Truth

1 - The US is once of the most advanced nations on earth with trillions of dollars in tax and social revenue, a large military and a population of 500,000,000. There are countless boats, helicopters, jets, etc in the South alone. The tragedy has not happened in deep dark Africa or in the middle of India...this is southern USA. How on earth have these people not been rescued?!

2 - Why does it always fall on Joe Public to offer the bulk of the help. I admire and respect the people who have donated money and opened their homes to let strangers sleep in their guest rooms. But why can't the hotels offer their vacant rooms? There are enough motels and hotels in Houston alone to house a good percentage of the homeless. Similarly, we are emotionally blackmailed into offering pennies and bucks to the Red Cross, yet if just a handful of the oil corporations offered 10% of their 2005 reveneues, there would be enough billions to fund the relief effort with ease. This is an indictment of where we stand in Corporate America. It is the little perople with the biggest hearts who are fighting to solve this, while the big companies are doing very little.

3 - How can the US military go into intense wars in such terrifying locations as the Vietnam jungle, Iraqi deserts and Russian winters...yet be intimidated by a few desperate snipers in New Orleans? Something is not adding up here.

4 - Why are volunteers, blankets and food openly being refused?

5 - Why has the response been so slow? Why were the warnings and pre-hurricane activities so slow and deemed as a low priority?

6 - Why are people so accepting of looting as writing it off as "survival"? There are now reports of a 14yr old girl being raped in the stadium, with witnesses "too exhausted" to help. This is disgraceful.

7 - How is it that food trucks and volunteers can't get into the city, yet the media seemed to get in just fine? Why didn't they bring supplies with them?

All in all, I'm not a conspiracy theorist by any means, but something is not adding up here...something is very wrong and I think eveyone can see it. This is a reflection of our increasingly "Blade Runner" type of society were the good folk and their kind intentions are being blocked and refused by the powers that be. I'm not sure what the motivation is, but people are DYING horrible deaths, and the bigwigs don't seem to give a shit. That is what is truly terrifying about this whole thing.

Lord Lionheart

Two words for you, black and poor.

Pigtails

Yeah, didn't you know? Bush is a racist!!

snowbunny

Actually, he's elitist. But he hangs out with racists.

elfman

The conspiracy theorists and cynics out there might also be wondering why substantial amounts of aid and relief supplies plus national guard troops only started to arrive in New Orleans the moment Bush turned up to have a closer look.

Manc

Big business is helping, whether or not for marketting purposes to look good or because they really do care I don't know. But I do know they are.

Pigtails said her company has donated to the cause and I know mine has, and also as an insurance company is gonna take a mighty huge hit as the second biggest business insurer in LA and 3rd biggest commercial insurer in MS. I know these are 2 companies, but I suspect we are in the majority in doing what they can

As for your other points. I wish I could answer them but alas I cannot.

Lord Lionheart

Who mentioned Bush?? You seem to be obsessed

Rompers

[QUOTE=Truth]
3 - How can the US military go into intense wars in such terrifying locations as the Vietnam jungle, Iraqi deserts and Russian winters...yet be intimidated by a few desperate snipers in New Orleans? Something is not adding up here.
QUOTE]

Probably because when they go to Vietnam and Iraq (when did they go to Russia?) they expect to be shot at and plan accordingly.
They did not (understandably) expect to be shot at by their fellow citazans while trying to rescue them from a natural disaster. I wouldn't say they were intimidated, just needed a pause to adjust their tactics.

As for your other points...I think "crap leadership" "poor organisation" cover most of them.

lippy

I never understood why New Orleans was built between a lake and a river in the first place?? Seemed to be a disaster waiting to happen.

Big D

Think this has been debated on other strings - however it was designed to withstand cat3 and this was cat4 - worsed in 100 years etc etc - this type of building is more common than you think - for example if the Thames reverted to its original NATURAL course then 2/3 of London would be under water - lets hope we don't get a hurricane there eh?

Rompers

Kinda like building a city on a major fault line.

Manc

Most major river delta's have major cities on them.

look at Belem and Alexandria.........

Bob

because it's an old city....but to continue to develop in those areas was a bit of an oversight...

Bob

well those people mostly probably don't vote, and if they did, probably didn't vote for bush, so whatever you look at it, doesn't look good for bush, afterall the buck does stop with him.

Big D

disagree - protection was in place - this was an exceptional event. if you think that way there would be MANY places you never build which would cause its own problems.