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poliphiloGeorge Bush reminds me of those useless late-18th century kings, George III and Louis XVI. He has no instinct for leadership; he has to be told what to do. "Say, Mr President, don't you think it would be a good idea if you flew down to the Delta and put in an appearance?" "Awww...do I have to?"
A natural-born leader would have been down there, mingling with the refugees, just as soon as it was safe to fly.
Sooner or later every dynasty throws up a man unsuited to the job.
George III was a successful farmer and Louis XVI had a talent for watchmaking and George Bush- if left to his own devices- would have cut the mustard (just)in the lower levels of middle management.
Did they tip the tea into Boston harbour for this? I think not.
A natural-born leader would have been down there, mingling with the refugees, just as soon as it was safe to fly.
Sooner or later every dynasty throws up a man unsuited to the job.
George III was a successful farmer and Louis XVI had a talent for watchmaking and George Bush- if left to his own devices- would have cut the mustard (just)in the lower levels of middle management.
Did they tip the tea into Boston harbour for this? I think not.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 01:44 am (UTC)I wonder where our friends and allies are. We rush around the globe trying to save people in every kind of disaster known, yet I have heard nothing about any help offered to us when we are in need. We send rescue workers and search dogs, food and clothing, blood and medical equipment, builders and engineers and reach into our pockets for billions of dollars and what do we get in return? Ridicule, spite, hatred and scorn. Sometimes I feel that we should just take care of ourselves for the next 50 or 60 years. We rebuild our former enemies into economic powers so they can shit on us when ever they get the chance. We have been the benevolent friend to the world for many years and have received nothing but a knife in the back in return. I say spend those billions of dollars that we give to people who hate us on trying to free ourselves of oil dependency.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 03:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 03:21 am (UTC)I think there may have been a certain reluctance to come forward because- hell- you're the richest, most powerful nation in the world and maybe you'd take offence.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 03:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 03:46 am (UTC)George Bush wouldn't even be an assistant manager at a local bakery. He has managed to screw up every single job he has had since he started, but Papa has enough money to keep buying him into bigger and better ones. He reached his level of incompetency just after birth, but unfortunately, his parents refused to accept that.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 04:11 am (UTC)I don't think it was until Tuesday that the magnitude of this disaster became apparent, and at that time Bush cancelled the remainder of his vacation to return to Washington. Once there, he set the wheels in motion for Wednesday night's passage of a $10 billion aid bill.
Leaving aside for the moment all questions of Bush's competence, I think that getting the aid flowing first, touring the region second is a pretty good set of priorities.
Folks who are getting their news from the national or international feeds might appreciate the reality check of logging onto http://wwltv.com .
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 04:14 am (UTC)Condoleeza Rice has thankfully accepted, on behalf of the nation, all offers of financial aid as well as other kinds of aid further out.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 04:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 05:02 am (UTC)the President is not a "natural born leader"
but now let us imagine in the chaotic and
impossible situation there that somehow a
wedge of security and support personnel and
the President push their way to the heart of
the problem and then extricate themselves ,
what will be the effect? Conceivably if
everything is done just right and goes
well that all those people waiting for
transportation out will be encouraged and
heartened... I can think of other possiblities
can't you?
There are people, even a perhaps small minority
but a significant number who are so politcially
polarized that any step the President takes
becomes the wrong one and any steps they can
imagine that he does not take becomes his failure,
this also factors in to the question of how such
a use of resources as to insert and extract the
President would go...
Condiser the example of what you have said yourself
going down to the delta becomes...not enough...
and is discounted before it happens as to any
good result...if he had not gone at all? Of course
this would be as bad or worse.
It is the normal application of politics but in a
situation which is intolerabe in so many ways, I
wonder if it is helpful?
and this is not to question precisely-you- on the
contrary your expression is ,as any from you, rather
reasoned and modulated ,one can find obviously much
less reasoned and less modulated expressions
everywhere and even it is then exemplary but still
it is to question this line of thought and its
helpfulness...
+Seraphim.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 05:27 am (UTC)There was a problem with Canadian aid getting here, because of Homeland Security. But I heard on the news this morning that 'help' was being accepted, even after the current President opened his mouth and inserted BOTH his feet. If I was France, or for that matter England, Russia OR Canada, after hearing what he said about not expecting any help 'but please send money' I would have taken any aid and recycled it back into the country.
I thought the tea was tipped into Boston Harbor so that this country could have a government selected 'by the people, for the people'.
The people who don't vote. The people who sit back and criticize but don't go to the polls and make their opinions known. The people who complain that nothing can be done - and then proceed to prove it by doing NOTHING.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 05:30 am (UTC)The article I'm mainly drawing on can be read in full here- http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090105Q.shtml
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 05:41 am (UTC)Yes in the past the US has sent aid to lots and lots of places. So has Canada. It's been less, but we have fewer citizens and less money all 'round. We do what we can.
Your news media, in the States, is not what I'd think of as an honest attempt at true reporting. I doubt there's as much interest in the story of Canada offering to help as there is in just about any human drama piece. So maybe you're not hearing about it, whil they're busy re-hashing the story of thousands of dead bodies and looting. It doesn't mean it's not happening.
My beef is not with the people of New Orleans, who are plainly suffering and dying because their government cared more about invading an oil-rich Middle Eastern country than it did about building up and supporting the infrastructure on its own soil. I don't hate the individual Americans, except insofar as they were blind enough to elect Bush in the first place, nevermind re-electing him.
From where I stand, your country is starting to look like it's sliding from 1st world to third, your system from democracy to tyranny, your infrastructure falling to pieces, your citizens suffering and dying. And I want to help; but there's only so much I can do. The rest lies in the hands of Americans, like yourself; because this didn't have to be such a huge tragedy. Your government let it become one.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 05:51 am (UTC)Gee. I wonder if he'll appear in front of the Convention Center, where the people are walking through dead bodies and watching each other die.
I think not.
One woman is in labor. God help her.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 06:01 am (UTC)But another President- Reagan or Clinton perhaps- would have been down there, doing the folksy thing and hugging survivors, and generally helping America to feel better about itself.
Bush has been an amazingly bad President and his administration bears some responsibilty for the poor state of New Orleans's sea defences and the inadequacy (thus far) of the relief operation. He has got away with a lot in the past because of the perception that it is unpatriotic to attack the President in time of War. He can't be allowed to use this new crisis as yet another shield.
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Date: 2005-09-02 06:06 am (UTC)If the people of europe had had a say in the US elections, Bush wouldn't have had a prayer- either time.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 06:13 am (UTC)If he does show up at the Convention centre I'll be mightily impressed. I think Clinton would have considered doing it. Reagan too.
Leadership is very much about gestures. About being at the right place at the right time, about saying the right things. The best Presidents have all had that instinct for the appropriate and inspiring.
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Date: 2005-09-02 06:38 am (UTC)This morning someone on the Today Show pinned down the head of FEMA, who finally admitted that it would be Sunday before the troops show up.
Unacceptable. Horrible.
The reporters are furious. They are asking hard questions, and those they ask say weakly, "Now, let's not point fingers..."
But NO ONE HAS COME.
I just saw a report on NBC news.
An NBC cameraman at the Convention Center talked with Katie Courick of Today Show. He said a man who was just one of the refugees had told him to come inside and take photographs of what was there.
He did, and showed them. He told Katie, I couldn't get aired half the stuff I saw. This is absolutely unbelievable.
He said the man told all the people that the cameraman was there to help
them, to get out the story. They were all eager and tried to cooperate.
Two people died WHILE HE WAS INSIDE.
He said Ray Coniff, Jr (a singer from New Orleans) was in town with NBC to do some Today stuff, and insisted on touring the Center with the cameraman, and he lost it and had to go outside.
I saw people who were at death's door. One old man dead under a blanket.
People just lying there, no hope. The toilets are filthy, overflowing. Trash everywhere. People have no medicine. Children have no milk.
Katie said, has anyone brought anything?
He said, they dropped some sea rations and water, as if to cattle, and the people ran out. He and others were saying, Make a chain!
He said, People need someone to COME DOWN HERE and talk to them.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 06:41 am (UTC)Jimmy Carter would be there, and he would be helping.
But then, Jimmy Carter wasn't a very good president. Or, so *they* say.
As far as instinct, Tony - the current President has surrounded himself with like minded 'handlers' so of course they aren't going to advise him to go out and do anything.
But those of us who sit here at our computers, we aren't doing anything either, I guess. This side of the problem is no place to complain, it's the time for us to see what we can do to help.
We need to preserve these pictures - remember the people who died and their bodies were stashed under and underpass, or the people who couldn't get dialysis and had her body left on a cardboard slab, or the woman who is going into labor. The man whose wife's hand was ripped from his, and left him with his children and NOTHING else. And even the people who had to leave their pets...I hope in such a situation I would have been able to get my pet out with me, I know I'd fight tooth and nail to do so but I also haven't been in that situation...all of them should be flashed on billboards from the time of the convention until the day AFTER the election. I know HE can't be reelected, but he has a brother who is up and coming. There's the current VICE president...and I don't care if he has been involved in Enron, I can't help feeling there will be people here who figure since he was 'with' the current President, he is okay...
Tony, I'm sorry for standing on a soapbox in the middle of your LJ. This week especially has sensitized me to how totally ineffective this government is and made me angry with the people who sit back and complain but don't vote. Anyone who voted FOR the man, well, at least they voted. Just because I disagree with them, they still did their bit for democracy.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 07:00 am (UTC)I think that a broad cross-section of Americans can shoulder blame for what happened in New Orleans. I also think that at this point finger-pointing is less important than drawing a variety of lessons so that something like this doesn't happen again.
What might those lessons be? One -- when New Orleans is rebuilt, how about a change in the building codes so that everything built has to be able to withstand a Category 5 hurricane? Two, when doing distater planning for a community where so many folks are in appalling poverty, we have to recognize the fact that at the end of the month they have no money left and cannot go out and purchase a five-day food and water supply to sustain their families in a place like the Superdome. That kind of food is expensive -- and the reality of the end of the month stretch just hit me this morning. I could go on and on, but it could be summed up by this: we need to have national conversations about two issues in relationship to each other, and those two issues are social justice and individual responsibility.
The National Guard was there and could have maintained order if it hadn't been fully occupied with search and rescue.
You are entitled of course to your opinion of our President
Date: 2005-09-02 07:14 am (UTC)our President and it is clear that were you an
American citizen you likely would not have voted
for him.
Every man must operate within the limits of what
he is and has to give. The Presidents you mention
such as Clinton, or Carter or Reagan, and all the
others we have had, have each had their limitations.
By and large all of them have tried to serve the
Republic and her people and some of course with
more honor than others, excuse me for becoming
sententious (sp? )...
A friend of mine who knew President Bush and also
John Kerry during shared academic days at Yale
and Harvard, said that the Senator read some of
the books the President should have but that seeing
them one saw that it was G W Bush who was becoming
a Mensch (a man, in the sense of a man of decency and
honor). There are other possible opinions, and perhaps
they are easy ones to be sure of at a distance...
I know also that with many people and perhaps with you
disagreement on the intervention in Iraq, which I also
did not think wise or necessary(in retrospect I would
say that ,having no access to alternate histories, we
will never know if it were for better or worse), and
this becomes the unstated background for jumping
at the President's throat as it were. This is not
of course what you have done because much less or
I expect not really at all are you projecting
into politics inner rage and despair
as one feels among a good many teenage livejournalists
whose discontent has obviously complex sources.
I have said too much but it is with respect and admiration
for your humane sense of things, I think you must be
a Mensch... but enough disquiet at your words here
to make this response as well as I could.
+Seraphim.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 07:16 am (UTC)This is America. This is the world's only superpower. And they can't fly the troops in till the weekend....?
I don't understand what's going on.
If an enemy launched a pre-emptive strike on the country, would it take till Sunday for the defending troops to show up?
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 07:20 am (UTC)The following is the result of an interview I just conducted via cell phone with a New Orleans citizen stranded at the Convention Center. I don't know what you're hearing in the mainstream media or in the press conferences from the city and state officials, but here is the truth:
"Bigfoot" is a bar manager and DJ on Bourbon Street, and is a local
personality and icon in the city. He is a lifelong resident of the city,
born and raised. He rode out the storm itself in the Iberville Projects
because he knew he would be above any flood waters. Here is his story as
told to me moments ago. I took notes while he talked and then I asked some
questions:
Three days ago, police and national guard troops told citizens to head
toward the Crescent City Connection Bridge to await transportation out of
the area. The citizens trekked over to the Convention Center and waited for
the buses which they were told would take them to Houston or Alabama or
somewhere else, out of this area.
It's been 3 days, and the buses have yet to appear.
Although obviously he has no exact count, he estimates more than 10,000
people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still
waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the
last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge
above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the
ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop. Many people
tried to catch the supplies to protect them before they hit the ground. Some
offered to walk all the way around up the bridge and bring the supplies
down, but any attempt to approach the police or national guard resulted in
weapons being aimed at them.
There are many infants and elderly people among them, as well as many
people who were injured jumping out of windows to escape flood water and the
like -- all of them in dire straights.
Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at
gunpoint. Hour after hour they watch buses pass by filled with people from
other areas. Tensions are very high, and there has been at least one murder
and several fights. 8 or 9 dead people have been stored in a freezer in the
area, and 2 of these dead people are kids.
The people are so desperate that they're doing anything they can think of
to impress the authorities enough to bring some buses. These things include
standing in single file lines with the eldery in front, women and children
next; sweeping up the area and cleaning the windows and anything else that
would show the people are not barbarians.
The buses never stop.
Before the supplies were pitched off the bridge today, people had to break
into buildings in the area to try to find food and water for their families.
There was not enough. This spurred many families to break into cars to try
to escape the city. There was no police response to the auto thefts until
the mob reached the rich area -- Saulet Condos -- once they tried to get
cars from there... well then the whole swat teams began showing up with
rifles pointed. Snipers got on the roof and told people to get back.
He reports that the conditions are horrendous. Heat, mosquitoes and utter
misery. The smell, he says, is "horrific."
He says it's the slowest mandatory evacuation ever, and he wants to know
why they were told to go to the Convention Center area in the first place;
furthermore, he reports that many of them with cell phones have contacts
willing to come rescue them, but people are not being allowed through to
pick them up.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 07:29 am (UTC)I think Bush is a very bad president. And in some ways worse than others I have hated in the past. Nixon, for example, was an SOB, but at least with Nixon you got the impression that the guy knew what he was doing.