CUBA HAS PRIORITIES STRAIGHT vs U.S.
The whole civil defense is embedded in the community to begin with. People know ahead of time where they are to go: Dr. Nelson Valdes
In September 2004, a Category 5 hurricane IVAN battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds.
Now get this ~ Truthout reports that more than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses ~ no one died.
Did you read that ~ NO ONE DIED.
Why did no one die, you ask ? ~ because they had strong leaders who took charge immediately and did not go AWOL like George W Bush did, once again.
How much longer are we going to put up with this nincompoop and his empty photo op leadership. Here's a perfect example of Bush in action last Friday ;
There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.
ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.
The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.
As Molly Ivins exclaimed a few years ago ~ "George Bush is all hat and no cattle " and no where was that more apparent than Bush's unconscionable reaction to the tragedy of hurricane Katrina. A tragedy that well may lead to over 20,000 dead. Here's the short Truthout article .
Allen L Roland
MARJORIE COHN, TRUTH OUT
http://truthout.org/contactmc.php
Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses, no one died.
What is Cuban President Fidel Castro's secret? According to Dr. Nelson Valdes, a sociology professor at the University of New Mexico, and specialist in Latin America, "the whole civil defense is embedded in the community to begin with. People know ahead of time where they are to go."
"Cuba's leaders go on TV and take charge," said Valdes. Contrast this with George W. Bush's reaction to Hurricane Katrina. The day after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Bush was playing golf. He waited three days to make a TV appearance and five days before visiting the disaster site.
In a scathing editorial on Thursday, the New York Times said, "nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis."
"Merely sticking people in a stadium is unthinkable" in Cuba, Valdes said. "Shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighborhood. They have family doctors in Cuba, who evacuate together with the neighborhood, and already know, for example, who needs insulin." They also evacuate animals and veterinarians, TV sets and refrigerators, "so that people aren't reluctant to leave because people might steal their stuff," Valdes observed.
After Hurricane Ivan, the United Nations International Secretariat for Disaster Reduction cited Cuba as a model for hurricane preparation. ISDR director Salvano Briceno said, "The Cuban way could easily be applied to other countries with similar economic conditions and even in countries with greater resources that do not manage to protect their population as well as Cuba does."
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