smooth

well, since the thread really isn't going much further, it seems, I hope it's not too far out of whack to discuss this portion that keeps getting raised.

First of all, after re-reading the original article (again), I notice that the president ensured the various people asking that he was prepared to respond. He assured them that there were appropriate measures being taken and that emergency teams/military were being mobilized. They weren't, at least until later, as the article reveals.

that aside, there was an effort to get people out. the discussion centered around whose responsibility it was to evacuate people, but that sidestepped the white elephant, in many people's opinion: that when you have people making minimum wage, or less, and simply can't miss a single day of work, they aren't going to leave unless you forceably remove them. and that requires a federal level declaration and response/action.

it wasn't the case, in my opinion or statement, that people didn't have tv's or radios and were unaware of the impending danger. They knew, but it doesn't much matter to flee town when your only possessions would have to be left behind. one's best bet, at least in their minds, is to hunker down and protect their only place they have their possessions, keep working until the disaster hits and the employer shuts the blinds. these kinds of notions aren't new to people who have experienced poverty, southern poverty especially, but they certainly catch the rest of the nation by suprise and our inabilty or desire not to discuss serious deprivation and poverty in our nation's boundaries, along the lines of what we think happens in developing countries, renders an inability to even conceive why people don't just do what we think rational people would do in an ordinary world.


down the way from me, there's a nuclear reactor built on what was later to be revealed a fairly active fault-line. now, no one in their right mind disputes that the fault is going to stay stable forever. we all anticipate it cracking the foundation of he reaction chamber. we all know it "could" happen, just not exactly when. but the reactor is still running. and people still live nearby. and a large...HUGE...port that our nation's economy depends on is at risk. so far nothing is being done. so we can sit here and wonder, when it goes, who the hell should be responsible. but when things of a critical nature happen to our nation, the buck is supposed to stop at the president...do you agree with me?

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman