More Feeble FEMA

For those who still believe this is all the fault of local authorities and that the Feds did nothing but help, check out this article from the Salt Lake (City) Tribune.

About a thousand fire fighters from around the country volunteered to help out in the rescue effort in New Orleans. They ended up being brought to Atlanta and spent a day in training. Training for what? To be community relations officers, talking up FEMA and passing out flyers with the FEMA phone number, while wearing FEMA shirts.

All while Mayor Ray Nagin is begging for some help, since his own firefighters are at the end of their rope, having been working rescue and relief efforts for a week.

Of course, FEMA claims that they were open and honest about what they were looking for, but based on the reactions of the men and women in question, they were not given the impression this was a community relations job.

And even if it was, why fly in 1000 trained rescuers from around the nation for this task? Propaganda? "Look how many firefighters we brought in! We have so many, we can waste them on community relations". Oh, but by the way, we're not really using any of them to actually fight fires or work in rescue. That we can leave to an increasingly exhausted local fire brigade.

I'm not saying that getting information to the displaced isn't important. I'm saying that it doesn't require highly skilled rescue people, nor people flown in from around the country. Hell, hire some of the now jobless people who have lost everything and deputize THEM to be your information squad. They're local, idle, and would probably cost less to PAY to do this than it costs to fly in the rescue workers.

Oh, and by the way, FEMA is telling the firefighters not to talk to reporters. Those who have anyway ask not to be identified citing that as the reason.

But then, those of us who really recognize the damage this administration does to our nation on a daily basis aren't really surprised that PR is more important than search and rescue.

It's all about the image. Don't ACTUALLY do anything for the public, just spend your time trying to convince that public that you have their best interests (and their moral code) at heart and hope they're too blind to actually see that you're all talk, while your actions consist mainly of giving more money to the wealthiest citizens and major corporations.

Liam.