Penn accuses Bush amid rescue chaos
this is london
The US government was accused of "criminal negligence" as hopes of finding survivors faded and the death toll from Hurricane Katrina continued to rise.
Holidaymakers returning to the UK spoke of the scale of the misery while one said leering police officers demanded young women flash their breasts in return for help.
Oscar-winning Hollywood actor Sean Penn, who has been assisting rescue efforts in New Orleans, said the US government did not "seem to be inclined to help".
"We were pulling drowning people out of the water, it's the ultimate distress and human suffering ... dead bodies," he told GMTV.
Penn said he had spent nine hours on Monday searching the water for people and during all that time he saw just three boats carrying US officials.
"There are people that are dying right now and I mean babies and old people and everybody in between - they're dying. There are people dying and (the US government are) not putting the boats in the water, I think that's criminal negligence. I don't think anybody ever anticipated the criminal negligence of the Bush administration in this situation."
The US authorities were also castigated by British bus driver Ged Scott, from Wallasey, Merseyside, who was on holiday in the New Orleans area.
He stayed in the Ramada Hotel during and after the devastation with his wife, Sandra, and seven-year-old son Ronan. At one stage, Mr Scott, 36, had to wade through filthy water to barricade the hotel doors against looters.
He told the Liverpool Daily Post: "I couldn't describe how bad the authorities were. Just little things like taking photographs of us, as we are standing on the roof waving for help, for their own little snapshot albums.
"At one point, there were a load of girls on the roof of the hotel saying 'Can you help us?' and the policemen said 'Show us what you've got' and made signs for them to lift their T-shirts. When the girls refused, they said 'Fine' and motored off down the road in their boat."
this comes on the heels of (and i'm SO gonna run the picture when i get's it). sean's pr stunt over the weekend in which his "rescue boat" (full of his entourage and camera people) sprung a leak and he had to bail out. oh and let's not forget his trip to iran. but i think the best one is the open letter from the iraqi people in which the collective people who wrote this gem implored penn to, "instead of coming back to Baghdad and annoying us with your entourage of cameras, go make something as funny as 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' again. We could use a laugh.” why not, i just got a laugh. sean, i know that your are trying to make lambasting the current administration the 13th step towards recovery but could you PLEASE crawl back into the bottle. you are making a bigger spectacle of yourself than when you were falling down drunk.—the bastard
2 comments:
Yes, Penn has crossed the line into Jane Fonda terrority however, why is it everytime Dubya opens his mouth all I seem to hear is "My dad's a TV repairman, he's got an awesome set of tools. I can fix it." Then I say "You can't fix this Dubya! And he says back "I can fix it." I think he's going to have a tough time blaming this on Lincoln High.
There are a lot of blame to go around here, from FEMA on down, however in FEMA's defense, they were on top of the situation from the get down here last year, so who knows what happened.
why is it that when you ask me questions like that, i feel i need to think of happy thoughts rather than tell you why i think you think that?
yes we can pin some stuff on fema. but, according to the City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, the owness is on the mayor. and i quote:
"Under the direction of "THE MAYOR", the Office of Emergency Preparedness will coordinate activities in accordance with the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan to assure the coordination of training programs for all planning, support, and response agencies. Departments, authorities, agencies, municipalities, and all private response organizations bear the responsibility of ensuring their personnel are sufficiently trained."
the point is, the mayor of city of new orleans let his people down, the governor of louisina let her state down. the senator who represents that state stated that she would like to punch W in the face. that's a felony. some senator who called clinton a scumbag got censured. what she said in the public forum is a felony and no one says anything. i can go on. and i will. i have more and i'll use it.
—the bastard
Post a Comment