Has it occurred to you that a great many of these people had nowhere else to go, no money and no means to travel? The mayor warned everyone to leave before the hurricane hit land, but to those with no money, no vehicle and no means, he provided no place for them to go to.
You can't blame everyone who's poor for their own poverty. Capitalism is the greatest economic system on earth, but even capitalism inevitably lends to a case system of wealth distribution, from the wealthiest to the well off, to the middleclass to the poor, to the poorest of the poor. No economic system is perfect, and no economic system can prevent poverty for some of the population.
Yeah. It occurred to me. But let me tell you something. I currently live in an area almost identical in many respects to pre-hurricane New Orleans. There is rampant poverty here. In fact, I think there are even more people on public funding here than there were in New Orleans. But do you know what all the folks in the projects around here have? They have cars. They have cars with big shiny spinning hubcaps and carpeted dashboards. And when they drive those cars, they are usually talking on cellphones. And I thought to myself...if I heard there was a Cat 5 hurricane headed my way, I would look at my wife and two kids, and I would put them into my pimped up Cadillac, and I would drive out of town until I was out of the storms track. We might have to sleep in the car, but at least we'd be safe.
So until I can read some stats that say the more than 200,000 plus people "trapped" in New Orleans had no access to ways of getting out of town...I will temper my sympathy for them.
And who is to blame for that? They are. They are responsible for their situation.
Further, it's not as though they haven't been given help. They've been given housing, food, money and education for their children. And what have they done with it? Less than nothing.
I don't feel sorry for anyone who doesn't have the decency or the will to try to make things better for themselves or their children. I prefer, in my own way, to save my compassion for people who've at least made a effort, who've done something to improve their lives. Compassion for these people is neither rational nor moral. In my view, it isn't even sane.
Tell that to the 14 people who crammed into one vehicle and drove from NO to a suburb of Detroit in that fashion. They are here now and are being put up in a local hotel. They scrounged and scrounged to find the money just to keep gas in the automobile but they did what they had to to get themselves and their children to safety. Where there's a will, there's a way.