"In all fairness, these people were TOLD to evacuate."

[friesianrider]

From everyone's favorite Faux News fallafel-loving blowhard.

Um, pardon me if I'm just a bleeding heart liberal, but if I'm not mistaken no matter which way you slice it, it takes a decent chunk of money to evacuate. Let's not beat around the bush - the majority of those who didn't evacuate were poor minorities (or at least poor folks). I mean, how many well-dressed white folks did you see outside the Super Dome? Most of them likely relied on public transportation and don't have a car. Even if they did, it takes $ to evacuate even a few hundred miles to somewhere safe (thanks to gas being $2.50-$4 a gallon or more). Then even if you have:

1) a reliable car to get you somewhere safe
2) money to buy gas to get you somewhere safe

...where do you stay if you don't have relatives living somewhere safe? You've got to get a hotel room for, best case scenario, 2 or 3 days. That costs money, too. Most of these poor people were likely only scraping by. I'd be willing to bet most of them do not have a good chunk of money on tap for things like this, let alone credit cards reserved only for emergencies.

It costs MONEY to evacuate, and a fair amount of it. Only some insensitive rich prick would make such an absurd statement like that. I was born in 1983 so don't remember much of Reagan's presidency, but my mother always fumes about a statement he made once saying, "well if people don't like (such and such) they can vote with their feet and move." She was in a pretty tough financial situation at the time and was very offended by the belief that it's just so easy to pick up and move whenever one feels like it. It costs money to do absolutely everything in life - especially relocating, even if only temporarily for a hurricane. Particularly in this economy it is absurd to expect that a majority of Americans have a lot of money left over every paycheck to stuff into their mutual fund accounts or a savings account for a rainy day.

Just that saying "well they were told to evacuate they SHOULD have!" is very insensitive to the undoubtedly thousands who literally *could not* evacuate because of how costly it truly is. At a minimum, you need a working car that you're able to afford the gas for (to drive say, a bare minimum of 100 miles away), money to stay in a hotel for a bare minimum of 2 or 3 days (or in this case, the forseeable future), and money for you and your family to live (food, water, etc) while you're there. Just do some quick math and it can *easily* run several hundred bucks.

I wish more people debating this tragedy would be more sensitive to this very real issue.

[ThoughtCriminal]

1. I can't believe this talking point still comes up

Even the most pig-headed Bush apologists I argue with gave up that line days ago.

[WhollyHeretic]

2. Another thing these jackasses never mention is that when

the highway got to crowdeed they closed the highway and told people to go back to the city. There were plenty of people who were not healthy enough to leave and their families who did not want to leave them.

[knowbody0]

3. that is the whole problem of evacuation

where will you go? what if it's end of pay period time and you got zero? the stuff nightmares deliver me these days.

[Warren DeMontague]

4. HEY BILL-

FUCK YOU.

[friesianrider]

6. Ditto.

What a sick, detached-from-reality fuck. Not everyone is a fucking millionaire with a chauffeured SUV and three houses to choose from.

[FreedomAngel82]

5. Exactly

If you don't have money what the hell are you going to do? Especially if nobody wants to help you leave.

[gemlake]

7. Deserved to die argument

always effective with the Republicans.

[hwmnbn]

14. Anyone who uses this argument.....

deserves to die. They are subhuman on purpose.

[SofaKingLiberal]

8. That sick fuck

would defend the administration if his own mother had died in the Superdome after waiting 5 days for water.

[chelaque liberal]

9. "Those people just don't know how to take care of themselves."

A neighbor (and former friend) told me the problem is that "those people" are all on welfare and are so used to having everything done for them that they can't do anything for themselves.

The bitch.....

[Spike from MN]

15. Sounds like your neighbor needs to get air-dropped

into NO for a week or two so she can learn what it truly means to "take care of herself."

Yeah, we all know how "those people" are. They don't have money or cars and yet they have the NERVE to expect the government to help them out when there's a disaster. Oh man, that line of thinking just makes me sick. The CBC and others addressed the issue rather well on C-SPAN by pointing out that these weren't "refugees", they were American taxpayers. They were Americans. And one person (sorry, I don't recall who it was and/or which organizastion he/she was with) brought up the point the Bush recruited Bush 41 and Clinton to solicit PRIVATE donations to do what the government was SUPPOSED to be doing all along. After all, isn't that why everyone pays taxes? Yeah, this person was rather angry about that whole fact and rightfuly so. Why the hell are we scrounging money to get in rescue crews when the Feds should ahve sent them long ago? Oh wait. We're dealing with rescuing "those people." Sorry. I forgot. They don't really count. Nevermind.

[Virginian]

10. That's it, I am convinced Bush prays to Satan. (rant)

Isn't it convenient that Satan waited to send the Hurricane when the National Guard troops were deployed elsewhere and gas prices were the highest they had ever been and it was the end of the month and the poor people had run out of money before they ran out of month and the levies were not strong enough because money had been cut for the study and money had been cut for the army corps of engineers to maintain the levies and the wetlands were eroding and couldn't protect NO and the head of FEMA can't handle an emergency.

SO, either Bush prays to Satan or Bush set up NO for the inevitable hurricane that stressed the levies.

Seriously, Bush didn't do anything. ...and that's the problem.

If Nero fiddled while Rome burned, Bush Guitarred while NO drowned.

But look at the good side, Bill Gates and Paris Hilton got tax breaks.

[bliss_eternal]

11. Visited a site I used to frequent, they are echoing the same ...

...I guess they all listen to the same shit.

But I have to say, despite the insensitivity of some(or even most) of the media, and asshats like this, I am encouraged. The overwhelming response has been very human--shock, outrage, an outpouring of love and support.

If I just sat here and focused on what those hateful assholes had to say about this, I'd probably retire to my bedroom, houseshirt and sweatpants, and never leave the house again.

I refuse to accept that everyone in this world is as ignorant, intolerant and frankly dispicable as these people. I simply refuse...

[stevietheman]

12. This is a _fascist talking point_, pure and simple...

that should be the counter-meme.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Out of touch with reality

There is no other explanation.

I heard a man in New Orleans at the Convention Center interviewed. The reporter asked him why he hadn't evacuated. He said he figured evacuating his family would cost at least $100 a day. If they were gone for 10 days, that would be $1000 and he didn't have $1000.

I don't have $1000. Do you?