Hurricanes and such nonsense
OK, so my sister is my only reader... well, her and some spammer whose post I deleted. I am now embarking on a second post. (Yeah for me.) Anyway, Katrina and now Rita have been dominating the news recently, and I have been reading quite extensively on the mess in NOLA (that's New Orleans, LA, for those of you out there not in the know). Over these past few weeks, I have formed some fairly solid opinions. I can't claim that they are particularly novel, as I have read where other people hold essentially the same views. Anyway, here's what I, ruler of this entire Blog, think.
Hurricanes cannot be started, directed or stopped by man. This may seem self-evident to some, but I assure you that to others it is not. George W. Bush is not Merlin. Neither is he Neptune or Zeus. (Am I mixing Greeks and Romans here? I can't remember and it doesn't really matter, you get the point.) Just to be clear, no one else has mystical weather-powers either. Storm, of X-Men lore, is a cartoon character - Halle Berry may look cool with white hair and eyes, but I promise that it's just Hollywood special effects. Global warming, which may or may not exist, might or might not have anything to do with the particularly intense fury of Katrina and Rita. In any event, there's no way to really KNOW, and whatever you think of his policies, President Bush has not caused global warming, if it exists, in the last six years.
The National Guard is not controlled by the President. The Louisiana National Guard is controlled by Gov. Kathleen Blanco. The President cannot assume control of the National Guard without the relevant governor allowing it. To do otherwise is to create a MAJOR constitutional and political crisis. Remember, we've fought two fairly big wars to determine which parts of the government control what. (Hint: the first started in 1776 and the second ended in 1865) Continuing, the President begged Mayor Nagin and Gov. Blanco to evacuate and to activate the National Guard four days before Katrina hit. Nagin and Blanco refused.
FEMA is not a first-responder agency. The "M" in FEMA, stands for "Management." FEMA is supposed to "manage" emergencies. They do not have a large number of personnel - they manage and coordinate existing, outside resources, such as the National Guard, local police and rescue crews, etc. FEMA also has access to a lot of money to pay for whatever needs paying for. Admittedly, Mr. Brown, the head of FEMA's efforts in NOLA, was out of his depth, but it's difficult to say what difference this made. He wasn't getting much out of the local police, who were too busy looting Wal-Marts.
Truth be told, I'm not sure what difference a perfectly organized response would have made. The people who stayed behind would very likely have done the same things regardless of the relief efforts. At this point, I want to caution against comparisons to the current situation in Texas. The Texans are: A) less likely to have been in a lifelong system of corruption and government subsidy, and B) they have the advantage of having just witnessed the horrors of New Orleans. I suspect all the non-thugs beat feet, and the Texas law enforcement agencies are on super-high-alert, watching for any stay-behind criminals.
Louisiana generally, and New Orleans specifically, contain some of the most corrupt government officials in the country. Everyone who knows anything knows this to be true, and it's nothing new. Going back to the days when my great-Grandfather wanted to expand the family pipe business into Louisiana, that state has employed a system of political cronyism. My ancestor knew he had to get the blessing of Gov. Long, so he went to see the governor, hat in hand. After sitting all day in the reception room, Gov. Long sent word to Pappy that he would not be doing business in Louisiana. And that was that. What does government corruption have to do with the Katrina aftermath? A fair bit.
Money was allocated to Louisiana for flood control and to prepare New Orleans for just such an event as Katrina. But when that money hit the hands of Louisiana politicians, it magically went to other projects. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that there were political points to be gained by funding those other projects. What would have happened if the money had gone where it was supposed to? Maybe the levees would have been stronger. Maybe there would have been an evacuation plan. We'll never know for sure, but at least we would know that the government had done all it could.
Finally, we come to the problem of welfare. The people who I saw "trapped" at the Superdome and the Convention Center were largely able-bodied. Many looked as if they could stand to miss a few meals. Cars and trucks were driving in and out of the city, to and from these locations - not amphibious military vehicles, cars. Why did these people sit in these locations, while all manner of hell erupted around them? (To be fair, some did leave, and if cars were coming, busses theoretically could have come too, but I don't know if there were any busses available to come.) I submit to you that the welfare system, and I use that term broadly to encompass all government assistance programs, has created a class of people with no sense of ownership or self-reliance.
The poor people of New Orleans have never had anything or done anything that wasn't given or directed by the government. As a result, you end up with people who have no concept of how to do anything for themselves, even when it's something as simple as getting up, getting out of a building full of murderers and rapists, and walking down the road. The people the world saw on TV were sheep without their shepherd. The image projected to the world was doubly embarrassing because the shepherd turns out to be a corrupt, inept bureaucracy.
Hurricanes cannot be started, directed or stopped by man. This may seem self-evident to some, but I assure you that to others it is not. George W. Bush is not Merlin. Neither is he Neptune or Zeus. (Am I mixing Greeks and Romans here? I can't remember and it doesn't really matter, you get the point.) Just to be clear, no one else has mystical weather-powers either. Storm, of X-Men lore, is a cartoon character - Halle Berry may look cool with white hair and eyes, but I promise that it's just Hollywood special effects. Global warming, which may or may not exist, might or might not have anything to do with the particularly intense fury of Katrina and Rita. In any event, there's no way to really KNOW, and whatever you think of his policies, President Bush has not caused global warming, if it exists, in the last six years.
The National Guard is not controlled by the President. The Louisiana National Guard is controlled by Gov. Kathleen Blanco. The President cannot assume control of the National Guard without the relevant governor allowing it. To do otherwise is to create a MAJOR constitutional and political crisis. Remember, we've fought two fairly big wars to determine which parts of the government control what. (Hint: the first started in 1776 and the second ended in 1865) Continuing, the President begged Mayor Nagin and Gov. Blanco to evacuate and to activate the National Guard four days before Katrina hit. Nagin and Blanco refused.
FEMA is not a first-responder agency. The "M" in FEMA, stands for "Management." FEMA is supposed to "manage" emergencies. They do not have a large number of personnel - they manage and coordinate existing, outside resources, such as the National Guard, local police and rescue crews, etc. FEMA also has access to a lot of money to pay for whatever needs paying for. Admittedly, Mr. Brown, the head of FEMA's efforts in NOLA, was out of his depth, but it's difficult to say what difference this made. He wasn't getting much out of the local police, who were too busy looting Wal-Marts.
Truth be told, I'm not sure what difference a perfectly organized response would have made. The people who stayed behind would very likely have done the same things regardless of the relief efforts. At this point, I want to caution against comparisons to the current situation in Texas. The Texans are: A) less likely to have been in a lifelong system of corruption and government subsidy, and B) they have the advantage of having just witnessed the horrors of New Orleans. I suspect all the non-thugs beat feet, and the Texas law enforcement agencies are on super-high-alert, watching for any stay-behind criminals.
Louisiana generally, and New Orleans specifically, contain some of the most corrupt government officials in the country. Everyone who knows anything knows this to be true, and it's nothing new. Going back to the days when my great-Grandfather wanted to expand the family pipe business into Louisiana, that state has employed a system of political cronyism. My ancestor knew he had to get the blessing of Gov. Long, so he went to see the governor, hat in hand. After sitting all day in the reception room, Gov. Long sent word to Pappy that he would not be doing business in Louisiana. And that was that. What does government corruption have to do with the Katrina aftermath? A fair bit.
Money was allocated to Louisiana for flood control and to prepare New Orleans for just such an event as Katrina. But when that money hit the hands of Louisiana politicians, it magically went to other projects. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that there were political points to be gained by funding those other projects. What would have happened if the money had gone where it was supposed to? Maybe the levees would have been stronger. Maybe there would have been an evacuation plan. We'll never know for sure, but at least we would know that the government had done all it could.
Finally, we come to the problem of welfare. The people who I saw "trapped" at the Superdome and the Convention Center were largely able-bodied. Many looked as if they could stand to miss a few meals. Cars and trucks were driving in and out of the city, to and from these locations - not amphibious military vehicles, cars. Why did these people sit in these locations, while all manner of hell erupted around them? (To be fair, some did leave, and if cars were coming, busses theoretically could have come too, but I don't know if there were any busses available to come.) I submit to you that the welfare system, and I use that term broadly to encompass all government assistance programs, has created a class of people with no sense of ownership or self-reliance.
The poor people of New Orleans have never had anything or done anything that wasn't given or directed by the government. As a result, you end up with people who have no concept of how to do anything for themselves, even when it's something as simple as getting up, getting out of a building full of murderers and rapists, and walking down the road. The people the world saw on TV were sheep without their shepherd. The image projected to the world was doubly embarrassing because the shepherd turns out to be a corrupt, inept bureaucracy.
posted by LawDog84 | 6:38 AM
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