We are an affluent society-a society that cares more for externals than inner values. If a person lives in the right area, wears the "right" clothes or shoes, and possesses enough of the "right" things, anyone outside this comfort zone is an outsider.
There has been a huge public debate about the initial lack of response to Hurricane Katrina. Many public figures state that racism was at the heart of this appalling lack of readiness. I disagree. This is pure Zonked Zone boolsheet.
The lack of response was primarily caused by an inept Governor-Kathleen Blanco, and that idiotic mayor of New Orleans-neither one of them fit for their respective posts. Gov. Blanco, in the initial hours, refused to mobilise her own National Guard. The Mayor refused the use of buses, that could have transported many many people, left without private transportation, out of the city.
If any prejudice was involved, it was against the impoverished of that region. A prejudice shared across our entire nation. For we are an unkind nation, with deeply ingrained attitudes towards the poorest of the poor. Before anyone cries foul, and points to the enormous outpouring of support across the entire continent-we do help-when it's politically correct to do so. When public attention is focussed on a particular event.
I'm referring to the day to day prejudice the poor encounter, from simply being looked through, to inequities in our judicial system. We are an affluent society-a society that cares more for externals than inner values. If a person lives in the right area, wears the "right" clothes or shoes, and possesses enough of the "right" things, anyone outside this comfort zone is an outsider.
The poverty in New Orleans is deep and pervasive, going back generations. The racism is bred in the bone, as is the attitude of oh well. I submit that very few in that stinking cesspit gave a tinkers damn whether any of the indigent or elderly made it out. Think about it-did you ONCE see that sham of a mayor plead for those people trapped up on that bridge for days? No, it was Shepherd Smith of Fox News, who stood up there pleading for help, bearing witness to the continued indifference to the suffering going on there.
Contrast the lack of response, to the able, considered compassionate handling of the same situation in Baton Rouge, Gulfport and Biloxi. The people of that region, when all is said and done, need to hold their officials acountable for their sheer ineptitude and gross negligence. And kick that pretty boy toy mayor out on his useless arse.
It will be interesting to see how he reacts if Hurricane Rita causes further damage to his shell of a city. Maybe he won't be so quick to exhort his "folks" to hurry on home now.
|
And yet, we are each and every one just alike, no different from one another. We, each and every one, take nothing with us when we leave this earth. How can we be so senseless to regard only those who have and add the most to money hungry America. Even the poorest man next door may have a richness in spirit far surpassing that millionaire on the other side of town.
Thank you for your article.
Stephanie Sawyer
In fact, The New York Times reported on September 4 that Louisiana emergency planners believed it would take as many as 2,000 buses "to evacuate an estimated 100,000 elderly and disabled people" in the event of a catastrophic hurricane like Katrina. But, The New York Times wrote, this was "far more than New Orleans possessed."
Apparently, those school buses constituted the majority of New Orleans' school bus fleet. According to a September 5, 2003, article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, "The [Orleans Parish school] district owns 324 buses but 70 are broken down." A 2003 document posted on the Louisiana Department of Education's website confirms that Orleans Parish used 324 "board owned" school buses and no "contractor owned" school buses.
In fact, a Navy ship -- the USS Bataan -- was "preposition[ed]" off the Louisiana coast ready to aid Katrina victims but was deprived of needed guidance by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as the Chicago Tribune reported on September 4.
Moreover, the Bush administration did not send a hospital ship to New Orleans from Baltimore until four days after the levees were breached. http://mediamatters.org/items/200509120009
According to the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) December 2004 National Response Plan (NRP), when responding to a catastrophic incident, the federal government should immediately begin emergency operations, even in the absence of a clear assessment of the situation. Because a "detailed and credible common operating picture may not be achievable for 24 to 48 hours (or longer) after the incident," the NRP's "Catastrophic Annex" states that "response activities must begin without the benefit of a detailed or complete situation and critical needs assessment."