten countries invest in New Orleans, and it would be better for them than a snow storm of governent checks, which will be partially — we hope — wasted on corruption and bureaucracy.
Besides, some people are making money:
http://tinyurl.com/8eol4
Rebuild New Orleans exactly as was? Uh… no. Do that and you’ll get the exact same result. Problem is, the one area that has to go (according to engineering and elevation standards) is the 9th Ward. And I can only imagine the outcry from Democrats, this site included, if that plan were ever broached. I can see it now: “David Duke’s Dream come True…”
In addition, we’ve already seen (on a local level) how throwing money at the problem without a hard plan makes things worse, not better. FEMA Trailer parks are popping up in direct violation of zoning ordinances and the same corrupt officials who built a shoddy levee system are lining their own pockets instead of fixing the problems they themselves caused.
Show me a feasible plan. Or else one cent shouldn’t be budgeted, much less spent.
Frank,
I went down and helped so I suggest you take your foot out of your gigantic mouth. Strip clubs? YOu are a truly despicable human to deflect the issue of people making money by siteing strip clubs. Farris and you have shown your true colors. “Who gives a shit? I’m going to IRAQ” or “Hey if there isn’t a sollution that I like right away, well… I don’t give a shit either” I suppose letting the city twist in the wind is better? This shows what neocons believe– If it doesn’t concern you personally, then you really don’t give a crap. Simply reprehensible.
Oliver wrote “[A]re you seriously arguing that we shouldn t rebuild New Orleans?”
What do you mean by ‘we’? The Federal Government isn’t “we”. It’s a thing, an institution, like the girls scouts, the army, or the PTA.
You start your post saying “take Nagin out of the equation” when your post consisted of a story on Nagin saying the Federal government isn’t giving him what he wants, and concluding with a long direct quote from Nagin saying that he may have to go to foreign sources for moolah because he thinks the feds aren’t spending enough. You made this about Nagin, not your commentors.
That $2.7 Trillion sure would buy an awful lot of chocolate!
Wanna rebuild New Orleans? Then how about a massive dredging program to lift the parts of the city under sea level. Raze the structures in the 9th ward, fill it in with dirt, and rebuilt on top of it. Then you won’t have the cereal bowl effect. It’ll cost a lot of money but not too much. It’ll employ a ton of people and it’ll get the economy moving again, especially for people who were displaced in the 9th ward. If you think this sounds hokey, the city of Chicago raised every building in the downtown to put in underground sewers. And that was in the 1870s. If they can do it with 1870s technology, they can certainly do it today.
I see.
Government “of the people, by the people, for the people” may not have perished from the earth, but it has apparently perished from the party of Lincoln.
C’mon Quaker–do you really think that the collective overrules the moral vision of an individual? Isn’t that one of the reasons the Friends fled Europe? When did Quakers begin to believe that the government in Washington had a more Christ like approach to solving social problems than people had themselves? Next thing you know you’ll begin to refer to individuals in the 2nd person plural instead of the 2nd person singular and you’ll grow a mustache. At the end you’ll beg your congressman to help you enroll your kids at West Point.
White Whale, you do realize I live in South Louisiana, right?!? This DOES effect me personally!!!
“Ollie, I will repeat my question for you since you dodged it in another thread& .”
Pedro, of all people, you should not be criticizing people for dodging a question. Any progress on why you decided to lie repeatedly in another thread regarding WMD? You’ve had a few days to think about it.
Specious?!? Hardly. The 9th Ward was below sea level when they built it.
“Do I think that farmer in Iowa working 12 hour days should have to work harder to repair a city in Louisiana? No.”
Congratulations, Dugger you’ve just dissolved the bonds of society. Next time this farmer needs a farm subsidy or heating assistance or any federal money for anything, including the interstate he uses, he can just forget getting any help from me. If a tornado wipes out his town, oh man, is he ever on his own.
I’d also like to congratulate you on the most specious analogy of the year:
“If decided to build a million dollar house in an avalanche zone and it happens - should I expect other citizens to rebuild my house?” Way to go, you won the award and it’s only February.
There’s a big difference between a million dollar vanity house built in the Malibu hills, let’s say, and an entire neighborhood of low-income residents that was first established in 1852. Dugger knows this, and so do you save, but neither of you care. In Dugger’s American it’s everyone for themselves regardless of means. Following Dugger’s logic everyone living in California, millionaire or no, should be shit out of luck for federal assistance if an earthquake leveled Los Angeles or San Francisco. Why the hell did anyone in Florida get hurricaine or rebuilding assistance, the whole state is in a high risk area for Hurricanes?
Dugger, your logic can be extended beyond the realm of natural disasters and applied to any governmental endeavor.
If I decided to stage an invasion predicated on a neocon fantasy of empire and it doesn’t, as promised, pay for itself - should I expect citizens to pay to clean up the mess?
Quaker, Unusually for you, that was devoid of logic.
My point addresses the moral responsibility of citizens to look after themselves and not force via government coercion, other citizens to support their, many times, poor and foolish decisions - i.e., the house built in an avalanche zone. Note the issue proposed here is the rebuilding of an entire city - a city that is very much disaster prone. Why shoulf d the Iowa farmer of the LA street kid delivering pizza have to pay for this. If Louisiana or those fabulous Frenchies (though with thousands of their citizens dying during heat waves, one would think….) wants to do it - have at it.
Dugger
Wow.
You read a lot into my comment. Too bad that none of what you impute to me is included in what I wrote.
I was responding to stick’s assertion that the government is not “we,” but is an external entity that acts contrary to the will of the people. You got that much, right?
stick’s assertion contradicts Mr. Lincoln’s elegant hopes for the future of the nation.
Now then, are you really interested in discussing my opinions on the proper relationship of the collective and the individual? Or were you just straining to invent a point from which you could launch your rhetorical gambit?
From the article: “The Bush administration has pledged billions of dollars to Katrina victims but five months after the storm, New Orleans remains largely in ruins.”
Does this mean the money has not come to New Orleans, or does it mean that billions of dollars have come, but that is not enough?
It would help if we knew which, don’t you think?
The story is a non - starter of the “if we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we… ?” variety…
It wouldn’t matter if the budget were $2.7 quadrillion. What matters is: What is the money for? Who will have control of it? How will it be audited? How much money will be devoted to renovating the levee system, as opposed to how much rebuilds homes, and resupplies families that lost everything?
Your mental masturbation concerning Iowa corn farmers, and the “good guy” liberals vs. the “bad guy” conservatives is all b.s.
Nobody doesn’t want to help the people of New Orleans or restore one of the most beautiful cities in the world to its original splendor. What they don’t want to do is fill the coffers of the Louisiana Democratic Party, or keep incompetent incumbents in office.
{Aside to White Whale — save your righteous indignation for when Quincy makes a comeback. While you struggled mightily to insert “reprehensible” into your comment, it was a waste of time — the bit about the strip club came from the same issue of the Times - Picayune, and was an attempt at humor. BTW, it’s “citing” as in “mention: make reference to”; using “siteing” could be seen as despicable, or, perhaps even reprehensible.}
As does mine.
No, yours addresses the repsonsibility of fellow citizens to look after hteir fellow man - not themselves. You would have the govrnemnt force other citizens to relinquish sweat equity to support the rebuilding of a faulty city.
Dugger
Really?
I thought I was saying that if we follow your plan and disconnect ourselves from one another, “looking after ourselves” as you put it, then I want to opt out of our global adventures.
Personally, I’d rather rebuild New Orleans than rebuild Bagdad.
…vaguely familiar…can’t put my finger on why….
Frank,
I thought Ian was the only 16 year old on this blog? You are proving my point with every post. Not only do you not give a shit, but you mock the tragedy this has caused my family and point out that my spelling errors are a travesty? I seriously don’t want to know what is reprehensible in your book, because you find this whole issue to be a joke. It is no struggle to point out how disconnected you are from reality, as seen by your petty reaction to my post. Not only were you being a smart-ass in your response, but your also butt-hurt because you don’t have the slightest clue and I called you out. Even in the face of tragedy the only thing you can worry about is building up the Democratic Party inadvertently. Face the fact that rather than demand action from EVERYONE, you would rather dismiss this issue because it is not of your concern
“…why the Life Insurance Companies pay death- forfeitures upon immortals; in what eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all the dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city.”
Quaker wrote-
“I was responding to stick s assertion that the government is not we, but is an external entity that acts contrary to the will of the people.”
And this conflicts with my reprentation of your views how? You’re no kind of Quaker I’ve ever heard of — you endorse the state’s control over individual conscious unless it goes contrary to what you happen to believe.
Yeah, White Whale, did you have money invested in this year’s Mardi Gras? What do you think, you care more than me? So what, if we were having a “Who cares most about New Orleans?” contest you might win. Big deal.
But that is not what it’s about. We’re not trying to fill in the thermometer outside Girl Scout Troop HQ. This is a multi - billion dollar emergency restoration project — it goes well beyond disaster and well beyond repair.
I don’t need any instructions or hoary (and that is spelled properly) quotations from Wilkie Collins’ “Woman in White” [I can read, too] to help me understand or appreciate that.
You think you “called me out”? Get over yourself, Moby, you’re just another lefty with an “I care so much, I must be special” attitude. Well, I don’t think you’re special. And I don’t think it proves anything to anybody to risk wasting hard - earned tax money on such a massive undertaking without taking care and watching every penny closely. How would you feel if hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent all around you, but not for you and your problems? Would that change your tune?
And the fact that “building up the Democratic Party inadvertently” bothers you not one whit, only tells me that you are not thinking about this problem, not at all, but are responding more like a hysterical old woman, “Somebody do something! Somebody do something!”
You’re making stuff up. Nothing I have written provides a basis to reach your conclusion.
Frank,
Wrong quote, but please by all means keep up the invective. Please keep making jokes about the situation and also presume that I am trying to prove something.LOL! Your tax-money spent doesn’t float with me period. I know it steams conservatives, but not me in particular. I will submit to you that I do not want money going directly to a party, but again you miss the issue, because your political gripe is like you said– Filling a Girl Scout thermometer? Just sit on the sidelines and “count” pennies and go back to what you seem to do best: Not give a shit. I am absolutely ok with this fact now, aren’t you? I won’t quote Melville anymore in this post, but will reinterate: You are obviously butt-hurt and a grown man like yourself could conduct himself better than say… a hysterical old woman.
Have a nice day Frank the Tank,
White Whale
Oh and by the way, I don’t think I should have to pay for rebuilding Iraq. Bush broke it, make him pay for it. Who can I call to make sure my tax money doesn’t go to Baghdad?
“You would have the govrnemnt force other citizens to relinquish sweat equity to support the rebuilding of a faulty city.”
Dugger you would dissolve the very social compact that holds this society together. If a farmer in Iowa shouldn’t have to help his fellow citizens in New Orleans, why the hell should I have to pay for his farm subsidies, it’s not my fault he chose a line of work that doesn’t pay. Hell, why should anyone who doesn’t live in New York City have to pay for rebuilding the nation’s most important metropolis? I didn’t tell any of those people to work and live near a symbol of Western financial power and influence. This is typical of conservative thinking. For the Right Wing it’s every person for themselves. WE on the left recognize that WE, no matter who WE are or where WE come from, are all in this together.
White Whale, you’re right about one thing — I shouldn’t try to correct you. You are obviously deeply involved in addressing an issue I have not raised — actually, more than one.
Your lack of understanding is not my problem, just as whether or not I “care” about the people of New Orleans is not yours.
Whine to your left wing pals; they feed off that crap.
Quaker,
I’d rather rebuild neither. Let the Narleanionians rebuild Narleans and the Baghdadaddys’ rebuild Baghdad. Maybe if either has to rebuild it out of their pockets, they ‘ll look after it better next time.
Dugger
OK, I can comprehend the logic of “Don’t build your city below sea level in the path of hurricanes,” but I don’t think the Iraqis knowingly put their city (6,000 years ago) where they knew we might someday want to drop some bombs.
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