The events and talk following Katrina have certainly been difficult to sort out and understand. At first it was pure shock, then it turned to despair, followed by blame(and hate speech). And in all the response from the media, the politicians and bloggers, I don't think the exact truth has been spoken. Everyone has their slant, even myself. But as I have watched and read all the reports and view the sadness that continues to seep from New Orleans and the other coastal regions, a few things have finally come to light.
The truth is America is only marginally safer today than it was four years ago. The events on 9/11, the murder of 3,000 of our innocent citizens through the barbary of a select few individuals, only changed one thing: our awareness. We are simply more aware today that we are vulnerable. Kristina struck that message home again last week.
I don't see how the government, from the local townships, to the mayor, to the governor, up to the president can be blamed. Horrific events happen, that is how nature is. Sure, Republicans love to blame the Democratic mayor and governor, and Democrats love to blame the Bush Administration. I have even heard some pundits like George F. Will in this week's Newsweek even try to talk about how God, or perhaps the lack thereof, is to blame. But none of those people can stop nature from happening, and can only minimize its effects.
It is in our nature today to blame rather to reflect. To chastise than to take responsibility. Presidents and other government leaders are no more to blame for the Great Flood from 1937 than affected my part of the nation, just like they are no more to blame on Hurricane Andrew nearly 15 years ago. In fact, I wonder had Andrew kept on it's path of destruction and hit Miami like many thought instead of a few miles down in Homestead, would the loss of life been similar to that in New Orleans? Would the unprepared citizens of Miami have blamed the president then?
George Bush has tried to pound home the message that America is more safe. And to some extent maybe it is. But for the most part, it is far from it. He knows it, and now the nation knows it as well. It was published in my local paper here (Evansville Courier and Press), that if a natural castrophe, mainly flooding from the Ohio River, happened here in Evansville, then thousands would wind up in much the same shape as those in New Orleans. No where to go, and no one to take them.
The truth is this, we are all only as safe as we choose to be. Only if we take our own precautions, and have some sort of a plan for disasters. The government, in all of it's infinite red tape cannot save us all. What is missing from all the tragedy is that millions were saved. The media and pundits thrive on suffering. Katrina gave them their story. The fact that the citizens that were left unprepared and now upset and full of blame only strengthen the media's story of a incompetent administration. We are not more safe than we were yesterday, last month, last year, 10 years ago. We should simply be just more aware.
September 08, 2005
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In 1999 some people were laughed at because they were prepared for an event that never took place, remember Y2K. They went out and bought long term storage supply's and electric generators. A lot of these people held on to their unused items, they found them useful later during all kinds of natural disasters. Some of them may have been among the Katrina survivors we have recently read about. They made it because they relied upon themselves, not the government.
ReplyDeleteGod Bless America, God Save The Republic.
You are exactly correct. I read an article over at my freind's blog, Political Notio, that had a quote from Winston Churchill. Something to the extent, that government is there to protect the people.
ReplyDeleteI find that to be not wholly true. Government may be able to bring people together to protect from incoming attacks from people, but there is absolutely no way they can protect them from all natural disasters. Not logically possible, sorry.
Well, it does seem as if, with out technology, there was ample warning of the hurricane threat - at that time a category 5. The government cannot prevent natural disasters but why weren't the people evacuated sooner?
ReplyDeleteIt is funny how people can see the exact same thing and come to a totally different conclusion. As you know I do disagree with you rather vehemently on this one.
ReplyDeleteOf course we can’t predict the destruction caused by mother nature, but looking back at the whole picture there is much that could have been done to save thousands of lives and there are certain things that government officials should have done ahead of time which were simply not done. I find the failures to be tremendous and to let this go as a live and learn is totally ridiculous. From the standpoint of a Democrat, whose party was an abysmal failure due to letting everything goes so as not to offend in the last go round, I would be upset if nothing came out of it.
The failures were huge and the government failed miserably by it’s initial obvious display of total disregard for the constituency initially shown by it’s lack of immediacy.
Of course and we will certainly learn from this…. People do need to be prepared, but in reality sometimes uneducated, with no money, nowhere to go and no transportation is different than financially able, educated with lots of options. As the largest population in that area is dirt poor and undereducated in part due to a sub sub standard educational system and as the government certainly knows his the whole things just smells like a fifteen day old open can of tuna.
Everyone knows that this hurricane was caused by mother nature and there was nothing we could of done to prevent it (except for having been prepared by ecological care to our coastline), it was however predicted and seriously from the time the president played golf on Monday to the photo - op in front of the levee where all that energy and time was used to bring in machinery and then remove it you have to see that the stink of this is much deeper.
Blame needs to be placed. It is a travesty to me so huge that I can’t even see how others can’t see it but of course you have the right to your opinion. Of course people need to be prepared but if one is living in relative poverty, with no transportation and ends up at the convention center, where one was told to go to be evacuated, and than end up not getting evacuated just beaten up, dehydrated and raped well, you just have to wonder.
Alice,
ReplyDeleteI am glad to see I can get you fired up. To speak to both you and heretic about the fact that people weren't evacuated sooner, you have to ask what was the plan?
I generally beleive there was none. I have seen pictures of a parking lot of buses flooded almost past the windows. Why were they not used. Can you blame the president for not calling and having them used? No, he has to depend on his local government to do that.
I think the loss of life is horrible, but what overshadows that for me, is the fact that blame seems to be flying everywhere without facts. And that is just as dangerous as the hurricane itself.
I think it's pretty obvious from reading my site about my position on this.
ReplyDeleteI agree people should be more self reliant. And I agree that government does own a huge responsibility in the safety of its citizens, especially considering the federal government collects taxes to pay for such a crisis. Bush has nonetheless increased the responsibility of the government towards its citizens by enlarging government's role.
Bush is in charge when things are good and Bush is in charge when things are bad.
If Bush had not created the Department of Homeland Security, I would agree that his responsibility is limited to as much as the citizens are also prepared for such a crisis. But Bush did indeed make government bigger in order to handle such times.
Passing blame, or spinning facts really doesn't matter in any of this simply because everyone in this country is involved.
Bush's big government failed. I don't see any way around that.
But good post. One of your best.
I wouldn't just blame our president.
ReplyDeleteThe mayor for New Orleans knew the hurricane was coming and wavered. Had he acted sooner, had he ordered a mandatory evacuation long before the category 4 hurricane hit, more lives could have been saved. The mayor knew or should have known that his city could not withstand a category 4 let alone category 5 hurricane. He could whine all day about the federal government's slow response but he knew what was coming and should have asked for that help much sooner.
Governor Blanco deserves some of the blame as well since she could have sent the National Guard troops in to help with the evacuation.
FEMA director Brown didn't know what was going on. Did the president screw up? Yes. He relied upon a FEMA director who could not handle the situation. Yes. He was slow to respond to the devasatation and loss of life. Yes. One must wonder why there was no coordinated effort to deal with these kinds of disasters three years after 9-11 and yes, the president deserves a significant part of the blame because of that failure in coordination.
But he wasn't alone. The mayor and governor played a huge role in this mess-up and come election time, should pay dearly for their mistakes. They failed their people.
I totally agree Heretic.
ReplyDeleteAnd, again, I'm not just only blaming the president. But I'm also not excluding him either. His government failed in many ways. He should be held accordingly.
I think the local effort totally sucked and the federal effort didn't even exist.
But the president can't weazel out of this one. Some where during his administration he has to be held responsible for something. He hasn't taken responsibility for anything in the last five years. This is one case where he has to.
It's going to take a while to get this one sorted out. If it was my job to investigate it I think I'd start by asking to see a copy of the citys pre-Katrina huricane evacuation plan.
ReplyDeleteGod Bless America, God Save The Republic.