Pay To Be Saved: A Future of Disaster Apartheid

ZNet ^

[Lorianne]

The Red Cross has just announced a new disaster-response partnership with Wal-Mart. When the next hurricane hits, it will be a co-production of Big Aid and Big Box.

This, apparently, is the lesson learned from the government's calamitous response to Hurricane Katrina: Businesses do disaster better.

[msnimje]

The lesson learned should be, "learn to care for and save yourself."

[etcetera]

The writer is named "Naomi Klein". Let me guess - self-hating Jewish leftist liberal who spouts the usual Democrat lines about New Orleans being a failure at the federal level, conpletely ignoring Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco, both Democrats who failed to activate the required state disaster plan.

Did I miss anything?

[Lorianne]

Nope, I think you just about covered it.

[wanderin]

Wal Mart has its own command center(s?) to oversee any and all scenarios (natural or otherwise) that might affect their stores and the people who shop there.

They have fleets of trucks and supplies set up well in advance, in position to respond as soon as the danger level permits.

When a disaster hits, they know if their stores are operational, power status, employee status etc.

They assist associates to relocate to new homes and get back to work if needed.

FEMA should model their set up after it.

[Outland]

Typical brain-dead liberal nonsense.. take a grain of truth and raise a crop of BS with it.

[nyconse]

I am sick of all the WalMart bashers. They helped a great deal during the Katrina, They were one of the first to get trucks of supplies in (at no charge).

[Inge_CAV]

Walmart store at the beach, Pass Christian, MS.

[brwnsuga]

My brother evacuated from Metairie( just outside) New Orleans to TX before the storm hit. He lost his adverstisement business and house but he refused to take any government money. He has since bought new equipment for his business and a new house.

[mewzilla]

Wal-Mart Critics Say Katrina Handled Well

:)

[Warren_Piece]

idiot...

[theBuckwheat]

"Pay to be saved"?? Excuse me. I am a taxpayer who decided to live where the natural risks are low. It might be considered impolite, but I already paid, or at least the government spent money that it borrowed from the Chinese in my name. I already paid so that people on the Gulf didn't have to face up to the true costs involved in living where a Katrina could wipe them out.

Libs like this author love to demand that people in the US pay the "full price" of oil, by which they are objecting to the military costs of protecting the free market and foreign supplies. Yet, they are not interested in paying the "full price" of living in such a dangerous area of the coastal US. They are only interested in how much government aid that comes their way. Aid that is funded by, guess who? The rest of us.

[blam]

"They have fleets of trucks and supplies set up well in advance, in position to respond as soon as the danger level permits."

I read just last week that Wal-Mart has the second largest fleet of trucks in the country.

Also, when Nagin and company were screaming about 10k dead, etc. Refrigerated trucks were routed to NO for body storage. We have so few refigerated trucks in this country that the move to NO caused severe refigerated food transport to other cities in the US...then, it turned out they weren't even needed in NO.

[Gabz]

WalMart Ping...........read the article....unbelieveable whining.......

[Graybeard58]

The first step was the government's abdication of its core responsibility to protect the population from disasters.

Say what????

[Graybeard58]

I read just last week that Wal-Mart has the second largest fleet of trucks in the country.

Who overtook them? They used to have the largest fleet.

[Graybeard58]

This is the biggest barfer I've read in a long time, it is the epitome of liberal tripe. Moonbatism at it's finest.

[blam]

"Who overtook them? They used to have the largest fleet."

It didn't say. That was a statement I read in the Mobile Register.

[CajunConservative]

All I can say is Thank God for Walmart, Lowes, Kroger's and Home Depot. It's nice that those "big boxes" were able to get back online asap after the storms so that those of us who didn't need the gov't could get much needed supplies.

I see the inefficiency of FEMA every day and all I can say is this could be the best decision that agency has made yet. The leftist dingbats can whine and fret but they cannot deny the fact that Walmart is the most efficiently operated business out there. There is a reason why they became the top retailer in the world.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I can't read that idiot Naomie Klein this soon after breakfast. Bump for later. ;)