President visits NO on Katrina anniversary

[HoustonFarrier]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/29/national/main6816541.shtml

Five years after Hurricane Katrina's wrath, President Barack Obama sought to reassure disaster-weary Gulf Coast residents Sunday that he would not abandon their cause.

"My administration is going to stand with you, and fight alongside you, until the job is done," Obama said to cheers at Xavier University, a historically black, Catholic university that was badly flooded by the storm.

The president said there are still too many vacant lots, trailers serving as classrooms, displaced residents and people out of work. But he said New Orleanians have showed amazing resilience.


I keep asking myself.....why has he NOT visited the places devastated by floods in the midwest over the last few years. Why has his administration NOT stood by others who lost all.

Ask yourself what New Orleans has, that Iowa does not.......and that is your answer.

Steve

[WashingtonBay]

Ask yourself what New Orleans has, that Iowa does not.......and that is your answer.

Steve

Dependence. A large urban population who never owned anything before Katrina, and don't own anything now. They lost everything, sure, but 'everything' wasn't much. The real thing missing is ownership. They're renters who don't know where to take the garbage if a can isn't provided to put it in. They have no stake in rebuilding or cleaning up anything themselves, they wait for it to be done. That's the real difference between other disasters and this one, and why there are still abandoned homes and people living in temporary FEMA trailers today. Those who live there don't own it, and those who did own it either have taken the money elsewhere if they were insured, or don't see the benefit of re-investing in structure just yet.

[gaited07]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/29/national/main6816541.shtml

Five years after Hurricane Katrina's wrath, President Barack Obama sought to reassure disaster-weary Gulf Coast residents Sunday that he would not abandon their cause.

"My administration is going to stand with you, and fight alongside you, until the job is done," Obama said to cheers at Xavier University, a historically black, Catholic university that was badly flooded by the storm.

The president said there are still too many vacant lots, trailers serving as classrooms, displaced residents and people out of work. But he said New Orleanians have showed amazing resilience.


I keep asking myself.....why has he NOT visited the places devastated by floods in the midwest over the last few years. Why has his administration NOT stood by others who lost all.

Ask yourself what New Orleans has, that Iowa does not.......and that is your answer.

Steve


Because who cares about a bunch of farmers trying to supply our nation with grains, meats, fruits, vegetables and etc. Regardless of obvious reasons (in view of public eyes and political disaster by bush) NO needed this attention when Katrina happened, not 5 years later.
No US should have to go through what the people of NO did.
And what do we do, ignore our own again to give aid to Iran, Afganistan, Haiti and etc areas because???? Our own people can fend for themselves.

Please let it be known that I don't care for Obama and is group and especially Biden (he's the biggest crook and a waste of a life source.)

[gaited07]

And your right in a way WB on this. If there was some drive from the people to re-build NO instead of just sitting around and doing nothing, they would have come back with a vengeance. JMO

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

SPOT On, WB.

Me... I've had it up to here --> <-- with any concern over New Orleans. My compassion was used up about the time they started shooting at CG helocopters and the cops started looting right along with the rest of them. Katrina didn't create the cesspool, it just blew the cover off it.

As far as I'm concerned, Katrina came through and did millions of dollars in needed improvements. Not one thin tax dollar should have been spent until they could show that the fetid swamp of corruption that was NO and LA had been drained and replaced. Getting Blanco and Nagin out of there (only lately) is a start. But now with yet another Landrieu in office... we can be sure it's just more of the same-ol-same-ol. It was the corrupt system of levee districts that, at the core, created most of their problems. They siphoned off money meant for maintenance of the levees and sniffed it right up their noses. From Nagin on up and down the chain.

Sorry, not one thin dime. They can party on somebody else's money.

[twofingers]

Even better - with motor voter they now have all those "registered" voters who no longer live there but will still be "voting " there. :innocent:

[JackieB]

You really hit it, WB. And RD. The corruption is a huge issue in all of Louisiana. It's pretty tough when there are so many crooked officials and law enforcement officers ready to take advantage of a situation.

There are, of course, always bright spots. I was there for a business meeting after Katrina and our company gave hundreds of us a full day to do volunteer work. We all painted a charter school that helps bright kids get the kind of education that will help them break that vicious cycle of dependence. We spent the day with the people who run the school and the kids themselves and they were so impressive. The neighborhood was so run down, but you could tell that these kids were going somewhere in life. They were motivated, articulate, passionate, and they weren't just putting on a show for us, either.

For these folks, it's worth paying attention to New Orleans. But there wasn't any government money involved with our volunteer work that day, either. Not a lot of money at all actually (a few thousand dollars worth of paint, I suppose).

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

It's important to note that we didn't see the same whining from Mississippi or Alabama. Those places got hit harder than NO got hit. Yet you don't hear them whining about some "anniversary" need for "remembrance".