Talk, Talk,Talk!

Comments By Martie

Washington was warmed about the seriousness of the levee system in New Orleans. In 2001 the New Orleans Picayune ran a five day special series describing and predicting almost verbatim the situation that was pending that has now come to pass. The information was confirmed by group after group in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and even as recent as three months ago, the alarms were sounding again. And what did our government do? They talked, and debated and spent lots of money studying the situation. Despite the wide spread warnings, each time the alarm bells were sounded, our government brushed them aside and did little more than talk about it.

And the talk ain't cheap either. We've spent billions of dollars talking about Homeland Security. FEMA, thanks to Bush, is now a part of Homeland Security. Where did the money go? Was it easier to role the dice and bet against the chances of it happening and concentrate instead on short term political gains by waging war on homosexuals and unwed mothers who choose to have abortions? Is that what they were paid to do? Were we wrong to assume they could deal with infrastructure issues and preplanning for natural disasters?

"We didn't have the political will"... “As a nation, we typically have a short attention span"... these are the comments that I've have heard said in the news over the last few days. I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around. But my biggest fear is that nothing will change. Another problem will be identified and we will talk about it but nothing will be done.

I've already found plenty of Republicans who want to blame the looters and defend the administration's handling of the situation. I don't care if an administration is Republican or Democratic, don't we have a right to expect our government to do a better job? Don’t we have a right to expect results instead of just talk?

I am sick at my stomach over this. I can not believe what I’m seeing on the television. I am so appalled at the political spin of the Bush administration and his cronies. If the terrorists blew up one of our cities, I'll bet you would hear the same excuses, "no one could have known, and aren't we doing a great job."

Yeah, well, there are a lot of things we can't know in advance. We are supposed to have enough intelligence and thoughtfulness thugh to anticipate and prepare for those events and circumstances. PLEASE DON'T GIVE ME THE EXCUSE, NO ONE COULD HAVE KNOWN... This situation reeks with so much incompetence, that it's just so hard to fathom.