america's worst disaster in recent history

i thought of this after hearing 'our' presidents comments this morning from his visit yesterday to katrina effected areas. comparing the plight/progress of hurricane victims to a professional sports team underlines many problems but most noticably the lack of understand of just how severe katrina's after effects were. so my poll is to see how most people way all the effects on, purely a national level, both the immediate and longer term effects of both disasters.

*note
don't worry i opted not to show who voted for what on this poll as i thought this poll has much more personal feelings attached to it.

Katrina is a huge tragedy in terms of the event and the way in which it showed how ill prepared we were to deal with it.

But Sept 11th changed our country and the entire world ... and not really for the better. The Iraq war is part of that tragedy, as is the death threats of cartoonists in other countries, as is the inability for Islam to isolate itself from radical nutjobs ...

Yes, 9-11 is the big one. We are far from the end of the consequences of those few hours in time. Katrina is a disaster which occurred without human input and as such was unavoidable, and to that extent 'natural'. You may say initially more people were killed or suffered great loss, but the toll in lives and misery from 9-11 and it's aftermath in the MidEast has only begun.

oh i know the global effects of september 11th are worse which i why i said "purely a national level". the poll is to try to establish what the sentiment is on an imaginary value of loss that resulted only directly from disaster and the seemingly inequality placed on the value of loss. you don't hear about to many 'heroes' of katrina and that to me signals a huge disaster. septermber 11th changed the world but it could have not happened. katrina while preventable to some degree could not have been averted, only its follow up. also its much harder to pin those global effects on september 11th and the not the global policies of many countries that fueled the horrific act of terrorism in the first plact. the simple truth is there are less places to easily place anger/blame for katrina and anger/passion are often useful tools in enabling effective responses. without those 'positive' (only in the sense that it promotes action rather than not) emotions to attach it resides itself to those feelings that people would rather not focus on or remember.

Although I 'm confident 9-11 will be the runaway "winner", there could have been a few additional poll choices. WTC bombing (in the parking garage), Murrah City Building (Oklahoma City), California earthquake, space shuttle explosion. Granted, those go back a little more, but probably still merit mention.

Clearly the impact of 9-11 has been far more reaching than any of the others, economically, politically, and socially.

curious said:

oh i know the global effects of september 11th are worse which i why i said "purely a national level".

Click to expand...

I just don't think that you can draw such arbitrary lines - Katrina was changed by 9/11, as was the fact that I spent 45 minutes in line for a 20 minute visit for my kids to see the liberty bell ... as was the way in which I packed my bags for my current trip and have to get a taxi to the airport at 4AM rather than 5AM tomorrow ... sure there are all of those national changes, but even those are reflective of reactionary response rather than direct impact. A woman sitting in the next cube block lost her sister-in-law in one of the planes ... tons of people I work with knew people or were related to people ... being in the northeast means it has more direct effect. But I think that the much larger impact is the global change - in terms of the world Katrina had little impact but the entire global landscape has changed since 9/11

Good points, curious. I think there was much less outrage and "heroism'-a somewhat overused word, imo-in response to Katrina, but the media blitz on the subject has worn it thin for me. A great many of the refugees from the big K ended up here in Oklahoma(along with the Hornets) and they aren't suffering a whole lot or getting in the news. They are rebuidling their lives and most are not all irate because a government agency hasn't come in and personally rebuilt their house and found them a job.

One could also argue that a great deal of the damage from Katrina was indeed preventable, had the city of New Orleans and the government of the state of Louisiana been more proactive and concerned in the aginig dykes, the lack of infrastructure to respond to such a foreseeable disaster, etc. (Foreseeable because you have a city with an elevation below sea level and sinking, in a known hurricane zone.)

We had a tornado here in Oklahoma that wiped out about one-third of a heavily populated area of OKC a few years ago on May 5( Category f7--biggest there is) and we had the Murrah building bombing by genuine homegrown american nutcase terrorists. Those areas are now all rebuilt, and we have a local foundation which has built a memorial to the Murrah building victims and their families. I don't recall a big outrage that the federal government didn't come in and clean everything up and hold our hands while we all got counseling .

Anyway, I'm still sticking to 9-11.

its easy for us to debate which is worse, though like i've said septemeber 11th (besides being my mom's birthday) will be forever etched in the minds of most (not just americans) but even i can't remember the date of katrina, not that i don't want to. the facts are though that more people/families have been directly affected by katrina. sure their are unfortunate disasters all the time but natural ones the magnitude of katrina and worse are on the horizon. personally i fear the force of 'mother nature' ability to wield weapons of mass destruction than i do of terroists or rogue states. both levels of 'fear' though are notably on the rise but only one of them is guarenteed to happen and 'fortunately' is the easier crisis to solve though requires considerably more awareness.

i respect all your opinons which is why i delight in having these conversations

Same here, curious. It's a discussion, not a monologue.

Katrina was bad, but there have been horrendous hurricanes sweep through Florida several times. The Tsunami which wiped out whole communities on Boxing Day a couple of years ago was far worse too I think. To me, events which affect the WORLD are far more important than ones belonging to one country, even if some of the residents of that country think the world ends at their borders!! (But that's a different debate!! )

Just to be a devil's advacate... some might consider 9/11 the best thing ever and they aren't who you think. I am talking about defence contractors There are always a few manage to win no matter what.

*sigh*
Back to the commune you go.

Defense contractors take no joy in 3000 deaths, nor do they need such a tragedy to make money.

commune??? I suggest you to stick your head back to where it was...all is well *sigh*

@dte -i think he was referring to the evil links that were made to the lands of iraq and september 11 which along with other contrived info which gained false support and has led to those contractors making insane amounts of money with the rest of the world at best no better off and 100,000's of iraqi's up more than a creek. i'm sure they take no joy in the tragedy of september 11 but not only don't they care about the iraqi's they also seem to show no concern over the lives of their mercenaries. i long for the days of my nieviety when the name blackwater was associated purely with the imaginary corporation headed by a despicable/evil man in the gamespace colony.

so yes i agree that the only 'winners of the world' from the iraq war are the war profitters but i don't think there are any winners from the madness of september 11 at least not in any reasonable amount of indirectness.

*sigh*
OK, let's make this simple. Is this world a safer place without a guy that will use nerve gas on his own citizens? Are you willing to bet your life that he had no designs on the rest of the world, in spite of his invasion of Kuwait and repeated, blatant disregard of the ever-popular UN?

The idea that anyone, even someone as admittedly dumb as Dubya, would go to war to put a little extra cash in Halliburton's pocket is insulting and naive. Halliburton's pockets could have been lined quite nicely without thousands of deaths and a graveyard in the middle of NYC. Say the war is a lie--we're all allowed an opinion around here, although I wonder just how many opinions were allowed in Saddam's Iraq. Say people are profitting from death--Michael Moore made a pretty penny, indeed. Just don't manufacture some BS accusations just to justify your position.

Does the first choice include the Iraq war? Cause somehow I have the feeling that this is America's worst disaster in recent history....

Ok, simpleton. Is the world safer now? And who were the idiots put him on the pedestal in the first place? Trust and obey? You can take your Faith back to your synagogue or wherever it belongs. When is being content a trademark of business? You have to collect some interest like The Man said. Anyone heard of complains from Defense contractors during a war? Anyone no heard of complains of inadequate service from war veterans after a war? Don't BS around here just because picking up a bit more bread crumbs off the table.

mudsling3 said:

Ok, simpleton. Is the world safer now? And who were the idiots put him on the pedestal in the first place? Trust and obey? You can take your Faith back to your synagogue or wherever it belongs. When is being content a trademark of business? You have to collect some interest like The Man said. Anyone heard of complains from Defense contractors during a war? Anyone no heard of complains of inadequate service from war veterans after a war? Don't BS around here just because picking up a bit more bread crumbs off the table.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand your argument here, mudsling3, let alone why you are so angry. A commune is not such a horrible place you know. I lived in one in the 60's and the nastiest aspect was getting somebody to do the dishes.

The war was not started by Big Business in all it's evil black colors. It was started by a group of individuals who fanatically hate the U.S. and believe that all of us here should not exist. Would you feel better if this country had done nothing to counter the 9-11 attack? Do you think we would be safer then?

The U.S. government, the Evil Dubya and the Mean-Spirited Republicans are none of them faultless in the situation, but if you would rather put your money on the opposition, it's a free country. I guarantee that every war ever fought has had it's profiteers. Where the bodies lie, the vultures gather.

And what is with the synagogue remark? That was just rude, as well as not making any sense.

Yes, let's have debate, but NO insults either directly, or INDIRECTLY!! ( The synagogue remark was DEFINITELY uncalled for). Take that as a gentle warning. We all know that big business loves a good war and will cheerfully supply and finance both sides. That, however, is not the issue here (though it would make for another lively debate in a different thread) (hint, hint ) I don't think the Iraq debacle is actually as bad as the Vietnam conflict, which many of you likely don't remember. Since I was living in Canada at the time, I remember it VERY well!! Simply put, 9-11 changed the WORLD, Katrina didn't. Iraq is having multiple repercussions, but we'll have to wait a few more years before we can judge it properly. Hindsight is 20/20.