8 Responses to As Vermont Is Swamped By Flooding, GOP Reps And Staffers Enjoy Laughs

1. 

   Nelson

   August 28, 2011 at 11:23 pm

   PS. Furthermore, FEMA is an AFTER-ACTION agency.

   They do not, nor can they PREVENT ANY DEATHS.

   They cannot stop the hurricane, itself.

   They have NO money to insure/assist victims, financially.

   Being under the auspices of DHS PoliceState apparatus, they don’t exactly conjure up warm & fuzzy images when someone mentions their acronym, either. Frankly, they don’t even make you feel good, even IF as a liberal you just liked the idea that fulfilled an emotive need that makes you feel safe & sleep better at night knowing that someone cared enough to help victims of hurricanes,’ NONE of which it does, but for the sake of argument.

   So they fail you logistic, practical, legal, and even emotive function.

   So if they never do what they’re supposedly designed to do in the first place, waste money, hand out corporatist contracts, kill Americans with poorly built trailers, don’t even send out checks to people who REALLY DO NEED it. All the while further debasing the purchasing power of your own money in your checking account, with the agency’s every increase in budget, every purchase in no-bid corporatist equipment contract, then shouldn’t you finally ask yourself, and them: ‘Um, just WTF do we need you for, FEMA??’

   Also this lays bare the most glaring problem. Such natural disasters ARE STATE and LOCAL govt function, NOT Federal. As such, WHERE ARE YOUR NATIONAL GUARDSMEN? Hurricane clean up, emergency coordination is THEIR job, NOT murdering innocent brown people overseas.

   Don’t you think your point of contention is sorely misplaced.

   How can you not see a BLUNT truth teller when you see one??

   He’s literally shaking you out of your misconception about what thought the world was like, to WHAT it is, and HOW it really works.

   Yet, like FauxNews, all I see liberals do now is in fact adopt their indeed O’Reilly/Beck/Limbaugh/Hannity-esque “childish” ad homenim name calling.

   Just what will it take for you guys to finally wake up to how the Federal govt ACTUALLY functions in REALITY?

   Aren’t you all sick of the lies?
   • 

     Bridgette P. LaVictoire

     August 28, 2011 at 11:26 pm

     I am sick of the lies, especially the ones that you seem to love to spew. I know exactly what FEMA is suppose to do, and I know what they have done here in Vermont- help put people’s lives back together after the Spring floods. I know what they will do tomorrow too.

     It sounds like you are having a tantrum because they do not fit into some kind of mythical world that Ron Paul has conjured up for you.

     Your solution still is to cut down the tree because a branch is withered. That makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

     While your facts are all there, those facts have been assembled in such a manner as to create the illusion of a sensible conclusion when, in fact, there are a lot of facts missing from what you are seeing and you would rather believe that Ron Paul has those facts on hand when, in reality, he has thrown them out in order to create a child’s view of the world.
2. 

   Lighthouse

   August 28, 2011 at 11:16 pm

   I’m pretty sure whosis was just tweeting because any two year old should already know what FEMA was tweeting, underlining what a waste of Money it is. As for charity and helping neighbors I am an Ron Paul is in favor of that – but it is a community – not a governmental- function.
   • 

     Bridgette P. LaVictoire

     August 28, 2011 at 11:22 pm

     During the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, charity ran out. Churches failed to be able to provide for those in need. Thousands of people had to flee their dead farms to scrape a living where they could. Many headed to California.

     As for laughing about the advice that any two year old should already know…there are over twenty deaths now. Not everyone has common sense. Amazing how you seem to assume that people are just like you when not everyone is. People were told to stay inside and some still went out and took risks.

     Laugh it up, though. I’m sure that you won’t feel a thing for those who lost their lives today.
3. 

   Nelson

   August 28, 2011 at 11:02 pm

   “Ron Paul sees the world through a very simplistic and child-like view. He does not see the world through adult eyes that know that there are things that we cannot do alone and that must be done together.”

   Madam, I beg to differ. Every time I read a passage like that from a well-meaning liberal, it breaks my heart to know, how truly simplistically far removed you are from reality of economics.

   If I asked you what year FEMA was founded, would you know without googling or wiki?

   -1979

   Do you know what its chief function is outside of taking over reins from local & state emergency management agencies?

   -Continuity of Govt (google Rep.Jack Kemp, Iran contra hearing)

   If I asked you right now, WHAT does your IRS-collected income tax pay for, would you be able to answer that correctly?

   -Probably not, as most Americans are clueless of it.

   Do you really think your income tax is what pays for illegal UnConstitutional(formed via Carter’s Executive Order. ONLY Congress is allowed to create Federal Agencies that will be tasked to carry out functions IT ALONE legislated) agency like FEMA?

   Your IRS-collected income tax ONLY GOES toward INTEREST on the National Debt, HELD by PRIVATE banks such as GoldmanSUX, JP Morgan Chase, & UBS in the form of T-Bills, Bonds, etc.

   This country is funded in VERY SMALL decimal percentage by import, tariff, excise, corporate taxes, & other ‘user’ fees.

   Here’s the HARSH NON-CHILDISH reality that Ron Paul is trying like hell to educated the sheeple populace of America & the rest of the world who buy our No.1 export, worthless paper money, aka. Federal Reserve Notes:

   99% of America’s budget is IN FACT, BORROWED MONEY.

   Let me repeat that: NINETY-NINE PERCENT of America’s Annual Budget IS IN FACT in BORROWED MONEY.

   Ask yourself, did you know that?

   Who’s the one being “simplistic?”

   Who’s the one being “childish?”

   WHY, you ask?

   Only 1% of currency in circulation is in form of PHYSICAL ‘money’ in form of paper or coins. Rest are electronic computer clicks/accounting tricks at the Federal Reserve.

   THINK ABOUT THAT.

   That $800 million that FEMA Dir.Fugate is touting? That came from money BORROWED from China, Japan, Saudis, Germans, & god knows who else, WHEN the Treasury used market mechanism via PRIVATE bank such as GoldmanSUX in form of bonds/T-bills.

   The only way our ‘money’ can be created is BY BORROWING. The system is DESIGNED to be in a perpetual state of debt.

   Bridgette, for EVERY $100 you deposit into your checking account at your local Bank of America branch office, as a Federal Reserve member bank ‘insured’ by FDIC, your bank can lend out $1,000. Now they have $1,100 of which $1,000 never existed, simply created out of thin air.

   Now, here’s the worse part. Your bank can now loan out another 10x, for EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR of that $1,100, then compound lend it out again, again, & again x Nth degree. Take a breath. Let that wonder in your mind for a bit.

   Oh, but there’s more, EVERY TIME you use your Visa/MC/Debit card, the same lending process happens, again.

   Do you see where I’m going?

   Now how many daily transactions do you suppose Americans go through every day? Are you getting it yet?

   When Ron Paul says we’re bankrupt, he means it. Literally.

   So while it’s a nice hunky dory thought to feel good about oneself to help your neighbor, or even a complete stranger, is it really charity, when you used the force of gvt (what’s the maximun IRS is willing to collect that ‘money?’ SWAT raid that can result in murder. google it) to steal that money from a neighbor down your block to give it to someone else in another state, is it really “charity?”

   Despite what you think FEMA is advertised as, ask yourself what is the reality of that agency?

   It’s now part of DHS, which everyone knows by now is a corrupt corporatist policestate apparatus. Beyond that, its chief function during natural disasters is essentially a fancy insurance scheme.

   Such insurance needs money. As I’ve outlined, money needs to be borrowed, each time enriching GoldmanSUX of the world in the process. Also destroying the purchasing power of what little money you may have saved.

   But the real question is what do they actually do?

   It’s just a bunch of people delegated by a bureaucracy. They own, nor manufacture anything. They have no tractors, bulldozers, communications equipment, cranes, sandbags, shovels, etc. They all have to contract that out to PRIVATE businesses.

   This part, there’s no debate: ALL gvt contract process is INHERENTLY political, as in mfg. that paid most donor money. Think Caterpillar tractors/cranes, etc.

   Now, let’s see what they ACTUALLY did in NOLA during Katrina. They took over local emergency services, arrogantly sidestepping local elected & delegated officials who knew the region & their constituents, then actually JAMMED local radio signals possibly killing many infirm, when the entire city had no water, I’m no fan of WalMart but FEMA BLOCKED ‘FREE WATER’ supplied by WalMart from entering the city limits.

   Then there are the FEMA trailers, which probably is responsible for most number of Americans getting sick or even slowly soft-killed in trailers, in American history, due to shoddy construction, molds & VOC toxins.

   Oh, here’s something sane: FEMA, now under the auspices of DHS, HIRED Iraq-occupation battle-hardend BlackWater mercenaries to patrol the streets. Ask Jeremy Scahill who witnessed it himself, as reported on Democracy Now.

   You say well, that’s because it was all under GWB & “Good Job Brownie.” I want you to google Bill Clinton & FEMA. Same corporatist nonsense.

   Here’s what I don’t get. MOST liberals know there’s rampant corporatism in govt. About 90% of the time the very agency tasked with “regulatory oversight” are staffed by the very industry insiders they’re supposed to ‘regulate.’ Yet, you still trust FDA to sign off on Monsanto GMO & let them SWAT raid a PRIVATE organic coop in California like RAWsome, or some Amish Dairy farmer.

   When do you think is a good time to be asking yourself: got cognitive dissonance much?

   What will it take? I’ll bet you’d have no problem suing Walmart HQ in Arkansas, IF a Walmart employee in California raped your daughter. Yet, if your daughter were sent off to ILLEGAL War/Occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria, and Pakistan came home w/PTSD and 3 limbs blown off, when do you suppose is the right time to be witholding your income tax to IRS that NEVER goes toward agencies like FEMA?

   How obvious does it have to get?

   Dems excuse for any agency’s ineffectiveness is underfunded, understaffed, wrong social engineers.

   Repugs’ excuse is they’re govt, so the agencies are inherently ineffective & inefficient, so they want to PRIVATIZE its functions in no-bid contracts to their corporatist buddies, USING TAXPAYER DOLLARS.

   Now, here is Ron Paul TELLING you what FEMA actually does, its INDEFENSIBLE history of corruption & ineffectiveness. Tying that with the blunt financial reality. & EVEN IF he disagrees, he suggests IF oBUSHma indeed wants more money for the likes of FEMA, why doesn’t he just QUIT the ILLEGAL War in Libya & tide people over in hurricane hit areas, in the interim?

   And your conclusion is that he’s “simplistic, and childish?”

   Are you sure, you’re not talking about yourself?
   • 

     Bridgette P. LaVictoire

     August 28, 2011 at 11:18 pm

     So, your solution to the rotten branch is to cut down the tree?

     I find your inability to grasp the real problem to be disturbing in the extreme. Why not just eliminate the government entirely since it is entirely corrupt?

     Or, would you rather act as Progressive President Theodore Roosevelt acted in eliminating the corruption. He did a great job of cutting out the rot without eliminating the entire tree.
4. 

   Wishing

   August 28, 2011 at 9:43 pm

   As I do sympathize with the author’s situation. I do think she missed the point in term’s of what Paul trying to say.

   Of course most people believe in the concept of helping others. That is the main reason why Paul is running for President. What you have to ask yourself is how that assistance is brought. When a neighbor, friend or church offers assistance it is given in the spirit of assistance whether it be food, shelter, clothing, money etc.

   The problem with government’s role is that in order to pay for FEMA programs, where actually little gets done compared to the time and finances offered, you have to TAKE the money from someone else. That is FORCED assistance and that is Paul’s point. I had several friends volunteer in the Katrina debacle and I can tell you story after story of heavy government involvement and little action done.

   I have donated large portions of my own income to various projects and I have done numerous hours in volunteer projects, from clean up projects to boys scouts to drug education programs. I give these things because I desire to, not because someone forced me. If you force a child to help often that child rebels. But, if you consult a child’s willingness that child will usually step up to the plate and begin to offer help to others naturally.

   While I see the need for income for various programs I don’t believe in taking it from my neighbor. It is simply not ethical. The problem some of us have is that we don’t look at government as a body which has to take from one person to give it to another. We have a tendency to only look at the surface actions and not the underlying concept of it’s role.

   Moreover, those like Paul who object to this practice are often then demonized as cruel or heartless. When in actuality individuals who hold their ground and look at the LONG term survival of the culture are that culture’s best friend.
   • 

     Bridgette P. LaVictoire

     August 28, 2011 at 9:57 pm

     Your idea works on a very small scale. It works if you are talking about a village. It works if you are talking about a town. When you are talking about a state, then the whole Libertarian ideology falls to pieces because it cannot work. I have not missed what Ron Paul is trying to say. I have not missed what he is saying at all. The way I see it, my taxes go to pay for that which the collective needs. It goes to paying for roads for all of us. It goes to paying for police officers for all of us. It goes to paying for firefighters for all of us. I could go on. Would you rather have to pay your police officers to investigate a crime against you or to pay your firefighters to put out the blaze that is destroying your house?

     Ron Paul sees the world through a very simplistic and child-like view. He does not see the world through adult eyes that know that there are things that we cannot do alone and that must be done together.

     A child does not understand that giving to the whole helps the whole. All a child understand is what is mine is mine and I will give only if I feel like it.

     The way I see government is as a means to take care of the whole, and in order for the whole to take care of its parts, it must be nourished and fed. They tell us that Freedom isn’t free. That is true. I buy my freedom with my taxes. What Paul wants is one toke up from anarchy and destruction.

     Thank you for trying to explain this, but I comprehend it quite well. I always have. I have looked at the long term survival of the culture, and I can tell you that, having studied my history as I have, Paul’s vision for the future lies on the path of desolation and destruction.