Destruction in our southeast gulf states

Mike, if I may help by adding this;

I would ask everyone willing to provide financial aid, if you don't already have an organization in mind to donate to, go to the red cross web site & left click on the "donate" button, once there, you can specify your donation to go to the Katrina Hurrican relief, and use a credit card. Its that simple.

Here's a link: http://www.redcross.org/

your friend on the PIBB, George

Once again our country has been ravaged by a disaster. The city of New Orleans is flooded and many people are dead, or will be because help is not reaching them. Many more are homeless and without power or water throughout the gulf coast region. I can't imagine what it must be like to have one's entire life uprooted like this. My prayers go out FULL FORCE to all those affected by this deadly natural disaster.

No one should have to live through something like this. Losing everything you have plus your LOVED ONES is cruel, not to mention having to try and survive with no food or fresh water. Our prayers go out to all our fellow Americans. The Canadian government has offered any and all assistance to president Bush and I am certain the Canadian people will be more than generous.Our thoughts are with you all

Mike,
I have watched the coverage on TV it is obvious that this is our countries largest major natural disaster maybe ever. It looks larger than anything I can ever recall in my short 35 year life. The media doesn't have to look for damage it spans miles along the gulf coast. I'm disappointed that the Cities and States involved haven't received Federal help a little faster. However it is on the way, I hope enough help has been sent!

My prayers are with the affected people.

Michael

We have a number of PI Members in the devastated areas including, Colton Sanders, whose incredible GTS was featured in PI last year. I hope and pray that everybody made it through unscathed. Dave and Linda

Mike,
Thank you for posting this topic. It's amazing how hateful some people can be during this difficult time.

You're a good man!

Bob Eaton

NM sent a rescue team with flat bottom boats to New Orleans. All the recuers are not allowed in to the disaster zone. Snipers are shooting police and rescuers. Apparently, they are yelling "come get my family or I will shoot" and then they shoot at helicopters and boats. One man, drinking beer, dropped his son out of the second story window just so they would rescue the child. The kid had a broken arm.

It's getting desparate, and the help that's there can't help due to violence. Desparate people are doing desparate things and it is just making it worse for everybdoy. All the people still needing assistance don't have power and don't have have the ability to read the news or hear a radio or a TV to know what's going on. The rescue teams can't function and the local police have lost everything too, and so nearly a majority of the have turned in their badges and quit, trying to save themselves and their families.

But I don't hink it's fair or accurate to say that he rest of the people in the USA aren't paying attention or don't care, we do.

This event is going to displace millions of people. Those who can will be living with relatives. Those who can't will be living in shelters and putting a strain on resouces in the cities hosting them. There will be a lot of people relocting and the effects will take affected the families a dozen years to recover from, except for loss of loved ones, and that will always be a source of grief.

There is help but the problem is enormous and there are problems with law, problems with no electricity, broken levees, no work for any left there, no food or water and no trasportation systems with roads and bridges destroyed. The rest of the country sees it and feels it. We can't fix it over night. The effects will last for years and almost everybody's life will be changed, in some places from the new increased demand for jobs and housing to other folks who will just see inflation and no longer be able to afford to live on their fixed income retirement cash flow, to the youngsters who will be even that much further awy from being able to afford housing or even the price of a tank of gas to go to school or to work. It's a real big problem and our government needs to be thinking with clear logic and taking quick action.

This means no more teaching kindergarten when 9/11/01 happened and no more vacations while massive hurricanes are threatening to destroy our cities, President Bush. Stay in the office assigned to you by us, the tax paying voters who gave you the job, or resign and let someone willing to work stay in his office and work. We have a problem with you farting around while chaos is happening.

quote:

Originally posted by Whiplash:
We have a number of PI Members in the devastated areas including, Colton Sanders, whose incredible GTS was featured in PI last year. I hope and pray that everybody made it through unscathed. Dave and Linda

Wasn't there also a beautiful yellow pushbutton for sale recently in Alabama? It was listed in PI for some time. I forget the owner's name but the car was a Wilkinson resto.

And don't kid yourself, this thing is FAR from over, regardless of how the media portrays it.

See: http://www.mgno.com

http://neworleans.metblogs.com

and Yahoo - Blogs directory

quote:

Originally posted by Mark:
Now I know why I prefer the PI BB to the detomaso e-mailing

Plus that email system sucks...

The wages of Socialism
Posted by Andrew Walden

What is it that bends and twists the soul of man in New Orleans such
that he shoots at his rescuers, steals televisions while others drown,
and then blames all and sundry for not helping enough? Biloxi and the
rural areas of costal Louisiana and Mississippi have similar ethnic
makeup and are equally hard-hit: yet they were not witness to the
self-imposed parts of New Orleans’ devastation. The answer lies in the
peculiar political economy of dependency in New Orleans, home to some
of America’s last remaining old-style housing “projects”, home to
legions of life-long welfare recipients and home to the bureaucratic
and corrupt political structure which sustains itself by maintaining
its “clients”– in poverty. While the American economy has boomed for
two decades, New Orleans remains a city where over 100,000 people
cannot afford their own car.

A sedentary life of welfare check cashing combined with the feelings of
futility and depression which naturally result from the lack of a
guiding purpose in life leads to poor nutrition, alcoholism, drug abuse
and then chronic health problems such as hypertension, diabetes,
emphysema, and heart disease. New Orleans’ public hospitals service
these new clients but do not (or cannot) cure the chronically ill,
creating yet another layer of dependency and the corresponding income
stream for bureaucrats. The chronically ill are too weak to work,
creating another reason to stay on welfare or disability. Their
children are raised by a parent who is herself completely at the mercy
of “the system.” To the child, the government’s power and
responsibility looms larger than mom’s and the father is usually
nowhere in sight.

Thus the culture of dependency continues into the next generation as
does the culture of ‘being owed.” Since society “owes” them, there is
no moral argument against property crimes. Once that slippery slope is
reached, violent crimes follow along. The police sometime catch the
criminals and they enter the criminal justice “system” becoming, in yet
another way, wards of the state. These wards of the state might have
benefited most from the jobs created in America’s booming economy–but
they rarely take the initiative to even apply for work. When they do,
they usually don’t have an understanding of what it takes to get and
keep employment. Without realizing it, their cycle of dependency gives
them one excuse after another to feel trapped, ‘owed”, and
oppressed–while living on the dole.

In this world someone who works 9-5 and supports a family is called a
“fool”. Those who sell drugs, rape, rob, and kill are seen as “getting
over”. That is “getting over”–on “the man” who is “holding us all
down”. This mentality is the product of the welfare state. New
Orleans is one of a few cities where welfare has been taken to its full
logic.

In New Orleans this culture of entitlement extends far beyond this
“underclass”. New Orleans police are the lowest paid in America, as
part of their job they are expected to contract out to private parties
for security services. This naturally leads to all type of corruption
which in turn contributes to the public not trusting or respecting the
police. When Katrina hit, about 1000 of New Orleans 1500 police
officers deserted their posts. This single fact, more than any other,
has led to the breakdown in law and order which slowed rescue and
relief efforts for two critical days on August 31 and September 1.

The culture of entitlement and dependency also extends to the political
establishment of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana. This leads to
the mayor pointing his finger at lack of support by state and federal
government as his own police dissolve underneath him. Millions of
dollars have been sent to New Orleans for decades, but they were
siphoned off to various corrupt activities rather than being used to
reinforce levies or build up emergency services. This is a state which
has never left behind the depression-era populism of Huey Long.
Corruption is legion. Most office holders just haven’t been caught
yet–others have been caught but got reelected anyway.

As New Orleans is physically rebuilt, this political economy of poverty
must be demolished. As an example, New Orleans can look to the
entrepreneurial cities such as Dallas and Houston which are taking in
tens of thousands of displaced storm victims. Departing their former
home to move west, many are saying they will restart their lives in
these cities. After the looting and crime they don’t want anything to
do with New Orleans again. The transfer of people away from poverty
and corruption and towards entrepreneurship-created-opportunity is one
of the few good things to come out of this disaster.

For those who do stay to rebuild, welfare reform and school choice must
move to the top of Louisiana’s political agenda. A platoon of federal
investigators should reinforce efforts to indict, arrest, and convict
politicians and appointed officials for corruption. The city police
department must be reformed from top to bottom starting with the
termination of those who deserted and following with pay scales
commensurate with that of other police departments. The “projects”
must be demolished, as they have been in Chicago, Baltimore and many
other American cities. Regulations and taxes which strangle small
business development must be repealed. The private sector should lead
the way in physical reconstruction.

Nothing warps human nature like the belief in “being owed” combined by
the feeling, left by paltry welfare payments, that the debt “owed” is
never paid. Thousands of welfare recipients are used to having
everything given to them–albeit in insufficient quantity to be
satisfying. Thousands have no concept of working for wages, much less
building a business. These same thousands rightfully look at the
police and politicians as corrupt. In this twisted existence, the idea
of initiative and work does not exist. From their distorted view of
the world, looting in the midst of disaster and shooting at rescue
helicopters makes perfect sense. The Bible tells us that “the wages of
sin is death.” In New Orleans we are witnessing the wages of
socialism.

quote:

......................... In New Orleans we are witnessing the wages of
socialism.

AMEN!

Nothing like a slow federal response to teach this "socialist" city a lesson...

They deserved what they got, huh?

That isn't even close to what people said. Putting words in people's mouth's does not make one's postion better.

Gary

I don't feel bad, or 'socially responsible', for any person who shoots at his rescuers, or at anyone else for that matter (with self defense the possible exception).

Michael

quote:

Originally posted by Cyboman:
I don't feel bad, or 'socially responsible', for any person who shoots at his rescuers, or at anyone else for that matter (with self defense the possible exception).

Michael

I do feel socially responsible!

I'd put their ass in jail..or better yet, "take them out."