Gov. Jeb Bush blames the victims
Posted by R. Neal
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is taking the heat for another bungled hurricane relief response in Florida. Yesterday in a press conference he said "Don't blame FEMA. This is our responsibility." He also blamed the victims:
One wonders, though, if he knows what it's like out in the real world. I know from personal experience that employers often won't let people take off work to prepare. They want everyone working up until the last minute, or until a mandatory evacuation is declared. Even if you are able to get time off, Home Depot runs out of plywood, plastic sheeting, and duct tape days before the storm arrives. Grocery store shelves are emptied of bottled water, pork & beans, toilet paper, and diapers. Long lines form at gas stations, and many run out. That's the situation even in affluent communities where people have money and transportation. That's the real world.
Which reminds me of a story from when we lived in Florida. A storm was approaching and even Disney had shut down for the first time in their history. On the way home from scavenging for hurricane supplies, we stopped by the local 7-11 store looking for batteries. I walked in and announced "OK, I need Spam, beer, batteries and ammunition!" Folks in the long checkout line chuckled, and the cashier said "Sorry, we're all out of Spam and batteries." "That's OK," I replied. "If you've got ammunition I can get everything else."
OK, then.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is taking the heat for another bungled hurricane relief response in Florida. Yesterday in a press conference he said "Don't blame FEMA. This is our responsibility." He also blamed the victims:
The governor added, however, that people seeking relief should have done more to prepare for the storm.Well, he certainly seems to have gotten the White House memo on how to play the blame game, and he's a loyal GOP subject to take one for the team.
"People had ample time to prepare. It isn't that hard to get 72 hours worth of food and water," said Bush, repeating the advice that officials had given days before Wilma hit.
One wonders, though, if he knows what it's like out in the real world. I know from personal experience that employers often won't let people take off work to prepare. They want everyone working up until the last minute, or until a mandatory evacuation is declared. Even if you are able to get time off, Home Depot runs out of plywood, plastic sheeting, and duct tape days before the storm arrives. Grocery store shelves are emptied of bottled water, pork & beans, toilet paper, and diapers. Long lines form at gas stations, and many run out. That's the situation even in affluent communities where people have money and transportation. That's the real world.
Which reminds me of a story from when we lived in Florida. A storm was approaching and even Disney had shut down for the first time in their history. On the way home from scavenging for hurricane supplies, we stopped by the local 7-11 store looking for batteries. I walked in and announced "OK, I need Spam, beer, batteries and ammunition!" Folks in the long checkout line chuckled, and the cashier said "Sorry, we're all out of Spam and batteries." "That's OK," I replied. "If you've got ammunition I can get everything else."
OK, then.
24 Comments:
Still, Florida residents had a LOT of advance warning on this one. It was predicted to hit south Florida well before it even hit Cancun.
Gotta go with Jeb on this one. I read this at CNN.com:
"We've lived here 37 years and we've never had a hurricane like this," Broward County resident Paul Kramer, 71, told The Associated Press. "We didn't expect this. This one got our attention."
You gotta be kidding, lived in Florida 37 years and surprised by a hurricane! I'm sure you're right about some employers but is that Jeb's fault? I doubt the fellow above had employer worries.
Remember Hurricane Floyd, during the Clinton years. Here's Jesse Jackson's comments to James Witt, FEMA Director at the time.
Fully three weeks after the storm hit Jesse Jackson complained to FEMA Director James Lee Witt on his CNN program Both Sides Now, "It seemed there was preparation for Hurricane Floyd, but then came Flood Floyd. Bridges are overwhelmed, levees are overwhelmed, whole towns under water . . . [it's] an awesome scene of tragedy..."
Witt's response: "We're starting to move the camper trailers in, It's been so wet it's been difficult to get things in there, but now it's going to be moving very quickly. And I think you're going to see a -- I think the people there will see a big difference over within this next weekend!"
"Within this next weekend," after three weeks!! If this had been a Bush, the progressives would have formed a lynch mob.
Me thinks thou art too eager to attack Bushes.
Mr. Neal -
I'm glad someone picked up on the "blame the citizens game". Talk about a 'trickle down' theory. I guess Jed isn't very worried about re-election to the governor's office. Oh, that's right... He's going to Washington in 2008!
And, yes, the citizens did get ample warning, but it is Thursday, three days after the storm - and some are without power and water for some time to come. I would think most people would hedge their bets and go for fresh water, ice, and supplies where they can get it.
I fail to see how the failure of state and local governments or individuals to prepare in any way absolves the administration of its responsibilities.
It's like saying emergency responders who let a patient die because they were busy playing pinochle are less culpable if an accident victim wasn't wearing a seatbelt.
I'm also fascinated by the argument that the screw-ups in Florida somehow erradicate the racial overtones in the New Orleans response.
Anonymous #2 is right. Citizens should always depend on the government to rescue them. No need to make preparations or anything. And, of course, let's blame the government when we fail to hinder evacuation orders.
It was just a little hurricane. Why can't everything be up and running and back to normal in 24 hours, 48 tops?
Now snow storms that's different. I remember one in East Tennesse that knocked out power in some areas for more than 5 days! Ice was no problem though.
Hmm, I wonder if people in California know they are prone to earthquakes.
Horse pucky. We aren't living in some Randian wet dream or an episode of Little House on the Prairie, where plucky individualists outwit the forces of nature.
Blaming storm victims for failure to pack away pork and beans is an excuse, a way to avoid the real issue. There are still people, two months after the fact, living in muck and eeking out an existence in MS and LA. I don't care how many batteries you have in your glovebox, nobody deserves that.
The government is capable of responding to emergencies in a timely fashion; it has before under competent leadership.
Rand - never read her. How about Aesop and The Three Sillies. If you try real hard, you can understand how they realte. It's kinda like getting out of the way of a speeding locomotive and realizing the importance of freedom (which you won't have if you make yourself dependent on the government).
Oh, I'm very fond of fables.
Ummm - can you really get ammo at a convenience store in Florida?
No, but the guy didn't say he was out of it, so maybe he was running a side business under the counter. Heh.
I always love how everyone in the country has a freakin' opinion about what the people in the South should have done. I thought you did a good job explaining the insanity that leads up to a storm. It is so easy for all these people who have never lived in a hurricane zone to blame the victims. "I have to go with Jeb on this one." Whatever. I have been through a hurricane and a couple of tropical storms, and even if you prepare, it is not necessarily going to be enough. After a week without power, you start getting frustrated and will start running out of food. I love you Bush sympathizers who will not make any Bush be accountable. It really saddens me that we have got to a point where we automatically blame the victim. There is no compassion left in this country.
It'd be nice if all anti-government screeds were as well-written and compelling as this one:
Your government is a mandarin class of tan Docker-clad elites, shuttling in SUVs from anonymous office parks to anonymous exurbs, windows rolled up, AC on full blast, Amy Grant on the CD changer. They insulate themselves from contact with the public, who they theoretically work for, with a phalanx of minimum-wage call center operators, and mega-tiered automated voicemail prompts and Byzantine organizational structures...
You are always on your own. The government takes care of itself, not it's citizens.
(The linked blog is fantastic, BTW, especially this post about how a small NC town came to the rescue of a MS family.)
Yes, keep blaming the victims!
I guess he and the rest of the Republicans have decided they don't need the voters to win elections as long as they've got Diebold.
The next few years are going to be interesting in America. Rising costs, no social services.
I hope the Bush brothers and their cohorts live long enough to suffer the same oublic vengeance as their predecessors in the French Revolution.
WE are currently well over the 72 hour time line and still people are standing in line for hours for maby some water or ice. Total lack of planning by John Ellis Bush. Jeb is a nickname used to bring the klan members in NW FL into the fold of the true believers.
What of trucks not being deployed?
The last time through, it was an elction year right? no wonder there was such a quick response.
Oh yeah, btw can't I come to Florida and buy as many weapons as I want?
Did Jeb consult his spiritual mentor - Chang, legendary
tennis player or was that mythical,
conservative warrior?
The entire state of Floriduh ought to be wiped off the map anyway. Let the hurricanes have the dimwit morons there who contiually vote for the bu$h crime family syndicate swallowing the lies and making excuses for prezdint liar liar pants on fire and moron brother jebby. Anyone with any brains left the state long ago.
Indeed, blame the victims for their sheer stupidity. Since when is it acceptable for people to not prepare for emergencies. This isn't an issue of whether they had enough time to prepare once the storm was announced, this has to deal with planning and acknowledging the area they live in is susceptible to this and being prepared year round!
I remember long ago my mother kept a stock of over a weeks worth of water, batteries, a flash light, a first aid kit, and various food staples in case of a major earthquake. Those go unannounced so you had to be prepared and have a plan of what to do and where to meet or contact each other. When I was a child this was common sense.
I'm not sure when the American people started to feel some sense of entitlement that the governement will be there for them, especially under this administration and paticularly after Katrina.
We're witnessing disasters on a scale we've never had to deal with before during a time when resources are stretched under an administration that is inept and corrupt.
If you don't have your own emergency plan you have yourself to blame.
I remember long ago my mother kept a stock of over a weeks worth of water, batteries, a flash light, a first aid kit, and various food staples in case of a major earthquake.
That's a great suggestion. That'll give you time to plant the corn and dig the well that'll sustain you for the next three weeks!
And what will you be doing Sven? WIll you be standing in line bitching about the government response then going on line to bitch about it some more?
Perhaps I'll heed your advice and stock up on more water since I have no faith this administration will be there should I need them but don't come knocking on my door to help you out.
Speaking as a resident of south Florida,I`ve been hit three times in the last13 months.There are a lot of reasons why people aren`t better prepared for storms...You can`t buy much plywoodor or be able to evacuate on Walmart wages.If people have no right to expect help from the government in a natural disaster,then what use is government?What do we pay taxes for?Having seen how FEMA and the state of Florida actualy do their jobs,I want to know where all that money actualy goes.I would like see a special prosecutor too follow the money and trail of coruption and cronyism that plagues disaster relief efforts everywhere
Look, there's nothing wrong with telling people to be prepared. But an individual can only do so much. We don't live on self-sustaining farms anymore.
People spinning the Davy Crockett story think their being realists, when in fact their living in a fantasyland.
My wife just got back from a two-week stint as a Red Cross volunteer in and around Hattiesburg, MS. There are still thousands of unfortunate souls wandering around the state in need of assistance. These people are not welfare recipents; most have never asked for help in their lives. The government - local, state and fed - isn't doing jack shit to help them.
And now the Red Cross isn't, either. It's flat broke. All of the applications for assistance my wife processed last week have been sumarily rejected.
So instead of spending time stocking up on pork and beans, I suggest your time would be better spent getting the heartless, incompetent motherfuckers responsible for this situation out of government. Next time it may be you begging for table scraps.
AND MEANWHILE......OVER 500 SEMI'S WITH FOOD, WATER AND MEDICAL SUPPLIES WERE (NOT) ALLOWED IN....!!!
It is so easy to cast stones on the government when you are on the outside looking in...corruption is everywhere...the blame goes to everyone...even the victims...I pulled myself up by my own boot straps and got myself out a poverty...I didn't ask for handouts and often didn't eat much...best thing I can do is set the example for my kid...of what to do and not BITCH about everyone one else not giving handouts...help your damn self...you got two feet get to walking...you don't like living on walmart wages then do something about it besides bitching...cause that is not going to get you through the next disaster or anyone else...and yes I just incurred alot of damage from Katrina...but I am still here...get over yourself and be productive
Alive and Kicking in Good Ole Louisiana, no thanks to the efforts of corrupt politicians, inept government leaders at city, state and federal level. One wonders, though, what happened to all the money earned through years of conventions, Saint's games, Mardi Gras, etc. And what was the Engineer Corp thinking to put gravel over organic material at the base of the 17th Street and London St. Canals? Obviously New Orleans cntributed significantly to the state coffers, just as oil and gas suppliers contribute significantly to the national and government interests. Perhaps, Louisiana should just kick all government employees out, harvest those much needed fossil fuels, refine them, and then sell them at a premium to the other 48 states, Texas excluded of course! As Nagin suggested, we all need to get off our butts and help ourselves since it appears bureaucrats will still be debating the issue of levees and rebuilding infrastructure, not to mention housing, well into the next millennium.
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