Large Scale Central

A Midwest Problem?

General Discussion
#1

Subject: A shocking American contrast…

As you watch the flooding in the Midwest, have you noticed that there are no farmers running around with stolen plasma TVs or holding stolen liquor over their heads.

There’s no looting or yelling “Where’s Bush?”, “Where’s FEMA?, Where’s my check?”, or “Why isn’t the Gov’t out here saving me and my farm?” “I don’t want a smelly FEMA trailer. I want a clean hotel room or home.”

Likewise, I’ve also noticed there are no reports of any other country coming to help or sending aid.

Shocking contrast isn’t it?

Another shocking part to this is that I am compelled to put this in the “Off-Topic” category and not even think of posting on any other site that my friends look at.

Life is full of these perplexing questions.

#2

Ric,
I have heard some discontent. But there is certainly a sharp contrast.
The media sure isn’t covering the story like they did on the Gulf Coast. Had this happened in NY, coverage would be 24/7.
Ralph

#3

Somethin’ happen in the MidWest? :smiley:

Hope everybody is drying out.

We don’t need no stinking FEMA. We can take care of ourselves, thank you very much.

#4
Ric Golding said:
Subject: A shocking American contrast...

As you watch the flooding in the Midwest, have you noticed that there are no farmers running around with stolen plasma TVs or holding stolen liquor over their heads.

There’s no looting or yelling “Where’s Bush?”, “Where’s FEMA?, Where’s my check?”, or “Why isn’t the Gov’t out here saving me and my farm?” “I don’t want a smelly FEMA trailer. I want a clean hotel room or home.”

Likewise, I’ve also noticed there are no reports of any other country coming to help or sending aid.

Shocking contrast isn’t it?

Another shocking part to this is that I am compelled to put this in the “Off-Topic” category and not even think of posting on any other site that my friends look at.

Life is full of these perplexing questions.


Sheesh Ric,

Farmers are the one group of humanity that is used to all the crap that nature throws around. A lot of the rest got too cityfied and when the lights go out there’s not one bright idea in sight. Of course that’s just my opinion.

#5

Got this email from a buddy of mine;

I heard a dimwit on CNN yesterday say that this reminded him of New Orleans.
How?

Outside of being flooded, there is no looting, no people wandering the streets looking for meanness, no grocery carts being shoved through the water carrying stolen big screen TVs, no people sitting on the tops of their houses waiting on the government to come and get them, no police abandoning their posts, no Iowans bitching how the government and George Bush is failing them. There is not one damn thing, other than water, that is similar to New Orleans .

The streets in Des Moines are empty. People left when they were told to evacuate. They didn’t whine, bitch or blame the government for the broken
levees. They did what responsible people do in a crisis.

The actions of the people of Des Moines only makes the actions of the people of New Orleans look worse.

#6

Geesh Ric, your comments smack of bigotry. While I don’t condone looting and similar behavior comparing the plight of the urban poor to that of middle class America is not quite fair. You did not see images of people stuck up on roof tops for six days without food or water or hear stories of people being prevented from crossing a bridge by the police.

-Brian

#7
Brian Donovan said:
Geesh Ric, your comments smack of bigotry. While I don't condone looting and similar behavior comparing the plight of the urban poor to that of middle class America is not quite fair. You did not see images of people stuck up on roof tops for six days without food or water or hear stories of people being prevented from crossing a bridge by the police.

-Brian


Would you call it bigotry if the people in New Orleans had been white and Ric was making this observation?
The Midwest flooding looks to me to be just as devastating.
And I’m sure there are people of every color suffering in the flooding today.
There is very little news coverage compared to Katrina.
My prayers are with everyone involved.
Ralph

#8

Ric has made the same observations as I have. The only difference is that I’m a Canadian, sitting here in relative comfort, in the rain, with no right to be critical of our neigbours to the South.

RIGHT ON RIC....
#9

I might add that there were many, many good people in New Orleans that did not partake in the lawlessness but were victims of the lawless.
Ralph

#10

Katrina happened with a couple days notice, the flooding in the midwest was projected over weeks, there’s a big difference there was time for people to evacuate in the midwest. They wern’t trapped in Des Moines. Ric I’d say your grasping at a straw (Yeah a big WHITE ONE) Your comment is totally lop sided and on this topic does indeed make you apear to be a bigot. Compairing the poorest state in the nation to the middleclass midwest is completely wrong

#11

:smiley:

Ummm, let’s see. In Naw’lins, AMTRAK wasn’t used to evacuate, “It wasn’t needed.” 500 school buses were left to be flooded rather than be pressed into service for evacuation. “We didn’t think of it.” Old folks in the rest home were abandoned by those charged with their care to be drowned, because it was “inconvenient” to evacuate them, and besides, they probably wouldn’t survive, anyway… The Po-leece went around confiscating legal firearms from law-abiding citizens. Why??? Perhaps to make the looting easier.

Need I go on? It has nothing to do with poverty, or being black. There are plenty of poor black folks in East St Louis, and other submerged locations in the Midwest. I don’t hear them whining. It is an attitude of dependence on the gummint vs. self-reliance.

Just my nickel’s worth.

#12
Mark Dash said:
Katrina happened with a couple days notice, the flooding in the midwest was projected over weeks, there's a big difference there was time for people to evacuate in the midwest. They wern't trapped in Des Moines. Ric I'd say your grasping at a straw (Yeah a big WHITE ONE) Your comment is totally lop sided and on this topic does indeed make you apear to be a bigot. Compairing the poorest state in the nation to the middleclass midwest is completely wrong
Ah, yes, the Huey Long legacy is alive and well........;)

I worked in Wilkes Barre right after the big hurricane flooded that town in 1972, restoring telephone service. Got to talking to one of the locals and he told me this was his third flood since he’d lived there. I was amazed. I told him I would have been long gone after the first one. He said that this was his home. You clean up, fix it, and life goes on.

#13

Floods can be bad, but droughts can be a lot worse.

I was once given a very convincing lesson by a grizzly old Master Chief as we watched some young bucks work their way through an unplanned, unrehearsed scenario. As we watched the kids resolve their problems he asked me which ones I wanted on my team. The choices were people going for the lifeboats or people going for the pumps and the firefighting equipment. His decisions were always made by the fact that the people going for the lifeboats have already left you, in their minds. The ones going for the pumps and firefighting equipment were thinking “we’re going to save this ship and my shipmates, but we better git busy”.

There will always be “victims” and there will always be “freedom fighters”. “Victims” are never free even when there is no fence around them. A person that will always fight for his freedom knows that the fence is not to keep himself trapped inside, but to keep others out. Man or beast it is always that way.

#14
Ric Golding said:
There will always be "victims" and there will always be "freedom fighters". "Victims" are never free even when there is no fence around them. A person that will always fight for his freedom knows that the fence is not to keep himself trapped inside, but to keep others out. Man or beast it is always that way.
"Victims" are never free even when there is no fence around them. Agreed. "A person that will always fight for his freedom knows that the fence is not to keep himself trapped inside, but to keep others out." Are you saying the East Germans built the Berlin Wall to keep the West Berliners out? Or the entire German population were "victims" as opposed to freedom fighters? I always thought the saying was "the wall you build to keep others out can also be used to keep you in". Ralph
#15

Ralph, the Germans didn’t build the Berlin Wall, the Soviets did. Remember them?

#16
Steve Featherkile said:
Ralph, the Germans didn't build the Berlin Wall, the Soviets did. Remember them?
Nit-pick why don't you :lol: Trust me, it was mostly East Germans working on the wall. The Soviets were not going to do any labor they could get a German to do. Ralph
#17
Ralph Berg said:
Steve Featherkile said:
Ralph, the Germans didn't build the Berlin Wall, the Soviets did. Remember them?
Nit-pick why don't you :lol: Trust me, it was mostly East Germans working on the wall. The Soviets were not going to do any labor they could get a German to do. Ralph
Not to Nit-Pick. But, does that mean China and Ireland build most of the transcontinental railroad?;)
#18
Tony Goatz said:
Ralph Berg said:
Steve Featherkile said:
Ralph, the Germans didn't build the Berlin Wall, the Soviets did. Remember them?
Nit-pick why don't you :lol: Trust me, it was mostly East Germans working on the wall. The Soviets were not going to do any labor they could get a German to do. Ralph
Not to Nit-Pick. But, does that mean China and Ireland build most of the transcontinental railroad?;)
Ahh......... But the Berlin wall was in East Germany, where the Transcontinental Railroad was not in Ireland or China. Now if you had said the Irish and the Chinese........just as I said the "East Germans" and not East Germany in my post. Ralph
#19
Ralph Berg said:
....................

The Soviets were not going to do any labor they could get a German to do.
Ralph


Sheesh Ralph didn’t you mean “they could get a German to do better.”

PS Remember I’m Swiss, not German. :smiley: :wink:

#20

HJ
“Do better”
Of course, I assumed that was understood.:lol:
Ralph