Article

2008-03-28 Home Front: Culture Wars

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Mike 2008-03-28 12:40|| || Front Page|| [11133 views ] Top

#1 As the president of the brutalized Jefferson Parish put it in a Sept. 4 Meet the Press interview, speaking at the height of nationwide despair over FEMA's confused response: "If [the U.S.] government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis."

Oh, Queen Hillary would not like to hear that truth about government. I mean, government is the best form of social support. /sarcasm

Posted by www 2008-03-28 12:57|| 2008-03-28 12:57|| Front Page Top

#2 FEMA of course has to follow the law, particularly in the handling of appropriated funds. Now if Bush had been willing to weather the criticism and issued a blanket pardon on 'errors' but not outright intentional criminal theft of funds to start with, a lot less CYA would've been avoided. The critics don't care. If he loosens the paperwork you get a degree of fraud and loss of accountability. Complain, complain, complain. If you maintain accountability you're slow in dealing with the paper work and parsing out the relief money. Complain, complain, complain.

Of course it doesn't help that FEMA is the new patronage department, for both parties. It used to be a DoD responsibility, but in the gutting of the services in the post-Vietnam period, the military was happy to get another unfunded, unresourced mission out of the door. Of course as Katrina demonstrated, the one part of the government that did function reasonably well was the uniformed services.

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-03-28 13:45|| 2008-03-28 13:45|| Front Page Top

#3 On the funnier side, after a hurricane in Florida and with another expected, Wal-Mart turned to its formidable database, the largest in the world, to determine the most important emergency supplies of people prior to hurricanes, so they could be certain of having enough of it available in those regions expected to be hardest hit.

Of all the supplies people stocked up on prior to a major hurricane, such as generators, boards and nails, batteries and flashlights, the database was clear that above all else, the public needed vast amounts of two things to prepare for a hurricane, eclipsing everything else by a wide margin:

Beer and Strawberry Pop-Tarts.

Nothing else came even close.

Posted by Anonymoose 2008-03-28 16:43|| 2008-03-28 16:43|| Front Page Top

#4 oh what fuckin bullshit. these where normal ppl doing what was right not wal mart corp doiong what they thought best. i bet the rreal word from above was shoot if there is looting. Next let's put up a billboard saying wal mart saved ketarina victims.Personnaly I am sick of hearing about how Bush fucked it up maybe they should have gottne their lazy asses out of harms way except the ones that couldn't. For the ones that could and stayed and are now bitching shoot them in the head

Posted by sinse 2008-03-28 18:32|| 2008-03-28 18:32|| Front Page Top

#5 Sinse, I doubt you'd notice a difference if you did.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2008-03-28 18:50|| 2008-03-28 18:50|| Front Page Top

#6 sinse, I don't like the Wal-Mart plicy of buying almost exclusively from China (thankf Her Thighness for that) but they do support the communities where they do business. It's good business sense. They provide the Mounted Search and Rescue Unit I belong to with equipment , water, foods we can carry for several days, and fuel for lanterns and cook-stoves. Wal-Mart is not the Monster depicted in the MSM. They do fight Unions but they do offer employees decent wages and health care.

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2008-03-28 19:06|| 2008-03-28 19:06|| Front Page Top

#7 The story about WalMart's performance during Katrina was available at the time, but were buried by the MSM which had other axes to grind. The USCG was never given proper recognition for its actions, some type of presidential citation would have been in order. At least Gov. "Stuck on Stupid" Blanco is out of office.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2008-03-28 19:21|| 2008-03-28 19:21|| Front Page Top

#8 We had a flood last summer that flooded 1/4 of my town. I started sandbagging at 6am that morning. The WalMart trucks arrived by 10am. Say what you will sinse, they were there with us before anyone else.

Posted by whitecollar redneck 2008-03-28 20:40|| 2008-03-28 20:40|| Front Page Top

#9 Let's fire our elected officials and gov't agency bureaucrats and contract the running of the country to WalMart!

Posted by Ebbaimble the Younger8797 2008-03-28 22:41|| 2008-03-28 22:41|| Front Page Top

#10 We ~~have done~~ could do worse, Ebbaimble.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2008-03-28 23:34|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/] 2008-03-28 23:34|| Front Page Top

23:58 tipover
23:56 JosephMendiola
23:48 JosephMendiola
23:45 McZoid
23:42 McZoid
23:40 Eric Jablow
23:35 McZoid
23:34 Barbara Skolaut
23:33 GolfBravoUSMC
23:30 Steve White
23:30 Herman Sninesing5936
23:29 wxjames
23:25 Rupert Glasing8221
23:05 Sherry
23:03 ex-lib
22:53 trailing wife
22:49 Old Patriot
22:49 Frank G
22:49 Sock Puppet of Doom
22:45 Frank G
22:45 Sock Puppet of Texas
22:44 Frank G
22:42 James Carville
22:42 www