Sunday, August 27, 2006

Resurrecting Katrina

Key words: Katrina... Hurricane... Suffering... FEMA... Bush... Racist... Levee... Chocolate... Devastating... Ad nauseum...

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, winner of the coveted Chuck Schumer "Find Me a Camera" Award, is back in the news saying, "You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed, and it's five years later. So let's be fair," ...fair to everyone except the government, of course.

New Orleans residents have complained that the government's response to 9/11 was far more timely than its response to Katrina.

My response is this: The American tax payers have spent, and are spending, an incredible amount of money so that the people of New Orleans can continue to live below sea level, rebuild their industry of sin and debauchery, and provide a good living for prostitutes, panderers of all modes of personal degradation, criminals, thieves, and other city officials.

I think it would be more appropriate for the Mayor and citizens to simply say "thank you," and then just shut up.
Posted by at

6 comments:

Jacob said...

(I don't mean to speak to an American about American politics when I'm not American but...)

The government's response to 9/11 was a lot better than last year's terrible events in New Orleans. You can't possibly excuse any of the government agencies for their initial indifference to the obvious disaster that had occurred.

I know it's easy to blame prostitutes/debauchery/moral depravity/boogey man/etc for these things, but ultimate responsibility lies with the government to protect its people in times of crisis.

8/27/2006 7:58 AM
Malott said...

fkab,

I'll agree that efforts to evacuate, rescue, and rebuild could have been better handled on the federal, state, and local levels. But any effort on this scale is going to be imperfect.

The finger pointing, politicizing, and whining are what I have a problem with.

I'm a Republican, and I've been generous, and now a natural disaster is being used to trash the leader of my Party and his administration.

The fact that New Orleans was a Democrat owned-and-run moral cesspool - and that it is below sea level and still sinking... adds to to my frustration when I hear all the complaining and whining.

8/27/2006 4:35 PM
Christina said...

I feel the need to add my two cents here...

Chris, I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. Mayor Nagin needs to keep his mouth closed and quit blaming everyone else for failures for which he was every bit as much responsible. He really irritates me.

fkab, you mention that "ultimate responsibility lies with the government to protect its people in times of crisis". While I agree with that assessment to a certain extent, what about personal responsibility?

If a hurricane came and damaged my home, I would be very upset and frightened and I would want to blame someone, but I would not, nor do I now, expect anyone else to put my life back in order. I do what I can now to plan ahead and buy insurance and save and prepare myself for whatever life has to throw at me. I don't expect any help from the government in that type of situation (or for my retirement/social security, for that matter).

To me, what happened on Sept. 11th is an entirely different situation. One was a criminal/terrorist/opening act of war. The other was an act of God. The government cannot be responsible for the weather, but it can be responsible for monitoring terrorist activity/planning and for protecting its citizens from harm.

Comparing the response to the two is like comparing apples and oranges. There is absolutely no way to prepare for a terrorist attack. There is plenty of time to prepare for a hurricane. Unfortunately, personal responsibility is a concept that is all but lost these days.

8/27/2006 11:00 PM
SkyePuppy said...

I was listening to Mike Gallagher's radio show Friday night, and his substitute host was talking to Chris Wallace about the guests he expected to have on his Fox News Sunday show. One of them was going to talk about Katrina response by FEMA.

The substitute host suggested that Wallace do a search on Newsmax.com with the words "hurricane floyd" and read the results. It seems the FEMA response to Floyd (in 1999 under Clinton) stunk even worse than the response to Katrina.

But the MSM is busy jumping all over Bush and saying how much better things were under Clinton. Hogwash.

Here's a link to one of the articles about Floyd.

8/28/2006 1:13 AM
Jacob said...

Malott,

How does moral debauchery (your words) have to do with the weather?

And I also seem to recall reading somewhere that Lousiana was a predominately Republican voter state.

Christina,

A lot of those people didn't have much choice in beseeching their political leaders for help, and can't be criticised for apportioning blame toward the state and federal authorities who should have acted more promptly and efficiently.

Even a glance at the news reports coming in showed all of us that those who were stranded were the poorest, and (a sad indictment on America) it was a very racial crisis.

I believe that they knew very little (or nothing at all) of the risk posed by the levees, so they can't be blamed for not evacuating while they had the chance. After the initial floods, it took far too long for proper aid/transport to come their way -- something that they, again, cannot be blamed for.

I accept that 9/11 was entirely different (localised in one place, etc) but I don't agree that we should just blame God for a freak accident, because not all of that was a freak accident in my humble opinion. You can be sure that if Manhattan were flooded, nobody would waste any time in getting those people to safety.

8/28/2006 9:56 AM
SkyePuppy said...

FKAB,

You've been badly misinformed about the votership of Louisiana. It's a heavily Democrat state. Notorious for lots of corruption, which is believed to have contributed to the poor quality of the levees that burst after Katrina blew through.

The Democrats (New Orleans mayor Nagin and state Governor Bianco) were screamed loud and often about Bush's response to Katrina, which they wouldn't have done if a Democrat was president.

8/28/2006 2:22 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)