New Orleans is an UnNatural Disaster

[telkanuru]

I love generalizations. You can prove anything with them! Speak to me in facts. Numbers. Statistics. Quote multiple sources. Act like you want to be taken seriously. Unless you just want to think of yourself as witty and not to prove your point?

Re: Welfare state

Europe. Europe Europe Europe. EUROPE!


I win.

[pigeonmeister]

Originally Posted by telkanuru

Re: Welfare state

Europe. Europe Europe Europe. EUROPE!


I win.

It's not all peaches and cream. But it is facinating/illuminating to hear some American views on welfare and 'social conscience'. Some views seem very alien to us, but seem to equate to the view that 'welfare makes people lazy' or that it is fundementaly not the responsiblity of the state (or more pertinently white middle class tax payers) to provide medical care/benefits for those without the initiative to pull themselves out of their situation and get the kind of jobs where they get med insurance and can feed their families.

Obviously there is a strong vein of self-reliance running through American attitudes to welfare. People recognise that there are areas of enormous deprevation, but expect people to pull themselves out of it- those who can't are not trying hard enough and thus don't deserve much help. Anybody seeking to guilt trip middle classes into thinking that these people are in anyway the casualties of a society that produces great wealth and great poverty in equal measures, is missing the fundemental point that these people are not even trying to better themselves. Any suggestion that Bush knows poor blacks have traditionaly voted Democrat, and is more interested in giving white middle class tax cuts, is derided as playing the 'race card'. Which raises another point- Are there any African Americans on this forum? I'm guessing not that many, but what are their views?

People are still clinging on to the idea that the American dream dictates that no matter what your background there are no ceilings to what you can achieve. Condi Rice is supposed to embody this (in relation to poor southern black americans). The logical conclusion of this is that the only obstacle to success is the individual themselves. I think that this attitude is questionable, but clearly displayed in Have at You's post. I have listened to many community volunteers who have worked in deprived areas and fair play for his commitment. Yet I have never ever heard anyone of them speak with such contempt for people of a certain social-economic group. In one post you have written off any sense of dignity for millions of your fellow americans.

"Their minds have been formed to think otherwise" ??????????????

Compassionate consevatism to you seems to mean: We have to have a welfare system not out any sense of social justice, but because it will cost us more money if we don't. Your post contains no empathy for those living a life of (so called self-imposed) misery, no consideration for how a person born into a certain social-economic area will have different family, educational, criminal and enviromental factors that inhibit senses of self-esteem, dignity, of hope, belief that they can get themselves out of their situation. People are born into this, they don't impose it upon themselves because they are lazy. Just because some are able to bring themselves out of this cycle doen't mean that all are capable, or that the economic model could cope if they did. Not everyone can live in the suburbs, not everyone can even have a job.

Yet the real reason that a european style welfare system (particularly health system) would not work in america is not ideological or the fact that Americans who already have medical insurance won't pay taxes for it. It's because of the huge size of America, too much bureacracy. The obesity crisis in America would alone cripple any national health system.

In anticipation that Slim and his cronies will pick this post apart with the kind of obnoxious charm he has so far displayed I can only say: Thank God Slim is not in any position of authority.

[Gav]

Has Condi Rice really risen from a poor background or was she poor in comparison to her fellow white politicians? Same goes for Colin Powell?

[pigeonmeister]

Originally Posted by Gav

Has Condi Rice really risen from a poor background or was she poor in comparison to her fellow white politicians? Same goes for Colin Powell?

Sound like a rhetorical question to me Gav!

Condi Rice was from a middle class family, both her parents were teachers, she learnt the piano and was always encouraged to go far.

Powell, was born in 1930's South Bronx to Jamaican immigrant parents (1 seamstress and 1 a dock worker I think). His was not a middle class upbringing, but I accept he did not live in poverty.

So in short, yes they were only poor in comparison to their fellow white politicians (but then people like senator Edwards came from a working class background).

What really I meant to highlight was that they got beyond social injustice rather than economic and that the key for them doing this was a family environment that encouraged them as well as an individual desire to pull themselves over any self-conscious racial or social ceiling society put upon them. In this sense they represent the American dream/ideal that there can be no barriers to an indivduals abilty to rise above an inhibiting environment. The fact that Rice came from the deep south makes here situation particularly pertinent. It must be remembered that black and white kids were not even allowed to go to the same school.

Yet in many ways these two politicians reinforce my point: They were able to pull themselves out of their environment, not just because of their indivual drive. The key factor that defines both of these individuals is a cohesive family unite that encouraged their development, helped them overcome injustice and most importantly had faith in them. It is the absense of this factor that, in my opinion, leads to the lack of direction, lack of self-esteem, and lack of respect that others have characterised poor communities as displaying. Not everyone can have good parents thus, in my opinion, not everyone is going to be able to orientate their warped values into society- in poor areas this leads to crime. In rich areas this leads to incredibly unpleasant people, but without the environmental factors of where they live, they are less likely to commit as many anti-social crimes.

A strong parental figure is a common factor in those who have got out of the 'ghetto'. Either that or a particular gift for an indivdual (sport, music, art) that we cannot expect to be present in everyone either.

[Gav]

I wasn't trying to shoot you down, I just wanted to see a bit of clarification.

Anyway I agreed with your points.

[esskreemr]

It wasn't the state, local, or federal governments' fault. It wasn't the fault of the people who remained behind during a mandatory evacuation. It wasn't the fault of Congress, who failed to adequately fund the levee system. It wasn't the fault of the LA senators who went after pork barrel projects instead of avidly pursuing funding for storm/water mitigation.

It was the homosexuals!

http://www.shepherdserve.org/e_teachings/2005_09.htm
Perhaps you've heard that since 1972, New Orleans has been the host city of the annual "Southern Decadence Day," which would have been held this very weekend, as it has every Labor Day weekend for the past thirty-three years. It is touted as "one of the gay world's major parties," and a "gay Mardi Gras" when tens of thousands of gay men and lesbians descend on the French Quarter for unrestrained public lewdness and drunkenness. In 2003 it pumped $95 million into the local economy, which is why city leaders refused to shut it down in spite of protests by more decent people. Is it possible that after thirty-three years God had enough and decided to shut it down?

Reports such as these certainly tempt us to assume New Orleans was more deserving of devastation than other U.S. cities. Yet we should keep in mind Jesus' cautions about making such judgments (see Luke 13:1-5). If God is sending a message to New Orleans, He is also sending a message to everyone in this country. Katrina is affecting us all, taking a bite out of each of our wallets. Gas stations here in Pennsylvania certainly aren't offering any discounts. Once again, God has clearly displayed His temporal wrath to the United States, and He wants all of us to know that, as Jesus said, "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3, 5).

It wasn't that the levees failed, it was because the dykes succeeded.

[pigeonmeister]

Originally Posted by esskreemr

It wasn't that the levees failed, it was because the dykes succeeded.

That is pretty close to genius!

[Have At You]

Originally Posted by esskreemr

It wasn't that the levees failed, it was because the dykes succeeded.

That is quite possibly the wittiest thing I've read in a long time. I wish I could give you a zillion rep for this, but one is on the way!

[Slim]

Originally Posted by pigeonmeister

In anticipation that Slim and his cronies will pick this post apart with the kind of obnoxious charm he has so far displayed I can only say: Thank God Slim is not in any position of authority.

As far as you know...

[Inquartata]

What's with the need to find a single head upon which to rain opprobrium? There's plenty of blame to go around. The Administration, the federal bureaucracies, the state and local governments and heads of state, some of the residents of the area, law enforcement, businesses, private charitable organizations, George Bush, Barbara Bush, Kanye West, Kennedy, Brown, Chertoff, Jackson...

The foul-ups of one party do not exculpate others---and the relative mildness of one party's foul-up does not exacerbate those of others.

[pigeonmeister]

Originally Posted by Slim

As far as you know...

You will respect my authority!

God I'm actually starting to quite like you!
Your like the amusing, but belligerently conservative, father I never had.

[Epee_Pox]

Condi Rice had an interview with the Editorial Board of the New York Times earlier this week. Much of it had to do with foreign policy, but there was a bit of it that dealt with Katrina and race issues. I'm just posting it here as a conversation tickler:

===

QUESTION: If I can jump off from what Arthur was asking you, the storm response which left so many poor black people so virtually in need of help, those images were beamed around the world. That can't have been good for America's image abroad, especially at a time when you and Karen Hughes are trying to work on the issue of spreading the word of American support for democracy. Could you talk about the images and what they said to the world overseas?


SECRETARY RICE: Well, I don't know what the images said to the world. I know what the images said to, you know, to me and to Americans, which is that this is a vestige of the Old South. This is the part of the country I'm from. But it is a place where there are pockets -- by no means all of the Old South, but pockets -- where race and poverty come together in a very ugly way. And it is not a matter of whether the United States should want to do something about that, but the United States should want to do something about that. And perhaps in New Orleans there will be a chance to deal with a part of the South where people, for whatever reasons, did not get the benefits of education, didn't get the benefits of job training, and where, when it's rebuilt, it should be rebuilt in a different way than it was at the time that this happened.

My grandfather managed to get himself college educated two generations ago. That's why my family is where it is. He did it despite issues of race in the early '20s. But not everybody managed to do so. For some people, there wasn't a teacher that got them out or a grandfather that got them or a minister that got them out. And so yes, there is a social issue and a social problem to be dealt with there.

But I also hope that around the world it's noted that on matters of race, the United States is about 100 percent ahead of any place else in the world in issues of race. And I say that absolutely fundamentally. You go to any other meeting around the world and show me the kind of diversity that you see in America's cabinet, in America's Foreign Service, in America's business community, in America's journalistic community. Show me that kind of diversity any place else in the world, and I'm prepared to be lectured about race.

There are still places that race and poverty are a huge problem in the United States and we've got to deal with that. But I think we will be making a mistake if we let people jump to the conclusion that the United States has therefore not dealt with issues of race, particularly if you look at how issues of race are dealt with in most of the world. And so at the same time when I'm talking to my colleagues, I say yeah, we have a problem when race and poverty comes together, we really do. And it's a vestige of our history. It's a vestige of particularly the Old South in this case. But don't misread that there has been no progress on issues of race in America.


QUESTION: On that, the glass is half empty part of your answer, where race and poverty come together, what do you see as the federal responsibility to correct that or to address it now?


SECRETARY RICE: I don't have any really good answers to this and I'm not particularly well positioned to talk about a federal response. You know, with all due respect, I went to school in international relations. I hope there are people who are really capable of looking at the complexities and the relationship of open economies that are more demanding than ever in terms of skills and job skills to give a 21st century answer to how people get prepared for the economy that we face, which I really think is at the core of this.

The one part of my experience that I can draw on and that I'm absolutely certain of is this comes fundamentally to an issue of education, because there I am an educator. And I do believe that finding ways for people to fully access education -- and that means making sure, as the President has worked through No Child Left Behind -- that kids aren't -- the kids really are capable of reading at third grade level when they're in third grade, and that that's true whether you're in California or Louisiana. But that's extremely important that the ability of people to access good secondary education for their kids so that they have a chance at higher education is really critical to where this all comes out.

And I'm not someone who has, frankly, spent as much time as others thinking about the relationship of federal to state responsibilities for those things, but if I were starting to look for a sourcing for how you change the dynamics, I'd start with education.


QUESTION: Well, not as an expert but as a member of the Administration and as an American citizen, do you feel that the Administration has done enough to address the issue of poverty in this country, or do you think that this disaster should be viewed as a wake-up call, calling upon the Administration to do more?


SECRETARY RICE: Well, New Orleans didn't get built in the five years that the President was President. The race and poverty issue in New Orleans did not --


QUESTION: I'm not talking about --


SECRETARY RICE: No, no --


QUESTION: I'm not really talking about race and I'm not talking about New Orleans. I'm just talking about poverty.


SECRETARY RICE: Poverty. The kind of poverty that the people there experienced didn't get built in the last five years. This has been a persistent problem in the United States in certain pockets of the South. And I know that repeated administrations have tried through various efforts, including through job training and access to -- concerns about access to education, to try and deal with persistent poverty.

I really do hope that there will be maybe now on the heels of New Orleans an effort by this country -- and not just the federal government but state and local officials as well, as well as the private sector, and I mean nongovernmental organizations and I mean the private business sector, to address how we might deal with the problem of persistent poverty. Yeah, in that sense it gives us an opportunity.

When I did taping for the BET telethon, I said that, you know, I hoped New Orleans would be rebuilt in terms of its spirit of, you know, great music and great food and all those things, but that this time it would be rebuilt with greater economic opportunity for people. Because when you have something like this happen, you do have a chance to do it differently. And I really -- I think you ought to try to do it differently this time.


QUESTION: Why is it, do you think, that 77 percent of black people agree with Kanye West that George Bush doesn't care about black people?


SECRETARY RICE: Probably because they've heard it from people who weren't questioned about the assumptions there. Look, I find it very strange to think that people would think the President of the United States would sit deciding who ought to be helped on the basis of color, most especially this President. It's just -- it's (a) not true and it's (b) poisonous that somebody would say that. And I hope that people would be challenged on the assumption if they're going to say it. Now, what evidence is there that this is the case? Why would you say such a thing? What makes you think so? Because you have a President who has cared about minority home ownership. You have a President who has cared about community colleges. You have a President who has increased funding for historically black colleges. You have a President who, under the No Child Left Behind, has increased federal funding dramatically and insisted on standards for children. And the kids who do, by the way, get warehoused and where there’s a gulf between third grade reading and third grade -- being in third grade and being able to read at third grade, a lot of those are minority kids.

So I don't believe it. I don't know why people say it. And I would hope that people would seriously examine their assumptions.


QUESTION: But only 11 percent of blacks voted for President Bush last year and 9 percent in 2000, so clearly even before Katrina there was an issue of President Bush getting his message out to the black community; don't you think?


SECRETARY RICE: Well, you know, the President said when he spoke to the Urban League that there was an issue of the Republican Party and black voters and that he thought some of that responsibility was actually borne by the Republican Party. We could go through a lot of the history of, you know, the post-'64 period and how that all played out. That is a story that I know very, very well.

And yes, I do think that it's sometimes difficult -- there is sometimes a problem of getting the message out from a President who, if you look at how he did among black voters in the state that he was governor, you have a very different picture. And that says to me that, in that case, familiarity has given you a very different picture of this President and his concerns about blacks. But I know President Bush and he talks about issues of race because he -- because the kind of lack of opportunity that still afflicts -- that afflicts a lot of poor people but still afflicts disproportionately blacks as -- and poor, is something that he is concerned about. It's why he's put the money into historically black colleges. It's why he's been concerned about community colleges. It's why he's been concerned about No Child Left Behind.

You know the phrase that actually attracted me to him more than anything else didn't have anything to do with foreign policy. It was actually "the soft bigotry of low expectations." I've seen it. Okay? I've seen what happens when people don't think black kids can learn and they decide just therefore to just shuffle them from classroom to classroom. I've seen it at Stanford where you get black kids who are clearly completely and totally qualified and still you get people assuming that they got there by other reasons and so, well, they're not too really worried if they get Cs instead of Bs. So I know. I know that I had a high school teacher who told me that maybe I was junior college material. So I know about the soft bigotry of low expectations and it's not in this President. It is however pretty deeply ingrained in our system and we're going to have to do something.


QUESTION: At the risk of turning a lunch with the Secretary of State to foreign policy -- (laughter) --

[Slim]

Originally Posted by Epee_Pox

You know the phrase that actually attracted me to him more than anything else didn't have anything to do with foreign policy. It was actually "the soft bigotry of low expectations." I've seen it. Okay? I've seen what happens when people don't think black kids can learn and they decide just therefore to just shuffle them from classroom to classroom. I've seen it at Stanford where you get black kids who are clearly completely and totally qualified and still you get people assuming that they got there by other reasons and so, well, they're not too really worried if they get Cs instead of Bs. So I know. I know that I had a high school teacher who told me that maybe I was junior college material. So I know about the soft bigotry of low expectations and it's not in this President. It is however pretty deeply ingrained in our system and we're going to have to do something.

This pretty much captures most of what I've been harping on and on about.

[jBirch]

Originally Posted by Epee_Pox

SECRETARY RICE:
But I also hope that around the world it's noted that on matters of race, the United States is about 100 percent ahead of any place else in the world in issues of race. And I say that absolutely fundamentally. You go to any other meeting around the world and show me the kind of diversity that you see in America's cabinet, in America's Foreign Service, in America's business community, in America's journalistic community. Show me that kind of diversity any place else in the world, and I'm prepared to be lectured about race.

Ms. Rice meet Toronto.

James.

[Slim]

Originally Posted by jBirch

Ms. Rice meet Toronto.

James.

Heh. Touche.

I've stated my opinion on this. What's yours?

[kalivor]

Originally Posted by Slim

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.

Yup. It has nothing to do with a poor evacuation of the city, followed by a poor attempt to deliver relief afterwards, the result of which resulted in people living in sub-human conditions with no food or clean water for a week. That's right. People looted because they were on welfare, and not because they needed to eat.

While I'm certain that the inability to enforce laws encouraged some people to then break laws, I cannot see the links to welfare. Perhaps the rest of the article will, however, enlighten me.

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.

How did they know what to expect? Has an American city been submerged under water sometime recently? Has any major city anywhere been flooded in a manner such as New Orleans in the past century? Where are our points of reference, and why are we surprised?

As for the Third World bit, I believe that they take the lack of order as the status quo. And we never here about people randomly raping or shooting people in the Third World. Oh, no. Not at all.

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.

Ah! Chest-thumping! Don't loot, aren't you a proud American? Shooting at things? Aren't you a proud Ameri- ... wait. Americans do like to shoot at things. Um, lets move on to the raping. Rape? Aren't you a proud ... blahblahblah.

Rapes. Murders. Thievery. They do actually happen all over the world. And when people get desperate, other people take advantage of them, as often as they 'rise to the occasion.' For a simple example of this, look at all the bogus charities that have sprung out of the woodwork to try to take advantage of those trying to band together.

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).

Yes, yes, yes. I remember the big blackout a couple years ago. Some people directed traffic. Others wandered from store to store and restaurant to restaurant, looking for people who were giving away free ice cream before it melted. There are stories of people helping each other. They just don't make nice headlines.

So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?

Well, my guess is an inability for law enforcement to function in a flooded city, combined with a poor evacuation plan, leaving too many people behind in the city, with absolutely nothing to keep themselves alive other than what they could steal, due to a poorly organised relief effort.

Because, you know, that would do it, and all those factors were there.

I suspect you'll disagree though. You'll probably suggest that they could have created food and cleaned water from the power of teamwork, and the spirit of enterprise, because a hurricane-ravaged and flooded city is much like one that has lost electrical power. If only it weren't for welfare. (That's the big difference here -- I mean, New York? Nobody's on welfare there.)

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.

Egads. Fights involving fists, knives and guns? I suppose there's no violent crime in New Orleans when it's not flooded. Corpses littering streets? Can't have anything to do with the freakin' HURRICANE, can it? Police and rescue helicopters fired on? Well, if you were in the midst of raping and beating, would you want the police there?

People are desperate and illogical. The authorities didn't seem to be there to help at first, and now they're suspicious.

"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.

Yup. Because Baghdad is flooded, an