Newt Gingrich goes off the deep end

[docwebster]

"How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane." (emphasis mine)

Comments, anybody? I'm just at a total loss for words, here.

Comments

[idiomagic.livejournal.com]

Makes me want to kill.
I've stopped reading any news regarding Katrina...it puts me in danger of bursting a blood vessel and/or grabbing a copy of Catcher in the Rye and a high powered rifle then finding a bell tower.
Y'know, I'm plenty educated and uber-prepared for anything, but the lack of a car, credit cards, and a place to go made it kind of difficult to evacuate.
And how about the failure of citizenship that caused groups of us to clear the streets, set up a mash unit, bring food water and meds to those who needed it, and wander the neighborhoods armed in order to protect each other. Bad citizens, indeed. I guess we should have starved/died of thirst/been shot by crackheads while waiting for our government to step in, instead.
ARRRRRRGH!
Bunnies, fluffy clouds, kittens. Okay, I feel better now.
I swear that if another Republican gets elected I'm going to emigrate.

[saoba.livejournal.com]

The man is incapable of basic human decency.

I've said it before, I'll say it again- being poor is not a character flaw.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

"The failure of citizenship".

I have despised Newt-Boy for a long time. But I've been grinding my teeth over this, and I just want him stuck in the Ninth Ward on subsistence income, blocked roadways, inadequate infrastructure, and a government not doing anything to help. Standing on his head would be good.

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

This is the same noise all the privileged conservatives have been making since Katrina made landfall: If you poor people weren't so lazy and stupid, you would have gone to Yale, gotten into Phi Beta Kappa, landed a good management job, and been able to afford your own car to drive out of New Orleans. Instead, you decided to stay behind and loot. From the point of view of every standard-issue pseudo-libertarian snot, Newt didn't say anything surprising at all.

[idiomagic.livejournal.com]

The Republicans are all so pleased as punch with the way they've run this country, I think every damned one of them should have to go live in FEMA trailers and rebuild the levees by hand.
I was in NOLA when Katrina hit, was stuck there for nine days,shot in the leg by crackheads, had to steal a jeep and evac. I got stranded in Beaumont TX just in time for a direct hit from Hurricane Rita. I have been denied any help from the gov't...without a FEMA number, I was unable to get help from any of the other agencies and groups.
I tried living in NOLA for seven months post-K, and couldn't find a place to live or a job, so was forced to leave the city I love and start over with nothing. I have severe mental and physical health problems to this day, thanks entirely to the Republicans. I can't think of a punishment bad enough to satisfy me and my friends for the loss of our beloved city.

[idiomagic.livejournal.com]

It speaks very poorly for the people of this country that we have become numb and apathetic to things like this. Being caught in Katrina had nothing to do with poor citizenship, but perhaps our lack of action does.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Predictable, and totaly representative of the conservative movement.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

I swear that if another Republican gets elected I'm going to emigrate.

We'll start a colony.

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

The trouble is that it's not simple apathy or numbness. It took more effort to make sure those stranded didn't get any help than it would have to allow some relief to get through, or allow people to escape. What it's really about is that members of the upper class feel a need to believe that they personally earned and deserve everything that life has handed them ("education" is how they launder their privilege into a personal achievement). Their sense of self-worth rests entirely on this belief system, which would logically fall apart without active contempt for the less fortunate.

[docwebster.livejournal.com]

I'm hip.

[idiomagic.livejournal.com]

I want to be God Emperor of the colony. Pretty please?

[idiomagic.livejournal.com]

True...and very well said.

[bfly.livejournal.com]

Let's face it. A certain percentage of the "haves" in this country are so accustomed to power and privilege that they are literally incapable of understanding what it's like to be a "have not." Unfortunately, most of our current leadership falls in that percentage.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

the fuck?!

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Yep. My first thought on reading this crap was, "Next he'll say 'Let them eat cake.'"

Those who do not learn from history will repeat it while those who do learn from history watch in shock and horror...

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Since you asked so nicely, sure.

[docwebster.livejournal.com]

She makes brownies, yo.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Way ahead of you.. Geektopia, New Zealand... starting, err, about 2012 the way finances are working out... maybe sooner though the way the politics are going downhill.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Something about a revolution, a wall and being first up against it.. springs to mind.

Although, I'm pretty sure I can think of something better for them if I try.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Ya know, for country that's supposedly a republic, your aristocracy sure are a rotten bunch of sonovabitches!

Blaming the victims even... man, that's low even for a scummy, low-life, dick chaney-sucking, slimeball, neo-aristo.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Viva la revolocion!

[idiomagic.livejournal.com]

2012 is the end of the world, at least that's what those goofy Mayans tell me. Then again, nothing bad ever happens in New Zealand, so if we time it right we'll be fine. ;)

[idiomagic.livejournal.com]

Vivisection might be fun...come to think of it, if you were to open one of them up like that we might drown in all the bullshit...

[moropus.livejournal.com]

How many poor people could have been evacuated on the thousands of school and city buses that were allowed to sit there and pollute the gulf and kill all the little fishes? The buses that were ruined and a complete write off, those busses.

[bassbone.livejournal.com]

The ones that the mayor of New Orleans failed to send on their way?

[docwebster.livejournal.com]

See? It's all the people's fault, the mayor's fault, etc. Right.

[idiomagic.livejournal.com]

Actually, I blame the space aliens and their damned anal probes. Uh, sorry, off topic.

[docwebster.livejournal.com]

*blink* *blink* I got nothin'..

[bassbone.livejournal.com]

There were breakdowns throughout every level of government from the federal to the state to the local. And yes, even the people weren't blameless. At least some of them weren't. A lot refused to leave when told to evacuate because they feared people stealing their stuff.

[docwebster.livejournal.com]

The most utterly inexcusable failure was the federal government. I could go on for days - fire departments brought in for photo ops, ice being delivered *to the wrong state*, injured people being flown to the wrong states for treatments multiple times, those yabbering morons at FEMA, fire departments and rescue teams sent to hotels to basically sit around and do nothing, the list goes on and on. I refuse to buy into the "hey, look over there the state/local/citizens did this and this and this" mentality. When you have a breakdown on that kind of epic scale, you start from the top down kicking asses, not from the bottom of the pile. As far as I can see, that hasn't happened yet. Perhaps you'd care to have a look at this. Those miserable bottom dwellers currently squatting at 1600 Pennsylania were, to quote the Associated Press, "In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage. Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared." The footage - along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press - show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster."