I have had innumerable verbal disagreements with co-workers over the last several days concerning what is going on. What are their basic arguments?

co-worker: "These people are acting like animals, the looting and the vandalism is unexcusable."
my response: If I need food or water, I would be the first one to brick a store window to get to it. Same with medicine. In regards to the looting of other things, granted that is unexcusable, however you cannot in any sense equate theft of necessities with other objects. Additionally, you cannot tell me for one instance that those businesses are not going to complete write-off their inventory to their insurance anyway.

co-worker: "These ems and firefighters need to get in there and get things done, this is ridiculous, they are right there."
my response: Obviously you are unaware that EMS and Firefighters are the last ones to leave any situation, they have been there doing the best they can with flooded streets AND no access to the hospitals. Additionally, with shooting going on, aid workers are not permitted on site owing to the possibility of being harmed. Use some common sense.

co-worker: "Those people had no business being there anyway, they should have just left."
my response: And if you haven't distinguished this from observation yet, the majority of the people that remained behind were mainly poor class. Those without vehicles, those with close ancestral ties to the only thing they may own, those with no other place to go. Where were they to go? What were they to do? How were they to do it?

I listen to the Mayor of New Orleans completely lambast the state and federal government on the radio and couldn't help but cheer for his outraged candor.

Already comparisons with the World Trade Center disaster have begun, even though the two are not remotely related. The reaction to the two events have been highly disparate and very different.

During 911, activation of emergency personnel occurred state and nationwide to send personnel and equipment to the site to aid in recovery. No widespread personal activation has occurred this time to the level yet.

No one has yet discussed the imminent beginning of waterborne diseases from the still remaining flood waters on site. Cholera and other diseases will begin to rear their head quite quickly.

Structurally, the influx of these people needs immediate attention. What will the refugees live off of. How will they get food. Where will they work. How long must they wait for an answer?

The Fed has already begun pointing fingers at the State and local government for their dealing of the problems. My arguments would be one to ask how can a state already inundated with a statewide issue fully deal with it, especially when its neighbors are equally dealing with it. How can a city government, under water, in wreckage, starving and in need of water and electric, make people stop looting when 50% of the police force walk off the job, when firefighters cannot fight fires for lack of pumpable water, when no transportation whatsoever inside the infrasstructure is readily usable. Clearly this disaster SCREAMED for federal involvement from the beginning.

Rampant fires. Starving, dehydration, overheating. Onset of waterborne disease beginning. Exposure. Lack of hospital facilities. Lack of medication. Lack of means to escape. Goddam it GET WITH IT! We need water. We need food. We need medicine. We need people moved out. We need the dead recovered and contained and identified.

Five days pass before Bush comes to walk amongst the people of the landfall. I cannot help but correlate that with his nigh on immediate visit on 911 to New York. His stroll through Mississippi and Alabama was most heartening, however, one cannot but be certain that it was made more for the benefit of the press corp than those without electricity or even televisions to receive the benefits of his assurances.

And what about Congress taking 5 days to pass funding for 10.5 billion in aid funding for FEMA? Where the hell were you people for the beginning hours of this process?

If anything, this has clearly stamped the impression of the plight of the poor upon me. They with few alternatives that have suffered the most.

This is a complete blunder on all levels of governments as far as I am concerned.