Sure Enough...
Sep. 25th, 2005 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lurkittyThere's an old joke told in political circles -- it can be adjusted to fit the party you're from, but I'll tell it from the standpoint of the Democrat. One day a Democrat goes over to his Republican neighbor's ranch and finds the fellow scratching his head, obviously puzzling over something. The Dem, being a kind man, asks what's up.
The Republican explains that he has two horses and he just can't tell them apart. He's tried all sorts of things: marking one with paint, which wore off; cutting off one's tail, which grew back; even putting a hat on one of them, which the horse promptly lost. As I said, the Dem may have disagreed with his neighbor, but he was a kind man so he ap-plied his best thinking to the task. Suddenly, he came up with an idea. "Why don't you measure them!" he exclaimed.
The Republican thought that was a great idea and got a ruler. And sure enough, the story goes, the black horse was six inches taller than the white horse.....
Why do I get the feeling that these are the people that are running our government? Today, Bush called for a plan to hand over control of large natural disasters to the military. Not that the military can't handle it, mind you.
Yes, about the military. There were repeated offers of military assistance from both the Army and the Navy that were turned down by FEMA in the early hours of the disaster. There was a naval hospital ship off the coast of New Orleans offering to help evacuate and FEMA turned them down! Plus, if anyone had listened to the Army Corps of Engineers in the first place and fixed the levees...well, let's not go there.
I seem to recall a time when we had rather a large military force under the jurisdiction of the state governors that was equipped to deal with large disasters like this. In fact, they were outfitted and trained to do just this sort of thing. They were called The National Guard. Where are the National Guard? Certainly not on US soil.
And sure enough....
The Republican explains that he has two horses and he just can't tell them apart. He's tried all sorts of things: marking one with paint, which wore off; cutting off one's tail, which grew back; even putting a hat on one of them, which the horse promptly lost. As I said, the Dem may have disagreed with his neighbor, but he was a kind man so he ap-plied his best thinking to the task. Suddenly, he came up with an idea. "Why don't you measure them!" he exclaimed.
The Republican thought that was a great idea and got a ruler. And sure enough, the story goes, the black horse was six inches taller than the white horse.....
Why do I get the feeling that these are the people that are running our government? Today, Bush called for a plan to hand over control of large natural disasters to the military. Not that the military can't handle it, mind you.
Yes, about the military. There were repeated offers of military assistance from both the Army and the Navy that were turned down by FEMA in the early hours of the disaster. There was a naval hospital ship off the coast of New Orleans offering to help evacuate and FEMA turned them down! Plus, if anyone had listened to the Army Corps of Engineers in the first place and fixed the levees...well, let's not go there.
I seem to recall a time when we had rather a large military force under the jurisdiction of the state governors that was equipped to deal with large disasters like this. In fact, they were outfitted and trained to do just this sort of thing. They were called The National Guard. Where are the National Guard? Certainly not on US soil.
And sure enough....
