New Orleans and Katrina - Cause and Effect
- Thread starter El and Bill
- Start date
El and Bill
New member
Seems to us, there are three major considerations now -- and a million small ones.
1. Take care of the people. Basics like health, food, shelter. Then, the long term. for those people ...
2. Quickly analyze what went wrong with the emergency preparedness, and fix it. We're still in hurricane season -- there are still terrorists -- fix it now, not months or years from now. Sure we can have a commission to study for months, but we need an action team now and fine-tune later.
3. Decide what to do with the city of New Orleans. Before huge sums are spent, have a plan.
a) Most of the structures are intact. Infrastructure can be fixed. If it is to be restored to its former self, best as can be done, protect it. But understand the risk -- it will still be sinking. Protecting shorelines are still eroding. Build levees, reinforced -- and have emergency evacuation plans complete. Be willing to shoulder the cost to do it right.
b) Perhaps the city should be abandoned and relocated. The French Quarter preserved as an historical site, or some such. Be working on that decision now since how the reconstruction is done depends on the plan.
There are many, many, other very important actions and decisions to be made. Now it is another REAL test of government, at every level. This is not a time for hand-wringing, blaming, spinning ... it is a time for action.
1. Take care of the people. Basics like health, food, shelter. Then, the long term. for those people ...
2. Quickly analyze what went wrong with the emergency preparedness, and fix it. We're still in hurricane season -- there are still terrorists -- fix it now, not months or years from now. Sure we can have a commission to study for months, but we need an action team now and fine-tune later.
3. Decide what to do with the city of New Orleans. Before huge sums are spent, have a plan.
a) Most of the structures are intact. Infrastructure can be fixed. If it is to be restored to its former self, best as can be done, protect it. But understand the risk -- it will still be sinking. Protecting shorelines are still eroding. Build levees, reinforced -- and have emergency evacuation plans complete. Be willing to shoulder the cost to do it right.
b) Perhaps the city should be abandoned and relocated. The French Quarter preserved as an historical site, or some such. Be working on that decision now since how the reconstruction is done depends on the plan.
There are many, many, other very important actions and decisions to be made. Now it is another REAL test of government, at every level. This is not a time for hand-wringing, blaming, spinning ... it is a time for action.
El and Bill":12mqy1hc said:
Unfortunately, the media is in charge of publicising the hand-wringing, blaming, and spinning (HB&S) by those who would politicise the situation and, in truth, is the source of the greater percentage of sensational aspects seen ad nauseum.
Personally, I think much of the money spent on HB&S activities would be better spent on positively reenforcing the planning, relief and reconstruction efforts so we can come from a place of action, not reaction.
Watching certain talking heads AND politicians reminds me that some people are like Slinkies... Not really good for anything, but they still could bring a smile to your face if you pushed them down a flight of stairs....
Don
Just another snippet from the NBC report last night. It was pointed out that Katrina hit on the 29th - e.g. at the end of the month. It was further pointed out that many who get checks from the govt (pension, social security, medicare, welfare, you name it) get checks once a month on the first of the month. Hence many low income people were down to their last few $'s making evacuation by their own means more difficult. This was exacerbated a bit by the fact that public transportation was not set-up for evacuation. Certainly, clever deployment of public buses for evacuation is something that can be fixed prior to the next disaster and I'm hoping the mayors of other cities will learn from this.
Pat's post points out a number of reasons why people remained in N.O. and rightfully points out that we should all do what we can as opposed to finger pointing. Bill and El have pointed out that discussions about what is/has going/gone wrong (and right) allow us to learn from our mistakes and hopefully prevent or lessen problems in the future. For those in the middle of the disaster (Pat, Law and others) such discussion in the midst of their suffering and heroic efforts may add to their frustration. I appreciate Tyboo Mike's handling of the topic by splitting the discussion into two threads - Mike always seems to have better sense than many of us....
Anyway, to me, both doing what you can and trying to learn from a discussion of the disaster are both (as Mike says) worthy discussions. Hence two suggestions:
1) For those of us unable to donate as directly to disaster relief as Pat, www.redcross.org is a good place to visit and make whatever donation you can reasonably afford. The $'s that would be spent on one or two fishing/cruising trips might be a nice target contribution.
2) Regardless of where you live, today (or at least this week) is probably a good time to review your own emergency preparedness situation. I have to admit that I have slacked off on my own readiness for an earthquake and will be spending some time this week reorganizing and restocking our emergency supplies.
Take care,
Roger on the SeaDNA
Pat's post points out a number of reasons why people remained in N.O. and rightfully points out that we should all do what we can as opposed to finger pointing. Bill and El have pointed out that discussions about what is/has going/gone wrong (and right) allow us to learn from our mistakes and hopefully prevent or lessen problems in the future. For those in the middle of the disaster (Pat, Law and others) such discussion in the midst of their suffering and heroic efforts may add to their frustration. I appreciate Tyboo Mike's handling of the topic by splitting the discussion into two threads - Mike always seems to have better sense than many of us....
Anyway, to me, both doing what you can and trying to learn from a discussion of the disaster are both (as Mike says) worthy discussions. Hence two suggestions:
1) For those of us unable to donate as directly to disaster relief as Pat, www.redcross.org is a good place to visit and make whatever donation you can reasonably afford. The $'s that would be spent on one or two fishing/cruising trips might be a nice target contribution.
2) Regardless of where you live, today (or at least this week) is probably a good time to review your own emergency preparedness situation. I have to admit that I have slacked off on my own readiness for an earthquake and will be spending some time this week reorganizing and restocking our emergency supplies.
Take care,
Roger on the SeaDNA
This artical in the National Geographic was written last year, reads like the current news events
Bill wrote:
Then, if the dikes aren't to be adequate, there should be an emergency plan, coordinated with local, state, and federal governments and military, well organized, funded and ready to go to handle the result of the breach in the dike. That is FEMA'S job.
Not true. FEMA is not a first responder. The City of New Orleans has a very comprehensive evacuation plan, that includes how to use the Rapid Transit Authority to evacuate any who cannot evacuate themselves. That plan can be viewed here:
http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=3
That plan was never implemented, nor were the 500 rapid transit and school buses utilized for evacuation, as was required and promised in the city evacuation plan. Almost every single bus in the city, except for the few that were running regular routes at the time, wound up under water and totally inaccessible, long after the evacuation was ordered. See here for some of the details:
http://www.punditguy.com/2005/09/205.html
Also, if you browse the latter link, you can find a documented interview showing that President Bush was told by Governor Blanco to hold off another 24 hours before sending in Federal resources, while she tried to figure out what to do.
Neither Mayor Nagin nor Governor Blanco carried out their duties. George Bush called Blanco and asked that she request a mandatory evacuation, and asked that she call in Federal Troops. She did neither until 24 hours after the city started to flood.
Our Constitution requires that Federal troops cannot be brought in without the approval of the states. Governor Blanco told President Bush to keep troops away until she could "make a decision" on how to handle technicalities when Bush offered Federal support.
During that timeframe, Governor Blanco failed to activate her own National Guard to put down the totally out of control looting situation.
FEMA did its job, as did President Bush. The City of New Orleans failed miserably in adhering to an otherwise well thought out evacuation plan, and Governor Blanco just folded (and cried), because she was totally clueless, even after the offer of help from the President.
Yes, New Orleans is below sea level, and hasn't always been there. And yes, there have been warnings going back years and years regarding the sinking of the city, the inadequacy of the levee system, and the loss of the wetlands to the south.
New Orleans developed an evacuation plan on the basis of all those factors, and then the city officials ignored it, reasons yet to be uncovered.
But with all the investigations being ordered, maybe some good will come out if this for future use.
Ken
Then, if the dikes aren't to be adequate, there should be an emergency plan, coordinated with local, state, and federal governments and military, well organized, funded and ready to go to handle the result of the breach in the dike. That is FEMA'S job.
Not true. FEMA is not a first responder. The City of New Orleans has a very comprehensive evacuation plan, that includes how to use the Rapid Transit Authority to evacuate any who cannot evacuate themselves. That plan can be viewed here:
http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=3
That plan was never implemented, nor were the 500 rapid transit and school buses utilized for evacuation, as was required and promised in the city evacuation plan. Almost every single bus in the city, except for the few that were running regular routes at the time, wound up under water and totally inaccessible, long after the evacuation was ordered. See here for some of the details:
http://www.punditguy.com/2005/09/205.html
Also, if you browse the latter link, you can find a documented interview showing that President Bush was told by Governor Blanco to hold off another 24 hours before sending in Federal resources, while she tried to figure out what to do.
Neither Mayor Nagin nor Governor Blanco carried out their duties. George Bush called Blanco and asked that she request a mandatory evacuation, and asked that she call in Federal Troops. She did neither until 24 hours after the city started to flood.
Our Constitution requires that Federal troops cannot be brought in without the approval of the states. Governor Blanco told President Bush to keep troops away until she could "make a decision" on how to handle technicalities when Bush offered Federal support.
During that timeframe, Governor Blanco failed to activate her own National Guard to put down the totally out of control looting situation.
FEMA did its job, as did President Bush. The City of New Orleans failed miserably in adhering to an otherwise well thought out evacuation plan, and Governor Blanco just folded (and cried), because she was totally clueless, even after the offer of help from the President.
Yes, New Orleans is below sea level, and hasn't always been there. And yes, there have been warnings going back years and years regarding the sinking of the city, the inadequacy of the levee system, and the loss of the wetlands to the south.
New Orleans developed an evacuation plan on the basis of all those factors, and then the city officials ignored it, reasons yet to be uncovered.
But with all the investigations being ordered, maybe some good will come out if this for future use.
Ken
PS,
"July 2005 article reveals New Orleans told poor: 'You're on your own'
John Byrne
A July 24, 2005 article in the New Orleans Times Picayune (not available online) reveals just how unprepared officials were for a hurricane, especially as it affected the city's poor, RAW STORY has learned. The first sentence alone reveals how little support the city expected to have for the poor in the event of a disaster, saying, "City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own."
The article was first discovered in a detailed piece by the Philadelphia Daily News' Will Bunch.
The local Red Cross executive director was quoted as saying, "You're responsible for your safety, and you should be responsible for the person next to you. If you have some room to get that person out of town, the Red Cross will have a space for that person outside the area. We can help you. But we don't have the transportation."
Advertisement
Selected excerpts from July Picayune article by Bruce Nolan appear below.
#
In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation...
Officials are recording the evacuation message even as recent research by the University of New Orleans indicated that as many as 60 percent of the residents of most southeast Louisiana parishes would remain in their homes in the event of a Category 3 hurricane.
Their message will be distributed on hundreds of DVDs across the city. The DVDs' basic get-out-of-town message applies to all audiences, but the it is especially targeted to scores of churches and other groups heavily concentrated in Central City and other vulnerable, low-income neighborhoods, said the Rev. Marshall Truehill, head of Total Community Action.
"The primary message is that each person is primarily responsible for themselves, for their own family and friends," Truehill said.
Production likely will continue through August. Officials want to get the DVDs into the hands of pastors and community leaders as hurricane season reaches its height in September, Katz said.
In an interview at the opening of this year's hurricane season, New Orleans Emergency Preparedness Director Joseph Matthews acknowledged that the city is overmatched.
"It's important to emphasize that we just don't have the resources to take everybody out," he said in a interview in late May."
[/b]So much for why the evacuation plan was ignored. They simply couldn't do it. But at least everyone got a free DVD.
"July 2005 article reveals New Orleans told poor: 'You're on your own'
John Byrne
A July 24, 2005 article in the New Orleans Times Picayune (not available online) reveals just how unprepared officials were for a hurricane, especially as it affected the city's poor, RAW STORY has learned. The first sentence alone reveals how little support the city expected to have for the poor in the event of a disaster, saying, "City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own."
The article was first discovered in a detailed piece by the Philadelphia Daily News' Will Bunch.
The local Red Cross executive director was quoted as saying, "You're responsible for your safety, and you should be responsible for the person next to you. If you have some room to get that person out of town, the Red Cross will have a space for that person outside the area. We can help you. But we don't have the transportation."
Advertisement
Selected excerpts from July Picayune article by Bruce Nolan appear below.
#
In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation...
Officials are recording the evacuation message even as recent research by the University of New Orleans indicated that as many as 60 percent of the residents of most southeast Louisiana parishes would remain in their homes in the event of a Category 3 hurricane.
Their message will be distributed on hundreds of DVDs across the city. The DVDs' basic get-out-of-town message applies to all audiences, but the it is especially targeted to scores of churches and other groups heavily concentrated in Central City and other vulnerable, low-income neighborhoods, said the Rev. Marshall Truehill, head of Total Community Action.
"The primary message is that each person is primarily responsible for themselves, for their own family and friends," Truehill said.
Production likely will continue through August. Officials want to get the DVDs into the hands of pastors and community leaders as hurricane season reaches its height in September, Katz said.
In an interview at the opening of this year's hurricane season, New Orleans Emergency Preparedness Director Joseph Matthews acknowledged that the city is overmatched.
"It's important to emphasize that we just don't have the resources to take everybody out," he said in a interview in late May."
[/b]So much for why the evacuation plan was ignored. They simply couldn't do it. But at least everyone got a free DVD.
Have you ever noticed down through history how the poets' words are often the most descriptive and the most prophetic? While not always defining or acurately reflecting history, they offer an understanding by telling the tale through the eyes of those living it, with revealing insight into why events unfolded as they did - even if told years before the events became part of history.
Hurricane
By Leon Everette
Circa 1981
Thirty miles out in the Gulf Stream I can hear those south winds moan
Bridges are lookin lower, shrimp boats hurryin’ home
The old man down in the quarter slowly turns to me
Took another drink of whiskey and he looked at me and said
I was born on the rain of the Ponchatrain beneath that Louisiana Moon
Don't mind the strain of the hurricane, she comes 'round every June
And high black water, she's the devils daughter, she's hard and she's cold, and she's mean
Nobody’s taught her that it takes a lot of water to wash away New Orleans
A man come down from Chicago, gonna set that levy right
He said it’s got to be 3 feet high up or it won’t make it thru the night
The old man down in the quarter said don’t you listen to that boy
The water be down by mornin’, son he’ll be on his way to Illinois
I was born on the rain of the Ponchatrain beneath that Louisiana Moon
Don't mind the strain of the hurricane, she comes 'round every June.
And high black water, she's the devils daughter, she's hard and she's cold, and she's mean
But we fin’lly taught her that it takes a lot of water to wash away New Orleans
Hurricane
By Leon Everette
Circa 1981
Thirty miles out in the Gulf Stream I can hear those south winds moan
Bridges are lookin lower, shrimp boats hurryin’ home
The old man down in the quarter slowly turns to me
Took another drink of whiskey and he looked at me and said
I was born on the rain of the Ponchatrain beneath that Louisiana Moon
Don't mind the strain of the hurricane, she comes 'round every June
And high black water, she's the devils daughter, she's hard and she's cold, and she's mean
Nobody’s taught her that it takes a lot of water to wash away New Orleans
A man come down from Chicago, gonna set that levy right
He said it’s got to be 3 feet high up or it won’t make it thru the night
The old man down in the quarter said don’t you listen to that boy
The water be down by mornin’, son he’ll be on his way to Illinois
I was born on the rain of the Ponchatrain beneath that Louisiana Moon
Don't mind the strain of the hurricane, she comes 'round every June.
And high black water, she's the devils daughter, she's hard and she's cold, and she's mean
But we fin’lly taught her that it takes a lot of water to wash away New Orleans
While considering and critiquing the efforts underway to assist those most in need, it might be worthwhile to consider the perception of those most able to effect and influence the course those efforts take. One of the most admired people in the country, in an obviously unguarded moment of flippant honesty, shed a great deal of light on how things are really viewed.
Souce Editor & Publisher
Souce Editor & Publisher
Little Catelyn
New member
Well, things just might not work out so well for her son...
It doesn't really matter if George W is to blame or not -- HE WILL BE BLAMED. Isn't that really how things usually go; a good thing happens and the person at the top takes the credit -- a bad thing happens and the person at the top gets the blame.
After 911 the mayor of New York taught everyone how to be a leader in a time of unspeakable horror -- too bad we don't have a leader like that now. But then, George never was a very bright student.
It doesn't really matter if George W is to blame or not -- HE WILL BE BLAMED. Isn't that really how things usually go; a good thing happens and the person at the top takes the credit -- a bad thing happens and the person at the top gets the blame.
After 911 the mayor of New York taught everyone how to be a leader in a time of unspeakable horror -- too bad we don't have a leader like that now. But then, George never was a very bright student.
Since this is the Cause and Effect thread I will post this pertinent explanation of the causes and effects of this tradegy. And by the way I do know what I'm talking about; I was born and raised here, and not only went through the storm, but listened to the radio almost 24 hours a day during and after the storm.
An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State
by Robert Tracinski
It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.
If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.
Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.
But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.
The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.
The man-made disaster is the welfare state.
For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.
When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).
So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?
To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:
"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.
"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....
"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.
" 'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,' she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.' "
The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.
What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?
Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?
Sherri figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)
What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.
There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.
All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.
No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.
What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.
But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.
The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.
Source: TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005
An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State
by Robert Tracinski
It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.
If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.
Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.
But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.
The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.
The man-made disaster is the welfare state.
For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.
When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).
So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?
To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:
"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.
"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....
"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.
" 'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,' she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.' "
The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.
What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?
Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?
Sherri figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)
What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.
There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.
All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.
No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.
What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.
But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.
The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.
Source: TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005
SENSEI":38ctxqx9 said:
I do not disagree, nor do I agree. This particular forum is indeed for politics and such, and is provided in part to keep such discussions off of the many boat related forums on the C-Brat site. A whole lot of things on here do not fit in too well with my personal views, but I recognize that my views are just that. At times I choose to share them, at others I do not. But no one can tell me not to hold them.
Rather than edit or censor what gets posted here, we can provide the option to hide the That's Life forum from members who are offended or otherwise disturbed by its content. The Just Be Nice rule is very much applied and being respected thus far in this discussion, and as long as that is the case, the discussion is welcome.
If anyone wishes to keep this section of the site from being accessible through their user account, we can certainly set it up to accomodate so reasonable a request. Rather than excluding individuals, however, it would be restructured to allow only those who request to be a part. As it is, the That's Life forum is visible only to registered members who are logged in, but restricting it further is just a matter of a few mouse clicks.
I would personally prefer to leave the access as is, and understand if some - or many - people choose to avoid the threads in this section. But the C-Brat communtity does not belong to me, and I therefore do not take such decisions lightly.
Mike
Quite eloquantly stated Mike... that is where I am. As I see it, this is but another way to keep oneself informed as to the thoughts and senses of other persons. I would think that those who wish to not discuss these matters might simply choose to no read this thread.
Meanwhile, here is another something to read as it regards this thread:
http://www.hurricane.lsu.edu/_in_the_news/houston.htm
Meanwhile, here is another something to read as it regards this thread:
http://www.hurricane.lsu.edu/_in_the_news/houston.htm
I've enjoyed reading the comments on this thread and the varying views that have been presented. There have been many valid comments made and although I may or may not agree with them, they have provoked a tremendous amout of inner thought regarding the situation.
When/if this current situation is over with we are all going to be "paying" for this ie: higher taxes, the multitude of displaced individuals that will be residing in our communities, etc. (Oh yeah, fuel prices :disgust ).
As a boating group we have individuals that are uniquely involved in this crisis. Law (aka Seeker) is holed up in his home in the affected area protecting his home (and C-Dory :wink ), his wife has spent several days on end, miles away working in a hospital. Byrdman is contributing countless hours and talents in assisting those in need and of course we don't know how Joe W. and Peg are doing. I would suspect that there are other C-Dory owners that although they are not part of our C-Brat site, that they are intimately affected by Hurricane Katrina. Through our gatherings we have learned that for the most part we are a group of individuals that share many similarities and enjoy each others company even if we do differ on some issues. I'm hoping that they will contine to enlighten us as to how their lives are being affected.
Yesterday at work we were given the opportunity to complete FEMA application forms to assist in the recovery effort. I don't believe that there was any co-worker that did not complete and submit a form. (Unknown if any of us will be requested to assist). While in the Army, I learned long ago that in any major operation you are better off to be involved in a group effort rather than "free lancing" your efforts to assist.
Law and I have been exchanging PM over the last few days and we have shared information that neither of us were aware of. (He has not been as informed from the media as we have and since he is residing in the affected area he is able to inform me of the situation in his area).
I wholeheartedly agree that this is valuable discourse for those that are interested in the current events that are unfolding and am pleased to read that it will continue to be available. Thank you, Mike
Dave S. "Sea Shift"
When/if this current situation is over with we are all going to be "paying" for this ie: higher taxes, the multitude of displaced individuals that will be residing in our communities, etc. (Oh yeah, fuel prices :disgust ).
As a boating group we have individuals that are uniquely involved in this crisis. Law (aka Seeker) is holed up in his home in the affected area protecting his home (and C-Dory :wink ), his wife has spent several days on end, miles away working in a hospital. Byrdman is contributing countless hours and talents in assisting those in need and of course we don't know how Joe W. and Peg are doing. I would suspect that there are other C-Dory owners that although they are not part of our C-Brat site, that they are intimately affected by Hurricane Katrina. Through our gatherings we have learned that for the most part we are a group of individuals that share many similarities and enjoy each others company even if we do differ on some issues. I'm hoping that they will contine to enlighten us as to how their lives are being affected.
Yesterday at work we were given the opportunity to complete FEMA application forms to assist in the recovery effort. I don't believe that there was any co-worker that did not complete and submit a form. (Unknown if any of us will be requested to assist). While in the Army, I learned long ago that in any major operation you are better off to be involved in a group effort rather than "free lancing" your efforts to assist.
Law and I have been exchanging PM over the last few days and we have shared information that neither of us were aware of. (He has not been as informed from the media as we have and since he is residing in the affected area he is able to inform me of the situation in his area).
I wholeheartedly agree that this is valuable discourse for those that are interested in the current events that are unfolding and am pleased to read that it will continue to be available. Thank you, Mike
Dave S. "Sea Shift"
Folks, my heart goes out to the people of New Orleans and surrounding areas. but the hard fact is this was bound to happen at some point in time no matter what we as humans did that may have led to this response of nature. Do you realize the temperature of the Gulf of Mexico is 2 degrees warmer than in past years? Also, the area of the Gulf that is affected by this annomoly is over 2000 sq. mi.? Bubba this is a bodacious amount of potential energy that is looking for a release!
This does not seem like much when you look at it in the terms of a six person hot tub. No fool'n guys... don't laugh.
Ya know it takes one calorie of heat to raise one cubic centimeter of pure water one degree celcious. Now apply that to the Gulf of Mexico adjacent to the oceniac Gulf Stream. The state of Florida pretty much causes a vortex effect as it passes the Florida Keys and goes up the coast. The water warmed within the vortex circulates up the Western coast of Florida towards the upper most Gulf coast.
Guys... Katerina was in the perfect pattern trajectory to cross southern Florida, hit the enhanced warmed vortex (which by the way warmed the water at several hundred feet deep and would release that heat energy in upward convections to an overlying atmosphere. What really made it bad was the high pressure area over the Eastern seaboard... it allowed Katrina to slow in place, draw energy from the warmed waters to the up currents of over lying air and then... it starts across land with all the energy nature has allowed it based on the climatic environment we created.
Katrina was reborn.
Guys... this is not a good thing. We've heard a lot about global warming and will continue to hear the same... but bottom line we have to become one with nature. Trite as it may seem... we have to Git'R'done for our future generations.
This is not a political statement.... I just want my grandkids and their kids to enjoy the boating life we cherish... That's all. Butch.
This does not seem like much when you look at it in the terms of a six person hot tub. No fool'n guys... don't laugh.
Ya know it takes one calorie of heat to raise one cubic centimeter of pure water one degree celcious. Now apply that to the Gulf of Mexico adjacent to the oceniac Gulf Stream. The state of Florida pretty much causes a vortex effect as it passes the Florida Keys and goes up the coast. The water warmed within the vortex circulates up the Western coast of Florida towards the upper most Gulf coast.
Guys... Katerina was in the perfect pattern trajectory to cross southern Florida, hit the enhanced warmed vortex (which by the way warmed the water at several hundred feet deep and would release that heat energy in upward convections to an overlying atmosphere. What really made it bad was the high pressure area over the Eastern seaboard... it allowed Katrina to slow in place, draw energy from the warmed waters to the up currents of over lying air and then... it starts across land with all the energy nature has allowed it based on the climatic environment we created.
Katrina was reborn.
Guys... this is not a good thing. We've heard a lot about global warming and will continue to hear the same... but bottom line we have to become one with nature. Trite as it may seem... we have to Git'R'done for our future generations.
This is not a political statement.... I just want my grandkids and their kids to enjoy the boating life we cherish... That's all. Butch.