that’s quite an assumption on your part

- with proper funding, the USACE night have been able to maintain the levees and prevent some if not all of the flooding.

- with a properly functioning FEMA there would have been far less death and suffering of the poor.

Speaking as a non-American, I was hoping to hear something about how natural disasters are managed. What were the communication mistakes, the logistical mistakes, the bureaucratic mistakes. Instead it was mostly “we shouldn’t have voted for Bush”.

If Kerry was president, New Orleans would still be underwater, and the poor would still be the ones most hurt by this.

I feel sorry for you folks, but I’m certain your country will recover.

And it;s worth repeating..

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# shpilk Says:

September 6th, 2005 at 7:49 pm

GW Bush was in FL Lickety Split in Sept 2004 when Frances hit. The National Guard was on hand before the storm even cleared, while it was still raining, and GW Bush himself w/ brother Jeb handed out ice and MREs two days after the storm hit.

5 people died in FL after Frances.

Do the comparison – look at the titration of the Federal response to Katrina and how it comapres.

People’s motivations for staying in the city aren’t simple, so please let’s not simply blame poverty or racsim for their current plight, OK? They are individuals who made wise/foolish/informed/uninformed decisions for reasons we cannot easily know.

The people on the right aren’t just idiotic fanatics, they’re actually very smart. They craft their messages well and are masters of political organization. If we want to build a progressive movement in this country, we really can’t afford Wolfe’s ravings and insults.

Nor can a progressive show like Open Source BLOW such a spectacular opportunity! That’s the enraging thing about the Norquist segment. The facts are all there: the way that global warming has contributed to a massive increase in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes; the fact that folks in New Orleans saw this type of thing coming years ago, but the federal dollars that could have shored up the levees weren’t available for any type of disaster that wasn’t a terrorist attack; the bumbling of the feds in getting relief supplies to New Orleans. It’s one of the few priceless moments when current events strip a warped perspective of the world absolutely bare. Instead, we got name calling and a truncated debate.

Norquist blames much of the disaster on LA Gov Blanco, but listen to Mayor Ray Nagin’s interview on the BBC website. To him, the notion that the President can defy the UN and blow into Baghdad, but suddenly be deterred by the Governor of Louisiana is LUDICROUS. This was a pissing contest and people died.

What’s most breathtaking about Norquist’s perspective is how IRRELEVANT it is. It’s the “state’s rights” perspective taken to its most absurd extreme. We have to respect state sovereignty to the point where thousands of lives are lost, thousands of homes are lost, thousands of jobs are lost, priceless cultural heritage is lost. The question I’d like to have heard someone ask Grover is “How can the right possibly govern in an age of technology and globalization, when it can’t even fully understand the 19th century concept of the NATION STATE?”

There is great propensity is to stay with your home and hope for the best with your family, your pets, your possessions, all that you love until you know must leave. There is a certain amount of hoping, risking and denial. It’s not hard to imagine. There were also those who did not have feet that would move in the way described above because of age, young and old, and /or infirmity, or who were too reluctant or afraid, or who would not leave those loved ones who could not manage the walk and so on. It was also amazing to see people pushing others, young and old, in carts, wheelchairs, anything that had wheels and with plastic bags full of a few things they had chosen, to the dome or the convention center. There were no cars, or gasoline,for those. Listen to the stories. read the stories.

At some point some people simply battened down the hatches, move to the attic and hope for the best. How many times before this did that work out okay?

That’s when you depend on some organized effort to get, to coax, people out. That’s the civilization that civilizes. Where were the buses going through the streets with bull horns for those who wanted to get on them before the storm? or the boats or helicopters until too late?

Kenlac said it: why weren’t things ready to go at FEMA well before the weather forecast?

On the other hand was it not government responsibility to have those levee’s secure ? Weren’t people in responsible positions risking lives of others in their cost benefit analyses? What/whose thinking decided that a category 3 hurricane was all that New Orleans should or could defend itself against and then hope for the best?

Sure people should not be living in a lot of places that they are the Pacific palisades, Cape Cod-Nantucket-The Vineyard, the Florida Keys,the Islands off the Carolinas,or on the San Andreas Fault line, or near Mount St. Helens for that matter…..

Are we wrong to expect that a government of the people by the people would care about it’s people? This episode shows just how disconnected the government has become from the people.

When Bush, who has lost all credibility, says he is not interested in the “blame game” you can expect that we are going to get blaming, not self examination. We are laughing at that one.

That’s where you start looking at the philosophy and influence of Grover Norquist. Having him on the show – even with a poor cell connection- exposed the very serious poverty at the top. Not that we needed more proof.

Back to reality-Grover Norquist and defenders look at the picture on the front page of today’s New York Times: a New Orleans firefighter leading a man in flood water from his blazing house in the 7th Ward.

Just for the record, its not like anyone who lived in low-lying areas of N.O. was ignorant of the flood problem. Every time there is even a heavy thunderstorm the place floods a bit until the pumps get going.

Why didn’t poor people leave the flood zone? Because they did not have money? Well, if I had no money, but I still had feet, I’d walk my butt out of the city. They had 3 days notice! Now, “no feet” is a valid excuse, but most of the people at the Superdome seemed to have feet.

In truth, NO ONE should be living in the flood zones. They were dried out for the purpose of farming the flood plains, rich in aluvial soil. But the levies were good! So the soil petered out (no more spring floods) and it became “safe” to build homes there. Well at some point the federal gov’t had to balance the safety of the potential residents, with their freedom to do any fool thing they wanted to, so they made provisions for every home buyer to KNOW that they were buying in one of the riskiest, most flood-prone areas of the known world, but still people bought there!

Now why would poor people do that? Well, prices down there were pretty cheap! The USA has programs to build affordable housing, and this was a grand example of how to build such cheapness. If home pricing nation-wide were not on this incredible free-ride, perhaps the risk of living there would not have been so palatable. What drives the price of land up? P-o-p-u-l-a-t-i-o-n! Too many people.

No, I don’t buy that this was predjudice against poor people. They should have known, caveat emptor! Then they should have figured out their own method of getting out (feet work, even 4 hours of walking gets you out of the flood zone.)

I’m sure that some people had no knowledge of the approching storm, or genuinely had no way to move, and no one to call on for help, and so they got stranded. But the majority of people stuck at the Superdome were just plain not thinking! We should have helped them as quickly as possible, but at what point do we stop pointing fingers at gov’t and leaders and start pointing fingers at ourselves and ask the question: ” How stupid is too stupid to be given the choices and responsibilities of franchise in a democratic society?” We are each responsible for our contribution to the profit or loss (financial or otherwise) of our society. We must guide our actions such that we minimize our cost to others due to our own carelessness. And if we don’t, then we should admit our mistake, and not accuse those who try to help us (at all) of lackluster performance.

I lived just north of N.O. for 36 years. I know whereof I speak.

1. One jurisdiction will end up footing most of the bill for the recovery — the feds.

2. One administration ran a re-election campaign based on the projection that their leader has experience in confronting disasters, and would be able to do so again.

3. The people of New Orleans no longer need to rely on Mayor Naggin for their safety. The people of America, on the other hand…