Posted on 09/03/2005 6:54:45 AM PDT by RKV
The disaster of New Orleans, unspooling minute by minute on our TV screens, has been wrenching - in one particular way even more gut-twisting than Sept. 11.
You could watch the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and feel horrified at the sheer violence and destruction of it; angry at the murderous evil of Mohammed Atta and the other hijackers; heartbroken at the awful suffering and loss. But there wasn't any cause to feel embarrassed and ashamed.
Those are the emotions evoked by sights of the massive lawlessness in New Orleans in the days after the storm and the inability of anyone to stop it. Katrina unleashed a catastrophe of nearly unimaginable proportions, confronting government at all levels with enormous challenges. That the reaction to the hurricane initially seemed uneven and slow is understandable, but even allowing for the hellish circumstances, the breakdown in civil order has been stunning.
Without order, which government exists to protect, nothing else is possible. Not even rescue operations, as New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has learned. On Wednesday night, as the city descended into an urban dystopia straight out of the 1981 film ''Escape From New York,'' he had to command nearly all the city's 1,500 police officers to focus on re-establishing law and order instead of saving endangered people.
Everyone understands desperate people getting food or water by any means possible. Plundering tennis shoes and TVs, as a small thuggish minority has done, is another matter. And the problem is that there is no such thing as a little chaos. Once a climate of disorder is set, it has a logic of its own. First, it was stealing tennis shoes, then it was taking potshots at a helicopter arriving to evacuate people from the Superdome. Goons stole a bus from a nursing home and threatened its residents. Rescue workers report that rocks and bottles have been thrown at them and shots fired their way.
Unfortunately, the urban revival that had swept much of the country mostly left New Orleans behind. The atmosphere of lawfulness that stood New York City in good stead after 9/11 and during the 2003 blackout - although those were much less far-reaching disasters was never established. The city never had a Rudy Giuliani. Even as murder rates continued to decline in other cities in recent years, the murder rate in New Orleans crept up. The police were plagued by allegations of corruption and brutality, and, according to The Associated Press, only had ''3.14 officers per 1,000 residents - less than half the rate in Washington, D.C.''
Law enforcement, of course, is primarily a state and local responsibility, but in the age of the 24-hour news cycle, people look to the federal government and the president to solve any problem on their TV screens. Already the question is being asked if the feds could have jumped in sooner (the National Guard is now arriving in force). If President Bush pays a political price for the images of lawlessness that have played out in New Orleans, it will be the second time looting has hurt his cause.
The other, of course, was in Baghdad in 2003. It is a matter of consensus now that the rip-the-place-apart looting in the initial days after the fall of Saddam Hussein set the occupation off on the wrong foot. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld explained the looting away at the time as the natural exuberance of a newly liberated people. One wonders: Has anyone in the administration read their Hobbes? Or does he not make the ''compassionate conservative'' reading list?
New Orleans has provided a corrosive lesson about government. At all levels, government is overbearing and nagging, paying for people's prescription drugs and telling us whether we can smoke in restaurants or not. But when it comes to its most elemental task of maintaining order and protecting property, it might not be up to the task when it is needed most.
Keep that in mind and buy a gun, just in case.
Has anyone heard if the CANNABILISM reported Friday by Randall Robertson, liberal black activist and president of Transafrica, is true?
Plundering tennis shoes and TVs, as a small thuggish minority has done, is another matter.
If is was only a small minority, then why did the mayor re-direct his entire police force to stop it? Why not just send out one or two squads to deal with the "small minority"?
My wife and I were talking about that. After 9-11 and now this, it really gives you perspective on how bad things can get. We were talking last night about how we still really need to get at least one long gun for defense. And not only that, I'm starting to think about solar panels. Be nice to have the capability to power at minimum our water pump and boiler. gas generators wont be much use if there's no gas. sucks to think about it now, but it'd suck even worse to be a refugee. we're in nj, but i can tell you, this is red country, and looters wouldn't live very long up here. no thanks to me tho. it's a hassle in nj to get guns, but i need to do it.
I read his idiotic rant. Want a jerk he is. When was the last time he had a real job?
A search of your name shows you have asked that question 14 times on fourteen different threads.
Is there a reason you have posted the same question 14 different times?
Instead of rising to the challenge, the way Americans are wont to do (or at least believe we are), we collapsed beneath it.
This is not our finest hour.
"Lawlessness in New Orleans is a national disgrace"
No it isn't. The disgraced are the ones who are acting criminal. They know who they are and so does the world.
You have to give it to the author, he managed to
tie Iraq and New Orleans together in a single
twisted example to denigrate the president.
The democrat party ought to give him a medal
or a free trip to New Orleans.
It has been reported here and there...but there is no proof (which doesn't matter to the MSM) and it seems like an urban legend. Even in the famous Andes plane crash it was nearly a month before that happened.
Not just about government. About mankind and a world without God.
New Orleans is famous for what?
- Alcohol and partying
- Promiscuous sex
- Gambling
"The Big Easy", a place much like Pleasure Island from Pinocchio where there are no rules.
Such a place draws in those who know no God, and laws are made by men, therefore are made to be broken.
When the situation changes to one of survival, they don't gather together, pray, and work to survive together, it is "every man for himself".
There is a much bigger lesson here than many will realize.
People in Fl, MS, AL, NY, never did the things that are happening in New Orleans after disasters they all endured.
They to endured many many disasters that would break the human spirit and yet they acted with grace under fire, one has to wonder why, these people in New Orleans raped, murdered, stabbed,while empty vials from coke were found, in Houston the police chief found 6 pistols and 12 knives that were attempted to be brought into the astrodome. And yet we are told these are the poorest amongst us but they can afford drugs like cocaine??
They even shot at the very people trying to assist and help.
This was not and is not the President's fault!
It needs to do so MUCH more often!
The idea that the people of NOLA have resorted to cannibalism after three or four days of hardship is utterly absurd.
On the other hand, if there happened to be members of a tribe of cannibals from New Guinea on vacation in the Big Easy when Katrina struck...
Hungry?
Somebody sent this to me. Maybe old news but some of the comments are interesting.
http://www.frycookonvenus.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1068
None of that matters. The race whores will still spin it into a referendum on "The Man." It will still be someone else's fault.
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