Big and Not Easy
I once again apologize to my (now) one reader that I've been away for so long! Work has been a bit crazy and then I had a week off.
On this week off, I visited my mom's house where (since I was out of the loop and only had been hearing tidbits of news on New Orleans) I asked a family friend with military knowledge about what went wrong or what was going wrong. The response I got was basically "nothing's going wrong, this is as fast as they could have done anything" and the now familiar refrain of "the people of New Orleans were suppose to evacuate!" The more I thought about this, the more I disagreed... how can people be saying things like this? It's amazing how people's political polorizations can distort the truth! I hope I don't get to that point... if I do, someone set me straight! Barrett! Jeremiah!
Anyway, I guess I wasn't the only one hearing these things... a friend sent me this article yesterday:
http://www.counterpunch.org/wise09032005.html
Happily, my church is NOT joining that fray and is mobilizing to do something and we look forward to doing our part to help.
posted by chewie at 5:05 PM
8 Comments:
Well, people are rallying as they always do to help the people down there in this horrible situation just like in other situations... I am not worried about that, luckily we have a large population with this value system giving time, talent, and money. If you turn off the TV and look around you'll see this.
Outside of the relief efforts, I do find myself a little prejudice against New Orleans & actually not New Orleans specifically, more big cities in general. I think bigger-city life breeds a thought/belief system that is in direct conflict with my beliefs as to the roll of government in our lives. When you live in a bigger-city you are in constant competition with other people for space and other resources and as a result, the feeling is that government needs to step in and level or police the playing field. People look for government to protect them from other people, provide services, protect from mother nature, etc.
I don't know, maybe government is the best way to handle/manage so many people living so close togther. From my perspective, this is not as healthy as living in a more self-reliant situation where you have more choices about your own welfare. It is hard to replace a strong empowered community/church for looking after its own. 500 some legislators in DC will NEVER achieve the same protection/support as empowered individuals can provide..... But I can hardly wait for yet another commission to recommend more beaucracy ($$) to attempt to provide it.
Maybe I'm just drinking the Koolaide and painting with a broad brush, but I think that the blue/red division on the election maps, the ones that show all metropolitain areas as blue, somewhat exemplifies the governmental reliance vs. self reliance mentality. Don't get me wrong, I find plenty of flaw in rep. actions/philosophies.... I'm just saying that many of the people who align themselves in the red column do so because of the self-reliance/less government plank that Rep. believe in.
Oh well, guess we'll clean up this mess, rebuilding New Orleans again below sea level... spend even more money trying expand the federal safety net... and then wonder why it didn't work after the next California earthquake or Mt. Rainier eruption. /jon
2:23 PM
When you have no car and no money, how in the hell are you supposed to evacuate?!?!? This is primarily an issue of poverty, not race, and ignorance (the Bush administration just doesn't seem to fatham that not everyone is born with a silver spoon in their mouth).
9:44 PM
You can blame the Bush administration for a lot of things, but come on, it is not responsible for the failure to or lack of evacuation in New Orleans. /jon
10:56 PM
I must say that I am a bit torn on the politics of this.
On the conservative side: The thought actually crossed my mind "how long before Jesse Jackson says it's racism?"... that took less than a day after I thought it! And now I brace for all the lawsuits that everyone's going to file, which I also think is kinda BS. But perhaps that's a knee-jerk reaction. If my wife died because the feds were negligent, maybe it IS ok for me to sue...
BUT... what we have here is a collosal failure on the part of FEMA, the State Government, and the Dept. of Homeland Security. I DO blame Bush for a lot of this, and he came out today and accepted the blame - so I'm not sure how anyone can say it's not right to blame him. (Not blaming him for the damage, but for the slow response). The reason it's right to blame him is because the Federal Govt. failed at their mission... and this AFTER all the 9/11 recommendations! ... and this AFTER FEMA had a report last year of this exact scenario happening! I expect LA local govt. to screw up, but not the federal govt.! And these failures are a direct result of the Bushies being... well, their usual selves: ignoring everyone they disagree with (like the 9/11 comission), and hiring inept people like Michael Brown to important high-ranking posts. Part of this disaster is a direct result of Bush's croneyism. And if the Dems had done it, I'd be blasting them too!
I agree w/ Rob that it's not a race issue... it's a socio-economic one.
And Jon, I think you're oversimplifying the blue/red lines... I bet statistically rural areas are just as dependent on Govt. support as urban ones. Even if that's not the case, we need government (as a society) no matter where we are. It may not be as visible in rural areas, but it's there too.
1:41 AM
ok... the red/blue line discussion is a tangent, but something I have been interested in. I'd be interested to hear other people's reasoning for the divide.
Back to the real topic.... To cut to the chase, FEMA will never be able to provide the safety net that people are implying it should. Assuming that it will does nothing but create more victims and provide a convient place to point fingers.
My family's house was caught in the flood of 1986. It too was a 500 year flood. FEMA was not there, nor did anyone expect it to be there. There were poor people and rich people affected alike.
Should FEMA have the capability to mobilize against any scenario faster than any standing army on earth? Should FEMA have contigency plans for every possible disaster? If not every disaster, which disasters should it be prepared for? ... only the ones that affect areas that have a high concentration of poor people? What if you are poor and live in a less populated area, do you deserve less? Point fingers all you want, it is a broken model.
I'm SOOO glad that Bush accepted partial blame (in a politically motivated attempt to squelch criticism) and further solidify yet another step toward even bigger ineffective federal government. /jon
10:03 PM
I wish I could say more as you all know I must have an opinion on the issue, but for now I will sum it in saying simply "Everyone is to blame and No One is to blame."
The media has played a large part in shifting opinions and unless you are getting your facts from real people and situations I think you may be scewed as well (you is generalized).
Loc
2:15 PM
There's always going to be some level of bias, hype, and sensationalism in the media; however, to simply brush off the failures as simply media-induced is wrong. I've already plenty of stories about aid that was offered but either refused or ignored. That's a failure by the authorities, not the media.
FEMA is not being asked to be a do-all-catch-all safety net. I'm not sure what their response should be (i'm not an expert!), but I know that when 10's of thousands of people are gathered at the superdome after the disaster with no food, water, or protection for 5 days (and more) after the storm, somebody has screwed up big-time! When people are trapped in their attics or on their rooftops in calm sunny weather and we have helicopters and boats that could have rescued them but were turned away... that's a big-time failure! And a big chunk of that failure lands squarly at the foot of the Bush administration for 1.) Not heeding the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, and 2.) For using Cronyism to reward a friend with little qualifications for the head of FEMA job. (something the Dems may have done as well).
Jon, you bring up 2 great points:
1.) This whole "buck stops here" crap IS politically motivated; however, as voters, we should hold these officials accountable by refusing to revote them (or the extention of their political machine) back into power!
2.) The inefficiency of the government: This is a a valid observation, and one which I'm more interested in recently. Perhaps I should start a new post on that.
I grew up a staunch Republican and loved to hate the government. Everywhere you looked you could see examples of its inefficiencies. This hatred was directly fed by the conservatives I looked up to. But one of the concepts I'm more aware of these days is that government, despite its shortcomings, is the only institute left where all people have (IN THEORY!) an equal voice or an equal vote. The powerful and the rich tend to have (in reality) more of a vote because of the way they influence that government through lobbying, etc. BUT... this divide would grow even wider and more disgusting if the responsibilities of government were removed or transferred to "the private sector" ie: corporations, which are by nature greedy.
There's a difference between removing responsibilities from govt (ie: making govt. less powerful and smaller) and making govt. more efficient. My ideology at this point is turning me to the latter: We need to make Govt. more efficient and more effective. What we need to stop doing is bashing govt. as an evil or inherently bad institution. Government IS the people. Or at least it should be as much as possible.
4:45 PM
Good question, Barrett. I think in theory I agree with you that the state should be responsible for building their levees correctly, but perhaps the Feds need to step in more along the way and make the state do such things (and provide funding).
I'm not that familiar with how money (and power) is split between states and feds on infrastructure issues, but I know it's not a very clean break.
Just as interesting, and along the same lines, is the renewed debate on flood insurance. The arguement goes like this: Now that the Feds are stepping in to bail out everyone in New Orleans who didn't have flood insurance, it's undermining the system and gives less incentive for people to purchase it in the future; therefore, we should REQUIRE flood insurance.
11:57 AM
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