Another view from New Orleans

[crazyhorse1]

According to the folks I‘ve been interviewing in Mandeville, Louisiana, the affluent community just to the north of New Orleans is a miracle of recovery just eight days after Katrina. Almost all services have been restored and the community, like other affluent communities in the area,
are “cleaned up” and virtually free of the effects of the storm.

The citizens are effusive in praise of Bush and FEMA for taking action at once in their community and providing everything from ice and water and food to restored electricity.

They are especially grateful for the assistance of the Department of Homeland Security for bottling up the black and/or poor “refugees” in New Orleans, which prevented them from overrunning Mandeville and other neighboring communities. They insist that their patrolling the
communities with shotguns and other weapons in cooperation with federal forces was necessary to keep the hordes out.

Many expressed enthusiasm over the fact that the undesirable elements have now been purged from New Orleans and their homes destroyed. They expect insurance to cover their own storm damage, but not the damage in the blighted areas of the city. This, they apparently believe, will raise their own property values and allow them unlimited opportunity to
build a new and more decorous city vested with the right values.

Bush is a hero here for letting New Orleans go and siding with the rich folks in their community who have the “gumption” to help themselves. Here, the Mayor of New Orleans is seen as a "liberal black" whose whining before the media finally forced the feds to go into the city with serious aid, thus limiting the victory. Most are satisfied by the obvious gains, however.

I talked to only one person who was saddened by the loss of the Hornets and the Saints. Several were appalled as the attitudes of their neighbors, but no one I talked to felt that the abandoning of the poor in New Orleans was other than deliberate or the result of indifference. No one attributed it to blunders or denied it occured.

[NikiH]

What an idiotic post. The power CANNOT be restored to New Orleans. There is a major gas leak right now, if power were restored it would double in size. There are bacteria growing in the water and that is the reason and the ONLY reason they are trying to force evacuation. This post is not only in bad taste it's also completely inaccurate. It's easy to rebuild a city or town that does not still have thousands and thousands of gallons of flood water floating around it. Again I'm not suprised that you are posting rubbish like this, I'm just surprised you are using a football forum to propagate such garbage.

This view has nothing to with my opinion of the president as there is much more finger pointing involved then just at him. Totally sickening crazy horse.

[DEHog]

Also those areas weren't hit as hard.
This just in poor people live on the poor side of town in any city that's why it's poor. If one hit D.C. I guess Southeast would suffer more??

[crazyhorse1]

What an idiotic post. The power CANNOT be restored to New Orleans. There is a major gas leak right now, if power were restored it would double in size. There are bacteria growing in the water and that is the reason and the ONLY reason they are trying to force evacuation. This post is not only in bad taste it's also completely inaccurate. It's easy to rebuild a city or town that does not still have thousands and thousands of gallons of flood water floating around it. Again I'm not suprised that you are posting rubbish like this, I'm just surprised you are using a football forum to propagate such garbage.

This view has nothing to with my opinion of the president as there is much more finger pointing involved then just at him. Totally sickening crazy horse.

There is no subjective content to my post. I am reporting the results of interviews and objective observations. There are no grounds for calling it idiotic. I do not include judgements in the post or offer ideas of any kind. I am reporting the attitudes of the people of Mandeville La. as they were represented to me. You are being grotesquely unfair. I have not faulted FEMA for failing to restore electricity in New Orleans. Try reading my post again with the intelligence that you have always displayed before on this forum. I was utterly shocked by what I was told by these people. I am not slanting the material or trying to interpret is for you.

[Texas Hog]

As you said....Mandeville is north of N.O.....it is across Lake Pontchartrain and not below sea level. It is not protected by levees and didn't flood. So what is your point again?

"I talked to only one person who was saddened by the loss of the Hornets and the Saints."

Do you think many are concerned about entertainment at a time like this or would admit it?

"but no one I talked to felt that the abandoning of the poor in New Orleans was other than deliberate or the result of indifference. No one attributed it to blunders or denied it occured."

This isn't subjective commentary?

[crazyhorse1]

Absolutely not. When I asked people directly if FEMA's slowness was the result of blunders, they said no. I'm reporting exactly what I was told, not what I believe. I don't share the views reported upon and have not in any way attempted to evaluate those views. In short, I'm reporting the views of others, as I understand them, in the belief that my report may throw some light on the mindset of conservative republicans in affluent communities to the north of New Orleans,
I leave it to you and others to evaluate and interpret those remarks.
If you do not believe my report to be trustworthy, your may, of course, disregard it and other reports like it that have begun appearing on the net.
I saw one today on democratic underground that contained some of the same info and imagine that there will soon be no shortage of more detailed studies of this type of social phenomena emerging, whether you and other posters are psychologically ready for them.

[NikiH]

If I asked 10 idiots what 2 + 2 was I'm sure I could get a few of them to say 5. Doesn't make it correct. And that is the last thing I'll ever post to you crazy horse.

[crazyhorse1]

If I asked 10 idiots what 2 + 2 was I'm sure I could get a few of them to say 5. Doesn't make it correct. And that is the last thing I'll ever post to you crazy horse.

The thirty or so idiots my colleagues and I interviewed all lived in homes in the $750,000-- $2,000,000 range. My primary researcher lives there and is considering writing a book on the subject. He stayed there during the storm with that prospect in mind.

Just in case you believe the President when he says the Governor didn't ask him to intercede NikiH, here's a further tidbit for you to grow up by:

Date: 8/27/2005


Governor Blanco asks President to Declare an Emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina


BATON ROUGE—Today Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco forwarded a letter to President Bush requesting that he declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina. The full text of the letter follows:

August 27, 2005


The President
The White House
Washington, D. C.

Through:
Regional Director
FEMA Region VI
800 North Loop 288
Denton, Texas 76209

Dear Mr. President:

Under the provisions of Section 501 (a) of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 5121-5206 (Stafford Act), and implemented by 44 CFR § 206.35, I request that you declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina for the time period beginning August 26, 2005, and continuing. The affected areas are all the southeastern parishes including the New Orleans Metropolitan area and the mid state Interstate I-49 corridor and northern parishes along the I-20 corridor that are accepting the thousands of citizens evacuating from the areas expecting to be flooded as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

In response to the situation I have taken appropriate action under State law and directed the execution of the State Emergency Plan on August 26, 2005 in accordance with Section 501 (a) of the Stafford Act. A State of Emergency has been issued for the State in order to support the evacuations of the coastal areas in accordance with our State Evacuation Plan and the remainder of the state to support the State Special Needs and Sheltering Plan.

Pursuant to 44 CFR § 206.35, I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster. I am specifically requesting emergency protective measures, direct Federal Assistance, Individual and Household Program (IHP) assistance, Special Needs Program assistance, and debris removal.

Preliminary estimates of the types and amount of emergency assistance needed under the Stafford Act, and emergency assistance from certain Federal agencies under other statutory authorities are tabulated in Enclosure A.

The following information is furnished on the nature and amount of State and local resources that have been or will be used to alleviate the conditions of this emergency:
• Department of Social Services (DSS): Opening (3) Special Need Shelters (SNS) and establishing (3) on Standby.
• Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH): Opening (3) Shelters and establishing (3) on Standby.
• Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (OHSEP): Providing generators and support staff for SNS and Public Shelters.
• Louisiana State Police (LSP): Providing support for the phased evacuation of the coastal areas.
• Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (WLF): Supporting the evacuation of the affected population and preparing for Search and Rescue Missions.


Mr. President
Page Two
August 27, 2005


• Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD): Coordinating traffic flow and management of the evacuations routes with local officials and the State of Mississippi.



The following information is furnished on efforts and resources of other Federal agencies, which have been or will be used in responding to this incident:
• FEMA ERT-A Team en-route.

I certify that for this emergency, the State and local governments will assume all applicable non-Federal share of costs required by the Stafford Act.

I request Direct Federal assistance for work and services to save lives and protect property.

(a) List any reasons State and local government cannot perform or contract for performance, (if applicable).

(b) Specify the type of assistance requested.

In accordance with 44 CFR § 206.208, the State of Louisiana agrees that it will, with respect to Direct Federal assistance:

1. Provide without cost to the United States all lands, easement, and rights-of-ways necessary to accomplish the approved work.

2. Hold and save the United States free from damages due to the requested work, and shall indemnify the Federal Government against any claims arising from such work;

3. Provide reimbursement to FEMA for the non-Federal share of the cost of such work in accordance with the provisions of the FEMA-State Agreement; and

4. Assist the performing Federal agency in all support and local jurisdictional matters.

In addition, I anticipate the need for debris removal, which poses an immediate threat to lives, public health, and safety.

Pursuant to Sections 502 and 407 of the Stafford Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 5192 & 5173, the State agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the United States of America for any claims arising from the removal of debris or wreckage for this disaster. The State agrees that debris removal from public and private property will not occur until the landowner signs an unconditional authorization for the removal of debris.


I have designated Mr. Art Jones as the State Coordinating Officer for this request. He will work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency in damage assessments and may provide further information or justification on my behalf.

Sincerely,




Kathleen Babineaux Blanco
Governor
Enclosure

[Irn-Bru]

I think there's an echo in the lounge. . .

http://www.the-hogs.net/forum/viewtopic. ... 8&start=47

:-"

[DEHog]

The Washington Post reports the Bush administration has granted the corps more funding than the previous administration over a similar period and that Louisiana has received far more money for civil works projects than any other state. The paper says much of the funding has been spent not on flood control, but on lawmakers' pet construction projects, including a brand new $750 million canal lock in New Orleans unrelated to flood control.

Sen. Charles Schumer (search), a New York Democrat and the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, issued an appeal Thursday urging people to sign an online petition to fire the Federal Emergency Management Agency's director over his handling of the Katrina response.
After an inquiry from the Associated Press, the DSCC quickly pulled down the page and said they would give the Red Cross any money raised by the anti-FEMA petition.
When recipients clicked on a link to the petition, the top center of the screen — above the call to "Fire the FEMA director" — had asked for a donation to the DSCC.
Since Katrina, Democrats have contended the GOP administration badly botched the response, and some have called for the firing of FEMA chief Michael Brown (search).
Republicans hit back by accusing Democrats of trying to use the human tragedy for political gain. The DSCC letter, the GOP said Thursday, was proof.
"It's a disgrace to exploit Hurricane Katrina to raise political funds," said Brian Nick, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
DSCC spokesman Phil Singer said: "While the content of the letter is totally valid, it should never have been linked to a Web site that asks people to contribute to political campaigns."

[Texas Hog]

My last response to this nonsense as well - a great commentary on the current blame game.

September 05, 2005
Commentary: An Unnatural Disaster
Hmmmm....an interesting perspective on the fiasco in New Orleans.
Sep 02, 2005
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?
My wife, 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

[crazyhorse1]

The Washington Post reports the Bush administration has granted the corps more funding than the previous administration over a similar period and that Louisiana has received far more money for civil works projects than any other state. The paper says much of the funding has been spent not on flood control, but on lawmakers' pet construction projects, including a brand new $750 million canal lock in New Orleans unrelated to flood control.

Sen. Charles Schumer (search), a New York Democrat and the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, issued an appeal Thursday urging people to sign an online petition to fire the Federal Emergency Management Agency's director over his handling of the Katrina response.



After an inquiry from the Associated Press, the DSCC quickly pulled down the page and said they would give the Red Cross any money raised by the anti-FEMA petition.
When recipients clicked on a link to the petition, the top center of the screen — above the call to "Fire the FEMA director" — had asked for a donation to the DSCC.
Since Katrina, Democrats have contended the GOP administration badly botched the response, and some have called for the firing of FEMA chief Michael Brown (search).
Republicans hit back by accusing Democrats of trying to use the human tragedy for political gain. The DSCC letter, the GOP said Thursday, was proof.
"It's a disgrace to exploit Hurricane Katrina to raise political funds," said Brian Nick, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
DSCC spokesman Phil Singer said: "While the content of the letter is totally valid, it should never have been linked to a Web site that asks people to contribute to political campaigns."

I have no intention of defending the previous administration's funding of New Orleans or of supporting the democratic party's past policies as a result of this disaster, Nor do I defend the democratic's party's present politics. Nor does this administration's funding of public works projects in New Orleans un-related to flood control have any relevance to my post. Louisiana is a red state housing many Republicans and it is to be expected that it would receive its share of pork in relation to its Republican constituents in the state.

My post reports the attitudes as I found them of a number of the residents of an afflluent area outside of New Orleans.

If you are arguing with my post, please argue with my post.I didn't interpret my findings, but if you insist I will. Here then is my interpretation:

The people in Mandeville are by and large elitists and racists who are not unhappy the flood has driven the poor and black from New Orleans and during the crisis took up arms to prevent them from fleeing to and through their neighborhood. Further, they believe that Bush shared their elitism and objective and deliberately allowed the destruction of New Orleans to envelope the homes of the poor and the black to get rid of them permanently and also cooperated with them in keeping the poor and the black from their neighborhood. They do not believe he bungled the job but did the job well. As a result, they believe property values will rise and the city will be rebuilt and will be relatively free of blacks and the poor.

This elitism and fear of minorities and the poor is the best chance George Bush has of escaping blame for the New Orleans disaster. These two undesirable traits cloud our vision-- whether we're democrats or republicans. To undertand what happened in New Orleans one must purge oneself of politics, racism, fear, class, and other irrelevancies, such as the undesirable behavior of the few, be they looters, or rescuers who had individual failures to do their duty.

Here are examples of cogent facts:

1)The Governor delared a state of Emergency three days before the hurricane's landfall
(which should be echoed around the courtry.
2)She formally asked Washington for emergency aid in rescue and clean up one day before landfall.
3) It is FEMA's responsibily to be the primary player in large evacuations and rescue operations. We are all taxed by the federal government for this service. It is recognized by our government that it is not desirable or economical for cities and states to provide their own comprehensive security services and plans, either for war or other emergencies of unusual scope.
4) For days, FEMA refused to allow the Red Cross to enter New Orleans.
5) The Feds turned down help from a number of foreign countries and a number of other states (New Mexico and Illinois), as well as from Am Track, Cruise Ships, fire departsments, etc.
6) The Feds also prevented a number of trapped New Orleans citizens from leaving the city.

The above are just a few things to be look at. I suggest everyone do so. This is the second major disaster on the Bush watch. Both times there were ample warnings. I suggest we do something before there's a third mess to clear up. First, the world trade center. Now, a city. What next?

[DEHog]

Crazyhorse there is so much “spin’ coming out of N.O that it’s hard to believe anything. My take is this…WE failed the people of LA and MS on all levels and it’s over we need to find solutions now!!
As for your claim… how can you say…

The people in Mandeville are by and large elitists and racists who are not unhappy the flood has driven the poor and black from New Orleans.

Have you met and interviewed these people??

[Texas Hog]

Ok...one last comment

I know people in Mandeville, in fact just got back from there....and your comments couldn't be any more ridiculous. I guess you're entitled to your opinion, however assanine.

[crazyhorse1]

Crazyhorse there is so much “spin’ coming out of N.O that it’s hard to believe anything. My take is this…WE failed the people of LA and MS on all levels and it’s over we need to find solutions now!!
As for your claim… how can you say…

The people in Mandeville are by and large elitists and racists who are not unhappy the flood has driven the poor and black from New Orleans.

Have you met and interviewed these people??

My colleague and I have interviewed the people.He's met them all. My contacts are mostly by phone. He lives in Mandeville with his family and researches for me frequently. I usually do the writing...this time out, he'll handle the actual writing for publication. I also have three family members on Milton Street, N.O., south of Mandeville, and a collaborator at Union Baptist Theological Seminary there. I wrote my first book at the Seminary in 1965.

Here's an interesting note: The people who are cleaning up the yards in Mandeville are typically poor blacks from the north accepting cash. Still, the people of Mandeville, since they pay, consider themselves independent supermen who get the job done. Half the rich coots couldn't fix a lawn mower if their lives depended on it.

[DEHog]

Crazyhorse there is so much “spin’ coming out of N.O that it’s hard to believe anything. My take is this…WE failed the people of LA and MS on all levels and it’s over we need to find solutions now!!
As for your claim… how can you say…

The people in Mandeville are by and large elitists and racists who are not unhappy the flood has driven the poor and black from New Orleans.

Have you met and interviewed these people??

My colleague and I have interviewed the people.He's met them all. My contacts are mostly by phone. He lives in Mandeville with his family and researches for me frequently. I usually do the writing...this time out, he'll handle the actual writing for publication. I also have three family members on Milton Street, N.O., south of Mandeville, and a collaborator at Union Baptist Theological Seminary there. I wrote my first book at the Seminary in 1965.

Here's an interesting note: The people who are cleaning up the yards in Mandeville are typically poor blacks from the north accepting cash. Still, the people of Mandeville, since they pay, consider themselves independent supermen who get the job done. Half the rich coots couldn't fix a lawn mower if their lives depended on it.

Do you have a transcript of the interview? I'd just like to see your question were they said..

We here in Mandeville are by and large elitists and racists who are not unhappy the flood has driven the poor and black from New Orleans

[crazyhorse1]

My last response to this nonsense as well - a great commentary on the current blame game.

September 05, 2005
Commentary: An Unnatural Disaster
Hmmmm....an interesting perspective on the fiasco in New Orleans.
Sep 02, 2005
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?
My wife, 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

People are reporting your nonsense, Texas boy, inspite of the fact it's nonsense. The welfare state, haven't you heard, is gone. Welfare recipience receive a pittance, and that only for a short term. You fellows won that battle a long time ago-- way back.

The New Orleans poor are working poor, or were, until the waters took their jobs. They were part of the 40% of American full-time workers receiving less than a living wage. Don't take my word for it. Check the facts? The Reagan era's been over for a while.

Here's the number of cops and guardsmen shot by the wild and wooly criminal mobs of New Orleans: O

Stabbed: O

Injured by violence: O

Charged rapists: 0

Convicted looters: 0

Charged looters: no count available

Charged gunmen shooting at copters: 0

Reported bullet holes in copters: 0

Shootouts with authorities: 1

Official classification of that shootout: Isolated incident

Looters charged with stealing non food or water items: no available count, none officially reported

Maybe you had better wait until the facts are in before you begin making sweeping assertions based on a few rumors or images from the tube, or wishful thinking. Isn't it funny how people start yelling "You're playing the blame game! There's plenty of time to investigate that later!" when someone points out as established truth regarding FEMA or Bush, but don't hesitate to call fifty thousand people welfare recipients on no evidence at all or yell "looter" at some black guy carrying a few six packs or trying to salvage what may well be a television set from his house.

And, of course, who's to doubt anyone that suspects a shot has been fired. Everybody's an expert on what a shot sounds like. Thank God all those rioting black gunmen just haven't yet managed to hit anything-- maybe its because their tired from raping people while starving to death.

[BernieSki]

What has been suffered in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast states in the last few days is mind-boggling. An unprecedented disaster the ramifications of which will not even be decided for weeks to come. We don’t even have a count of how many people have been killed.

We have seen great good come out of this horror. Donations are being sent fund raisers are being planned, the Salvation Army, Red Cross and many Christian organizations are on the scene with the necessities the people need to survive until they can be moved out of the toxic bowl of soup New Orleans has become and relocated elsewhere temporarily until they can go back home.

Compassionate volunteers have rushed to the scene and surrounding states have opened their hearts and their facilities to house and feed people with no place to go.

Unfortunately there has also been great evil afoot in New Orleans. Lowlife punks who care nothing for others, looting, bullying helpless people and raping children.

When society refuses to deal with criminals in normal times you can expect the evil they do to be magnified when law and order breaks down.

Greedy gas dealers gouging their neighbors for every cent they can get.

The whole nation has been able to observe the importance and bravery of the United States Coast Guard as they plucked stranded people off of rooftops and ferried them to safety.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast was actually the hardest hit of all the locations with total devastation in some areas but, because all the land is above sea level the water went back out to gulf.

Of course the loss of life is by far the most heart-breaking thing but when you think about how many of these good people don’t have a home to live in or a job to go back to it multiplies their troubles considerably.

It’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of compassion to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina get back on their feet again.

But remember, this is the United States of America. We’ve been through disaster before. We’ve suffered 9-11 and bounced back and with Almighty God’s help the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast will soon be smiling again.

I remember how after 9-11 people put aside their ideological and political differences and came together to support the families of the victims materially and spiritually with their money and prayers.
It is absolutely imperative that the same thing happens here. The people need our resources and that will come in due time as fundraisers around the country reach fruitition. But they also need our prayers.

Right now we may be looking at pictures of people wading around in the water in a helpless state but remember something. These are tough people and given a little helping hand from their brothers and sisters they will be able to go with their lives.

[crazyhorse1]

Here's another report from the net. Does it sound a little like mine from Mandeville?

Old-line Families Plot the Future ("Preventing large numbers of blacks from returning to the city")
Posted by Teaser
Added to homepage Thu Sep 08th 2005, 01:55 PM ET

Chilling. We cannot allow this to stand.



(snip)

The power elite of New Orleans -- whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. -- insist the remade city won't simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.

The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."

Not every white business leader or prominent family supports that view. Some black leaders and their allies in New Orleans fear that it boils down to preventing large numbers of blacks from returning to the city and eliminating the African-American voting majority. Rep. William Jefferson, a sharecropper's son who was educated at Harvard and is currently serving his eighth term in Congress, points out that the evacuees from New Orleans already have been spread out across many states far from their old home and won't be able to afford to return. "This is an example of poor people forced to make choices because they don't have the money to do otherwise," Mr. Jefferson says.

(snip)

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05251/567892.stm

[DEHog]

Here's another report from the net. Does it sound a little like mine from Mandeville?

Old-line Families Plot the Future ("Preventing large numbers of blacks from returning to the city")
Posted by Teaser
Added to homepage Thu Sep 08th 2005, 01:55 PM ET

Chilling. We cannot allow this to stand.



(snip)

The power elite of New Orleans -- whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. -- insist the remade city won't simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.

The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."

Not every white business leader or prominent family supports that view. Some black leaders and their allies in New Orleans fear that it boils down to preventing large numbers of blacks from returning to the city and eliminating the African-American voting majority. Rep. William Jefferson, a sharecropper's son who was educated at Harvard and is currently serving his eighth term in Congress, points out that the evacuees from New Orleans already have been spread out across many states far from their old home and won't be able to afford to return. "This is an example of poor people forced to make choices because they don't have the money to do otherwise," Mr. Jefferson says.

(snip)

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05251/567892.stm

Um NO!

[tcwest10]

I learned in 1st grade not to plug something into the socket with wet hands.

[curveball]

I wrote my first book at the Seminary in 1965.

Wow, you must have been busy, was this before or after your storied football career, how 'bout your service in 'Nam?


When are you going to tell us about how you cured polio? Worked on the Apollo project? Invented the internet?


Anyone else notice the disparity in grammar between his first posts and now? Anyone else remember my warnings?





Bottom line on NOLA is that Florida was pounded by multiple storms last year, Jeb Bush stepped up to the plate and there were few problems. Mississippi took the brunt of Katrina but Haley Barbour isn't blaming FEMA and the citizens are putting the pieces back together. Louisana, perhaps the most politically corrupt state in the union, didn't have a leader at the state or local level and suffered for it.

[crazyhorse1]

I wrote my first book at the Seminary in 1965.

Wow, you must have been busy, was this before or after your storied football career, how 'bout your service in 'Nam?


When are you going to tell us about how you cured polio? Worked on the Apollo project? Invented the internet?


Anyone else notice the disparity in grammar between his first posts and now? Anyone else remember my warnings?


Bottom line on NOLA is that Florida was pounded by multiple storms last year, Jeb Bush stepped up to the plate and there were few problems. Mississippi took the brunt of Katrina but Haley Barbour isn't blaming FEMA and the citizens are putting the pieces back together. Louisana, perhaps the most politically corrupt state in the union, didn't have a leader at the state or local level and suffered for it.

By 1965, my college football career was over, due to injury and I hadn't yet finished college or been commissioned in the U.S. Army. I wasn't a student at the Seminary. My writing partner was...it was summer...you were yet to be born... I wasn't particularly busy...the internet was yet to released from the military and made available to the private sector by political action led by Senator Al Gore...idiots many years later liked to deliberately misquote Al rather than give due credit.

Jeb Bush received immediate aid from the feds (his brother) in Florida (a state his brother needed to win in an election year).

Florida's not only the most corrupt state in the union politically, it's also the illegal drug capitol of the United States. Texas, of course, is the most polluted state, and boasts the most depressed area in the United States.

Haley Barber's a Republican stooge of the President's.

Nagin today is the most admired Mayor in the United States, thanks to his standing up for the poor of New Orleans.

By the way, if a President of the United States is officially charged with a sex crime, do you think it should be a matter of public discussion?

[Art_Monk]

I agree and disagree.

Mr. Nagin has done a fantastic job bringing light to the underprivledged in N.O. I think the man could run for the Senate and if he wasn't just a little busy. I did not know those facts about Fla., however, I think the state of Fla. is irrelevant in this situation. I am glad Fla. is safe and I hope the same for LA, AL, MS.

I am pretty sure Alaska, not Texas, is the most depressed state in the US because of the drastic perioods of light and darkness.

Yes the public should be allowed to know if a President is officially charged with a sex crime. My tax money pays his salary and the president and other public official should be held to a higher standard because they represent us.

[Scooter]

Yep, I saw President Bush in the lake with a Hurrican making machine minutes before the Hurrican hit. Then he threw puppies out of his boat, laughed and yelled yee-haw. It's pathetic to point fingers anywhere at this point in time. The final results will show several errors, crimes, mistakes and serious blunders. The closer to the New Orleans area itself, the more errors were made.

What nobody seems to be talking about is the enormously successful, life-saving efforts of countless heros. The unparralled generosity of Americans and the continuing efforts of those attempting to re-build the Gulf Coast as we type along. All this finger pointing may have cause some to hesitate in lending a hand or donating money. That hesitation and the resulting air-time - that should have been used to inform the survivors, reunite family and friends, reunited pets with their owners... anything productive. No, it's easy to preach hate when people are hurting and down... easy doesn't make it right folks.