User:Woozle/blog/2011-05-30 0908 Braindead Facebook comment of the day

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Braindead Facebook comment of the day
2011-05-30 0908

I can see this comment, but FB won't let me reply to it directly -- it was made visible to me when a friend (FB and RL) made her own comment on the link which started the conversation. I couldn't let it go unanswered.


The comments were in a thread on photos of the abandoned Six Flags New Orleans amusement park:

I went to New Orleans after the hurricane and couldn't help but realize how stupid people would ever want to build a city that's lower than not only sea level, but even some inland rivers too. But, you can't fix stupid. The place smelled like a sour milk sponge.

And then they tried politicizing the disaster by claiming it was all Bush's fault, blamed government for their stupidity for living there. What a joke.

Since this isn't Facebook, I feel free to say this: YOU ASSHOLE.

Rebecca Black ghetto meme.png

They didn't "try to blame Bush for their stupidity for living there". They blamed the Bush administration for:

  • refusing to take steps to make the place safer in the event of a disaster like Katrina, which everyone knew was coming eventually but few had the authority to do anything about -- including:
    • maintenance of crumbling infrastructure (most notably the levee system) which was under the management of the Federal Government and therefore not something the locals could do anything about
    • having an emergency plan in place for this long-predicted disaster
  • appointing a completely unqualified person to head the agency responsible for disaster relief (FEMA), and in general giving key posts throughout FEMA and other government agencies based on politics rather than competence
  • the administration's (unsurprisingly) crappy response in dealing with the emergency, when it came
  • Bush specifically praising FEMA's unqualified chief for doing a great job ("Heck of a job, Brownie"), when the job he had done was in fact amazingly incompetent
  • denying that anyone could possibly have foreseen this disaster (a familiar pattern: people expect disaster, beg for assistance in preventing it, administration does nothing, disaster happens, administration says "who could have foreseen this?" - and people like you believe them)
  • not doing anything about the many abuses that took place during the disaster, including:
    • gun confiscations by police (who ordered this? where was the investigation?)
    • the mysterious death by fire of one man in police custody
    • prosecutions of individuals who committed minor illegal acts in the name of saving lives (e.g. the boy who "stole" a bus to help evacuate people)
    • truckloads of outside aid that were refused by local officials, in some cases left to rot

I'm sure you're a loyal Fox viewer and therefore these facts won't change your rigidly "fair"-and-"balanced" ("fair": Foxspeak for "favoring insane right-wing ideology", "balanced": Foxspeak for "making sure every sane or reasoned viewpoint is countered with insane right-wing rhetoric") view of the world, but I couldn't let your words stand without comment. Yes, Bush and his policies were very much to blame for the extent of this disaster.

How dare you try to shift blame from those responsible to those who were the victims of that incompetence?