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| COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION |
| Monday, September 12, 2005 |
Since I have listened to the media both left and right I have heard a recurring theme:
FEMA screwed up.
Since we have a nation of experts who know better than FEMA and its director what should and shouldn't have been done in the aftermath of Katrina, the Snipet would like to issue a challenge:
Please present factual and substantiated information detailing how FEMA screwed up. Also, detail exactly what its Director, Brown, did to screw up. Cite specific examples. Entries that are automatically disqualified are: "They didn't respond in time", "they were delayed", "they weren't insistent enough in pressing the mayor to evacuate", "President Bush relieved him of his duties therefore he must have handled it wrong" and such generalities.
I especially look forward to hearing from my friends on the left who advocate that everyone should be entitled to a fair hearing before judgement is passed.
In a court of law we hold our justice system to the presentation of facts in order to judge. We need to start doing that in the court of public opinion.
Look forward to your responses. |
posted by Jack Mercer @ 9/12/2005 05:46:00 AM   |
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| 5 Comments: |
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Michael Brown, in at least two major network interviews, claims that he and the federal govt. didn't know about the refugees in the NO convention center and the awful conditions they were in. To this statement, Ted Koppel responded: "Don't you guys have a TV? Our reporters have been reporting about this for two days!"
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Sorry, Kathy. FEMA is subservient to local and state governments in terms of response. It would be incumbent upon those local agencies to aprise FEMA of all of this. They can't play a guessing game. (Of course, I had heard that every employee at FEMA had been working around the clock 24 hours -- my response to Koppel would have been "When do you think we had time to watch TV?"
Kathy, as a former partner of a safety engineering firm I dealt with FEMA (and EPCRA) extensively. It is bureacratic--no denying that. If you get a chance read Kelley's article posted above.
(P.S. What are your thoughts about the body count of New Orleans. At 197 at present. Can we credit FEMA with this?)
Always good to hear from you!
-Jack
This just in:
"MICHAEL BROWN SAYS HE'S RESIGNED AS DIRECTOR OF FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY"
Justice, or a casualty of the court of public opinion?
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The guy was not qualified to lead FEMA in the first place!
As for leaving response to the locals, I think the fact that a large percentage of local National Guard troops and their equipment are in Iraq probably didn't help matters.
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Ok, Kathy, you're doing good, girl!
Here's the problem. We had plenty of reserves, many which haven't even been used. But what is more interesting is that the soldiers that Blanco had at her disposal she did not even use:
BLANCO: "I said we're not tolerating asking for more military presence. But I mean -- but I'm saying put good people at jeopardy, potentially. I really need to call for the military. I should have started that in the first call."
The reason we didn't have guardsmen or soldiers in there was because Blanco refused to field them.
Kathy, I can't really make a judgement about Brown's qualifications. I realize what the media is saying, that he was just head of a horse club, but I really don't know what is on his resume or what kind of training he has had since he became director. I'm not very willing to make that judgement.
Definitely want you to keep it up, though. Have not had anyone weigh in on this but you, and would like to know what is thought out there.
BTW, how are things going with Hetchy Sketch (am I spelling this right?)
Regards,
-Jack
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Things are going well, thanks! I was actually at the Sierra Summit, Sierra Club's big national convention in SF, over the weekend, and spent some time staffing an informational booth on Restore Hetch Hetchy(check out my blog for accounts of RFK Jr.'s speech to the cheering, tree-huggin masses). And our movement has been in the news a lot lately! Good stuff:
http://www.hetchhetchy.org/news.html
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Name: Jack Mercer
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Michael Brown, in at least two major network interviews, claims that he and the federal govt. didn't know about the refugees in the NO convention center and the awful conditions they were in. To this statement, Ted Koppel responded: "Don't you guys have a TV? Our reporters have been reporting about this for two days!"