Amidst all the emotion of the past two weeks, some items have become established fact, established by the media. I've avoided jumping into the fray, not wanting to discuss the political issues of a tragedy while my friends are still cleaning up debris from their homes. I still don't want to jump into a huge political discussion, but I feel that some items of "fact" must be corrected, namely that the Bush performance in the face of this disaster was inexcusable and cost perhaps thousands of lives. The truth is, as information is finally getting out about what happened, it appears that the governor of the state and the mayor of New Orleans have a lot of explaining to do.
Unlike other's that I've read, I'm willing to cut them a large amount of slack. This was a once in a century storm, and I'm afraid people expected too much of some people that have never had a situation like this arise. This is not to excuse blatant blunders (like letting the Amtrak leave town empty, or letting the 200+ buses get flooded, rather than use them to evacuate), but it is to say, Hurricanes are bad. There's a reason we call them "Acts of God". As cocky as we humans get, building levees, developing flood control, we will never be able to "defend" against a hurricane. We are lowly humans, and He is God. This world is bigger than us, and always will be.
Anyway, here's a good article to read about the federal response, and how it compares to previous federal responses to natural disasters. Without this comparison, then there is no basis to say that "the federal government did a terrible job".
READ IT HERE
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13 comments:
I think it's been unhelpful for folks to be sitting around casting blame when we were still in the midst of rescuing people. Rescuing was happening. Progress was happening. Once we're past that initial response point, then it's valuable to critique the response and improve it next time, to learn from this and have a better plan in place next time. It just seemed like a wrong use of energy to be slamming the very people who were immersed in trying to organize a response, to be giving them more to worry about than the catastrophe already in front of them. I suppose I'd perhaps feel different if I had a friend or relative who hadn't lived because of a perceived slow response. Anyway, nice post, Phil. And nice to get to your blog finally. Sorry it took me so long.
Here are the facts: Bush hates blacks and took advantage of the situation to leave as many of them as possible stranded and without help. If it weren't for the Democratic party in this country there would be no hope for the African American. It is clear that Bush planned this from the beginning, right down to the flooded buses and the troops away in Iraq. Bush lied, people died; Bush clowned; Blacks drowned.
v nice reconstruction connection erich... just finished covering the Hayes election with my H106 class.
I'm very interested in seeing what the migration of the hurricane victims does to restructure the political process - are electoral votes going to be gained/lost, because of who is and isn't able to rebuild, what will the political landscape in Louisiana/Mississippi look like in the next year? next five years? What about your home state Texas Philip? Will voting demographics change due to the influx of new folks to Houston and beyond?
Props for linking the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Phil. While I'm sure it's not a daily reading for you (why would it be?), it did make me smile when I clicked over. :D
Who is "anonymous" and why are you hiding? You are either ashamed of what you're saying, or you are afraid of being attacked. Please give us some more credit than that. If you're going to take the time to say it, no matter what it is, at least stand behind what you say. This whole anonymous thing is ridiculous.
what is ridiculous is the obvious race hating that sets up the situation where all the people get out except poor black folks. How can that happen in modern America? You say "the locals should be responsible." Yeah, like they were when Rosa Parks couldn't even ride the bus. It took the Feds then to usher in the Civil Rights era, but at least they came.
As far as those who "refused to evacuate", come on. When you live paycheck to paycheck and no one gives you a place to go or a way to get there, what do you expect? Wake up people. Not everybody has their own sweet ride and the dollars to fill it.
"Had the residents of New Orleans been white Republicans in a state that mattered politically, instead of poor blacks in city that didn't, Bush's response surely would have been different."
"With the exception of Secretary of State Condi Rice, nearly every black person I've seen quoted in the press or on television—and most every white liberal—believes that African-Americans suffered disproportionately from government neglect in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina."
quoted from --Jacob Weisberg, Slate
on being anonymous - here is what I know about "Jules": she is female, has a job, and lives somewhere in Kentucky. None of that profile information is required to be true. In my opinion that is a small shade above anonymous.
In any case the words coming from the brain of the person behind the "Jules" profile are interesting and decidedly not ridiculous.
This is true for almost every other blogger I've read in this forum (except Phil - he bloviates about bridges)
Why are my ideas ridiculous just because they are posted anonymously?
Anon - I appreciate that you think I could be lying, except that the majority of the people posting here know me all too well from college. They know much more, both good and bad, than could ever be listed on my Blogger profile. I know that doesn't help YOU know who I am, but at least we could clarify that I'm not making up my identity.
And to be clear, I did not call your ideas ridiculous. In fact, I didn't even touch anything that you said (nor did I comment on Philip's post in general - I just commented on the Post-Gazette link, since I am indeed from Pittsburgh originally). I called your commenting anonymously ridiculous. I just don't understand why you don't want us to know who you are. I've considered posting anonymously before when I was really mad at someone and wanted to comment, but didn't want them coming over to my blog and posting rude comments themselves. Once I thought about it, I decided that if I couldn't put a face and name to a comment, then it wasn't worth doing it. This is who I am in the blogger world - my name is Jules, you can read even more about me on my blog (and now you know I'm from Pittsburgh, but if you read my blog, you'd figure that out pretty quickly), and here's what I look like. I don't know how to be anymore open than that, and I don't see that it'd be necessary anyways.
Now, who are you?
I agree that there is no need for you to be any more open that you have been. And your point is taken on ridiculous ideas versus "the anonymous thing is ridiculous." My mistake for being sloppy.
How much do you feel you need to know about me in order for my posts to be legitimate in your view? I will try to accomodate. Let me start by saying I attended college in south Louisiana and I know well the culture and the politics there.
I reject the characterization of anonymous postings as fearful, shameful, or ridiculous. Lazy maybe.
Don't listen to whoever it is jules, because whoever it is; is an ass.
hey, that wasn't me. maybe jules has a point about this anonymous thing...
Let me paraphrase: anonymous posts comments dissonant with this group but resonant with half of america. Jules reacts because anonymous is anonymous. Now all is characterized as "it is an ass". Seems rather dismissive with a whif of the kind of arrogance that might be part of the root problem in the first place.
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