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How many people bullshitting on about how Katrina was no big deal think we did a swell job there?

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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:16 PM
Original message
How many people bullshitting on about how Katrina was no big deal think we did a swell job there?
How many people think we're doing a swell job in New Orleans today, tearing down public housing and not prosecuting the people who shot at people trying to leave that city, etc? Well, we're not. Hopefully we'll do a better job in Haiti right?

How many people think that the Haiti disaster, being on a much worse scale, that we have any chance of doing better there than we did on the Katrina disaster, where the few survivors we had to deal with were blamed for being there?

Sorry, but I don't buy this back-slapping and self-aggrandizing.

Most people don't even give a shit about Katrina anymore, or preventing it from happening again, hence they are insulted by recollections of that event and assume that any attempt to compare disaster response in Haiti to disaster response elsewhere is an unfair attempt to bring up an old story that is (in their minds) "over and done with". New President, new agenda, new disaster, new response.

By the way, no, piling bodies like cordwood outside city limits without digging ditches is never OK.

If US forces are there to help, why are they assisting with burning corpses in the open, instead of providing for proper emergency morgue work for mass casualty operations?
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cali Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:18 PM
Response to Original message
1. I imagine it's flat out impossible to set up emergency morgues for
a 150,000 dead. And dangerous as hell as that many rotting corpse are a major vector for disease.
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Pavulon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:19 PM
Response to Original message
2. If they are (source please)
i would assume corpses are being burned to prevent the spread of disease. I would assume the lack of diesel fuel would contribute to the lack of refrigeration. I would assume diesel is being used to save lives. I would there are not a bunch of deer hitachi excavators sitting around haiti doing nothing now. Maybe they can stop using them for rescue attempts and use them to dig a ditch for dead people.

You people are getting annoying. Donate money, do something useful.
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cali Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:20 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. this kind of rank stupidity is always annoying.
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hlthe2b Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:31 PM
Response to Reply #2
18. Absolutely correct
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Political Heretic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:51 PM
Response to Reply #2
26. Gotta agree on this I think
I think there is too little concrete information for these kinds of wildly speculative posts.

I'm fairly certain we are going to see flaws in our aid effort, but what they are or why is something we don't yet know. Much of the things you are mentioning have pretty plausible explanations, and its really easy to second guess from the couch when we don't have ANY facts on the ground.

I'm also unclear about the connection you are making to Katrina. I have hardly forgotten - Katrina was the most current example of the Shock Doctrine of disaster capitalism in action.... rebuilding New Orleans in the service of corporate profit and privileged interest, thanking God for sending a hurricane that forcefully displaced all those pesky poor people from prime real estate.

We need to keep vigilant about Haiti lest something similar happen there. But right now the only focus is on immediate aid, and there's too much speculative second-guessing going right now for my taste.
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:52 AM
Original message
Second-guessing the aid effort is the only way to manage an emergency. Just ask Honore
It is clear many people have forgotten basic liberal skepticism which is the only way to ensure a positive outcome in any situation.

Humans in any organization do NOT naturally gravitate towards best outcomes.
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nadinbrzezinski Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:59 PM
Response to Reply #2
36. Correct... getting rid of these many bodies
is not for the faint of heart...
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:50 AM
Response to Reply #36
52. How do you think they should be gotten rid of?
There are procedures for disposal of bodies in a mass death situation.
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HiFructosePronSyrup Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:19 PM
Response to Original message
3. Have you noticed how some people WANT the relief effort to fail?
They haven't got any evidence of incompetence, so they just make it up with a combination of character assassination and wishful thinking.

And why would they want relief to fail? So they can blame Barack Obama. These people want Haitians to die, and exploit their deaths, so they can attack Barack Obama.

And it's the same people who've been jumping through hoops to attack Obama on the stupidest shit for a long, long time now. Notice the disproportionate and ironic use of the peace symbol as their avatars.
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cali Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:21 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. yes.
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tonysam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:21 PM
Response to Reply #3
7. Nobody wants that to fail.
It has to do with the bullshit of trivializing Katrina. It's shameful.
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HiFructosePronSyrup Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:23 PM
Response to Reply #7
10. Yes, they do.
They won't admit it, but they do.

And nobody's trivialized Katrina. That's just the sort of bullshit strawman that the people I was talking about like to invent.
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tonysam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:25 PM
Response to Reply #10
13. Nobody wants it to fail. Repeat.
But don't belittle other tragedies to make a point.
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HiFructosePronSyrup Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:31 PM
Response to Reply #13
19. I heard you the first time.
What you say is untrue.
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Political Heretic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:52 PM
Response to Reply #10
27. Yeah where is the trivializing Katrina line coming from? Some thread or something?
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SidDithers Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:26 PM
Response to Reply #3
14. Yup...
and it's getting tiresome.

Sid
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NutmegYankee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:32 PM
Response to Reply #3
20. Yep
Same people too.
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anonymous171 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:54 PM
Response to Reply #3
30. Isn't it funny how some people take attacks Obama extremely personally?
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HiFructosePronSyrup Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 04:11 PM
Response to Reply #30
38. No.
Any liberal worth anything is going to be personally offended by such ridiculous character assassination of President Obama.
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:38 AM
Response to Reply #38
42. What the fuck does the OP have to do with Obama?
We already know New Orleans is not a priority for Obama OR the American People, that is not a criticism of Obama it would be true for anyone electable in the US. Haiti is a priority because it is still ongoing. I am merely pointing out uncomfortable truths.

A year from now, two years, anyone still going on about Haiti on DU and any ongoing problems there will be tuned out and told to stop obsessing and will be assumed to be a critic of Obama trying to "look for some issue to nitpick".
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Political Heretic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:56 PM
Response to Reply #3
31. I'm concerned about long term post-crisis development plans, but this stuff is weird....
...this whole make up crap without evidence to demonize relief efforts doesn't make any sense to me.

I have a long term concern about what happens after relief efforts, when the conditions are ripe for a little global shock doctrine.

As Namoi Klein said in a recent interview, we should pay careful attention in the future to whether or not long term development aid to Haiti takes the form of GRANTS (which it should) or takes the form of global mob loans (development loans to poor countries with repayment conditions so outrageous they can essentially never be paid back, and forbearance requests are granted only if the target country agrees to a whole slew of corporate demands, such as water or resource privatization, etc.

Those are LONG TERM concerns. Right now, there's no concrete evidence of anything other than tons of people from many nations trying to coordinate relief under near impossible conditions.
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seabeyond Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:58 PM
Response to Reply #3
34. i never respond to your posts and rarely agree with you. but right fuckin on.....
that is exactly what it is feeling like. i didnt put it in the right context. but regardless of what is done, .... it is ignored only to accuse

they want failure.

if that isnt fuckin sick
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Political Heretic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:59 PM
Response to Reply #34
37. I'm with you and I never agree with him either.
But this is getting weird to me.
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:40 AM
Response to Reply #37
43. I guess you desperately want to believe that what happened in New Orleans won't be repeated here.
I don't have that faith.
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:43 AM
Response to Reply #34
44. Seabeyond, do you believe I WANT the relief effort to fail? THAT is sad.
HighFructose is merely reflexively defending any POTENTIAL criticism of Obama, when the OP has nothing to do with Obama (it's not like Obama can change how things will go down with the Haiti relief effort, it will proceed as these things always do, for better or worse.)

Since I almost always agree with you, it's sad that you agree with what is essentially a character assassination post directed against a "potential criticism of Obama".
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seabeyond Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:55 AM
Response to Reply #44
54. i dont know why you want to see the worst when there is so much that
people are trying to do for good. i do not get that at all.

i do not know why people think a major catastophe like this can easily be addressed, when it is anything else but

people in katrina purposely kept lives from being saved. they were trying to cover their asses at the expense of the victims in katrina. that was the issue in NO. that is not happening here.

i dont get why people are being so unrealistic. and i dont get why when a world is in sympathy, and there crying for them as we watch on tv, and doing what we can sitting in our comfortable homes, watching so many put such a painful effort into helping, why... there are those that cannot value what is being done, or the attempt of being done

one can look at motive and intent, and see good or bad.
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 03:03 AM
Response to Reply #54
58. I don't believe that people have ill intent. But many more deaths can still be averted.
This is an ongoing deaths situation. You understand why emotions might be running high.

I agree with guys like Honore that the best way to forestall additional mass death is to
ensure the guys running the relief effort are healthily second-guessing their own performance.

If something is being done that would be unacceptable here in the US (there ARE sanitary and
repectful ways to dispose of bodies in a mass death situation, just ask the people of Rwanda)
they must not say "you can never imagine what it's like down there", they must FIX it.

People forget that Afghanistan used to have modern infrastructure and a society too, things
that the West would never invest in today because "it's totally different there".

The British Empire used to survive on a pledge to "make the world England" by ensuring
that if something does not fly in the home country, it does not fly in the third world
colonies they occupied. This was of course imperfectly applied. But we should not draw
a distinction between what Americans would think about how a disaster was handled here,
versus elsewhere where "conditions are different". The only way to reverse long-standing
poverty and despair is to stop assuming the underlying conditions and responding to every
disaster with that assumption in mind.
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nadinbrzezinski Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 03:24 AM
Response to Reply #58
65. Let me adress honore since you have brought him in
his discussion was based on a good lie. When he finally penetrated the zone of the disaster he had the 101st and the 82nd airborne in place. Now don't get me wrong, each one of those troopers was and still is top notch... but they WERE security... and this was four days into Katrina.

He did not move in until he had that IN PLACE.

What he said yesterday was driven by either bad memory, or political intent... I suspect bad memory driven by politics.

Mark my words he IS running for some political office and is just establishing his bona fides and hoping nobody remembers. Problem is some of us do.

I highly dislike liars... he'd not order anybody into the field here without security either. Why? The two guys from the Dominican Republic who were shot today while freelancing with the best of intentions mind you.
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 03:51 AM
Response to Reply #65
67. So two guys got shot. It's not like the 3 million people crawling thru the rubble will get security
Edited on Sun Jan-17-10 03:53 AM by Leopolds Ghost
The security we're speaking of is confined to mercs defending mighty whitey (the heroic rescue teams, I apologize for using sarcastic Tvtropes lingo) from potential threats caused by the people they're supposed to be helping. Potential threats do exist... why is the safety of the relief workers prioritized over the life and health of the victims? It can't be.
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nadinbrzezinski Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 12:48 PM
Response to Reply #67
77. Actually not really
those mercs you are talking about are army personnel, some of those teams ARE military and can defend themselves. But security was so damn shaky they pulled teams. ALL teams behind the wire at dusk.

And thanks for calling the military mercs... it is news to them, and an insult of incredible proportions, no matter what flag their serving.
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blondeatlast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 10:32 AM
Response to Reply #3
75. Same usernames, too. nt
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tonysam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:20 PM
Response to Original message
4. The only real difference between Haiti and Katrina is the scale of tragedy
Edited on Sat Jan-16-10 02:21 PM by tonysam
It's obvious a LOT of people on DU don't care about Katrina anymore and try to belittle it for their own propagandistic purposes. You know, those people in the Crescent City never realized just how good they had it when they lost their families, lost their homes, their livelihoods because people in Haiti have it worse.

The Bush administration should have been RUN OUT ON A RAIL over Katrina. But, no, there was the usual apathy or more concern about Valerie Plame than a flagrant negligence over a monstrous tragedy which very nearly destroyed a major U.S. city. It wasn't the flood, remember that was so much the problem, it was the RESPONSE, or LACK of a timely response to the flood.
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:23 PM
Response to Reply #4
9. Katrina and this earthquake have this in common:
BushCo created the situation where the levees could fail and BushCo created the situation where Haiti couldn't respond to its own earthquake.

And now Bush is out raising money for a disaster he helped create. Oh, the humanity.

I'd follow Naomi Klein closely during this episode because this is as naked as disaster capitalism gets.

(And you have to love the dear hearts at CNN warning people to beware of scams when the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund hasn't even posted their Board of Directors. A list I look forward to reading.)
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piedmont Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:23 PM
Response to Reply #4
11. Link, please?
I would like links to these horrible DUers who "belittle the Katrina tragedy."
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HiFructosePronSyrup Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:53 PM
Response to Reply #11
21. OP accuses me of it here:
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Political Heretic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:57 PM
Response to Reply #4
32. It was just poor black people. Who cares?
:sarcasm:
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piedmont Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:21 PM
Response to Original message
8. It is certainly possible to know that Katrina was a horrible tragedy and recognize that...
the scope of the Haitian disaster may be 100-200 times greater in number of dead and wounded. And that the task in Haiti is made harder still by the fact that it's not even as accessible as New Orleans and the Gulf coast were.
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tonysam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:24 PM
Response to Reply #8
12. Katrina was no less tragic. Death is death. Homelessness is homelessness.
Are we going to put numbers on natural disasters? Then Haiti's isn't as bad as Indonesia's tsunami, which in turn isn't as bad as China's earthquake in 1976, which in turn isn't as bad as East Pakistan's cyclone, which wasn't as bad as the Black Death of the 1300s.

Tragedy is tragedy no matter WHERE it is.
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cali Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:29 PM
Response to Reply #12
16.  what a vacuous statement.
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piedmont Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:30 PM
Response to Reply #12
17. No one is saying it's "more tragic." This isn't a play. It is larger in scale, which means...
it's more difficult for emergency responders to deal with. The logistics of getting aid into the affected area are overwhelming because of the scale of the need.
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Political Heretic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:58 PM
Response to Reply #12
35. Agreed, but its not unreasonable to note differences in scale.
Edited on Sat Jan-16-10 03:59 PM by Political Heretic
The fort hood shooting was also a tragedy. The scale of that tragedy was much different than the tragedy in haiti.

Doesn't make one worse than the other. It makes them different in scale.
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:30 AM
Response to Reply #35
39. What almost every DUer is saying is that it's insulting to Haitians to bring up Katrina
Because Katrina was a much "smaller", forgettable (when was the last time people on DU talked
about what's going on in New Orleans post-Katrina? when was the last time Obama made it a priority?)
and hence more minor disaster than what's going on now in Haiti.

And they're using that to justify apathy about how many more people need to die in Haiti because
"more people WILL die, stop trying to speed up the relief effort, our leaders are doing a good job,
you don't know what you're talking about."
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hlthe2b Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 02:27 PM
Response to Original message
15. Your subject line just struck me like a knife in the heart...
Edited on Sat Jan-16-10 02:44 PM by hlthe2b
While the scale of mortality is magnitudes higher in Haiti, can anyone possibly be suggesting Katrina was "no big deal" and "we did a swell job there?"

However, with more than 20 years experience in Public Health, I would urge you to listen to the explanations for the decisions re: mass burials or burning... While it pains me greatly that steps to register, document (photograph) and identify the bodies are not being taken, I believe this may be unavoidable. The disease risk may well justify this action if there is really no possibility of dealing quickly with the dead through more sensitive measures. I am withholding my own judgment until I learn more from those on the ground, but, from everything I have read, seen and heard thusfar, I think they have no choice. Providing for the public health & safety of the living outweighs the respectful care of the dead.


I guess, I need a long break from DU....
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omega minimo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:46 PM
Response to Reply #15
23. Well put on both counts.
:pals:
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omega minimo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:45 PM
Response to Original message
22. Who is saying "Katrina is no big deal"?
Edited on Sat Jan-16-10 03:45 PM by omega minimo
Katrina was genocide. It was also a test of what Americans will accept being perpetrated on other Americans by their government.

Perhaps the posters you're reading who want to "put it behind" them want to stay in denial about that.
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Codeine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:49 PM
Response to Original message
24. Emergency morgues?
For over 100,000 dead? Do you have any fucking CLUE how big an undertaking (no pun intended) that would be?

The dead are dead, and we're trying to help the living.
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piedmont Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:53 PM
Response to Reply #24
28. To hell with the living. What we need are morgues!
:sarcasm:
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Hekate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:58 PM
Response to Reply #24
33. Yeah, in 80 degree heat + humidity. Mass graves are the only solution at that point.
If anyone wants to go volunteer to photograph the dead and take fingerprints before the bodies swell up and liquify, they should stfu and go do it. But they shouldn't expect the living and wounded to be grateful just now when their need is so much greater.

God some people are stupid beyond belief. When my mom passed, my sister and I didn't get to see her for 24 hours. She wanted to donate her body to science, so she wasn't embalmed. Even though her remains had been refrigerated awaiting pickup by the university, we could already smell the first faint evidence of decay as we sat with her awhile to say goodbye.

Imagine 140,000 bodies in a city in 80 deg. heat.

Hekate

:argh:

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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:32 AM
Response to Reply #24
40. You people don't know what the hell you're talking about. Proper disposal of bodies in a mass death
situation requires emergency morgue procedures. You're picturing some small, refrigerated facility.

What's going on now is they're piling unbagged bodies into dump trucks and shoving them around in open landfills with shovels with arms and legs sticking them out.

And you people have the GALL to say "maybe they don't want to waste precious diesel fuel" digging a TRENCH.

FO.
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Bluebear Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:50 PM
Response to Original message
25. Citation of someone saying Katrina was no big deal?
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:44 AM
Response to Reply #25
46. Several whole threads saying "it's bullshit to even bring up Katrina" in comparison to Haiti.
This is like people who say that it's bullshit to talk about Rwanda or Armenia in comparison to the Holocaust because of the scale of mass death.

Funny how they don't continue that (misguided) logic.
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seabeyond Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-16-10 03:54 PM
Response to Original message
29. what a bullshit and irresponsible post. NO ONE said katrina nbd. PROVE IT.
totally shameful post
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:34 AM
Response to Reply #29
41. Only a few posters on this thread think Katrina worth talking about compared to Haiti
Edited on Sun Jan-17-10 02:35 AM by Leopolds Ghost
And there have been numerous threads stating the two are "not comparable" and that our experience in New Orleans is "not even worth bringing up".

Most Americans have forgotten about New Orleans anyway. They will forget about Haiti eventually too.

Human fucking nature.
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piedmont Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:45 AM
Response to Reply #41
47. You've been asked for a link at least four times in this thread.
Link?
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:48 AM
Response to Reply #47
49. RTFT. RTFDU. If you've been keeping track of the threads on this subject
I have nothing more to say to you otherwise.
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piedmont Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 03:15 AM
Response to Reply #49
62. So no links then. No proof. No argument. nt
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blondeatlast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 10:36 AM
Response to Reply #49
76. So you can't prove it. Put up or shut up. nt
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SeattleGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:52 AM
Response to Reply #47
53. Waste if time. OP thinks their OPINION is fact enough.
:grr:

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seabeyond Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:49 AM
Response to Reply #41
50. why should we be talking katrina today, instead of haiti is the one in crisis. NO ONE said it is
Edited on Sun Jan-17-10 02:57 AM by seabeyond
not worth bringing up, that is utter bullshit. link it.

few have forgotten katrina. huge ass lesson learned and one of bush's greatest downfall.

human fucking nature? the nation and world watched with tears what happened in NO. one of the few times i watched husband in tears. it effected all of us enormously and for you to dismiss all of man kind with a flick of your hand is your own deficiency.

my husband thru his company did a clothes and need drive. we had massive donation. massive. i and friends could not keep up what was given to give to those...

how dare you

dismiss alls compassion, because of your own issues.

you chose not to see it. no one can help you with that. that is your own

but today, is not yesterday. it is what is happening today

you are the one point the finger at humanity. utterly shameful
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 03:10 AM
Response to Reply #50
59. We just gave $500 to the Haiti relief effort. I spent years of my life on post Katrina relief
This shit hits home for me.

I am absolutely angered by the threads where people got snotty about PASSING references to Katrina, those folks said that the two were absolutely not comparable disasters and should not be brought up in the same sentence.

You can imagine how angry I must be at DU now, seeing threads like that

(and then seeing threads where people are laughing and joking about turning Haiti into the 51st state.)

I refuse to believe that the Haiti relief effort will go the best it possibly can

UNLESS SOME HARD HITTING MOTHER--- IS DOWN THERE SECOND GUESSING HIS OWN EFFORTS and making it so.

Saying "there will be many, many more deaths, either live with it or go down there yourself"

like some people are saying is just internalized version of the same psychology we saw among
Republicans (and humans in general) in response to any disaster. It is not the best attitude
to have if we want to prevent further death

(Keeping in mind that possibly 20% of Americans and many more people elsewhere probably agree
with all those Youtube and NYTimes posters who say "they deserved it" and racist shit like that.)
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seabeyond Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 09:31 AM
Response to Reply #59
73. i am getting it now.
thank you for expressing this way. i see what you are saying. i spent the last handful of days not getting why there were posts like yours.

yes, the haiti 51st state thread, i never went into that thread. thought stupid, didnt want to hear what was said.

so i get what you say.

thanks
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SeattleGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:44 AM
Response to Original message
45. So tell me, will you be happy if thousands more people die?
Will you feel vindicated?

Posts like yours just piss me off!

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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:47 AM
Response to Reply #45
48. No you ------, the whole point of the thread is I am ANGRY at folx who say "thousands more WILL die,
"This is NOT Katrina, Katrina was minor compared to this, Katrina was managable this is not, thousands more WILL die in Haiti, there will be NO good outcome, there is nothing more we can do that our brave men and women aren't doing, get over it."

That is what people are saying PURELY BECAUSE THEY WANT TO BELIEVE that we are going to do the best we can without fact checking.

The best way to forestall additional mass death is to criticize and correct problems before they happen.

It is clear that most people on DU no longer understand that.
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SeattleGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:49 AM
Response to Reply #48
51. 1: I have NEVER EVER said that Katrina was minor
and 2) Where are YOUR fucking facts? You are the one positing this fucking bullshit, so it is your responsibility to provide facts. Good, solid, hardassed facts, not your fucking OPINION.

It is clear that YOU do not understand!!!!

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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:56 AM
Response to Reply #51
55. Facts about what? I was simply saying in the OP that it is worth learning from Katrina
And others feel the two disasters are not comparable and that we should sit back and assume that the relief effort is proceeding as best it can,

instead of assuming it WON'T proceed as best it possibly could, because human institutions never gravitate towards best possible outcomes, and working to change that by healthy second-guessing of the relief effort.

That's what good managers and good generals do, and it's also essential to an atmosphere of liberal skepticism which I no longer see on DU on hardly any issue.

The only skepticism tolerated hereabouts is on issues where a consensus exists as to something being bad.
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nadinbrzezinski Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 02:59 AM
Response to Original message
56. I know you are directing this at me so let adress your major points
1.- Katrina was mismanaged that is why it was far more of a tragedy in the search rescue phase than it should have.

That said, this logistically this is much larger, in the search and rescue phase, there is no comparison

2.- People who should NOT have died during Katrina due to that purposeful mismanagement did die... that was on purpose, to prove government does not work.

3.- Since you have gone into the RECOVERY PHASE, it is still mismanaged.

4.- We are not at recovery phase with this yet. My hope and I am not counting on it, is that we move away from the historic pattern for Haiti, and the WORLD community actually moves away from private "recovery" and to the Marshall Plan (which was publicly handled) suggested by the UN.

The Emergency Meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday might clue us in to the direction.

Recognizing that this is that much larger does not in any way diminish the tragedy that was Katrina. If anything the fact that this is going as smoothly as it is... makes me that much more angry about Katrina.

Not that you will get those finer points. I really do not expect it. This is the new meme emerging.
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 03:12 AM
Response to Reply #56
60. I respect your points. To understand my source of frustration see post #59 and #58. What new meme?
Edited on Sun Jan-17-10 03:15 AM by Leopolds Ghost
I am not part of some larger effort or community group-think on the Haiti issue. I am merely expressing my own thoughts on the matter.

Again, see post #59 and to a lesser extend #58 to understand where I'm coming from on this.

Too many people assume that people like me who express healthy skepticism and caution, are some sort of Trojan Horse out to discredit their heros, or something.

The best way to ensure positive outcomes is to be vigilant and prevent negative ones.
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nadinbrzezinski Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 03:14 AM
Response to Reply #60
61. That those pointing out that this is logistically that much largrer
are diminishing or ignoring Katrina... which at least I am not.
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 03:17 AM
Response to Reply #61
63. I think you and me were talking past each other on the various threads
Since we clearly assumed the worst in what each other was saying.

PS-- see post #59 response to seabeyond better understand my mentality.
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Jamastiene Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 03:02 AM
Response to Original message
57. The response to the Hurricane Katrina victims was a total disaster.
Edited on Sun Jan-17-10 03:03 AM by Jamastiene
I wish I knew the answers to fight gentrification due to opportunistic disaster politics. That does seem to be what is happening in poor areas that are hard hit, imho.
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 03:18 AM
Response to Reply #57
64. I am just hoping we do the best we possibly can to forestall additional mass death or displacement
Edited on Sun Jan-17-10 03:21 AM by Leopolds Ghost
due to starvation. That is all I hope.

Perhaps I just do not have the same faith in humanity that many people do.

I have heard of too many crises where responders moved deliberately, because there
was nothing compelling them to put a fire underneath, the people they were helping
were different from them, "it's a different culture over there", they became inured
to mass death, grew to accept outcomes that they would not find acceptable at home
because the locals were all too willing to expect such outcomes given past treatment.
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Jamastiene Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 03:39 AM
Response to Reply #64
66. I don't really have that much faith in humanity either.
Part of me is infuriated that different people are treated different ways and part of me is resigned to it as a fact of life. To be 100% honest, what happens with me is: I feel powerless to change things, it infuriates me that it happens, and I try to take my mind off it for short periods of time to keep from popping a vein in my head from the tension, then it hits me all over again.

I live in a poor area. It's a mixed race neighborhood, but we are all poor and in the same boat together. We've been lucky so far except for Hurricane Hugo years ago when the US still had some kind of FEMA program that worked. When I saw NOLA and what happened down there, I said "There but for the grace go I."

I knew then and I still know now that if something truly catastrophic like that happened here in my home town, we'd be in the same situation. The wealthy whites would be helped on camera to make it look good, while the rest of us suffer alone in the less picturesque sections of town. I know how it really is. So many people are so insulated from the truth about how it really is.
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cliffordu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 04:13 AM
Response to Original message
68. Uh, because you don't understand the depth of the problem.
Your ignorance of the scope of what is going on down there is breathtaking.


By the time corpses lay around in 90 degree heat for three or four days picking them up is nearly impossible....they fall apart like overcooked chickens.

Morgue work at that point in time on the scale we are seeing IS shoving them into mass graves or burning in place.

I wish you could go there and ask them yourself.



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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 04:20 AM
Response to Reply #68
69. That's why they needed body bags on the first shipment.
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cliffordu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 04:23 AM
Response to Reply #69
71. Early on it made sense. after the third day, none.
Your age and/or your life experience is showing. Give it up.
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Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 04:22 AM
Response to Original message
70. See, this is the sort of thing that angers me. My fears were right.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/photography/la-fg-haiti-hires-html,0,7123168.htmlstory

** No visible Western relief aid presence.

** Relief workers obviously sticking to vehicles in accessible areas due to "security concerns"

** Emphasis on "looting" instead of scavenging.

** Emphasis on letting people "do their own thing" instead of organizing the survivors.

** Then shooting at them when they attempt to scavenge for blankets, food, etc. Life of survivors not valued

** "looters" / scavengers percieved as a security threat.

** Bodies dumped haphazardly outside the morgue by people with no respect for the dead

** The fact that most people viewing these images will be repulsed by the way the
bodies were treated, and then say "oh well, it's a major disaster in a third world country,
be thankful they would never treat bodies like that here" and go back to eating their dinners.

** "Scientists focus on areas with high seismic standards while ignoring poorer regions, one expert says."

I guess I will be attacked now for being a negative nelly.
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cliffordu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 04:29 AM
Response to Reply #70
72. Delusional, maybe.
Why is it your place to shit all over the people who are actually doing the work down there?

If you are soo concerned, get your little self down there and show 'em how it's done.




I've been disgusted at DU'ers before, but I think you just invented a new category.

And by the way - that photographer might have an ax to grind.

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bettyellen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-17-10 10:29 AM
Response to Original message
74. no one said that, this OP is a flaming pile of bullshit
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