Blame the victims

I begged him to let me continue, said Perlmutter, who left his home and practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Pennsylvania to come to Louisiana and volunteer to care for hurricane victims. People were dying, and I was the only doctor on the tarmac (at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) where scores of nonresponsive patients lay on stretchers. Two patients died in front of me.

I showed him (the U.S. Coast Guard official in charge) my medical credentials. I had tried to get through to FEMA for 12 hours the day before and finally gave up. I asked him to let me stay until I was replaced by another doctor, but he refused. He said he was afraid of being sued. I informed him about the Good Samaritan laws and asked him if he was willing to let people die so the government wouldn't be sued, but he would not back down. I had to leave.

FEMA issued a formal response to Perlmutter's story, acknowledging that the agency does not use voluntary physicians.

We have a cadre of physicians of our own, FEMA spokesman Kim Pease said Thursday. They are the National Disaster Medical Team. ... The voluntary doctor was not a credentialed FEMA physician and, thus, was subject to law enforcement rules in a disaster area.

Perlmutter, Dr. Clark Gerhart and medical student Alison Torrens flew into Baton Rouge on a private jet loaned by a Pennsylvania businessman several days after Katrina hit. They brought medicine and supplies with them. They stayed the first night in Baton Rouge and persuaded an Army Blackhawk helicopter pilot to fly them into New Orleans the next day.

I was going to make it happen, the orthopedic surgeon said. I was at Ground Zero too, and I had to lie to get in there.

At the triage area in the New Orleans airport, Perlmutter was successful in getting FEMA to accept the insulin and morphine he had brought. The pharmacist told us they were completely out of insulin and our donation would save numerous lives. Still, I felt we were the most-valuable resource, and we were sent away.

Gerhart said the scene they confronted at the airport was one of hundreds of people lying on the ground, many soaked in their own urine and feces, some coding (dying) before our eyes. FEMA workers initially seemed glad for help and asked Gerhart to work inside the terminal and Perlmutter to work out on the tarmac. They were told only a single obstetrician had been on call at the site for the past 24 hours.

Then, the Coast Guard official informed the group that he could not credential them or guarantee tort coverage and that they should return to Baton Rouge. That shocked me, that those would be his concerns in a time of emergency, Gerhart said.

Transported back to Baton Rouge, Perlmutter's frustrated group went to state health officials who finally got them certified -- a simple process that took only a few seconds.

I found numerous other doctors in Baton Rouge waiting to be assigned and others who were sent away, and there was no shortage of need, he said.

Perlmutter spent some time at the Department of Health and Hospital's operational center at Jimmy Swaggart Ministries before moving to the makeshift Kmart Hospital doctors established at an abandoned store to care for patients. After organizing an orthopedics room and setting up ventilators there, Perlmutter went back to the Swaggart Center and then to the LSU Pete Maravich Assembly Center's field hospital to care for patients being flown in from the New Orleans area.

We saw elderly patients who had been off their medicine for days, diabetics without insulin going into shock, uncontrolled hypertension, patients with psychosis and other mental disorders, lots of diarrhea, dehydration and things you would expect. I slept on a patient cot there every night until I came home.

Gerhart said he felt the experience overall was successful and rewarding, although frustrating at times. You don't expect catastrophes to be well organized. A lot of people, both private citizens and government officials, were working very hard.

Perlmutter did not return home empty-handed. He brought a family of four evacuees back with him and is still working with Baton Rouge volunteer Hollis Barry to facilitate the relocation of additional hurricane victims to Pennsylvania.

He also returned with a sense of outrage. I have been trying to call Sen. Arlen Specter (of Pennsylvania) to let him know of our experience.

I have been going to Ecuador and Mexico (on medical missions) for 14 years. I was at ground zero. I've seen hundreds of people die. This was different because we knew the hurricane was coming. FEMA showed up late and then rejected help for the sake of organization. They put form before function, and people died.

Both FEMA and the Coast Guard operate under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has been widely criticized for its disjointed, slow response to the devastation caused by Katrina. Federal officials are urging medical personnel who want to volunteer to help with disaster relief to contact the Medical Reserve Corps or the American Red Cross for registration, training and organization.

As terrible as it is, this attack could be miniscule if, in fact, God
continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to
give us probably what we deserve. The ACLU's got to take a lot of the
blame for this�The abortionists have got to bear some of the burden for
this because God will not be mocked�I really believe that the pagans,
and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the
lesbians�all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the
finger in their face and say, 'you helped this happen.'
- Rev. Jerry Falwell, September 13, 2001

Who can forget Jerry Falwell's infamous post-9/11 indictment of
America? 'You helped this happen,' Falwell said to the majority of
Americans, who disagree with him on a majority of issues.

Now, a conservative group called Columbia Christians for Life has
proclaimed that Hurricane Katrina was another one of God's punishments,
citing as evidence the supposed resemblance between the hurricane's
image on a weather map, and a fetus.

Trying to refute such claims from these zealots is truly an exercise in
futility. But searching for explanations after a disaster of Katrina's
magnitude is not. And if you do in fact search for those explanations,
you'll reach an unavoidable conclusion:

Hurricane Katrina may have been an act of God. But the level of death
and destruction it caused was not. That was an act of conservatism.

It is conservative policies that made this natural disaster unnaturally
catastrophic. I say to conservatives, you have blood on your hands
today. I point the finger in your face and say, You helped this
happen.

Conservative policies have led to an increase in poverty across the
nation, especially in New Orleans, one of the poorest major cities in
America. About 150,000 people in New Orleans lived below the poverty
line before Katrina, 100,000 of them in abject poverty, making less
than $8,000 a year. Their poverty left them with nowhere to go, and no
means of escape, as the hurricane bore down on their homes.

Conservative policies have led to more global warming, which scientists
agree has already begun producing more intense hurricanes and storms.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, a former Republican Party Chairman
and longtime GOP operative, has seen his own state ravaged by Katrina.
But he was vital in helping to convince the Bush administration to
squash the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, and pushed Bush to go
back on his campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide. Governor
Barbour would dare express grief over the deaths that he himself
enabled.

Conservative policies have led to a war in Iraq based on lies, and tax
cuts for the rich, both of which, we know for a fact, took money
directly away from vital hurricane preparedness work in New Orleans.
On nine occasions in 2004 and 2005, The New Orleans Times-Picayune
specifically cited the cost of the Iraq War as a reason for the
shortfall in hurricane- and flood-control funds. The levees that gave
way under Katrina's pressure were supposed to be upgraded with money
that ended up in Halliburton�s coffers.

Conservative policies have also led to the National Guard's misuse and
abuse, leaving the Gulf Coast without the personnel and equipment
vital to a recovery effort of this magnitude. More people will die on
the Gulf Coast as they await their would-be saviors, who are in Iraq,
victims themselves of conservative policies.

There can be no doubt that while Hurricane Katrina was not preventable,
much of the death and destruction left in its wake was. I say to
conservatives, you have blood on your hands today. I point the finger
in your face and say, You helped this happen.

to both government and the automakers. For them to pay skilled trades a buttload of money and allow them to sit and do nothing and then retire at age 50 and live off of GM isn't right. That is GM's fault for allowing that happen. As for making big trucks and SUVs....it was what the people wanted at that time. That really wasn't a huge concern until gas prices started to skyrocket. They were making what they thought people wanted. They couldn't predict that gas would skyrocket like it did and the economy would collapse like it has.

on the past 8 years. Granted, the past 8 years weren't the greatest and some major mistakes were made, but there were some things that were going on during prior presidencies that lead to this. The problem was that no one stopped it once it got started and it just snowballed. Now we have Obama in the office and we are still snowballing. If you want to place blame, you need to go back further than Bush and include some others as well. Now it is Obama's turn and we need to keep our eye on him because he continues to spend spend spend!!!!! Yeah....that worked out so well in the past 8 years huh......

including natural disasters and including the fact that people built a city below sea level with water on all sides and was told that anything over a Cat 3 storm would wipe out the city. The city failed in adequately planning to evacuate the people in case of such an emergency. While I'm absolutely heartbroken to what is happening to people there, especially those who couldn't evacuate themselves the city has been told this would happen for years. Even if Bush had not cut some funds to the area adequate plans would have still not been in place. Everyone has said at one time or another that New Orleans was a disaster waiting for a Cat 4 or higher storm to happen. You can pin this on Bush like you do everything else that happens in this world, but Bush is hardly to blame for the devastation. Finger pointing does no good at this point. We all must dig deep and do what we can do for those in New Orleans. Arguing the political aspects of this disaster will not hydrate one dehydrated baby or feed one hungry person or build one adequate shelter.

My advice to everyone is to step away from your computer, go buy some non-perishable items and get it to a relief point tomorrow.

I think registered voters should have to prove their knowledge on the matters at hand prior to voting. Just a 5 or 10-question test to make sure they know their candidate's policies.

Do we really want our "welfare" society to determine our next President? That's what ACORN is making sure will happen.

Many people were confined against their will just because someone wanted them "out of the way." These were normal people with no mental illness - that is why it is so difficult - don't blame the liberals. Blame your state.

CONFINING THE MENTALLY ILL

In the legal space between what a society should and should not do, taking action to restrict the liberty of people who are mentally ill sits in the grayest of gray areas.

Our notions about civil and constitutional rights flow from an assumption of "normalcy." Step beyond the boundaries and arrest and prison may legally follow. Short of that, government's ability to hold people against their will is severely and properly limited. Unusual behavior on the part of someone who is mentally ill is not illegal behavior. Freedom can't be snatched away on a whim, or on the thought that a person is hard to look at, hard to hear, hard to smell.

It was only a few decades ago that the promise of new medications and a change in attitude opened the doors of the mental hospitals and sent many patients into society. There, they would somehow "normalize" and join everyone else, supported by networks of out-patient facilities, job training, special living arrangements and regular, appropriate medication. But the transition has been imperfect, long and difficult.

In some parts of urban America there is little professional support for those with mental health problems. A new generation of drug and alcohol-fueled mental illness has come on the scene. People frequently end up on the street, un-medicated and exhibiting a full range of behaviors that are discomforting at the very least and threatening at their worst.

These con artists from mortgage companies were actually going into churches and "finding" people homes. They LIED to them. Got them loans they could afford and told them to refinance in 5 years before the BALLOON payments came due to keep their mortgage payments low. Then Alan Greenspan dropped the bar a little further and then dropped it a little further - these buyers did not even have to PROVE their income. YES, blame the lenders! They were making money of off recycling houses........it was wrong, wrong, wrong what they did to these people and to our economy!!!! Peoples wages were not keeping up with the rising house values, so they kept dropping the bar to get people into these homes to keep that house of cards moving..........it was a big pyramid scheme!!!!!