It's Not A Game
Reporters and broadcasters like catchy phrases that seem to roll off the tongue and please the eye. The most recent example is the use of two words in the search for what went wrong in the hurricane recovery.
"blame game"
Please stop it. It's silly.
Blame is not a "game".
Do you mean responsibility? Say it.
Quit using words the same way you leaned into the wind to prove you were in a hurricane.
People have died, and it seems the worst of the worst of a city has been allowed to set itself upon others who were not able to get out.
The vermin who suck life from the poorest and most vulnerable people were allowed to take over a city. That is not a game.
The mayor of New Orleans might have thought a hurricane heading toward his city was a game, because he waited.
The governor took her time making decisions, as if she were on the television program "So You Want To Be A Millionaire". The TV show is a game. A hurricane bearing down on your state is not.
The head of FEMA is a man who lists his last job as some executive for a horse breeders association. He was an assistant at FEMA for a few years under a man who was no ball of fire himself.
Today, we learned of an alert sent to Charleston, SC where authorities were told planeloads of people were on the way. The planes landed in Charleston, WEST VIRGINIA. The medical and relief crews waiting in South Carolina were not playing a game.
A friend of mine, Dan Bell, is a bus driver. He was sent to the very center of New Orleans to pick up loads of people. He tells me that often, it took a long time for someone to decide where he was to take them.
Thirty two busses arrived at the Astrodome in Houston. The people had to be "processed" before they were let into the shelter. Dan tells me two people died on the busses waiting to be "processed".
And now, to the more personal level.
In Port Allen, LA, we were at a truck stop, prepared to spend the night waiting on the warehouse to re-open. (the unloading crews had inexplicably gone home, even though we told them repeatedly we were coming). The police chief in that small town had found a thousand people on busses. The people on the busses had been evacuated out of New Orleans- away. Just away. No destination. They had been on the bus for 18 hours. They needed food and water. Nobody was playing a game when FEMA sent the busses on a trip to nowhere.
In my opinion, it was pure incompetence. And before we left that evening, 300 more people had arrived in West Baton Rouge Parish.
It was no game for the warden of the prison- when he woke up his kitichen staff to feed these people. And the 150 trustees who worked hand-to-hand to get water from our trucks were not playing around between midnight and four in the morning.
Some people are to blame for their own incompetence in leadership. Others are to blame for not heeding warnings to get out while they can. And there is no logical reason for people to be outlaws. No sociologist will ever convince me that being poor gives you the right to shoot and rape.
There is no blame for those who took food to feed their families, and there is no blame for those who were not able to leave, or not mentally capable of understanding.
But in one parish. They found thirty nursing home patients dead in their beds.
Abandoned.
Blame? My God!
Who could abandon those old people without trying to keep them from drowning in their own beds?
I believe those who messed up so horribly now know they are way over their heads in their posisitions of leadership from the national down to the individual level. Unless they are as opaque as the stinking water that floods part of New Orleans, they will have to live with that blame, that self blame for a long time.
And in a few months, commissions will convene to investigate the response to the hurricane.
That's when the game will begin.
Give a long, hard pull on the Spin Wheel, and maybe one prize will be the truth.
Dave Foulk (c) 2005
"blame game"
Please stop it. It's silly.
Blame is not a "game".
Do you mean responsibility? Say it.
Quit using words the same way you leaned into the wind to prove you were in a hurricane.
People have died, and it seems the worst of the worst of a city has been allowed to set itself upon others who were not able to get out.
The vermin who suck life from the poorest and most vulnerable people were allowed to take over a city. That is not a game.
The mayor of New Orleans might have thought a hurricane heading toward his city was a game, because he waited.
The governor took her time making decisions, as if she were on the television program "So You Want To Be A Millionaire". The TV show is a game. A hurricane bearing down on your state is not.
The head of FEMA is a man who lists his last job as some executive for a horse breeders association. He was an assistant at FEMA for a few years under a man who was no ball of fire himself.
Today, we learned of an alert sent to Charleston, SC where authorities were told planeloads of people were on the way. The planes landed in Charleston, WEST VIRGINIA. The medical and relief crews waiting in South Carolina were not playing a game.
A friend of mine, Dan Bell, is a bus driver. He was sent to the very center of New Orleans to pick up loads of people. He tells me that often, it took a long time for someone to decide where he was to take them.
Thirty two busses arrived at the Astrodome in Houston. The people had to be "processed" before they were let into the shelter. Dan tells me two people died on the busses waiting to be "processed".
And now, to the more personal level.
In Port Allen, LA, we were at a truck stop, prepared to spend the night waiting on the warehouse to re-open. (the unloading crews had inexplicably gone home, even though we told them repeatedly we were coming). The police chief in that small town had found a thousand people on busses. The people on the busses had been evacuated out of New Orleans- away. Just away. No destination. They had been on the bus for 18 hours. They needed food and water. Nobody was playing a game when FEMA sent the busses on a trip to nowhere.
In my opinion, it was pure incompetence. And before we left that evening, 300 more people had arrived in West Baton Rouge Parish.
It was no game for the warden of the prison- when he woke up his kitichen staff to feed these people. And the 150 trustees who worked hand-to-hand to get water from our trucks were not playing around between midnight and four in the morning.
Some people are to blame for their own incompetence in leadership. Others are to blame for not heeding warnings to get out while they can. And there is no logical reason for people to be outlaws. No sociologist will ever convince me that being poor gives you the right to shoot and rape.
There is no blame for those who took food to feed their families, and there is no blame for those who were not able to leave, or not mentally capable of understanding.
But in one parish. They found thirty nursing home patients dead in their beds.
Abandoned.
Blame? My God!
Who could abandon those old people without trying to keep them from drowning in their own beds?
I believe those who messed up so horribly now know they are way over their heads in their posisitions of leadership from the national down to the individual level. Unless they are as opaque as the stinking water that floods part of New Orleans, they will have to live with that blame, that self blame for a long time.
And in a few months, commissions will convene to investigate the response to the hurricane.
That's when the game will begin.
Give a long, hard pull on the Spin Wheel, and maybe one prize will be the truth.
Dave Foulk (c) 2005
posted by Dave Foulk at 2:53 PM
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